Sometimes you can feel very low and as if so many things are not going right for you, your journey in faith is being disturbed by all sorts of tests that try the strength of your faith. St Paul was very aware of these battles as he had to fight right through to the end and went through many struggles: scourging, shipwreck, illness. He suffered from something that was like a ‘thorn in his side’ but said that God had not chosen to remove this from him. We don’t know what this was, just that he had to live with it. His answer to all of these things was set out in Ephesians 6:13-18 (the full quote is at the end of this message).

St Paul recommended that we ‘put on the full armour of God’ so that we can stand our ground no matter what happens. This armour consists of: a belt of truth, a breastplate of righteousness, shoes that are the readiness coming from the gospel of peace, a shield of faith, a helmet of salvation and the sword of the Word of God (the Spirit).

When we are under attack, we need to have this armour in place in order to stand firm. We can’t be half hearted or lukewarm christians and expect that all will be well when we are faced with a challenge. Going to church once a week is great, but if our behaviour at other times doesn’t bear scrutiny and we put God away into a little box until the following week, how can we triumph when life’s challenges come? We ask God for help, but the basis of our faith is shaky, built on sand rather than rock. Similarly, how can we help others if our faith is weak?

It is never easy to acquire this full armour, but God appreciates us when we try and helps us on the way when asked. I pray that you strive to acquire your armour; God is waiting to help.

God bless,

Ephesians 6:13-18

Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.  Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

In the Catholic Church we revere Our Lady. We don’t worship her and there is a big difference. She is the mother of God and as such deserves our gratitude and our reverence. She agreed to take part in God’s salvation plan when she could have said no and led a much easier life. Not much detail is given to us of her early life in the Bible, however mystics have suggested that she was very devout from a young age and would have preferred to remain unmarried and devote her whole life to serving God. She obeyed God’s Will when it was made known to her. We also know about her immaculate conception which paved the way to her becoming the Mother of God as she was ‘full of grace’ and without original sin.

This is a very brief outline as a basis for talking about the rosary and how we pray to Our Lady and ask for her intercession ‘now and at the hour of our death’ using the Hail Mary and other prayers. The Rosary prayers are based around 20 mysteries, divided up into the Joyful mysteries; the Sorrowful mysteries; the Luminous mysteries and the Glorious mysteries, each mystery containing a decade of Hail Marys. I won’t go into the details of praying these mysteries as there are many sites that will give you this information. You can find an easy guide to this with the prayers you need on this site: http://www.newadvent.org and go into the Rosary tab.

The Rosary is a powerful ‘prayer tool’. I pray the rosary every day when I walk my dog or if I drive anywhere and have that freedom to let my mind focus on these mysteries. Sometimes when I can’t sleep I also start to pray the rosary and unfailingly, I always fall asleep as there is such peace of mind we can achieve when we immerse ourselves in these mysteries. Our Lady is always there for us and is delighted to intercede for us with her Son when we ask for her help. These mysteries help us stay close to Jesus; we walk with him through his life and by making them a part of our lives we develop the strength of our faith.

The Jewish people have a prayer called The Shema: Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. They recite these words daily as a reminder of the One God, to stay focused on that and not let worldly troubles and attractions get in the way of their faith. Similarly, the rosary reminds us of all that God has done for us through his Son; all that Jesus went through for us and how much God loves us and we can only derive great benefit and spiritual health from praying these prayers daily.

God bless and may you find praying the Rosary a great comfort,

Love is a strange and very varied emotion. There are many kinds of love: romantic love, family love, friendship love and charitable love. There are more categories, but these seem to cover most of the type of love we experience. The greatest love of all that we should most strive to feel is charitable love, or ‘agape’.

One of the main problems I am striving to overcome in my life is the desire to be reclusive. I enjoy being on my own and find being around people very difficult. I am an introvert, I’m quiet, I can’t bear constant chatter and find socialising very difficult. I have lost so many friends over time because I fear keeping in touch – it is an expression of friendship and affection that I find so hard. I cringe and feel overwhelmed when I have to make contact, but it does always feel good when I make the effort.

Although God is always understanding, I do realise that he expects me to keep trying no matter what. He wants me to constantly overcome this feeling that I would rather be alone and make the effort to connect. I don’t think that at this stage of my life I am going to change but what I do know is that I need to struggle on and put myself in situations that I dislike intensely. This is the kind of love that I must practice whatever the cost.

I read something really interesting by C S Lewis that puts my struggle into perspective:

There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.

We all need to love and practise love: it isn’t easy and we put ourselves at risk all of the time, but to love is to be alive and God will accompany us on this journey. We were made for love.

