Today, I Pray for Unity

                “Oh dear Lord, today I pray for unity. When we all unite under You and join our forces, our talents, our strengths, our thoughts, our prayers and our desires, we become one powerful force with You as our guide, and You as our source of energy and power. Oh dear Lord, when we join ourselves to Your blessed Sacred Heart, all together, we can affect change in this world of chaos and noise.

                “I think of a crowded room, everyone talking individually about their own interests with each other – it sounds like a buzzing noise with no distinct words standing out; maybe a laugh here and there but mostly it sounds like the buzzing of a bee hive. When you take these individuals and put them in groups, they start saying the same thing. Now we begin to hear individual words and phrases peppered throughout the room. Next, take all the people in the room, inflame their hearts with a passion for something – suddenly, they want to shout together to be heard. They look to each other and say, ‘Yes, Yes I agree.’ Now inflame them with a deep love for You, and a burning desire to please You permeates the whole room. With You fanning the fire in their hearts, they draw upon everyone’s strengths to fulfill one purpose of loving You. One person is pushed up front because of a beautiful singing voice. Some are pulled out to organize the group, some are singled out to orchestrate the sound and now, all together, one concrete message emerges from this group. When united under You, the message reflects their love for You which mirrors Your love for them. Now they can unite and do something powerful all together for You and their unified voice can affect change. The buzzing room of individuals is transformed into a powerful part of Your whole body making one cohesive sound in a unified fashion.

                “Oh dear Lord, I am so humbled to be a part of You. May I always unite with Your people within the shining light of the infinite love that emanates from Your blessed Sacred Heart. May I always remember that as an individual, I can buzz around and around, but united with You and Your people, I can loudly proclaim and bravely demonstrate my great love for You.

                “Today, I pray for unity.”

Gather Your Army

“My dear Lord, my love, my life, I am here for You and all that You wish. My whole life is one long journey to find You and to be with You. Lent has been a time for all of us to search together, losing the things that block us from finding You. Lord, You have taken me by the hand on a walk through my soul. You revealed what pleases You and what does not.So now, together, let us decide what is useful and what is not. Help me discard what we don’t need – truly toss it out, not just tuck it away in some corner to be dealt with at a later date only to fester in the shadows, ready to rise up again and darken the soul. 

“Lord, help me walk with my neighbors as well. Help me love them as You do as they discover what lies in their souls. Now is the time to call together Your holy soldiers, to train for an eternal life with You. Let us train together in these current days of spiritual degradation and persecution. Let us train as a holy army, powerful because of our mutual great love for You. Place us together, as one body strengthened in faith and love for You. May this body be led by You as our head. Heal our ills and set us all to work on purifying ourselves so that this body won’t be weakened by the disease, injury or handicap of any of our souls. Then and only then can we come together and join You as one holy Catholic and apostolic Church. Our final purity, though definitely our goal, is not what will unite us, but instead, it is our desire for purity that You seek; the greater the desire for purity, the stronger the soul.

“Gather Your army of these people this Easter season. May we all willingly and joyfully enlist in this army and together, journey through our souls, hone our holy skills, increase our desire for purity, allow our love for You to be our daily guide and be thankful for this unification of purpose.”

As I Wander Deeper into the Desert of My Soul

                “My Lord, my God, as I wander in the desert of my soul, I keep finding things hidden in the sand; things that have been there a long time, half buried in the sand as the winds of time have slowly blown the many of grains of sand over them, making half hidden piles camouflaged and hard to recognize. I have to look very carefully and when I find a sandy mound, I slowly and carefully brush away the sand to reveal what lies beneath. Only with prayer can I find the confidence to look further. I can’t do it alone. Without You, I want to bury it again and walk away. With Your help, I can face these things I have tried to hide within me. With You by my side, gently encouraging me, I am able to uncover my flaws, my weaknesses. I can see how I have tried to rationalize their existence, how I have made excuses and how I have been lazy by burying them deeper. When I rely on just myself to correct these flaws, the job becomes too overwhelming and I give up, bury them again and say, ‘Maybe later I will work on that.’

