Tell God We Love Him??!!!

"What a weakness it is to love Jesus Christ only when He Caresses us, and to be cold immediately once He afflicts us. This is not true love. Those who love thus, love themselves too much to love God with all their heart."
St. Margaret Mary Alacoque

Have you ever stopped to consider that likely vast quantities of people today call themselves Christians, servants and children of God, but miss the point of what God desires of them in their relationship with Him? I mean, what if He wishes to be told by us that we love Him, to utter the words "I love you, Lord" each day in a moment of quiet meditation, and that, no matter if things are going our way or not.

Does God want our love, even wait for our love? "Our" love! We humans so weak and small in comparison to him. ...

Actually it is so sad. More sad than we can perhaps comprehend. That days go by that seemingly a world of people on our planet He has made, do not stop and with our lips mouth the words, "God, you are great. You are wonderful. I do not understand the psychology of how this can possibly be important to You, from soneone as small as I. But yes, my Lord, my Creator and my God, I love You. I will speak the greatest words I can say in a lifetime. Yes God, I love you."

Maybe one way of learning how to show love to our husbands, our wives, our children and neighbors, is to begin by saying it to God. Surely the rest will follow.

"It is our part to seek, His to grant what we ask; ours to make a beginning, His to bring it to completion; ours to offer what we can, His to finish what we cannot."

St. Jerome

Be not afraid to tell Jesus that you love Him; even though it be without feeling, this is the way to oblige Him to help you, and carry you like a little child too feeble to walk.
St. Therese of Lisieux

(Photos: St. Therese of Lisieux)

Is Reading Prayers "Honest"?

I returned to the Catholic Church nine years ago. The last Mass I attended before then, and that, as an altar boy in that Mass, was at age thirteen on the naval "Sea-Bee" (Construction Battalion) base in Gulf-Port, Mississippi. Circumstances beyond my control determined my life after that, when, at age seventeen I entered the Protestant church in earnest. Finally, I graduated from a Baptist Bible College and became a licensed minister. Over many years I performed a host of christian tasks and roles, including missionary work to Mexico, then a christian singing soloist from church to church.

I said all this to make the following point: "In all of those years of my efforts in Protestant Christian endeavors, I never a single time saw any protestant read a prayer that had been prepared beforehand."

Strange, I've never heard anyone besides me discuss this topic. I mean, how major segments of the Protestant world choose never to pray a prayer, in private or in public, that had been thought of by someone else beforehand. The only exception to this would be the "Our Father", I suppose, but come to think of it, I don't believe I heard that prayed in public much either (unless, of course, you include "singing" it at something like a wedding).

Really, vast denominations of Protestants do not read prayers, - even if the prayers made up by other Christians before them were good ones!

I've thought of this extensively, especially since I make my living as a psychotherapist, and as a result of this, I regularly spend hours every day contemplating how people think and why they think the way they do. I conclude that this great segment of protestants believe that if they do not originate the words of a prayer in their own thinking, and speak the words they thought of at that moment with their own lips, there is no way the prayer they did not think of could in no way be sincere!

I must say that an entire book could be written on the falacies of this core premise. For the moment, I will only relate that reading great prayers of saints who have gone on before us, and reading every word of those prayers with heart-felt cognizance and sincerety, is a great path to reviving our spirits unto God, and facilitating our actions in service to Him. Oh, the psychological ehancement this can promote in the detail fabric of relational issues of family life!

It's interesting how we expect to sing words formed by believers in songs, but to "pray" words formed by believers, great saint believers in prayers, praying them as our own unto God, is viciously judged as hypocritical.

This is the argument used by many in regards to the Holy Rosary. Believe me, many people, Prostestants and Catholic, think we Catholic Christians who pray at least five decades of the Rosary every day, do this for the sake of "works alone" to "solely-earn-our-way-to-heaven!"

How mistaken these people are. For only one example, the saying of the prayer "Hail Mary" fifty-three times a day as a part of five decades of sacred Rosary prayer, can be with every word being emotionally and spiritually charged, precious and honest.

I wish to write more about this in great detail in future posts. For the moment, however, try reading the following prayer to God in a way as though it were your own. [The prayer of St. Claude de la Columbiere: (middle 1600's).] Discover how the Holy Spirit of the Blessed Trinity can go through you as a breeze within deep regions of your psychological being; your body, soul and spirit:

My God, I believe most firmly that Thou watchest over all who hope in Thee, and that we can want for nothing when we rely upon Thee in all things; therefore I am resolved for the future to have no anxieties, and to cast all my cares upon Thee.

People may deprive me of worldly goods and of honors; sickness may take from me my strength and the means of serving Thee; I may even lose Thy grace by sin; but my trust shall never leave me. I will preserve it to the last moment of my life, and the powers of hell shall seek in vain to wrestle it from me.

Let others seek happiness in their wealth, in their talents; let them trust to the purity of their lives, the severity of their mortifications, to the number of their good works, the fervor of their prayers; as for me, O my God, in my very confidence lies all my hope.'For Thou, O Lord, singularly has settled me in hope.

'This confidence can never be in vain. 'No one has hoped in the Lord and has been confounded.

'I am assured, therefore, of my eternal happiness, for I firmly hope for it, and all my hope is in Thee. 'In Thee, O Lord, I have hoped; let me never be confounded.

'I know, alas! I know but too well that I am frail and changeable; I know the power of temptation against the strongest virtue. I have seen stars fall from heaven, and pillars of firmament totter; but these things alarm me not.

While I hope in Thee I am sheltered from all misfortune, and I am sure that my trust shall endure, for I rely upon Thee to sustain this unfailing hope.

Finally, I know that my confidence cannot exceed Thy bounty, and that I shall never receive less than I have hoped for from Thee. Therefore I hope that Thou wilt sustain me against my evil inclinations; that Thou wilt protect me against the most furious assaults of the evil one, and that Thou wilt cause my weakness to triumph over my most powerful enemies. I hope that Thou wilt never cease to love me, and that I shall love Thee unceasingly.

"In Thee, O Lord, have I hoped; let me never be confounded."