God bless you and help you when you struggle to connect to others,

I am thinking about the two disciples walking away from Jerusalem, discouraged and downhearted because they have lost their Messiah. With him, they have lost their hope for a better future, a greater faith and way of life with a leader they loved. They can’t see their way forward and so are retreating back to the lives they knew.

We can feel like that sometimes. We lose our way and start to doubt our faith and seem to be living in darkness. We can have such close, bright times with God and feel we are on the right track, but suddenly, all changes and we search for God and feel that he has left us.

Jesus meets up with these disciples and shows them by going through Old Testament passages, how his coming, his crucifixion, resurrection and the salvation he has brought had been foretold. When they share food with him later and he breaks the bread, Jesus lifts the veil and they recognise him. They felt the scales lift from their eyes and it must have been astonishing to them that here was Jesus with them and that these events had happened in their lives and they were witnesses to that salvation plan.

Similarly, we can have these enlightened moments with Jesus. Suddenly, we feel we are keeping to the path he has set out for us and fulfilling his plans for our lives. We understand what he is trying to do and how he is leading us when we ask him to. In the times where we feel he isn’t there and that maybe we are losing our way, he is still there with us but willing us on to keep going and growing in faith. He knows exactly how much encouragement we need, but it is for us to grow up in the faith and face up to challenges. It won’t be an easy path, but it will be one that is full of hope, faith and love.

God bless,

I am sitting at my window looking out at a beautiful sunny day on this glorious Easter Sunday. It is really cold outside but as long as it is sunny, that always makes me feel good. I have bought far too much chocolate and the lamb is probably far too big for us, but isn’t it joyful to celebrate this momentous day. Apart from Christmas, this is the only time we can have a guilt free feast and worry about eating more healthily another time.

I do hope you are also enjoying your Easter Sunday and are managing to meet up with family in these difficult times. A lot of people will be eating outside which isn’t too great on such a cold day, but the feeling of being together will hopefully bring the extra warmth they need. My youngest son is able to join us and I haven’t seen him since Christmas and am delighted he can come.

Aren’t we blessed that we have Our Lord’s resurrection to celebrate. We can be joyful even in the most difficult times because we are the ‘Easter People’ (St. Augustine) and we have faith in an eternal life. No matter what our troubles are, we can look to God and know that he is there, waiting for us, and until we are with him again in heaven, he will see us through whatever we have confronting us.

Do have a very joyful, blessed day and focus on all that is good in your life,

God bless,

Today is the day that Jesus’ body lies in his tomb, the violence is over and there is a peaceful silence. We wait outside and meditate on all that has happened and joyfully anticipate what is to come, his wonderful resurrection on Easter Sunday.

I love the Ignatian way of reading scripture, where you place yourself in the scene and think about all that is taking place and become part of it. You then ask yourself questions about how you are feeling and what you are thinking about what is going on. Here on Easter Saturday we can contemplate the atmosphere after the crucifixion and placing of Jesus’ body in the tomb and let feelings flow through us about that in silent, contemplative prayer.

Whenever we do meditate, we should do so in God’s capable hands. If we aren’t reading scripture but just want to simply ‘drift’ and be with God, we need to keep focussing on him and making sure that the meditation is directed to him. One phrase a priest gave to me that he used to use when meditating were the words: ‘God is Love’. You start by thinking about these words and saying them in your mind and very slowly reduce them to ‘God is’ and then simply to ‘God’. Our minds do need a focus so keep this in mind when you meditate and it will keep other worldly thoughts at bay.

I do pray for you to have a contemplative, peaceful Easter Saturday.

God bless,

I virtually attended a Maundy Thursday Mass last night and afterwards, when we pray and keep a vigil with Jesus I thought about all he had gone through for us that day. He had a last meal with his friends, the first eucharistic celebration, he knew he was going to be betrayed by one of them, denied by another, and he was aware of what an awful death he was about to face. Sitting in his prison, having been scourged nearly to death, ridiculed, spat at, his prayers to his Father must have been the one comfort he had at that time.

I know that he was human and divine, but when he died for us he must have died fully human as I can’t see how we could follow in the resurrection if he hadn’t made this way for us first. He needed to be the sacrificial lamb and could only do this without his divinity. When he is on the cross and prays ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (Psalm 22), I believe this is Jesus at his most distant from his Father, going through everything as a man with his divine side completely separated. He feels totally in the dark and alienated and uses the words of this psalm to express how he feels.

This psalm has a positive end in that the psalmist places his trust in his God, knowing that all will be well as God will rescue him ultimately. Even as he died, Jesus was most concerned about saving us and when he says ‘it is done’, his mission is over and he trusts in his Father that he has achieved his purpose in all of this.

Jesus died with all of our sins weighing him down and still is happy to console us and help us with our sorrows now. He is the sacrificial lamb who has been sacrificed for all time. He went through so much for us and has never stopped loving us and sacrificing himself for us.

