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The world is filled with Marthas, or at least mine seems to be. They are powerhouse women who can do it all. My mom was such a woman, as are most of the women of my own culture. I must admit I’m more like Mary, I’m a contemplative and like nothing better than to just sit by Jesus’ feet…I don’t need much in the way of material things, so it’s easy for me to just stay. So if you are like me, the Lord is speaking to us today. We live in the world and still have much to do here. Yes we need to fill up our core, but then we need to start stepping into it!

We contemplatives need a little more oomph to get us going. Our steps need to be fueled by passion…Holy Spirit passion! We need to do everything as if working for the Lord. Our focus needs to be narrow like a laser beam, which isn’t always an easy thing for those of us who are easily distracted. We need to have a mission to work towards. It seems that everywhere we turn everyone has an agenda, a purpose for what they do…usually it’s to make money, or get power…what if we turned that upside down and started having an agenda too…to do God’s will, to glorify Him!

You may be thinking, “well I don’t even know what I want to do and I’m not hearing from God at the moment so how do I set my agenda?” Well…look at your current commitments. In today’s talk, Fr. Lauer states that our power comes through our vows. What kind of promises have you already made? Honor those. Then step up and listen to what the Lord is leading you into next and commit to THAT! It’s in our faithfulness to little things that more is then given us.

Don’t be afraid of commitment if it is something that the Lord is bringing you to, just be careful that it’s not something of your own making that could possibly land you in a heap of trouble like the example of Samson that Father gives in his talk.

Please listen to Fr. Lauer’s talk over at our LENTEN page.

Have a blessed day everybody. <3

Yesterday we took a look at creation and how God brought order out of chaos.  We learned that He can still do the same today in our own lives. But, just as creation didn’t stay impeccable in the beginning, it won’t stay that way for us either. We too will continuously sin and fall short of our goals, as Adam and Eve did even in the earliest days of our history. We are like little children, stumbling constantly. What determines the outcome is what we do about it. Let’s take a look at the garden again prior to the fall, Adam and Eve were naked and knew no shame…but after they ate the apple, they ran away when God called them.  They then put on animal skins to hide from their shame. We too have hiding mechanisms, the Lenten season is a good time to try to identify some of them by the way.

How may it have turned out differently if they had turned to God instead of running away from Him? Well, we’ll never know for sure. But one thing we know is that God offers conviction which shows us the way and leads us to healing, the world however is all about condemnation which leads to shame, hiding, further sin and self hatred. You’re not convinced? Take a look at all the shaming that takes place in the public sphere, social networks being a good gauge of the goings on. What is laughable is what they choose to shame people about. This is totally the work of the enemy. The world goes by what is in ‘fashion’, which is what is socially acceptable at the moment…not by any real convictions…so it changes from day to day. Christians are called higher, to go by standards that don’t change. How we interpret those standards may evolve over time, but only to reveal it further, never to contradict it. Such is a life built on God’s truths. So in a sense we are true REBELS. We are called to be in the world but not of it.

Ok so I’ve delivered the bad news, that spanking brand new creation that you’ve been handed is not going to stay that way. Chaos will break out again…and again…and again. If you didn’t already know this, then I’m very sorry to be the one to tell you. However, I also bring you GOOD NEWS. 😉 As many times as you fall…you can get back up. Jesus offers us a ‘reset button’. It is called Reconciliation! No shame, no condemnation…just healing and grace to try again.

Now please go listen to Fr. Lauer’s talk today at my LENTEN page. Please don’t miss this one, it’s really powerful.

As much as the Core was all about Jesus, step 1 for me is all about Mary, the human part of my spirituality. The Incarnation is all about the joining of the spiritual to the physical. Jesus wasn’t simply the Son of God, He was also the Son of Mary. He came from within a very human body and and was fully God and fully man Himself, thereby instilling humanity with dignity and meaning.

