I Ask to be One with You

                “Dear Lord, my heart longs to be one with You, yet You are my Lord, my King, my Creator; how can I dare to ask such a thing of one so great? Why do I ask for this favor? Not because I want to be great like You or to have honor or glory; it is none of that. I ask for it because I love You with all my heart and soul and being. I love You so much that I want to melt into You. I want to place my hands on Yours, palm to palm and close our fingers intertwined into each other. I want to flow through the wounds on Your hands, melting into them like water flowing through a drain. I love You so much that I want to give You all of me by melting myself into Your body.

                “I don’t care about worldly possessions; they are just things, just stuff and I don’t need any of it. I do care about experiences but only in the context of how they brought me closer to You. Some are pleasant and some are unpleasant, but if they turned me to You, then they are precious to me and I wish to give those to You through my memories. The experiences that kept me from You I only cherish if they strengthened my resolve to return to You and I know that You allowed them to occur for that purpose. The useless experiences that were just passing moments, I can leave behind because they were just passing moments like a blink. There are people I care about because You placed them in my life as part of my journey to You. There are others I love because they are precious to You. Can we bring them all into You? I don’t want to leave anyone behind.

                “I want to be one with You because separated from You, I feel a great void within me. I feel like a droplet of Your blood that has bled out and will dry up if it is not returned to Your body. I also want to be one with You because You are all good and all love. My whole life, I have sought for goodness and desperately searched for love, sometimes in very unlikely and ridiculous ways and in all the wrong places and people. I long for love – deep, true, honest, penetrating love and You are the source of all love so to You I flee. To love and to be loved is why I was created. I have wallowed in evil, bathed in hate, wandered in despair, sank into loneliness and clothed myself in numbness. I never want to return to any of those.

                “So humbly, yet with determination, I ask to be one with You. Lord, I long to melt into the original source of all goodness and love, like a parched wanderer in the desert, kneeling at a spring of fresh, clear, cool water. I dip my hands into the water, close my eyes and melt.”

Precious Connection

                “Dear Lord, Almighty Creator, I humbly bow my head before You and ask to hear Your voice in my heart. I earnestly desire to do Your will yet sometimes, I am not sure what Your will is. At times, the crossroads on the path of life all appear to be Your will and I do not know which way to go. Dear Lord, if our wills are joined as one, then my choices will be Yours and Your choices will be mine. So how do we join our wills as one when I am but a sinful creature and You are all good, all love, all power? How do we become one?

                “We can only become one if I diminish. I must first die to myself, die to my pride, die to my self-love, die to my desires that begin with “I.” Instead, replace “I” with “the Almighty Lord wants…” and whatever follows in that sentence will be Your will, not mine. Everything I do must not benefit me directly. Any benefit I receive must be secondary to revealing Your glory. If it pleases me or not is of no consequence; what matters is if it pleases You. Whatever comes my way, whether it be pleasant or not, will bring me joy and peace because it came from You as a gift, a way to become more holy. The more holy I become, the more we become as one and our wills can be joined.

“Through the Sacred Eucharist, our bodies can be joined as one, along with all the members of Your holy Church. As part of Your body, I can feel Your Sacred Heart beat. I can feel the blood of mercy cursing through our veins, strengthening and nourishing us all. As Your body melts into mine, my body melts into Yours and we become one. I feel Your heart and Your blood flow through me, and I am joined into the network that connects to Your mind and Your thoughts. I hear Your will. I sense Your will. I feel Your will.

“Oh dear Lord, Almighty Creator, You made us to be joined as one. May I, always and forever, nurture that precious connection. May I die to myself, become more holy, and be one with You. I humbly bow my head and thank You as I listen to Your blessed Sacred Heart beat strong and steady throughout my body.”