I always feel that there is nothing I can do to thank him enough for this. All he wants in return is our love and everything follows on from that. He died not only for those who would love him and thank him, but also for those who would turn their back on him and ridicule him. How amazing is our God.

God bless,

It isn’t always easy to know what God’s will is for our lives. We pray and spend time with him, we ask him to guide us and help us with the decisions we have to make in our lives. I haven’t always felt him answer, in fact mostly, it is only after decisions have been made and events unfold that I understand what his will was for the particular decision I had to make.

I think we can take it that if we are going in the wrong direction, we will find that lots of obstacles are placed in our way. Possibly because we haven’t listened to God’s advice and gone ahead with something, his help has been to put difficult things in our way so that we change back to the course he has in mind for us.

An example I can think of is when we decide to move houses or areas. I put my house on the market a while ago and I did pray and ask for God’s direction on this and felt that moving was a good decision to make but maybe I wasn’t listening. It wasn’t smooth at all. I didn’t receive any offers and suddenly, my roof began leaking and I noticed a serious damp issue in my basement. A friend who put her house on the market after mine sold hers, moved into her new property and all in the time mine was still on the market! It must have been a very good move for her. I begin to see now that perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea for me for a variety of reasons and God was telling me that.

I think patience is the main way to discern his will. He answers but in his time and at the right time and if events conspire against something we want to do, it is probable that it won’t be right for us. It is difficult because sometimes we want something so much, or it is an easy answer to our problems, that we don’t listen and go ahead with a decision.

Hosea 14:9

Who is wise? Let them realize these things. Who is discerning? Let them understand. The ways of the LORD are right; the righteous walk in them, but the rebellious stumble in them.

May God bless you and help you to discern his will for your lives,

The best definition of loving someone that I ever read was that it involved ‘wanting the best for the other person’. I always thought that it involved our heart and our emotions and found it hard to say to myself that I was doing my best to love when I didn’t feel anything. We can’t love everyone, but we can make sure that with any involvement we have with someone, we are helping them in the best way that we can.

One of the greatest problems in this relationship of love is that we have to be so careful that when we are told someone’s problems and/or asked for advice, we try not to place ourselves in their situation. Often advice is given from the basis of how you are feeling about something and what you would do. This isn’t always good for the person seeking help or comfort. What you would do or advise for them might not necessarily be the best course. We can accidentally become frenemies because we interfere rather than help.

We also have to beware of any negative feelings we have, such as jealousy, creeping into our advice. Possibly without knowing it, we could be jealous of a relationship or talent and that can form part of the advice we give because it is tainted by these feelings.

This all came to mind today because it is ‘Spy Wednesday’ named after the time when Judas is spying out how he can betray Jesus. He was one of the disciples and close to Jesus and yet in spite of loving him and being allowed to get so close to him, he let his feelings lead him into this awful act. We can similarly let love turn into jealousy and spite so easily and we need to be aware when this is happening and draw back from that relationship as it is unhealthy and give those feelings to God so that he can bring healing.

My favourite quote from St Paul sums up this kind of love:

1 Corinthians 13

Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth.

God bless you and help you to love the people around you,

I was thinking about what I would write today and wanted to share with you some of the lovely hymns I have come to know and love. I have memorised some of them so that when I am on one of my long walks with my dog, Millie, I can recite them to myself.

Apart from bible passages and especially the psalms, the words in hymns can also be very uplifting and comforting. Saying the words to yourself may not be as enjoyable as singing them – they do say that singing is praying twice – but you can still receive so much from them on a spiritual level.

My favourites include: Alone with none but me my God I journey on my way; O the love of my lord is the essence; I will be with you wherever you go, go now throughout the World; Sing of Mary, pure and lowly; It were my soul’s desire to see the face of God; Praise to the holiest in the height; God is love, his the care, tending each everywhere – there is a very long list and I could go on for a long time.

The words to these songs are all easily googled and so I won’t set them all down in my blog, but they are well worth a read and a sing when you want to worship God or seek his company.

What is very special about hymns is that sometimes God also speaks to you through them. I remember feeling very low one day, driving to work and dreading the day. I was also worried about where I would live when I managed to sell my house. At that point, without having to wait at all, the words of the hymn ‘ I will be with you wherever you go’ appeared in my mind and I understood God was telling me it didn’t matter where I went, he would always be with me. It was very comforting. When I don’t feel well I also recite the ‘Alone with none but thee my God’ words to myself and they comfort me too.

These are just examples. It is very rewarding to have psalms, other bible passages and hymns at hand so that when you need them, you can just remember the words and they can bring joy and reassurance, whatever is happening in your life.

God bless,