Save Your Lost Sheep

                “My dear Lord, what do You ask of me today? How can I show my great love for You today? I see such sadness around me – people dying, people mourning, people lost consciously or subconsciously, people tied in chains of anger and frustration, people tied to heavy burdens of financial responsibility, people living as slaves to masters of the world. They are Your lost sheep, braying in the darkness of the storm. Dear Lord, shine the light of Your love, lovingly but boldly calling out to them. Tell them to bring their burdens, their sorrows, their chains to You. Assure them that You will take their suffering and use it to help them return their souls to the beautiful state they were in at their conceptions. All the burdens and cares we place on ourselves will be transformed into the jewels we give to You. Take these burdens and send us forward on our journey to You.

                “For those poor lost sheep that cannot see or hear through the storm, who may be stuck in a ditch, caught in a tangled bramble – dear Jesus, go to them. Send Your blessed Mother first to the lost sheep so she can console them and prepare their hearts to see You coming for them. Then, gently lift them up in Your arms. Bandage their wounds in Your healing mercy so they can be restored. Carry those who can no longer walk. Carry them back to the safe path where the storm clouds have cleared away and the bright sun of Your eternal Father is shining down in majestic glowing rays, illuminating the path to His Kingdom. Place Your lost sheep in the warmth of Your loving embrace and heal them so You can lead them once again, straight to Your Father.

                “Oh Holy Spirit, breathe the pure breath of God through us all so that we can be purified from the world’s pollution and we can be energized by the Truth. Lord I pray that the sadness of all can truly be turned into dancing. Help me to see a reason to rejoice in every situation I encounter - both good and bad, joyous and sad - so that my life here on earth will mirror Your Kingdom in heaven.”

Make Us All One

                “My dear Lord, today I am deeply moved by Your intimate prayer to Your Father the night before Your crucifixion (John 17:11-26). Your deep love for us permeates that entire prayer. Your desire for ultimate unity with us and You and Your Father is so deep and pure, I hear You implore Your Father to join us with You as You are joined with Him. You want us to feel and experience the same love the Father has for You. You want to share all the gifts your Father has given You with us because You truly and deeply love us in the same way the Father loves You. The words “Jesus loves us” have taken on a whole new level for me after intently listening to Your heartfelt prayer. My heart is literally bursting right now, fulfilled and overflowing with divine love.

                “I feel so close to You Jesus right now. Your words to Your Father mirror my deepest desires to be with You. What You want for us, I earnestly crave as well. Oh heavenly Father, hear Your Son’s prayer. Holy Spirit, join us through this intense love. Protect us from the evil in the world that constantly waits in the shadows for an opportunity to leap out and snatch us away from this precious divine gift of love. Mark us as Yours for all eternity. Consecrate us in the truth of Your Word. May we bask in Your brilliant glory, all joined together as one holy, loving family. Dear Holy Trinity, joined together as one all powerful being, bring us together with You, not just as a gathering, but as a melting together of all our hearts and souls filled with intense love into Your Blessed Sacred Heart. Make us all one.”

Defending Our Faith

                “My Lord, my God, today I see Your blessed holy Church under attack once again. I am not much of a historian, but I do know Your Church has been under attack since You first instituted it when You walked on earth. In fact, You Yourself were brutally persecuted and condemned to death so of course, those who follow You will also be under attack. It makes no sense to me, however, why people want to persecute You and all that You teach when everything You do is out of love for all of us and with the goal of eternal joy for everyone. How can people be so blind and driven to hatred and murder of those who follow Your teaching?

