To grow joy in your heart, nurture hope

+JMJ+

 



Several weeks ago during prayer ministry, I asked for the people praying for me to pray for an increase in the virtues of faith, hope, and charity in my heart, especially the virtue of hope.  It was something a bit more specific than other times where I did not know what to ask for, except to ask for healing.  I trusted that God answered those prayers for healing even if it did not seem evident right away.  Looking back over the months, it is true that much healing has occurred.

When  asking specifically for the virtue of hope, He started answering me amost right away.  It's hard to put into words all that He is teaching me, but I want to share just a little of how He is working in my heart.  I am thankful for the grace of asking for hope because it is during Advent specifically that this virtue is nurtured.  We wait in expectant hope for the celebration of His birth and to receive Christ in His Glory when He comes at the end of time.  The gift the Holy Spirit gave during that prayer ministry over me was to open in a new way my ears, eyes, and heart to Him, so He could teach me about hope.  He is shepherding me ever closer to His Heart.  Even in the darkness I know His light is here, and He is teaching me to listen to His voice.  His voice speaks to me through prayer, reading His Word, Holy Mass (both in prayer and in the priest's words), through spiritual reading, and in people and circumstances I encounter.

Over the past weeks, much violence has occurred in our own community, in our nation, and the world.  Along with that, there have been deep disappointments in my own life this past week.  It is tempting to despair in the face of such evil and in the face of our own suffering and trials.  But with Christ in us, we do not despair; we hope in Him; we know His presence; we trust His great love for us and intimate knowledge of our suffering.  We know His presence in the hearts of those who gave their lives in order to save others.  He is God with us, Emmanuel.  

Father Andrew has a beautiful homily at Catholic Vision on our need for joy in the midst of suffering and how Mary, coming as Our Lady of Guadalupe, teaches us.  I have prayed for an increase of joy before, but it seems as though abiding joy is fleeting in my heart, even absent such suffering.  Now I somewhat understand why.  Perhaps my desire for hope is a fruit of praying for joy?  Being an engineer, I understand that in order to do calculus, you must first know easier forms of math.  Not to say that the virtue of hope is easier than joy, but I am learning that hope is necessary for joy.  In nurturing hope, I trust God will give me joy.

How do I nurture hope?  In Spe Salvi, Pope Benedict XVI tells us, "A first essential setting for learning hope is prayer."  He goes on to say the following:

Saint Augustine, in a homily on the First Letter of John, describes very beautifully the intimate relationship between prayer and hope. He defines prayer as an exercise of desire. Man was created for greatness—for God himself; he was created to be filled by God. But his heart is too small for the greatness to which it is destined. It must be stretched. “By delaying [his gift], God strengthens our desire; through desire he enlarges our soul and by expanding it he increases its capacity [for receiving him]”. Augustine refers to Saint Paul, who speaks of himself as straining forward to the things that are to come (cf. Phil 3:13). He then uses a very beautiful image to describe this process of enlargement and preparation of the human heart. “Suppose that God wishes to fill you with honey [a symbol of God's tenderness and goodness]; but if you are full of vinegar, where will you put the honey?” The vessel, that is your heart, must first be enlarged and then cleansed, freed from the vinegar and its taste. This requires hard work and is painful, but in this way alone do we become suited to that for which we are destined.

A great resource on prayer is The Catechism of the Catholic Church, Part 4, Christian Prayer, particularly Section 1, Chapter 3: The Life of Prayer (CCC 2697-2758).  "We cannot pray at all times if we do not pray at specific times, consciously willing it" (CCC 2697). 

As we pray, we realize that this hope is not meant for us alone.  Pope Benedict XVI also tells us,

When we pray properly we undergo a process of inner purification which opens us up to God and thus to our fellow human beings as well.

Like Mary, our hope is to be shared, to bring the light we have been given to others.  And so, it is through prayer that God is nurturing hope in my heart.  By His grace, the hope He gives me, I share with others through action.  And it is with expectant hope, I await His abiding joy.

Mary, Mother of Hope, Bearer of Hope, pray for us!


