Holy Encounter

                “My Lord, my God, I kneel before You, close my eyes and slowly shed all that I have placed upon myself. I don’t need any of it; it simply blocks my view of You and disrupts our intimate connection. The external facade I sometimes think I need to wear in public actually blocks Your holy light from shining out of me. I take it off, like a mask, because it is of my own creation, not Yours. I place it on the ground and ask You to take it away. I don’t need it. I humbly kneel before You now as I truly am, without any mask or self-made designs. All my strengths and weaknesses are clearly obvious, but they are what make me who I am. You know them all and yet You love me anyway. Let the intense love I feel for You well up inside my soul, permeate my entire being and may that love clothe me instead. It is much more genuine, beautiful, pure and able to show Your glory then what I could ever create for myself. Let people clearly see Your love shining within me and let them be drawn to that.

                “As I humbly kneel before You, I shed all my outer senses. My external hearing simply distracts me from Your voice. I turn off my outer volume and tune in my inner hearing to the one voice of truth and love. I don’t want to hear anything that comes from the current “world;” it is a distorted version of Your Word – like Your voice covered in static. Your true voice is pure, gentle, sweet and speaks only love. In this silence, I close my eyes and turn off all external vision. It too is distorted and full of distraction and imperfection. I wait in the darkness for You to turn on the light of the Holy Spirit in my soul. From the blackness, I see a reddish yellow light slowly permeating the corner of my inner vision, like a sunrise gently lighting the sky. It gets brighter and brighter, causing me to blink with my eyes closed. The warmth of the light spills over my body like a silken summer rain. My internal sense of touch feels the warmth grow both from within and around me. The warmth comforts me and fills me with great peace. As I breathe slowly, my sense of smell goes numb at first and then becomes acutely aware of the scent of incense. In this precious moment, I remain suspended. There is no sense of time or space; gone are the thoughts of what to do today, what to do this week, or this year. My life is momentarily suspended in this encounter of pure love. Nothing else matters, we are intimately connected in adoration. I can’t move. I don’t want to more. You tell me, “I am always here.” I breathe in Your love and I exhale Your love. As I slowly become aware of my external senses, they seem all fine-tuned, cleansed and focused on finding You in the world and in the people You created.

                “My Lord, my God, I am overwhelmed and very grateful for this encounter with You. I have no words to express what You have placed in my heart. I pray that I will always remember this encounter and return to this way of union again and again. Oh Lord, I humbly rise and walk, clothed in Your love, a vessel of Your Holy Spirit, and a beacon of Your light.”

May I Carry My Cross With You?

                “My God, my crucified yet resurrected Lord, I bow my head in tears envisioning Your holy Passion. I see You off in the distance amidst a huge crowd. I can only see the tip of Your head bowed down, adorned not with befitting jewels, but instead with a ring of thorns. I mostly see the heavy cross You carry among the sea of enraged people. I can’t hear anything distinct, just a loud universal angry cry of people who know not what they do. You slowly make Your way through the people – the same people You previously blessed and professed Your great love through Your gentle instruction of how to live an earthly life in preparation for an eternal heavenly life with You. Now they reject You, they hurt You, they mock You, they celebrate killing You. Though You could end all this in a blast of glory, You continue, still with great love in Your heart. You continue a path no man would welcome, with the purpose of fulfilling Your Father’s will to provide a way for all these same people to be united as one with You forever.

                “Oh Lord, as You carry this heavy cross, I feel the weight of my own cross and it suddenly doesn’t feel as heavy. It is not easy to carry, but it is just a piece of Yours. Together, as we carry these crosses, I pray that I can make Yours lighter and I thank You as You have made mine lighter. I turn to my side and I see my dear friends, my brothers and sisters carrying their crosses also with You and I pray that all together, the burden on You will be lighter as well as the burden on them. As I look to my right and to my left, I am comforted that I am not the only one suffering with You. I look up to Calvary and see the two thieves crucified with You. One mocks You, yet the other loves You and asks for mercy. I look to my right and to my left and I hear the same; several mock me for carrying my cross and several smile and say they love me and that we can make it together. We walk together, earnestly searching for a glimpse of You in the crowd, in the world, in the chaos, in the hate, in the indignation and in the indifference, both then and now.

