Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Music

          Music is magical.  It can lift lowly spirits to soar, or calm a raging soul.  Families that have musical talent have a special gift, in my opinion.  Everyone who has ever heard me sing, knows that I cannot carry a tune and not gifted in that area.  But thank God that the gift of music is available to all families and it can enhance family life.  Like everything though, there is good music and there is bad music. 

          Once I realized that my husband was not going to play the guitar after dinner and we all sing, "Kumbaya," I started to introduce feel-good types of music in our home utilizing our stereo.  Of course then it was albums and cassettes.  It was so surprising to me how many praise and worship albums there were, as I had never purchased one as a teenager or young adult.  Singing about the love of God just took place in church, or so I thought.

          Music that inspires a love that is pure and beautiful, fills a home with peace.  There are a lot of pop culture songs that are fun, lively, filled with good messages, and great to enjoy together as a family.  There are also a lot of pop culture songs that contain lyrics that convey darkness, impurity, and are filled with bad messages.  Whenever my husband and I sing along with some of the "oldies" we listened to in high school, we are amazed at the messages of some of them.  We always sang the words as we thought they were, and they really weren't the correct words at all.  I'm sure many can relate!  It comes as a surprise to no one, I'm sure, that a lot of those songs were not good music.  Good music is kind-hearted.

          Whenever our children would speak kind words to one another, it was music to my ears.  I'm sure it is the same with God whenever we speak kindly to one another.  Now imagine a musical tribute.  My children have never sang a song to honor me, but if they did, my tear ducts would need a dam to stop the water flow.  That's how I picture God whenever we sing or play praise and worship songs to Him.  I so appreciate all the Christian artists who create beautiful songs in praise and worship of our Lord.  As Christian parents, it is our duty to instill in our children an appreciation of this good music and the joy it brings to our Heavenly Father.

          My heart is filled with the love of music today, as I am having our piano tuned and looking forward to taking piano lessons.  Perhaps my vision of Bob playing the guitar, and me at the piano, entertaining our grandchildren with kind-hearted music filled with the love of God, is a miracle waiting to happen.  As long as I don't sing, it will be music to God's ears.  In the meantime, I always have all of my c.d.s to sing along with.

          I have several favorite c.d.s, but right now my favorite that relaxes me and lifts me up closer to God is entitled, Hidden in My Heart, a lullaby journey through Scripture.  I highly recommend this work to be incorporated into your marriage and family life.  Check it out online.  If anyone else has some great recommendations for music that brings peace to their family life, please share with us.


"addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart, always and for everything giving thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father."  (Ephesians 5:19-20)

"Sing joyfully to the Lord, all you lands; break into song, sing praise.  Sing praise to the Lord with the harp, with the harp and melodious song.  With trumpets and the sound of the horn sing joyfully before the King, the Lord."  (Psalm 98:4-6)
 

           

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Baptism

          A difficult part for me in writing this blog is knowing that it is easier for me to live these lessons because I am no longer in the throes of a young family.  I realize that it is hard to be in a loving state of mind when there is chaos and constant needs to address all around you.  It's hard enough to love everyone when there's peace and quiet and time for much prayer!  But the temptation to get depressed, to feel overwhelmed and all alone is always lurking, no matter what stage of our life's vocation we are in.

          Once I learned about the power of our Baptismal graces, it has forever helped me to fight temptations, at least when I remember to call upon them.  When Blessed Virgin Mary said, Yes to being the Mother of God, she was plunged into a death of life as she knew it and began a new life with Christ.  In our Baptism, we are plunged into the water as a sign of dying to sin, and coming forth from the water into new and resurrected life with Christ.  At the Incarnation, Blessed Virgin Mary was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit and Jesus was conceived in her womb.  At Baptism, we are overshadowed by the Holy Spirit and become one with the Holy Trinity.  As members of the holy family of God, we are adopted children of the Father, sisters and brothers to the only begotten Son of God, and filled with the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

          Whether we were just a baby when our parents decided for us to be baptized, or if baptism took place later in life, it can never be undone, or redone.  There is an indelible mark on our soul and we are branded to return to the Father in Heaven.  We renew our baptismal vows every Easter and profess our faith that we belong to God and we reject Satan and all of his empty promises.  Our supernatural life, the life of grace, which makes us holy, begins at Baptism.  All baptized Christians have the same mission:   die to sin with Christ in order to resurrect to eternal life with Christ.

          Here's a beautiful story of the power of our Baptism graces that is told by Sr. Briege McKenna in her book, The Power of the Sacraments.   

