If its not about our Lord and His business, its a distraction away from our Lord and His business and simply not worth anything. Attend to the business at hand.
Matthew 3:2
Tag: Works
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Everyone wants the fairy tale romance. Save the princess with a kiss that wakes her up and she falls into your arms and you live happily ever after….
How we forget the “Dragon Slaying” and the importance of it first and foremost. If you don’t slay the dragon first, he torments you until death do you part. Spiritual death that is. Chastity before marriage and in all relationships is the weapon that slays the dragon of fornication. Having the title of “Dragon Slayers” is one that is worked for before you kiss the princess and live happily ever after opening your heart to a deeper love. A love not of the flesh, but a love for the others soul, in which you strive to get the other to heaven. Chastity is a key building block to the Temple built on Rock, and not on sand. Fornication is a dragon. Not just a simple sin of the flesh. It leads to many other mortal sins and become seared on the soul and take many years of prayer to overcome. To defeat this dragon, takes purity. To achieve purity, takes obedience to our Lord and the gift of chastity becomes yours through the Holy Spirit. It is attainable, for even souls married outside of the Church first, who seek to invite our Lord into the marriage, returning to the Catholic Faith. Abstinence through the marriage preparation and if another marriage has occurred, annulment process takes you and your spouse to a level of love unheard of in today’s society. I know this as I am now there. The love of God comes first, and the love of neighbor falls into place.
Dearest Jesus! I know well that every perfect gift, and above all others that of chastity, depends upon the most powerful assistance of Thy Providence, and that without Thee a creature can do nothing. Therefore, I pray Thee to defend, with Thy grace, chastity and purity in my soul as well as in my body. And if I have ever received through my senses any impression that could stain my chastity and purity, do Thou, Who art the Supreme Lord of all my powers, take it from me, that I may with an immaculate heart advance in Thy love and service, offering myself chaste all the days of my life on the most pure altar of Thy Divinity. Amen. -St. Thomas Aquinas
Saint Margaret of Anitoch, pray for us
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You will need to read the last post from today, Testing, to understand a little more in regards to this post. Also, the post Eucharist may be a great help also. The Sacrament of Confession is a shower of graces.
My penance was to recite one decade of the Rosary. I knelt and started to pray, thinking which decade shall I recite and the Baptism of our Lord came to my heart. As I began to pray, I heard water and heard it again. I opened my eyes to see someone changing the Holy Water in the fonts at the doors. Here I was, pondering the Baptism of our Lord, the sound of Holy Water was a beautiful addition to the quite. I could see Him so clearly and thanked Him for the grace of being able to be there today at this very second to experience Him in such a way. I began to pray another decade of the rosary thinking of my penance. As I finished, the angelus prayer was just beginning, which lead us into the Holy Mass.
Todays first reading Ezekiel 47: 1 – 9, 12 –
1 Then he brought me back to the door of the temple; and behold, water was issuing from below the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east); and the water was flowing down from below the south end of the threshold of the temple, south of the altar.
2 Then he brought me out by way of the north gate, and led me round on the outside to the outer gate, that faces toward the east; and the water was coming out on the south side.
3 Going on eastward with a line in his hand, the man measured a thousand cubits, and then led me through the water; and it was ankle-deep.
4 Again he measured a thousand, and led me through the water; and it was knee-deep. Again he measured a thousand, and led me through the water; and it was up to the loins.
5 Again he measured a thousand, and it was a river that I could not pass through, for the water had risen; it was deep enough to swim in, a river that could not be passed through.
6 And he said to me, “Son of man, have you seen this?” Then he led me back along the bank of the river.
7 As I went back, I saw upon the bank of the river very many trees on the one side and on the other.
8 And he said to me, “This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah; and when it enters the stagnant waters of the sea, the water will become fresh.
9 And wherever the river goes every living creature which swarms will live, and there will be very many fish; for this water goes there, that the waters of the sea may become fresh; so everything will live where the river goes.
12 And on the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing.”I immediately knew this all was my Lord speaking to me. On my ride home I pondered my penance and thought to myself, I prayed two! IMMEDIATELY I heard in my heart, I did not tell you to pray two. It was only one that was needed. You did more than I asked and it was not necessary. At that second I was reminded about Eve in the Garden of Eden and how she exaggerated to the serpent what God had told her of eating the fruit of the forbidden tree. God has said clearly, “And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” Gen 2 16-17 Eve added: “‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.” Genesis 3:3
It points out to me the BEGINNING of disobedience! God said do not eat it, not do not touch. She added to God’s command stepping on His “sovereignty”, which brings us to Mary:”His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” John 2:5 As did I by saying TWO DECADES for penance thinking it would be much better! By my LORDS suffering and HIS sacrifice I am healed. His gift. Not by mine. But it took work to get there and takes work to stay in this state of grace. Is there any “sacrifice” in loving our Lord? No! Love is not sacrifice, it is free for the giving and taking. The sacrifice of our Lord was to give His life for ours . When our life is lived in His it is no sacrifice. It is a GIFT! The “WORK” is like a work out you would do for your body to keep it in shape. The work comes by or should I say, through being “Obedient” (Complying with orders) to the will of God.
Our Lord pointed this out to me so I could grown in obedience. So as He told me, I offered up the extra decade since He knows better than I do, where this decade is needed.
I love our Lord and all the GLORY and honor is His. Not mine but I accept all the grace needed to make it through this world to spend eternity with Him.
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Last night in my Bible Study class, we were discussing the Holy Bible and how every word in it, was like a seed that grows and the sprout of knowledge, heads in a different direction from the next, but in the end it all ties together in “Wisdom”. When you continually read and learn it, a soul can see this as plain as day. Thus, Divine.
What sparked this conversation? We are currently studding the Book of Joshua. In chapters 3 through 5, (Crossing the Jordan). I was blasted with light while at class tonight and the similarities of AFTER three days, God would perform miracles, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day, The Israelite would be traveling a road they had never been on, Jesus traveled to the dead, a road He had not been on before, the 12 tribes VS 12 Apostles and most of all, the Rocks from the Jordan and “You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church”. The ark of God will lead the way. – Jesus is the way and the truth.
As I look back through my life, I can see the entire book itself as a spiritual bar of soap. When I first started to read the bible, my soul was not ready to comprehend it. Everything confused me and nothing made sense. I didn’t know where to find the “Life Giving Water” to use this “Spiritual Soap” correctly. What good is soap without water? After a while it began to look like a reference book. When I began again to read it and then ponder & “SEEK” the meaning of what I was actually reading. Rather then believe I knew what was being said. Then the trickle of water I needed with this bar of spiritual soap began to cleanse my soul. Or should I say, it pointed me in the direction where to find the “Shower“.
Not only did it point the way to the shower, but it pointed me in the direction of where to find food, a home and clothing.
Peg Pondering Again 