Examination of Conscience

I offer to you Lord, each moment of the day, the petals fallen in the ground, the luminaries from above....the shadows from below.

My heart woven in Silence.

It is here where I discover your gifts and they take shape in front me.... and I understand the meaning of the time You gave me.... Today...

It is here at night, that the light of the Sun is gestated... for the Dawn needs its darkness to shine....the communion of day and night.

It is here Father where I kneel and ask for forgiveness and where Your Grace Rains, overflowing...and my darkness finds Your Light...and my heart Your abundant Love.....

Time to learn...every moment is time to learn....time to love and to forgive.....In my infinite hunger for You I remain here Father....by Your side, under the Tree of Life.......

Such a Heavenly Breeze....it is You and only You. In Your Heart, Mother... I will fall asleep.

Bendita sea tu pureza

Y eternamente lo sea

Pues todo un Dios se recrea

en tan Graciosa Belleza

a tí Celestial Princesa

Virgen Sagrada Maria

Yo te ofrezco en este día

Alma vida y corazón

Mirame con compasión

No me dejes Madre Mia.

Blessed be your purity,
May it be blessed forever,
For no less than God takes delight,
In such exalted beauty.
To you, heavenly Princess,
Holy Virgin Mary,
I offer on this day

My whole heart, life and soul.
Look upon me with compassion,
Do not leave me, my Mother.

Amen.

The Heart of Wisdom

Some months ago I was thinking about the difference between knowledge and wisdom.

I think that knowledge is something we find in books an it is in our mind, but wisdom is the unity between knowledge and Heart...knowledge and Compassion so that the "secrets" of a situation can be open to us not because of curiosity or judgement but because of Love.

When we see and understand a situation through the eyes and heart of "the other" and God then we are in the realm of wisdom but when we look at a situation just through our own analytical mind we are not able to see more than what is humanly possible to see.

I think that to receive wisdom we have to walk the path of Heart, the path of vulnerability....Wisdom is Simple.

When I was in the convent I used to sing this very often;

The Book of Wisdom
Chapter 9

1

God of my fathers, LORD of mercy. you who have made all things by your word

2

And in your wisdom have established man to rule the creatures produced by you,

3

To govern the world in holiness and justice, and to render judgment in integrity of heart:

4

Give me Wisdom, the attendant at your throne, and reject me not from among your children;

5

For I am your servant, the son of your handmaid, a man weak and short-lived and lacking in comprehension of judgment and of laws.

6

Indeed, though one be perfect among the sons of men, if Wisdom, who comes from you, be not with him, he shall be held in no esteem.

7

You have chosen me king over your people and magistrate for your sons and daughters.

8

You have bid me build a temple on your holy mountain and an altar in the city that is your dwelling place, a copy of the holy tabernacle which you had established from of old.

9

Now with you is Wisdom, who knows your works and was present when you made the world; Who understands what is pleasing in your eyes and what is conformable with your commands.

10

Send her forth from your holy heavens and from your glorious throne dispatch her That she may be with me and work with me, that I may know what is your pleasure.

11

For she knows and understands all things, and will guide me discreetly in my affairs and safeguard me by her glory;

12

Thus my deeds will be acceptable, and I shall judge your people justly and be worthy of my father's throne.

____________________________

May God give us Wisdom to live a life of Compassion.

Unfaithfully yours....

This Ash Wednesday was a little bit different than others, or perhaps is just that I don´t remember the others.

I was there in Church with Phil and Diane and many other beautiful people. Somehow Mary took me inside myself, I think She tricked me. First with Her beautiful Love She got all my attention and then....She took me there, inside myself, to those places where I don´t go very often because I feel like saying "Again????"

You see, I don´t kill, I don´t drink, I don´t smoke....I don´t look at pornography....I don´t....but She showed to me what I do. Those little things that I do and separate me from God....from Heaven...Those little tiny things that do not allow me to grow, to mature. Those little things are in reality BIG things because in some degree are bigger than my Love for God.

You will think that those "addictions" do not hurt anyone, but it is not true. First of all it hurts me because it does not matter the size of the attachment, big or small, if my will is not stronger than them I am giving my freedom away, which is God's Gift, to those little "gods" (or should I say "dogs")

The addiction is not the root of the problem, the problem is the emptiness that is hiding behind our addictions to perfection, to alcohol, to food, to cigarettes, to buy stuff that we don't need....to have the latest gadget in the market...to emotional flirting (this is a big one nowadays).....to working out.....to play games in the computer (beeeeep....sounds the alarm, here is one of mine).....to_______________ this is for you to fill the blank.

It hurts my husband because he cannot be present in those "little places" of my heart, they are already occupied.

The reality is that there is no possibility to live a live in compartments; "this is my professional life" "here is my family life" "here is the room for my private addictions" "here my hobbies"....all those "compartments" are connected and if there is darkness in one of them, then there is some degree of darkness in all of them.

We are created for Unity and we are UNITY, two cannot become ONE if there is just one and 1/2 or two 1/2 persons in the covenant. We still think that we can hide under the mask of "individuality" but the truth is that what you do affects me and what I do affects you.

So I was thinking about Hosea's marriage with a prostitute and how he had to deal with all her unfaithfulness...Hosea must be in the top ten of Heaven because What a life he had!.

I was thinking about Israel unfaithfulness and how God talked with clear images of adultery and sex regarding His relationship with His people. Of course all Israel was not having sexual relationships outside marriage but in their hearts they did. In their hearts they had those little or big gods that kept the ONLY GOD knocking outside the door.