                “How sad, that limits Your power. You can do anything. Nothing is too much for You. You created me. You know me. You know what I am meant to be. It is I who have messed it all up. It is my pride that keeps me from asking for Your help. Sometimes, I want to hide myself from You until I am all okay. Then I can present myself in a worthy fashion to give You glory and honor. Silly me, when I think I have fixed everything and I think I am in a good state to present myself to You, I am actually completely unworthy to stand before You. It is when I kneel, broken and poor in spirit – that is when I am most ready to be before You. That is when You reach out Your loving embrace saying, ‘Now you’ve got it. Come to Me and let us be united through My Sacred Heart.’ That is when You can bathe me in Your light, dress me in Your love and let me shine pure and bright with You inside me.

                “Dear, dear Lord, show me my pride. Place a large sign on that mound in the sand so I can’t miss it. Walk with me as I hesitantly approach it, clean off the sand and reveal its hideous appearance. Pride is like a bomb. When it goes off, it destroys many things in its path and creates a chasm of chaos and destruction in the soul. Show me how to destroy it, not just bury it. Show me how to replace it with humility. May humility fill that deep hole and all the adjacent holes created from that explosion. May humility smooth over the sand, enabling me to walk ahead with Your hand on my shoulder, to find the next mound in the sand. Let us walk together, not lost and stumbling, but searching throughout this desert like explorers with great anticipation and joy at finding the next hidden part of me to be transformed by You into something that makes me more like You.”

Help Me Be Rid of Pride

                “Dear loving, almighty merciful God, thank You for listening to my heartfelt plea. Help me to walk the path You have laid out for me. Keep me humble so that at every turn and twist of the path, I can look up and ask You which way to go. May I never be so bold to make a choice of which way to go without first consulting You and Your wishes for me. At every intersection, may I stop and ask which way will give You the most glory? If I hastily make a choice without considering You, than I have fallen prey to the sin of pride which lies hidden deep within me, always looking for an opportunity to rise to the surface and whisper in my ear, only to disappear again within me like the stain of breath on a mirror.

                “Through sincere and humble prayer focused on You, I can try to keep my pride held in chains. Better yet, may my lifetime of prayer break apart the bond of pride and drive it out completely from my soul. When I kneel before You at the end, may the shroud of pride be gone from my soul, revealing the glowing, burning love You first placed in my heart at my conception. May that fire rise up in Your presence, engulfing us both and all those around us. May that fire be pure, bright and powerful because it was made by Your almighty creator hands.

“I am Yours Lord, truly Yours. Do with me as You will and may I never forget that I belong to You and not to myself. You are my God, not myself. You are my reason for living, not myself. Thank You for listening to my heartfelt plea.”

May I See Your Glory in Misery

                “Dear Lord, I am so grateful today for the life You have given me. I have never known poverty, chronic illness, hunger, major injustice, political tyranny, war, religious persecution punishable by death, homelessness, theft, untimely death of a family member…Oh dear Lord, these conditions have existed all throughout time and You have placed me in a bright window, protected from such misery. Thank You for the blessed life You have given me. I pray that my sheltered life will never allow me to forget the poor, the miserable, and the suffering. May I always try to ease their pain. May I always try to bring Your shining light of love into the darkest places. Misery is a part of this earthly life; may I treat it as a gift You provide to offer us a chance to respond; a chance to share You and Your blessings with others. Misery opens the door to Your mercy and Your love. Let the misery around us be a key to open our hearts and to let You in, to let You work, to let You shine in all Your people, both in those helping and in those who need help. May I never turn away in disgust, fear, despair or, worst of all, in indifference. You have allowed misery throughout time, including now all around the world. When I see misery, may I embrace it and see Your glory in it. Thank You for this beautiful life You have so graciously given me and therefore, may I always be ready to be an instrument of Your love to all those in need.”