March 24, 2022

Bread for my Soul's Journey -- A Spiritual Father

March 24, 2022/ jan

One of my spiritual fathers was still alive on this earth when I first "met" him. Henri J. M. Nouwen (January 24, 1932 – September 21, 1996) was a Dutch Catholic priest and writer who authored 40 books on the spiritual life.

Our "meeting" came in two ways. A mentor friend of mine pointed me to Nouwen's classic work, The Return of the Prodigal Son. This is an amazing book based on meditations on Rembrandt's painting by the same name. (See my previous post for a favorite quote).

March 21, 2022

Lenten Meditation: Eulogize your Living Loved One

March 21, 2022/ jan

In our week’s Lenten meditation, we focus on the Lord’s care for His dear mom as His own death approaches. How tender, how like a beloved son of a beloved mom! Caring for our treasured loved ones is at the heart of “family” in the purest sense of the word.

However, we often forget that true caring can be much deeper and more needed than merely physical care, as critical as that is. There’s a caring that touches heart and soul…one that meeting physical needs approaches, but a caring that perhaps only loving words can reach.

March 19, 2022

Lenten Meditation: a Word of Family Affection

March 19, 2022/ jan

Dear woman, behold your son...behold your mother. (John 19:26)

Jesus has a special love for His own. As we've already seen with His forgiving and saving attitude in the midst of excruciating agony, His concern was not with His own suffering. Rather His attention was next drawn to His precious loved ones at the foot of His cross, His mother and His beloved disciple John.

What agony Jesus must have seen on Mary's face.

March 18, 2022

The Signal in my Soul Afresh

March 18, 2022/ jan

With the change in daylight and the warmth of the weather here in Ohio, there is a signaling in my soul going on. It’s a signaling of the Springtime ahead, of course. But it is also a signal, a “call",” if you will, of my early morning habit, abandoned because of the dark and cold that flooded in months ago.

And so I have begun anew my early morning Walk, coffee in my new Yeti cup (thank you, Jeremy), and my beloved hymn sung from my soul.

Here’s how I have described it …

March 16, 2022

Kiss Me...I Might Be Irish

March 16, 2022/ jan

That was the saying on a balloon I saw at Kroger. And it was also the sentiment in the elementary school we kids went to in New Jersey. St Matthew’s was an Irish parish (maybe because the founding pastor was Irish, Fr Duffey), so our sports teams were the “Fighting Irish.” Anyway, the sentiment was that everyone was Irish on St Patrick’s Day. I remember us Renner girls (mom’s maiden name = Galuszka; so you do the “ethnic” math ) spraying our hair green, putting on our already green uniforms, and heading next door to school. (Yes, we lived next to the church and school!). We FELT Irish…even if we were really German & Polish!

Everyone was indeed “Irish” at St Matthews on St Patrick’s Day, except for the few rebellious students and even teachers who wore orange instead of green.

March 15, 2022

The Call to Morning Prayer with St Patrick's Breastplate

March 15, 2022/ jan

The indwelling Holy Spirit calls to my soul in the early morn — to turn my thoughts toward Him and away from the anxieties, fears, stresses, and “to do lists” of my weak, broken and “know it all” flesh.

With every morn my life afresh must break
The crust of self, gathered about me fresh;
That thy wind-spirit may rush in and shake
The darkness out of me, and rend the mesh
The spider-devils spin out of the flesh …

March 13, 2022

An Open Letter to my Christian Brothers ... especially Husbands

March 13, 2022/ jan

A quote in my Facebook newsfeed caught my eye the other day. It made me pause for two reasons: the source and the content. The source was DL Moody, evangelist and founder of the Bible school John and I attended as married students. And the content grabbed my attention because of what we have sadly seen much too often in Christian marriages, even in “ministry.”

March 12, 2022

Waking Words: He Rescues us Every Day

March 12, 2022/ jan

Truly I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise. Luke 23:43

Jesus seems to have a special love for lost people. I love the stories He tells in Luke 15. The first is the beloved story of the shepherd who has a hundred sheep but leaves the ninety-nine to look for the one that is lost. Then when he finds his lost one, he calls in his neighbors and friends to rejoice with him.

March 10, 2022

The Forgiven Forgive -- Q & A

March 10, 2022/ jan

How hard it is for us to forgive, isn’t it? In our last post, we discussed some points that truly make sense in the entire process of forgiving others. But let’s backtrack a bit more and look at this as a Biblical Q & A session.

The following are notes from a talk I gave to a small group of young married women (I was the “older woman teaching the younger” Titus 2). So why not use this as your own personal Bible study and see what the Holy Spirit reveals to your heart and mind for your particular situation.

March 08, 2022

Forgiveness Revisited

March 08, 2022/ jan

Several years ago, I met with a group of moms to explore one of our Lord's first words from the Cross: Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing. Luke 23:34

As our discussion went on, we talked about the struggle we all have to forgive our offenders. I shared a short section from a book that years before had an incredible impact on me in the area of forgiveness.

