Pentecost

An article from Fr. Walter Nolte

And they were filled with the gift of the Holy Spirit…

            Praise God for the Advocate has arrived as promised. Heaven has rushed to earth and our hearts have been consecrated in the truth of God’s love for us. We, the Mystical Body of Christ, have been enpowered to go out and proclaim the good news that God has indeed visited his people.

            We have been given all the gifts necessary to complete our share in the mission of Christ to bring honor and glory to the Name of the Father. So, there is no need to fear. The Holy Spirit will seize our tongues and give us the words we need to speak when we need to speak them. All we have to do is allow him to speak through us. All we have to do is to allow him to love through us. All we have to do is be a willing vessel in the hands of our Lord.

            Ask God to use you in a special way in your homes and workplaces this week. Give him your voice and tell him that it belongs to him and then wait for the Lord to act. Each time you treat another with love you will be bringing heaven to earth. You will be fulfilling your share in the mission of Christ. You will be intermingling heaven and earth thus making God visible to hearts and minds that otherwise may not have seen him.

Have a blessed week.

Father Nolte

Praising God in the Midst of Suffering

Tuesday of the Sixth Week of Easter     May 7th
Lectionary: 292

Reading 1ACTS 16:22-34

The crowd in Philippi joined in the attack on Paul and Silas, and the magistrates had them stripped
and ordered them to be beaten with rods.
After inflicting many blows on them,
they threw them into prison and instructed the jailer to guard them securely. When he received these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell and secured their feet to a stake.

About midnight, while Paul and Silas were praying
and singing hymns to God as the prisoners listened,
there was suddenly such a severe earthquake
that the foundations of the jail shook;
all the doors flew open, and the chains of all were pulled loose. 

When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself,
thinking that the prisoners had escaped.
But Paul shouted out in a loud voice,
“Do no harm to yourself; we are all here.”
He asked for a light and rushed in and,
trembling with fear, he fell down before Paul and Silas.
Then he brought them out and said,
“Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus
and you and your household will be saved.”
So they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to everyone in his house.

He took them in at that hour of the night and bathed their wounds; then he and all his family were baptized at once. He brought them up into his house and provided a meal and with his household rejoiced at having come to faith in God.    

    Yesterdays readings of Paul and Silas being beaten, stripped, and imprisoned then singing hymns and praying to God made me really think.  They were praising God so profoundly in the midst of their trials and suffering that it made the earth shake and changed the hearts of those around them so much so that the jailer actually took them into his home and bathed their wounds.

     Do you think the jailer recognized God in, with, and through them and experienced God loving him through Paul and Silas?  Maybe the jailer realized he was bathing the wounds of Christ in Paul and Silas.

     I saw that if we can truly praise God in the midst of our suffering and situations it can set us free.  It says there was a severe earthquake and it shook foundations, flew open doors and pulled the chains loose.  That speaks of freedom to me!

     How many times do we moan, complain and sit in our suffering and situations, angry because of them and it just continues to bring us down?

     May we learn to be like Paul and Silas and praise God so profoundly in the midst of all things and situations that we live in God's freedom and be witnesses to all around us so God can love through us and change lives!

The Four Walls and Three Gates

     As I sat with the readings from today in prayer last night I was drawn to the four walls and the three gates at each one.  Three facing north, three east, three west and three south and how north, east, west, and south are "news" and there was no need for any light because the Lamb was there.  I began to ponder these four walls each with three gates and the Lord begin to draw me into the four walls representing prayer, penance, silence and solitude and the three gates being the Holy Trinity in each one.  When we allow the Trinity into each of the four walls of prayer we truly do not need physical light because we have the true light of the Lamb within.  This city is in our heart where the Lamb dwells.
     The heart then is a beautiful place because the Lamb is in it.  The heart has been transformed because of the Lamb.    
     Our physical heart controls so much. It is the life force that keeps all our other parts functioning.  It keeps the blood and oxygen flowing in its correct order and pumps life to the rest of the body. Christ does the same if we let him.
     What is in our hearts that still needs transformed so that the full light of Christ can shine in, with, and through us so we can pump life to the rest of the body, so we can spread the good "news" of Christ?

Nature Obeys

     Today in my prayer time I was drawn to all the activity in my little backyard of the birds, squirrels, and rabbits.  I was so taken in by the mere fact that they just do what they are supposed to. There is no questioning, reasoning, or just simply trying to get out of doing something they do not really want to do. And they truly are totally dependent upon what God provides just like it says in Mt. 6:26-34.
     It is mating time in the animal world and there is also already some new little ones about.  As I watched these creatures it made me see that if we really obeyed God in all things and relied totally upon his provenience we too would have new and more life.
     The animals have no choice but to obey. Our Father gave us the choice so how much more then we should want to.  He trusted us enough to seek him and his plans for us.  That speaks very loudly of how much he loves us to give us the freedom to choose to love him back.
     It brought up the dialogue with the Father of asking him to show me ways I might be blocking new life within me through a disobedience or simply not responding to his providence.