                “When I read about the many martyred saints who died simply because they said yes to You, I am overwhelmed. Do I have the same conviction and determination as they do to stand up and defend You in the face of imminent death? Your holy Church is under attack now and we as members must be able and willing to fight as holy soldiers. Our training must begin in prayer to strengthen our bond of love. Next, we must be educated about our faith. We need to understand what it is we fight for. We must not be caught unprepared when someone asks a question regarding the faith. “I don’t know why the Church says that,” is not an option for Catholics today. We must learn Your teachings the way we learn a language so that it simply flows out of us naturally and infuses all our thought processes. Once we learn the facts and foundations of the Catholicism that You have given us, then we need to dig a little deeper to understand why we believe what we do. Just saying, “I believe because I do,” isn’t strong enough to build the heart and soul of a holy warrior. We need to have the conviction and passion grounded in knowledge and understanding to be willing to be persecuted and to withstand the threat of death for our belief. That level of commitment and strength requires a deeper understanding of why we believe what we do.

                “Dear Lord, shape us, train us, form us and then transform us into Your holy army, ready to defend You and all You have given us. The martyrs understood this, lived this and died in that spirit. May we follow their examples just as they followed Your example.”

Replacing Addictions

“My dear Lord, what do You ask of me today? To show people Your love here on earth? There are so many people in the world and so many that don’t even think about You. That makes me sad. Help me show them that You exist, that You love them, that You created them for love.

                “For those that do love You and live for You, may they be an example and inspiration for others to see that there is more in the world than living for ourselves. Especially touch the hearts of those addicted to drugs, alcohol, sex, food; all the things that feed the desires of the flesh. They make people feel good temporarily, but in the end, they end up devoured by these things, broken and extremely unhappy. They end up hating the very flesh they have been feeding and pleasuring. The flesh takes over their souls and leaves them physically ill, weak and wanting to retreat in darkness and solitude until they can be lost in the haze of their chosen addiction once again.

“Help them Lord to break this vicious cycle. Help them to realize for what You created them. May they once again love themselves as You do. May they desire only the love of their souls. Once they can allow You in again, then they can recognize their bodies as temples for You. Then they can love their flesh properly and care for their bodies, nourishing them to be holy temples for You, not for themselves. I understand this but don’t know how to share this with someone who is lost in their addiction. Open their understanding and use me as You wish to help them turn away from the hell they are living, the hell they have allowed to grow around them.”

“People can be so desperate and will cling to any ‘quick fix’ but when it comes to real work to save their souls, they sometimes give up and look again at a quick fix. Help them to see You as the ‘quick fix.’ Help them cling to You the way they cling to their addiction Let Your love be what they crave. Let that be their addiction.”

The Vortex

                “My Lord, my God, my awesome Creator whose genius goes so far past what we could ever comprehend, I am in awe today meditating on You. When You created Adam and Eve, You created the very flesh and form that You would ultimately choose to be conceived in and placed in Mary’s blessed womb and then grow into the person of Jesus to dwell among us. This very flesh was used to allow You among us and then to die for us so that we could dwell among You for all eternity. The incarnation, the crucifixion, the resurrection, all occurred through the very same kind of flesh that we also have. You also inspired the descendants of these original creatures of Yours to use the gifts of thought and speech to articulate in prayer the great love You embody and give to each of us. You thus inspired Your blessed creations to write the prayers that You would ultimately use to give thanks and praise to Your beloved Father. This timeless connection of Your works leaves me awestruck, trying to contemplate and understand. Your world is so big and vast and we are so small and limited by time and space.

“I see Your vast spectacular heavenly world being swirled into a vortex that spirals down into the womb of a blessed humble young maiden who simply said, ‘Let it be done to me according to Your will.’ That swirling vortex pulled Your heavenly presence into the flesh of a man through the womb of a woman. I see the swirling vortex once again, but this time, it spins in the opposite direction as Jesus Crucified breathed His last precious breath on the cross. Your heavenly world swirled back out of the body of Jesus, raising Him from the dead and then ultimately carried the resurrected Jesus Christ back to Your blessed dwelling, reuniting the Father to the Son, but also including each of us through the Holy Spirit. It is a dynamic process that will eventually place us all in Your Kingdom together.

“I thank You for allowing me to spin in that vortex through Jesus to You. My Lord, my God, I am in awe meditating on Your genius.”