I used to think that the struggle to forgive was itself sinful...as well as the horrible feelings I had in the whole thing. But I've come to realize that the struggle and the feelings are all part of the human condition on this earth.

March 05, 2022

Lenten Meditation: a Word of Forgiveness

March 05, 2022/ jan

Christ’a first saying from the Cross ushers us into our basic need as fallen humanity. Listen in and reflect on the amazing love and grace of our forgiving Lord …

Alexander Pope (1688-1744), English poet, once said,To err is human; to forgive, divine.

So true...but we humans more readily echo what someone else has said,

To err is human, but to get even? THAT is divine.

We struggle so, with forgiving our offenders! Perhaps that's why we are amazed and awestruck to realize that Jesus' first words from the Cross were ones of forgiveness.

March 04, 2022

Lenten Meditation: Last Words and Conversations

March 04, 2022/ jan

The last words of a dying person are important. They can communicate good or ill to those left behind. Why? Because the last words are so final...and so revealing of what was uppermost in the person's mind as he was leaving this earth to face his Maker. I've never been at the bedside of a dying person. But I have been with a few people just days before their death.

March 02, 2022

Dust to Dust but Glory to Glory!

March 02, 2022/ jan

From dust you have come, and to dust you shall return.

Ash Wednesday has taken on a new meaning for me in recent years, since my 91 year old mom passed away early in November 2015. There was something that arrested me right in my tracks the day of my mom's funeral. I was undone by deep sobs of realization. And the depth of it had been helped along by the incense and the reverence afforded the treatment of my dear mama's frail little body being put to rest (or so they say).

But it wasn't the finality of it all. It had already been final when she had breathed her last, days before.

No! It was the Sacredness that came crashing through!

March 01, 2022

Lenten Meditation: Dust to Dust

March 01, 2022/ jan

I grew up in a liturgical church. So from my childhood into my early adulthood, I observed the church calendar. Ash Wednesday marked a real turning point in the calendar year. It was a turn from comfort, frivolity, and enjoyment (think Mardi Gras) to a time of repentance, self-denial, and mortification called Lent. Ash Wednesday was a day when we all remembered that someday we would each die and face our Maker. The priest would put the sign of the cross on our foreheads in black ashes and say,

Remember, Man, that thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return. [based on Genesis 3:19]

February 23, 2022

Who Is Your Source, Your "Need Meeter"?

February 23, 2022/ jan

Who is your source to do life? To do your marriage? To parent? To do your job? To be a friend?

Is it your spouse? Is it your significant other? Is it a friend, parent, child, grandchild? Or is it yourself?

We often forget we humans in our humanness are weak, dependent people. Some of us are weak, and we know it. Others of us are weak, and we don’t know it. And this latter group may be the weakest and most helpless of all.

February 18, 2022

The House with SOMEBODY in It!

February 18, 2022/ jan

I have never loved poetry. As a kid in school, I hated “poetry units.” And even when I was in high school at Mount Saint Mary Academy in North Plainfield, New Jersey, where I had amazing English teachers (all nuns, by the way), I hated it even more. I think it was because I truly didn’t get it. Maybe I wasn’t in touch with my emotions as much as I needed to be. It just didn’t make sense — all those figures of speech and irregular word order, and free verse, etc..

February 13, 2022

The Whisper of the Beloved: Lectio Divina

February 13, 2022/ jan

I used to do a personal retreat every year at the end of May/June. Usually by then I was exhausted from teaching both Bible classes and English classes. So to meet alone with the Lord in a little cottage at a retreat center was balm to my body and soul.

There were always inspiring reading materials in my little cottage. One year, I discovered a real gem — an article called “Listening for the Whisper of the Beloved,” by Jan Ord. It told of an ancient way of being with God and His Word and just listening. It’s called lectio divina…

February 12, 2022

Singing My Own Love Song to Jesus

February 12, 2022/ jan

Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love.
John 15:9 NASB

I hate missing opportunities! It has always been a problem for me . . . especially in my younger years. But now in my very “senior” years, I’m learning to make choices in response to my Father’s teaching to pace myself and sharpen my response to HIM, not to the awesome opportunity — to HIM.

So in the learning and in the choices, I still struggle with regret (did I make the right choice?) and grief (I can’t believe I chose to miss this incredible opportunity! What a loss!)

And so I’m amazed at the choice I just made . . .

February 09, 2022

The Secret of Detachment is Attachment

February 09, 2022/ jan

Detachment, Relinquishment ... Letting go! No matter how you say it, it is hard but beautiful. And it is needed...needed, that is, in order to grow in the spiritual life. In fact, Jesuit Richard Rohr, says, "All great spirituality is about letting go." (Everything Belongs) Our Lord Jesus was the One truly spiritual Person on this earth. And He was detached in a healthy way. He was detached because He was attached to Another ... to His Heavenly Father. All through the gospels, especially the gospel of John, we see and hear this truth clearly.

A Branch in the Vine