God loves us so much that in His Love He will correct us.

When I was young-er, I used to be very, very, active. I loved parties, dance, smoke.... I was also workaholic ...I loved to be always on the go. God had been knocking for a loooong time and He knew that I was not going to answer if He was just pulling my hear.

God took my attention by taking my hip away and living me with chronic pain. I was a mad woman, frustrated and I said so many things to God in my anger!

It took me years to start to accept my situation, my daily pain, my limitations but while I was limited in the physical reality, I became more free in the spiritual reality. I started to look for Him, I realized that I truly needed Him to go through the day with hope, with peace. He took my hip, but He gave me a Heart that I didn't have before. I still struggle, really, sometimes I rebel...but thanks God it is not as long and as deep as before....perhaps it is because I am older now and I know that rebellion won't take me too far.

God gave me what I truly wanted a life with flavor a life with Him.

We are not done yet, as you can see. I am working on it and I know that He won't stop giving me light in all those things that I need to Surrender to Him, but, if we are truly honest...there is nothing better that we can do. He is the source of our Life, Happiness, Peace and He just wants to Restore us to be like His Son, to be Truly Happy.

I believe it is very important to check every day what we keep in our hearts, who is there and WHO is not there...If we keep track of what is going on in our hearts then we will improve, we will grow and we will be free.

God Bless you.....

Note: after reading my post and thinking for a while I would like to say something.

1. If I had to choose between having my health back and all I've learned about God, myself and others I would never choose my health. Health is something temporal, the knowledge of God and others lasts forever.

2. Yes, I believe that God, Who loves us SO MUCH can correct us in a "hard" way, when the "softer" ways don't work. Believe me, He tried many, many times in a soft way.....and I just was as hard as a rock. Jesus said that if our hand makes us sin we should cut it off...This is how vehemently we should long for Heaven.....Do we? Do I?

3. God loves hips....look at Jacob :)

Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts

Good morning, and thank You Father for this new day and all the things that you have prepared for us.

Very often that verse of Psalm 95 comes to me and I think that probably means that I have a natural inclination to harden my heart when I hear God´s Voice.

I believe that we harden our hearts when we are afraid, is like being petrified. So God´s voice comes to us bringing always liberation and we are so afraid to be free from our little or big addictions that we "protect" ourselves by becoming deaf as rocks. We don´t want to feel God´s presence and God´s Love because that will change us and change means "crisis".

Surrendering everything to God...and then "what".....well then we will see. I don´t have a magic answer.

Of course I think that it is hard for us to be "original". Society does not look with good eyes people that for whatever reason are "different" and the funny thing is that we all are called to be "different".

We feel the need to be "the same"; being careful that we don´t make anyone uncomfortable in this bubble that we have created and we call it "comfort zone" and "respect". Thus we don´t say things that can "hurt" others ( and I don´t mean calling names or things like that) we don´t stand for what is true because in most cases it is not politically correct....I think that Satan must be very happy with that "politically correct thing" that we have created. "Don´t ask, don´t tell"......grrrrr.

We have to choose....we have always to choose between God who is Light and is going to put into the Light any darkness in our hearts and around us...or keep "living" as if we are under a powerful anesthesia that leaves our conscience K.O.

Then we feel empty and traped and bored....and we need some excitement in our lives and we end looking for it in very wrong places. Why marriages last so little? Because we want to be entertained. Marriage is not about entertainment...if someone want´s that then I recomend him or her to go to the circus.

Marriage is hard work and a Wonderful Blessing. We grow together, we change together...we go deeper in God´s Heart....we become vulnerable to each other, we fight and we reconcile. We cannot "harden our hearts" if we want to stay truly married and alive.

Well I had no idea I was going to write all this today...Surprise!

Have a wonderful day and God Bless you. Let's not harden today our hearts!

Whispering a prayer

I was too little to remember but it did not matter at all. My mom whispered a prayer to our Lady of Guadalupe and she offered me to Her.

I think that most of us believe that what we say is lost in the wind, but Heaven has Memory and the intentions of our hearts fly straight to God's Heart in the wings of our Messengers...the Angels.

I never knew that my mom said that to Mary and Mary kept those words in Her Heart until I was ready to listen.

I think it was 5 years ago when the image of our Lady of Guadalupe came to our Church and I decided to stay there with Her, all night. I was praying, and reading and sometimes just flying around with my imagination or thinking about the miracles that came to us through Her.

I was looking at that image when I heard a soft beautiful voice saying "you are Mine". I looked around....I could not understand the why would She say that. I did not tell Bob nor anyone...I thought "you are just going crazy".

Those words were deeply engraved in my heart and I just could not forget them. I don't know why I called my mom. I decided to tell her what I had heard. At that time all my "spiritual experiences" were considered more like "weird things" so I would keep them to myself. I felt I could not keep this one I needed to know if I was really going "south". So I said.

"Mom, the other day I was praying in front of the image of our Lady of Guadalupe and I heard a voice that said "you are Mine"".

My mom was in silence for a few seconds and then she said to me "Yes, it is true, I offer you to Her when you was very little...I have done that with all your brothers and sisters too".

We did not talk more about that. When we finished our conversation I started to wonder why would Mary tell me that. I didn't know that our relationship was going to grow in depth and Love.

She had been there with me, even when I didn't want Her to be. Even when I walked away from God. She always remembered my mom's prayer.