Easter Joy! The Love That Is Still With Us, The Love Which Awaits Us

“God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.”

- Jn. 3:16-17

“The Lord your God is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will renew you in His Love; He will exult over you with loud singing as on a day of festival.”

- Zeph. 3:17-18

“Because of the death of Jesus on the Cross, all the sins of humanity since the dawn of history have become as a drop of water to be lost in the ocean of God’s mercy.”

- Thought based on the writings of Corrie Ten Boom

“An immortal soul is beyond all price. There is no trouble too great, no humiliation too deep, no suffering too severe, no love too strong, no labor too hard, no expense too large, but that it is worth it, if it is spent in the effort to win a soul for God.”

- Author Unknown

            Do we see the Love which reaches out to us from the Cross of Christ? It is there that Jesus reveals the fullness of the Father’s Love for us, a Love beyond all that we can ask or imagine. It is Divine Love that through Christ’s Spirit is present in power to us even now. It is Divine Love too which awaits us in the world beyond our world, awaits us with a fullness and fire beyond anything we can dare to dream possible. It is a Love for each of us burning in the Sacred Heart of the Father. It is a Divine Love that on our final day will greet us and embrace us when in communion with His Son we rise with Him to Glory. It is the Glory, the Grace, the Heaven of being drawn into the burning Heart of God and being immersed forever in the fire of His Love for us.  

            I watched “The Passion of The Christ” this Good Friday, and no matter how many times I see it, I am unnerved at the extent of the suffering endured by Our Lord.

            Why did He do it? The Satan figure in Mel Gibson’s film tells us that it was all for the price of atoning for humanity’s sins. To give the Devil his due, this is true. But the Evil One is ever about doing what he always does. He leaves us with half the truth or less; he leaves us with an incomplete picture, or better still, he leaves out the most important part of the picture. Yes Jesus on the Cross is atoning for sin, saving humanity, paying the price for our salvation. But what the film doesn’t accent enough is that all of this is for me, for you, for each of us.

            It is for each of us that the Lord does what He does. We are His “happy thought”. We are the Focus that drives Jesus irresistibly forward in His pursuit of the Father’s Dream for us. It is each of us that Jesus is thinking about as He takes each step along the way of the Cross, and as He climbs higher and farther toward the summit of Calvary. It is Divine Love for us, the Father’s Love for His children burning in the Heart of Jesus, which empowers the Lord to bear all things, to suffer all things, to pay any price for the fulfillment of God’s Purpose, the Mission and Dream of having humanity with Him, in His Presence and in His embrace forever.

            I love the awesome scene in “The Passion” film when Jesus truly strengthened by Mary’s presence begins to raise the Cross once more, all the while refocusing on that Mission and Dream. As He lifts the Cross Jesus says to Our Blessed Mother, “Behold, I make all things new!” It is a statement echoing Christ’s words from the Book of Revelations, words that signify the restoration of creation to the state before the Fall – before the Fall from Grace, before the brokenness, before the collapse of that state of “at-one-ment” between God and humanity, that state of Paradise, of Eden, the primordial Garden where God walked with us in friendship, intimacy, and holy communion.

            As awesome as this scene from the film was, imagine if Jesus had turned His gaze from Mary at that moment, and then looked into the camera at each of us. Then what if He had repeated the words from Revelations while adding “for you”? “Behold, I make all things new - for you!” As amazing as this scene already was (And it was!), I think it would have increased exponentially in its power with Jesus saying “for you”, all the while gazing out at us. Why else does He lift the Cross with such power and passion if not for Love of us? “And I when I am lifted up” on the Cross “will draw all humanity to myself” - will draw all humanity into my embrace, into most Holy Communion with the Sacred Heart of God.

            In the “Chicken Soup for The Soul” series there is an incredible story about a father who rescues his son from the rubble of a school building totally destroyed during an 8.1 earthquake in Armenia. Every year without fail I find myself thinking about that father as I watch “The Passion” film and contemplate the Divine Love which drives Jesus on irresistibly to endure and even embrace suffering and death for me, for us. In fact, this is His Mission: to reveal the fullness of the Father’s Love for us. Like the father in the Chicken Soup story, the Divine Love radiating from Jesus wants only to rescue us and have us once more in His embrace. For that reason alone, for this singular “WHY?”, Jesus endures the scourging, the crown of thorns, the mockery, the contempt and scorn of his accusers, the humiliation and disgrace, as well as the horror and torment of the Cross.

            Jesus is exactly like the father in the earthquake story. The father digging through the rubble wants only to have his son once more with him. He had always told his son, “I’ll always be there for you!” Did not God say the same to us on Sinai? I AM Who am ever present with you, with tender, faithful Love. On the cross Jesus pays the price to keep the Father’s promise to us, to be faithful to His covenant vow to us.

