Choices

A movie poster from the first film of The Lord of The Rings hangs on a wall in our home.  It is matted and appropriately framed with a Celtic design. An inset in the matting displays the words of Gandalf, "All we have to decide is what to do with the time we are given." Reading this I ponder my own decisions.

Then I remember two scriptural admonitions: Choose this day whom you will serve and the question Jesus often asked,"What do you want me to do for you?"

We sometimes come to this point in our conversation with our Lord, blurt out a wish, or a need, or a plaintive, "I don't know. I need my life fixed. Please help!" Sometimes we know what we want, and we ask. Or we have thought through our request and answer, "Thy will be done." Sometimes we don't have any conversation at all. We trust His watch care, His will working out within our lives, and we push on doing what we know or feel is the right thing to do.

I don't have any answers. I have experienced all of the above.

Life is made of little decisions.  God help us to make the ones that please Him.

A Favorite Song

 Holiness, by Don Francisco was a favorite song of mine years ago.  Its message is timeless...

Joy & Action

Each day when I open my email I react like my four-year-old self waiting for the mailman to bring my  cereal box-top ordered toy. Ah, the longing for joy or delight is a constant companion for me during the rainy months here in the North West.

Today that was my attitude until a thought dropped into my heart...why not send joy to others? So off go the e-cards a positive response to my ennui.

Little Question

How come I want to give up, go with the flow, follow blindly not thinking, seek pleasure and comfort?

The Bride Groom calls: Hold On! Stand Firm! Seek Truth! Exercise Rational Thought! Turn From Self Pleasing! Put On The Armor of a Soldier!

How come indeed...I cry Mercy! Help Me!

Sunday Snippets--A Catholic Carnival

I am delighted to be a part of a wonderful group of writers hosted by This That and the Other Thing.  I wrote about St. Paul and Pope Paul VI this week.

Remembering Dei Verbum

I was reading through St. Paul's letter to St. Timothy when I chanced to read, "Take as your norm the sound words..." (NAB). Another translation reads: "Hold fast the pattern of sound words..."(NKJV). And yet another, "Retain the standard of sound words..." (NASB). St. Paul encouraged the young Timothy to clearly focus on what he had learned from study of Holy Scripture and from the words of Christ that Paul had shared with him.

I thought of the Vatican II Encyclical, “Word Of God” (Dei Verbum), that amazing call by Pope Paul VI to renewed study of Holy Scripture. And so, in my quiet time with the Lord I pondered the gift of Christ, the precious Word of God, and my need to read more of God's Word. The exhortation of St. Paul echoing in the words of Pope Paul VI rang true for me:

But in order to keep the Gospel forever whole and alive within the Church, the Apostles left bishops as their successors, "handing over" to them "the authority to teach in their own place."(3) This sacred tradition, therefore, and Sacred Scripture of both the Old and New Testaments are like a mirror in which the pilgrim Church on earth looks at God, from whom she has received everything, until she is brought finally to see Him as He is, face to face (see 1 John 3:2).