Your Holy Touch

                “Dear Almighty Lord, every day, every hour, throughout the entire world, You reach down from heaven, transform Yourself into the bread and wine we offer at mass, and become our food that we eat and drink, literally taking You into our bodies. You strengthen us, You nourish us, You heal us, every single hour throughout the world You created. I see Your hand reach down to the altar and touch the ciborium and the chalice. In an instant, heaven and earth are joined. Our exterior senses do not see it, only our interior senses and our faith reveal this instant. As we partake in Holy Communion, at that very instant, Your divine body and our human bodies are joined as one in total love. I am amazed by this and in awe that the divine hand of God reaches down to us from heaven all the time. That is the gift of Mass, the gift of the Eucharist. Dear Lord Almighty, I am awed and humbled by this generous gift You provide.

                “How can I possibly thank You for such a gift? All I have to offer You that You might be interested in is me and my love. All that I say and do and am, I offer to You. All the love that You placed in my heart bubbles up inside me and all I can do is pour it out back to You. So Lord, take me and my heart that You have strengthened, nourished, and healed with Your own body and blood and place me into Your body as part of You. With You, I am at peace. With You, I am full of joy. With You, as a part of You, I am pure love.

                “Oh my dear Lord, love of my life, I am amazed once again by You. I pray for all people everywhere that they will recognize this union You offer at every mass everywhere. I pray especially for those who say, “I just didn’t get anything out of mass today,” and then decide not to return. I pray for those who say they didn’t like the homily, or the pastor, or the kneelers, or the music, or the noisy children, or the quiet non-responsive crowd, or the heat or the cold. I pray for all those people, that You will sharpen their interior senses to recognize Your touch at Mass and in their lives. I pray that You will grant them a generous spirit to offer themselves to You instead of looking for what You offer them. The beauty of giving comes with maturity. Children at Christmas are thrilled with what they receive but the adults are filled with great joy at providing the gifts for others. Just as You gave Your entire self on the cross, we can give our entire selves to You. By offering oneself completely to You, in humble gratitude, recognizing that You are our creator and all powerful, then we can begin to find our place as part of You. By humbly offering ourselves and saying, ‘Do with me as You wish, You know best what I need and want. You know best how to make me useful, how to make me holy, how to make me all that You see in me.’ Then we can please You and begin to thank You for the precious gifts You have given us: the gift of life, the gift of holy union through the Eucharist and the most precious gift of love.

                “Oh dear Almighty Lord, as You reach down from heaven to the altars throughout the world, awaken the inner senses of all Your people and transform the world.”

Baby Jesus, May we Love and Adore You

                “Dear baby Jesus, my Lord, my King, my Creator clothed in the flesh of an infant, helpless and tiny in the arms of Your sweet blessed Mother; I can never understand how this can be but I am filled with awe and gratitude that You chose this way to reveal Yourself to the world, to Your people. As Mary holds You in her arms, cradled near the body You claimed as Your Holy Temple to be incarnate, she holds all humanity through You because years later, when You hung on the cross to save all of mankind, You gave all people to Mary, placing her as Blessed Mother of us all and claiming us as children of Christ. As she cradles and rocks You, she also cradles and rocks all humanity then, now and forever.

                “Baby Jesus, my humble King, You chose to be fully human for a brief moment in history, to walk with us, to be cared for by us, to be loved by us, to be followed by us; but also to be hated by us, to be hunted by us, to be willingly captured and persecuted by us, to be tortured by us, to be crucified by us. Dear baby Jesus, it breaks my heart and yet at the same time, it fills me with joy and awe at the love You possess to choose the path of an infant to save us all. Dear baby Jesus, I don’t understand but as Mary cradles You, I look at both of You in total love and humble gratitude.

                “Dear baby Jesus, may we live our lives now loving and adoring You as You deserve. May we love and adore the infant in You. May we love and adore the man You became to teach us how to be the people You created. May we love and adore the Savior You are, remembering the suffering You endured and the death You conquered to save our souls for eternity. May we love and adore the King You are, waiting in heaven for the chosen time to return to earth to claim Your holy bride and lead us all to heaven to be with You forever. Dear baby Jesus, may we love and adore You forever.”