  

Hope

+JMJ+

The world desperately needs hope.  Hope that only Christ can give.  He is the way, the truth and the life, and the only way to the Father is through Him.  My first major conversion of heart occurred in college when a dear friend Andrea brought the light of Christ to me straight from the boldness, and humility, of her own heart.  The light of Christ living in her and in her family showed me Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.  The love they had for eachother and for others, and particularly me, was life-changing.  We met while working together as freshmen, and I am so thankful to God for that particular grace.  She invited me to Church with her, and when I was 19, I was baptized.  I am so glad she loved me enough to invite me and to continue to invite me.  Although my heart is constantly being converted as I realize my identity in Christ as a daughter of God, it was that first conversion where God found me, His prodigal daughter, His lost sheep.  His love came to me through another person, through that friendship with Andrea. 

Thank You Jesus for Andrea, for her family and especially for You, living in our hearts.  Thank you for finding me and bringing me home to Our Father.  Let Your love shine through me and my family; may we bring Your light into the darkness.  Mary, Mother of Hope, teach us to live as you, with boldness and humility, always pointing to Jesus, proceeding in haste, and always magnifying His Glory.  My spirit rejoices in You God, my Savior. In the Most Holy Name of Jesus, Amen.

Advent Jesse Tree Day 3: Mother of All Living

For she is an aura of the might of God

and a pure effusion of the glory of the Almighty;

therefore nought that is sullied enters into her.

 

For she is the refulgence of eternal light,

the spotless mirror of the power of God,

the image of His goodness.

 

And she, who is one, can do all things,

and renews everything while herself perduring;

And passing into holy souls from age to age,

she produces friends of God and prophets.

 

For there is nought God loves, be it not

one who dwells with Wisdom.

 

For she is fairer than the sun,

and surpasses every constellation of the stars.

 

Compared to light she takes precedence;

for that; indeed, night supplants,

but wickedness prevails not over Wisdom.

 

~Wisdom 7: 25-30

 

Mary, I give you my will. Conform it to the will of your Son. In the Most Holy Name of Jesus, Amen.

+JMJ+

 

Jesse Tree Advent Day 3:  Mother of All Living (Mary)

From Genesis: The Lord God said to the serpent, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. Genesis 3:14a, 15, 20

From Luke:  In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth… And he came to her and said, “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you! … And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.”… And Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.  Luke 1: 25, 28, 31, 38

From John: When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.  John 19: 26-27

From Revelation: And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; she was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth, in anguish for delivery. Then the dragon was angry with the woman, and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus.  Revelation 12: 1-2, 17a

Advent Jesse Tree Day 2: The Fall

Do you trust God or do you trust the serpent?

 

Lord, draw us closer to Your Sacred Heart, so that it is Your voice we hear.  Dispel all the lies that we believe so that only Your truth remains. In Your Holy Name, Amen.

 

+JMJ+

Advent Jesse Tree Day 2:  The Fall (represented by apple and serpent)
 

From Genesis:

But God said, “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, and he ate.  But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” And he said, “I heard the sound of thee in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.” He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”  ~Genesis 3: 3-6, 9-11

 From First Corinthians:

For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.  For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.  ~1 Corinthians 15: 21-22

From Romans:                                

Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned. ….Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.  But the free gift is not like the trespass.  For if many through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. ~Romans 5: 12, 14-15

Advent Jesse Tree Day 1: In the beginning

Advent is one of the most beautiful times of the Church year, a time to examine and prepare our hearts for the coming of our Lord Jesus, both in His Nativity and in His glorious return at the end of the present world.  We ask God to prepare us, and we say, Come Lord Jesus!

God's promises to His beloved people are throughout His Word.  He is faithful, and we can trust Him and His Fatherly promises.  He is our Shepherd, and we are His people.  One of the ways that God has drawn me to Him is in studying the Old Testament and seeing the beauty of His plan for His people and for us, His children.  He loves us and draws us close to His heart throughout our lives.  May we call to our Shepherd in our brokenness, listen, hear His voice, and know His presence.  He comes to find us when we are lost, and in the darkness, we hear His voice calling us closer to Him.  Come, Lord Jesus, find us, heal us, and prepare us to receive You ever more.

+ JMJ+

Jesse Tree Day 1:  In the beginning (represented by planet Earth ornament)

 

From Genesis 1:

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and the darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters. And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. Genesis 1: 1-3, 27, 31

From John 1

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father. John 1: 1-5, 14