“Oh dear Lord, may the people open their eyes and see You clearly. May their hearts be filled with compassion for You and for Your suffering people. May they willingly ask You for crosses. May their hearts be filled with the desire to carry whatever cross You send, no matter how heavy or light, for as long as You ask, all the way to Calvary with You, our burdens joined with You, our crosses all splinters of Yours. May we lay these crosses down at the foot of Yours and will You lead us all to the gates of heaven? Oh Lord, may I carry my cross with love as You carried Yours.”

Rejected Lover

                “Oh dear Lord, I cry out in pain and fall to my knees in anguish. How can any of us reject Your beautiful intense love? I feel Your pain at the rejection of Your beloved people - all Your people. I feel the deep stabbing pain in my heart of a person rejected by the one whom they are so deeply in love with. I am talking about the kind of love that consumes your entire being and makes every breath you take a labor because your heart is held paralyzed in anticipation of seeing that person. To be rejected by the one you love that much literally knocks the wind out of you and leaves you bleeding inside with a deep hole in your heart. Oh dear Jesus, I feel this pain in You at the rejection of Your people. And not just the obvious rejection of people who say there is no God or that they don’t need God in their lives, but also the more subtle rejection of those driven by pride to do their own will and not Yours. The pain You feel surges through me, even in response to those people who twist their good works or Your good graces into deformed damaged works for their own gain.

                “Oh Lord, You are the rejected lover who did nothing wrong; the one who continually gave His entire self for others and did everything out of love. Oh dear rejected lover, how can You pick Yourself up and continue Your walk to Calvary? Oh dear rejected lover, how can You lay Your life down, slowly, peacefully and painfully on the cross for those who refuse Your love? Oh dear rejected lover, every nail pounded through Your flesh cuts through my body and leaves me screaming out. Every single one of us has contributed and continues to contribute to each strike of the nails. Oh dear rejected lover, please have mercy on all of us, have mercy on me. I am so sorry for every rejection You have ever incurred and for every one that will occur in the future. How I long for the peace of eternity, when the nails will no longer be pounded into Your flesh and any rejection of love will cease to exist. No more pride, envy, vanity. Only love; deep love for others and most of all, the deep love for You will be the foundation and network of the eternal world. Everything and everyone will draw its very life and breath from that network of love. Oh dear rejected lover, I long for that future reconciliation for all Your people.”

Lenten Transformation

                “Dear Lord, my God, as Lent begins, I ask for the grace and courage to die to myself so that I may live in You. I breathe in deeply and exhale slowly to ready myself for this journey. I know it won’t be easy and will probably be painful, but I also know it is what I must do in order to grow and to approach You. Take my hand and walk with me. Show me what needs to be done.

                “First, I must recognize that I, like all of us, am a fallen sinner. I am no different than any of Your children. We all share the same fallen nature. I have the same carnal desires, selfish motives, self-love, vanity, laziness and weakness that every child of Adam and Eve has. Lord, help me to be brave enough and honest enough to see myself as I truly am. Remove any mask or wall I have and let me look at myself as if I am standing in a mirror with You beside me. Grant me Your vision for that moment so I may see myself as You do. Look deep in my soul. What is beautiful? What is repulsive? What do we keep and what do we change?

                “Now, as I see my true self, fill me with pure humility. Help me recognize that I am imperfect externally and internally without You. Physically, as my body succumbs to the forces of mortality and time, show me how to rely more on You and on those loved ones around me. Help me recognize that I cannot do things all on my own, especially as I age. Remove my pride that wants to say, “Look how strong I am.” Instead, raise the voice of humility to say, “Look how strong we are together.” Spiritually, show me how I hover weakly without You. Show me how I am unable to climb to any higher spiritual levels on my own. All my knowledge and effort amounts to just time spent until I can give it to You, let You assimilate and transform that effort into the spiritual progress You want for me.