While listening to some teachings this morning on Mary, I heard a talk from one of the Franciscans of the Immaculate speaking about the White Ladder of Mary. I don’t believe I had heard of this before, or at least it hadn’t clicked for me until now. The Lord gave me this teaching just when I needed it the most. Jesus is my CORE and Mary stands at the top of the ladder as one who has gone before me and gives me her hand and encourages me to keep going. I have to have the humility to reach for her.

In the Core we looked at four different facets of the spiritual life. Humility,Fasting,Obedience,and Reconciliation. We will be revisiting each of these as we step forward.

We start here with humility. We look to Mary to show us… “And Mary said, Behold, the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.” Some translations use ‘slave’ instead of handmaid. What humility!

We need humility to even get started, sometimes we can get frozen in our perfectionism which is a huge indication of pride. The subconscious attitude that if we can’t do it perfectly then we won’t do it at all. It takes humility to take risks, to risk being rejected even. We really need to come to a place where we don’t care about anything but doing God’s will. That we will do all and risk all for love of HIM! We are going to put forth our very best effort, but we will leave the results to Him! So If He tells us to start a blog, even if we feel as insecure as a teenager and not eloquent enough to hold our own, nor have the right command of the English language to appease the grammar nazis…we do it anyway…even if only one person will ever read it! You don’t know what it might mean for that one person…and perhaps our simplistic writing style was just right for that one person. 😉

(Trying to get this blog post through has been an interesting endeavor. First I messed up while switching the domain over to my main site and ended up losing the blog. Then I put a blog post through this morning and ended up losing that when I got up for a break. So…hmmm…I’m thinking that the evil one is a bit put off by all of this…so yay…GOOD! So I keep at it. 😉 But the graces too are amazing. First the ‘white ladder’ story, then while looking for a photo to post here I came upon the one above that I took while in Fatima a couple of years ago. It was taken at the little church where the Shepherd children were Baptized in Aljustrel, Portugal. Yep…white spiral stairs…lol. God is indeed good! 😀

Stepping Into It

These ‘steps’ have been greatly influenced by a wonderful book called A Mother’s Rule of Life: How to Bring Order to Your Home and Peace to Your Soulwritten by someone that I consider a friend, Holly Pierlot. She labels her steps “p’s” or priorities. P1 being prayer, p2= person, p3= partner, p4=parenting and p5 is provider. I have drawn on that and made it my own.

I however, envision it as a stairway and as we step up in obedience to what the Lord is showing us we get closer to heaven. But it is no ordinary stair case…it is a spiral one. With the Holy Spirt smack in the middle holding the entire thing up. Also as we step up we eventually find ourselves back to the same spot in relation to the other steps as the diagram on the upper left hand corner shows, but in reality we are now much higher up. So even though it may seem that I’ve placed step 1 and step 6 as separate from each other, they really are not…it is a completion of a turn.

So the steps are..

The Core God’s grace working in us, through every facet of our lives.
STEP 1: Self (all that pertains to your well being, diet, exercise, entertainment, hobbies etc.)
STEP 2: Others (community) Think of step 1 and step two as two separate beams with step 1 being laid vertically, it is you reaching up to heaven and step 2 horizontally, which is you reaching out side to side…to those that God puts in your path.
STEP 3: Your vocation…your work…your calling. ( this step and step 2 are strongly connected…this is where we give to the community from our talents…and in turn are compensated so that we can provide for our families.)
STEP 4:Home Where we serve our family through household management and other custodial duties.
STEP 5:Parenting
STEP 6:Marriage which again takes you full circle back to Step 1:

The ‘Steps’ are the different areas of our lives that we pour forth God’s grace once we have received it…and in turn get replenished with more, like a running water font. These are the particular areas and paths that I feel called to. I don’t believe that there is a set way for everybody. If you feel an affinity to this particular path, by all means come walk with me a while. Otherwise, feel free to take a peek…maybe be inspired to listen to the Lord yourself and see what comes of it. That’s actually the whole aim of this site.