"I recall a beautiful testimony of a mother in Florida whose son had renounced the Church.  He had turned away, and for years she never heard from him.  One day a priest asked this mother, "Is your son baptized?"
She said, "Yes, certainly he's baptized."
"So do you know what I want you to do?"  He told her, "Get the formula of Baptism, the whole baptismal ceremony.  Go through it, and renew the baptismal promises in your son's name.  Renew the promises to renounce Satan and all his evil works.  Do that for your son every time you pray for him.  Claim the power of the Sacrament of his Baptism.  Ask Christ, who sees your son wherever he is in the world, to stir up within him the grace of his Baptism."
Three weeks later, in the middle of the night, this boy phoned his mother.  He sobbed, "Mum, I don't know how to describe what has happened to me."  Then he related that he had met someone in a store who had invited him to a prayer meeting.  In that atmosphere he had rediscovered his faith.  She realized that this had happened at the time that she claimed him into the family of God again."
Too often we abort God's life in us for the things of this world.  This makes it easy to abort children in the womb, or other human beings from our heart because we don't "need" them and their potential problems/demands.  But God never abandons us or leaves us orphaned.  He always upholds His promise He made to us at our Baptism, that He will be our God and Father.  It is up to us to keep our vow to Him, to be His children and heirs to the Kingdom.  Whenever we are tempted to separate from God and His commandments, let's call upon our Baptism graces!  But when we give in to sin, it is never too late while we are in this world to reconcile with God and let His life of grace flow anew within us.

          Today we celebrate the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and it happens to be my Baptism anniversary.  We always celebrated birthdays, of course, in our home, but didn't pay any attention to the day we were reborn into God's life of grace, our Baptismal day.  My husband and I do now, and our oldest son was baptized on the feast day of St. Francis deSales who is the patron saint of writers, and our son is a writer.  It is all very interesting when we are open to the life of grace that begins at Baptism, and it should be celebrated.  I pray that all families make this a tradition in their homes.  Check out the date you and your loved ones were baptized and celebrate it.

          Another very difficult thing for me in writing this blog is keeping it short because there is so much to say about each topic.  But I would be remiss if I did not say more about this feast day.  I renewed my consecration to Our Blessed Mother today.  She is full of grace and has been given to us to be our spiritual mother; to nourish us with Jesus.  She was taken up into Heaven and I believe she will be our mid-wife when our time comes to be born into eternal life, just as she helped Elizabeth birth St. John the Baptist into this life.  And just as St. John the Baptist proclaimed about Jesus, "He must increase, but I must decrease" (John 3:30), no one is more humble and constant in pointing to Jesus and away from herself than Our Blessed Mother.  Everyone should want an intimate relationship with this loving mother full of grace who will help us live our Baptismal vows and be born into Heaven.  Amen.


"Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, 'Brethren, what shall we do?' And Peter said to them, 'Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.  For the promise is to you and to your children and to all that are far off, every one whom the Lord our God calls to him.'  And he testified with many other words and exhorted them, saying, 'Save yourselves from this crooked generation.'  So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.  And they held steadfastly to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of the bread and to the prayers."  (Acts 2:37-42)

Friday, August 10, 2012

Desire

          Today I am reflecting on another lesson that I share with teens on retreat.  Our parish includes a pre-K through 8th grade school, and as our students were preparing to graduate from the school and enter high school, I conducted a retreat for them.  The purpose of this retreat is threefold:  1. to reflect on their school experience thus far in order to learn from them as they move further along in their education,  2. to discuss the anticipations and apprehensions associated with changing over to high school, and 3. to be grateful for the blessing of their education thus far.

          During the entire course of the retreat over the many years that I have done them, I have never had even one student remark that one thing they are looking forward to in their move to high school is to learn more.  Their responses always included their desire for more sports, band, better food, new people, dances, etc.  It usually leads to my informing the students that the purpose for going to school is to learn, and we are only truly fulfilled, if we have a desire to learn.  Without that purpose, we leave school each day wanting more, when there is no more.

          God showed me that we do the very same thing with family life.  I must confess that I do not desire each day to do laundry, clean, cook, and take care of the multitude of needs in managing a family.  My demeanor can reflect that I must do these things, not that I want to and desire to. It's the same for going off to employment.  Many employees display the attitude that they are there because they need to provide for their family but they don't desire to be there.  There were many times that a family would arrive on a family retreat, and invariably there was one person in the family who was not a happy camper, and not afraid to let us know that they did not want to be there and there was nothing we could do to make him/her enjoy it. 

          The purpose of life is to live.  Our desire each day should be to live well in whatever capacity we find ourselves. God is alive and that is the Good News.  We are alive and that is good news!  It shouldn't matter so much as to what we find ourselves doing as long as we do it with a love for living.  Life has a lot of disappointments because we want so much more out of life than just living well.  Jesus had to come to earth to show us how to live, and if we live Jesus, we will desire to do whatever is life-giving. 

          Cooking, cleaning, taking care of our family, going to work, praying, going on retreat, loving, marital sex without contraception, forgiving, volunteering, giving alms, are all life-giving and what being alive is all about.  The gift of life is so mysterious.  When everything is well, we want more, and yet, when an illness/addiction occurs and we find a loved one fighting for their life, we just desire to live life well.  Let's value life and every person in it, especially in our family, and be grateful for the opportunity to live Jesus in our world.  Living life to its fullest purpose is to desire to live well no matter where we find ourselves. 


"Live, Jesus!"  (Motto and theme of St. Francis deSales' writings and life work.  Also used by the Knights of Columbus and many other organizations.)
"Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life;"  (John 14:6)