            But there is even more to the metaphorical power of the Chicken Soup story. For his son, to be there always for his son, the father begins to dig through the rubble of his son’s collapsed school, hoping against hope that he could save his child. The father thought only of his son as he dug for eight hours, twelve hours, twenty-four hours, thirty-six hours all for the purpose of rescuing his son, all for the dream if you will, of having his son once more with him, once more safe and secure in his home and in the embrace of his father’s love. The father embraces the Cross to save his son. The father endures the Passion to rescue his son.

            During thirty-six hours of digging by himself through huge rocks and boulders, the father never once stops to rest. He does not stop to eat or drink. Then in the thirty-eighth hour the father finds his son alive and rescues him along with over a dozen of his classmates who also survived. Does not Jesus do the same in his own Passion? It is for me, for us, that Jesus pays the price of the Passion. He endures all, suffers all, to rescue us from the ruin and collapse which ensues upon the Fall – from the brokenness of human life and the separation from God and His Love, which ensues upon the trauma of the Fall from Grace.

            Yes, Jesus came into the world to suffer, to die, to save sinners, to atone for sin. But we reduce Christianity to something so much less than it is when we look only at such ideas as a full representation of Christ’s work and mission. Really, when we entertain such ideas as a full understanding and comprehensive vision of Jesus’ Mission and Dream, we reduce Christianity to an incredibly incomplete picture, a warped and twisted picture of all that the Father in His Love had planned for humanity. We become in our teaching and theological courses like “a noisy gong or a clanging symbol”, and the instruction of our Catholic colleges and Christian universities “profits us nothing”. (1 Cor. 13)

            It is because we fail to contemplate with tears of Joy the Divine Love which fuels the “Why” of the Passion. “Why” did Jesus bear all things, suffer all things, endure all things, even the sting and scourge of the Roman flagellum, even the horror and humiliation of Roman crucifixion? Remember the “Why?” Focus always on the “Why?” It is you!

AN EASTER PRAYER FOR YOU

That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in Love, may have power to comprehend with all the Saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth of that Love, power to know the Love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you might be filled with all the fullness of God…

That you may know that Love which no eye has seen, nor ear heard, that it has never even entered into the heart of a human being to conceive as possible… This God will reveal to you through His Spirit…

- Thoughts based on St. Paul, Eph. 3:17-19, and 1Cor. 2:

The Problem: The Gospel That is Jesus - Why Settle for Less?

The Problem: The Gospel That Is Jesus – Why Settle for Less?

                Settling for less than a full understanding of the Faith leads to a situation – one like we have now – that is seriously problematic for the Church. Most significantly, this is because such a state of affairs mutilates Christianity.  To be more graphic, it dismembers Christ. How else are we to put it if our schools and churches give the people of God only the Head of Christ, His teaching and His wisdom, but avoid any encounter with His Sacred Heart, even shut out any experience of the awesome Love, Divine Love, which issues forth from that Heart pierced and broken for us?

            How can such a tragedy be avoided when in fact Christians today embrace an idea of Faith that expects so little in comparison to what God wants to give us in the gift of Jesus? Such a course of action cannot but create a perilous state of affairs in the Church, yet this is exactly the course pursued by so much of the Christianity witnessed in our own day and time.

            Is this an extreme conclusion on my part? Ultimately each person must decide for themselves. But if one says there is a full and vibrant understanding of Christian Faith resonant among the people of God today, indeed it is difficult to see. For myself, I do not see it. What challenging, compelling signs of vibrant Faith surround me and confront me that I need to see but in fact do not see? Where is this vibrant experience of God’s Love present in power to which true Faith leads, and to which it leads as to its central focus and goal before it does anything else?

            This is the fundamental task of true Christian Faith: to lead exactly to this experience of God present in poawer to the heart of every human being in and through the Holy Spirit of Christ’s Love. But where is it? Or rather, where is He, the Lord in the Person of His Spirit alive and present among us today? Where is this experience of His Love pervasive and resonant among the Christian “faithful” of our own day?

            Some may protest my provocative questions as an outrageous challenge to the contemporary Church. But then, for myself, for my own good, I only ask that you take me to what you see. I long to see what you see if it would truly help me to notice powerful signs of His Life among us that I have failed to observe.

            What is it then that you see? Is it the sight of seminaries and convents filled to overflowing with new vocations? Is it perhaps a growing national movement of priests praying together daily in their rectories? How about a capacity crowd every Sunday at your parish Mass; or is it perhaps a Sunday Mass filled to overflowing with youth, youth “raising the church roof” with songs and psalms of praise sung with the strength and force of conviction? Maybe there are such movements, places, parishes and spirit-filled happenings – the dreams of Jesus and Mary for the Church if you will - but I do not see many, if any.