This Lenten Season we will be ‘Stepping Into It’. We have already started with the Core and will be moving on to STEP 1 tomorrow.

So yesterday, DAY 1 of our journey, we were reminded of what the purpose for Lent really is. He wants whole hearted devotion from us! Just a little bit is no devotion at all. That’s not how God works!

A Spiritual Director I once had explained it to me this way. It’s as if you lived in this great mansion, it’s a beautiful place, it has everything you could ever want right there…but one thing…you keep stumbling around in the dark. However, what you don’t realize at the moment is that it has been wired for electricity. You’ve heard rumors of this of course. There is even an large electrical company a few blocks away, and you see a warm glow coming from one of your neighbor’s houses on the darkest of nights. But surely they must all be CRAZY…right? I mean yes…you are aware of that switch on the wall…you’ve been told that if you walk to it and flip it to the on position, incredible things can happen. But gee whiz…first of all…you will have to get out of your comfortable chair…yikes…sounds horrifying…and…it’s so dark…most likely you will stumble on something, maybe even fall over and break a bone. So you better not. Better safe than sorry. Right?

Well this may sound really silly to you. But that’s pretty much what disobedience is…it’s willingly choosing to stay in the dark.

So when God tells us as He does in today’s readings that if we obey Him He will give us life, but if we don’t then death will surely come. He’s not being a mean and vindictive God. He’s simply telling us the truth. He’s telling us you get up and turn on the lights as you are being told and you will see amazing things and will enjoy it all the way it was designed…if you don’t you will bump into furniture, fall, break bones and maybe even die from your injuries. It’s a simple statement of truth!

Please go here —>LENT, read the daily Mass readings at link provided for you at the top of the page, and then scroll half way down the page to the audio of the day by Fr. Al Lauer. Do this and be blessed! <3

In today’s readings the Lord sends Noah into the ark.

genesis/6:5

Then the LORD said to Noah:
“Go into the ark, you and all your household,
for you alone in this age have I found to be truly just.”

As we sit here and await the beginning of Lent, anyone else sense Him saying the same to you? This exactly what I’m feeling…not the part about being the only one that is truly just, of course. But being called inward, to separate myself for a little bit from the world’s buzz. The constant influx of news (usually bad),

slowly poisons my soul and leads me to focus on the wrong things. For this short season of Lent, I want to focus on HIM alone, I want to hear His Voice and be able to discern what He is telling me.

Come check out my Lent page on the main website (link at the Blog header).

We have a brand new website folks…come check it out!

Stepping Into A Life of Grace

It’s like this…we all carry around this delicate casing…and even though it is easily cracked we do our best to present it as otherwise. This is one thing ‘the world’ and ‘legalistic’ Christians have in common…they love their shell. Oh the things one will subject themselves to in order to go through life appearing un-cracked, through the centuries a myriad of either rules to keep you from cracking or ways to disguise the cracks, have been embraced by society.

But what if I tell you that the cracks are NECESSARY…that you have to be poked and prodded from both inwards and outwards and exposed to heat…and you need to allow the cracks to form and you need to let the shell GO in order that that new life that has been forming inside to come out!!! This is what Jesus is all about…this is what CHRISTMAS is all about…new BIRTH!!! God cracked the shell of time and space and was able to walk around among us. This new life is nothing but pure grace…the Son of God HIMSELF…in us!!! What a gift! Will you accept it? Now start cracking!!!

 

Even though I’m very drawn to praying the rosary, I always seem to have the hardest time fitting it into my schedule. But I love the focus it provides, I loved how close to the Lord I felt on my retreat and how many rosaries I was able to complete while there. Of course now that I’m back to real life, things were bound to change. But I was inspired to try something a little different for me. Instead of fitting in an entire rosary at once, I have started praying one decade at a time throughout the day. So my intent is to post each decade as I pray it, over at theStepping Into It Facebook page.

So, if you care to, please join me over there throughout the day and we can keep each other inspired.