“May I embrace my weaknesses, physical and spiritual, so that I will recognize that with You, I am complete; without You, I am weak and broken. Empty me of the pride that fills the space in my soul reserved for You and Your humility; the humility that You exhibit to reach down from heaven and enter into the heart of one of Your creations. Help me to allow and embrace Your assistance and the assistance of others in my endeavors, both physical and spiritual, thus taking Your love and opening a vertical channel from You to me and from me to You, as well as opening a horizontal channel of love from me to my neighbors and from my neighbors to me. Then the love flows up and down and side to side, like the cross You lovingly embraced for Your Father and for all of us.

                “Dear Lord, my God, in humility I ask that You fill my weak, broken self with Your deep vast love. May it pour over me and through me, permeating the depths of my soul, healing and strengthening all that it touches. May I shine like the sun shimmering on the ocean after a dark storm, transformed and brilliant with Your light. May I be like the caterpillar who first inches along the ground and then transforms into a butterfly, now able fly up towards You.  Oh Lord, let me die to myself like the caterpillar so that You can live within me like the butterfly. Together, let us live as one.”

May I kneel with You in the Garden of Gethsemane?

                “Dear Lord, my God, my heavenly King, I humbly ask to hear Your voice. Dear Mother Mary, prepare me to kneel before the Lord, our Father. Jesus, show me the way. Come Holy Spirit, come; blow through my heart and soul, open the doors and windows and let the love of God shine in and throughout my very being. Open my inner senses to receive all You wish to send me.

                “Lord, take me to the Garden of Gethsemane the night You prayed so fervently. I feel the cold air. I smell the leaves of the olive trees. The flowers are just beginning to bloom, releasing their sweet fragrance in the air. Lord, I see You kneeling, face turned toward the sky, lit by the moonlight. Your tears have stained Your face and sparkle in the dim light. Your forehead has large droplets of blood that have oozed out in Your distress. My heart is breaking for You. You are alone in that moment. Your beloved disciples have fallen asleep a little way from You. It is late and has been a long day for them celebrating the Passover, yet You remain awake, praying to Your beloved Father about the events about to take place. Your agony, Your distress, Your inner conflict is like a chaotic static cloud. My heart cries out to You as You ask the Father if it is possible to let the cup pass from You, yet not as You will, but as He wills (Mt 26:39). I want to cry out to Your Father, “Please let it pass!” but of course, I am only reacting to the moment and not to the whole plan of salvation. I am like Peter who speaks at the instant from my heart. You slowly turn Your eyes to me and say, “Get behind me Satan, for you do not do the will of the Father.”

                “Oh Lord, the sting. Do not let me cling to my personal desires; they block the will of the Father. Oh Lord, forgive me, dust of the earth and handiwork of Your creation, for clinging to the pieces of the puzzle on earth that must continually move into the places You have designed. How often do I grasp at the hem of Your robe as You walk through this world? Instead, free me of my attachments and let me sweep the path for You. Use me as an instrument for the orchestration of Your great masterpiece instead of stumbling on me as an obstacle in Your way.

                “Oh Lord, You have given me much and I know You expect much of my heart in return. My heart swells with intense love for You as You turn Your gaze back to the sky in the garden. I see the angel Your Father has sent You to comfort You this night. Oh Jesus, You have show me the way to be a true disciple. I love and support You. Let me be like the angel who gently holds You, Your heads tipped toward each other. Oh thank you dear angel, you are there for comfort, not to change the plan or to talk about the horror and anxiety; instead, you are there to console, to support, to embrace, to love, to assure that the Father’s will be done and that love will triumph.

“Oh Lord, let me live my life like the angel, supporting You, loving You, helping You accomplish the Father’s will. May Your glory be seen. May Your love fill all the souls of everyone everywhere. Oh dear Lord, may I kneel with You in the Garden of Gethsemane?”