            Rather, all too clear to ignore and misconstrue, is a very different picture confronting us, in sharp contrast to these beautiful dreams for the Church that I too long to see. Too clearly present to ignore or obscure is the sight of so many areas of contemporary Christianity – if you can call it that – pursuing a perilous course to ruin, and precisely for no other reason than this failure to communicate the full Gospel, a whole and full understanding of Christian Faith. And what understanding of Faith is that? It is Faith that leads people first and foremost to an experiential dimension of God’s transforming Love; Faith that must lead to the power of this Love, Christ’s Love, as necessary and salvific – a Divine Love that can be present and known to the heart of humanity, that can fill the human heart to overflowing. And Jesus said, “If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink. For, as Scripture says, from his heart there shall pour forth rivers of Living Water.”

            Yet the manifestations of Christian Faith surrounding us today fall so far short of any such mission. Satisfied with simply communicating Church doctrines, precepts, and faith formulations, contemporary Church leaders pretty much leave out or ignore any effort to guide the people of God to an encounter with the Risen Christ, “alive and still with us”, present in power among us through the Person of His own Love, the Holy Spirit. I can still remember the opening words of a Cardinal of the Church to the assembled Confirmandi at my son’s Confirmation: “Don’t expect anything miraculous to happen here here today.” So much for my son’s hope for his own personal Pentecost. Was the miracle of Pentecost merely for the Apostles? Or did the miracle of Pentecost - or for that matter, all miracles and powerful manifestations of the Spirit – cease with the close of the Apostolic Age? I think not!!!

            So we are left with failure of the Church today to truly evangelize, to proclaim a full Gospel message; to proclaim like Paul a Gospel that is the power of salvation to all who believe, a Gospel that will baptize us and confirm us with heavenly Fire, with the Holy Spirit coming upon us and anointing us with a sudden “sound from Heaven like the rush of a mighty wind” (Act 2:1).

Note: Interested in reading more? The "Hodge Podge" in its entirety is now available as an eBook in our website store. Peace to you, God Bless, Doug +

A RIDE ON ROLLING THUNDER

A RIDE ON ROLLING THUNDER

My reflection at Christmas: what it means for Christ to come to us, for Mary to bring Him to us, and for their Love to be present in Power to our lives…

The night was August 27^th, the night I suffered a myocardial infraction, a heart attack. It was a frightening experience, a painful experience. But it was also an incredible experience of the power of Christian Faith in the face of the imminent possibility of one’s passing from this life. 

I awoke around 2:00 AM with a pulsating pain in my upper chest. I didn’t know what it was, this pain unlike anything I had ever experienced before. On a scale of one to ten I gave it a 7.5 – that’s what I told nurses and doctors throughout that night. It was immediately a pain so acute that I awoke my son Tim and asked him to take me to the Steward Hospital in Norwood, the next town over from us.

Back in my bedroom I dressed quickly and grabbed my rosary from Medjagore. Before leaving I gazed up to the wall above my bureau and focused on my awesome picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. I gave my heart to Him, as I have done every day of my life. The whole way to the hospital I kept the names of Jesus and Mary constantly upon my lips. 

Upon entering the emergency room the attendant immediately saw my duress and put me in a wheelchair. I was taken with dispatch to a room in the emergency ward. I noted right away that the bed on which I was placed had a crucifix on the wall right next to it. For the next seven hours the Cross was right above my head within the reach of my arm.

Though the pain did not abate during those hours I felt the presence of the Lord and the comfort of Mary’s embrace ever so intensely. As I gazed at the Cross and called upon the name of God, images came to me that carried Power to my soul and spirit, the Power that comes from true prayer when the ‘fiery ordeal” comes upon us.

In my meditation under duress I saw myself traveling through time and leading all over again the dozens of Antioch Weekends that I have led over the years. I saw myself once more telling the thousands of youth I have evangelized over forty years of teaching that in union with Jesus the Son you are a child in the loving arms of God your Father and Mary your Mother. I told them that this experience is real, something that your human heart has the power to actually feel and know as present to your life – an experience of being held by God made powerfully alive to our awareness through the gift of Christ’s Spirit, Christ Risen and still with us and in us. As I relived this proclamation of the Gospel, so many faces of the youth I have taught and served passed before me. I once more saw their Joy in the Lord as they heard and heeded the Word and thus were filled with His Love.

More time passed that night as tests were done and x-rays taken. In the many hours before surgery other images came to me in my prayer. In fact images bearing Grace, sacramental images, kept on coming and coming throughout that dark night. Through them all, the Lord touched me, consoled me, and strengthened me.

I remembered the ride on “Rolling Thunder” at Six Flags in New Jersey. It was the first ride on a “big” roller coaster for my seven year old daughter Bernadette – and it was a special gift that she wanted to do that ride with me. I chose the front seat for us. This was going to be a great experience!

I began to put my father’s arm around my daughter’s shoulders, but Bernadette spurned that idea and pushed my arm away. At least at first she did that. But when that coaster began to move and she now saw looming before us the long climb up the huge first hill, she grabbed my arm, put it around her, and snuggled up closely and tightly by my right side. The “Unknown” loomed before her, and the fear of the unknown was all too soon to follow. Only now, in the arms of her father, did all fear disappear.

Reliving the image of that event on my hospital bed, there was such a powerful communication of Grace. In my communion with Christ I suddenly could feel and experience as present in power the loving embrace of God my Father and Mary my Mother. Now too I was again about to move forward into a ride on “Rolling Thunder”, into the “Unknown” that lay ahead. Yet like Bernadette long ago I was safe, secure, knowing no fear in the powerful arms of my loving Father.

Seven hours of throbbing pain… Even within the first hour it was made clear to me that this was a heart attack. Was I to pass on this night from this life? Yes, the Unknown, and the fear of the unknown, stood tall and silent before me, staring me down, even advancing toward me with each hour. It was a fear and trembling that threatened to overwhelm me and consume me, but for God present in power through my communion with Christ.

More time passed, waiting for what seemed to be forever, for what I now hoped would be life-saving surgery. During this time I would look up at the Cross on the wall right beside me. It seemed that each time I did so another memory would surge into my soul. And much like a sacrament, the reliving of that God-given memory brought Grace, peace, solace and strength into my struggling soul and spirit.

So as I gazed up at the Crucified Christ, another memory surfaced from my treasury of cherished moments from the past. And like the reliving of my ride on “Rolling Thunder”, once more the Lord would use my recollection of that moment to console and empower me further in the face of my “fiery ordeal”.

The memory was of a dawn long ago, and I was walking on a wide open fairway of an abandoned golf course. It was adjacent to the grounds of Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio. The early morning was beautiful, cool crisp autumn air, clouds of gorgeous colors announcing the advent of a rising sun. As I always do, I prayed as I walked, and my soul filled with joy, love, and peace before the awesome glory of God’s creation.

Suddenly from over a hill, perhaps a hundred yards ahead of me, two large dogs appeared. Immediately they focused on me, and began to race toward me, barking and growling at a lone figure standing out all too clearly in a wide open field before them.

Fear took hold of me. Panic really. It seized hold of me and held me tightly in its grip. Like the operation for which I was now waiting, a dark Unknown was overwhelming me. What could I do to escape my plight, to flee from the image of fear and terror now racing toward me?

Then it happened, something like what I believe will happen at the moment of death for every person of Faith. A most lovely woman rose up over the hilltop ahead of me. She was the owner of the dogs. When she saw what was happening, she called out to her dogs to stand down, to stop their advance. And they did! The barking and growling stopped. Now about thirty feet away from me the dogs stood their ground, totally still, but staring intently at me all the while.

The woman then called out to me and said, “Don’t worry, they’re really friendly!” Then, with what was nothing less than a total “leap of faith” on my part, I called out to the dogs to come to me, with the welcoming gesture of hands reaching forward to them.

Now with tails wagging they advanced toward me, and it was as if they were happy, dancing and skipping as they approached. When they reached me, they lowered their heads for me to pet them. Then they leaped up with paws on my chest to lick my face, neck, hair, and any other part of me they could. I felt I was in the movie “Sandlot”, watching before my very eyes the transformation of Hercules, the “Beast”, the “Gorilla Dog-ding”, into the most friendly mascot of the Sandlot gang.

Soon the beautiful woman, smiling and gracious, was at my side, petting the dogs as well with effuse affection, and the dogs shifted their paws and licks to her in response to her love. With leashes once more attached to their collars, the dogs were off again, moving forward down a beautiful open fairway under the full control of their lovely master. My fiery ordeal was over, the storm had passed, and the dark clouds of night were now alive with light, once more radiant with the magnificent colors of a dawn sky. 

Since that day long ago on the fairway, “my lady of the golf course” has always been for me an image of Mary, our Heavenly Mother. The dogs ever since that day have become an image of death, darkness, even the demonic. Yet , as Mary demonstrated so powerfully at Lourdes, with just a word or a wave of her hand, death must give way to life, darkness must recede before the Light, and all demonic cries, growls, and shrieks must cease.

So surgery was at 10:00 AM on August 28^th. In my last meditative dream before the operation it was now Mary coming over the hilltop of a wide open fairway and advancing toward me. As I fell into a medicated stupor it was she taking hold of me, telling me not to fear. As the induced sleep took hold of me I heard her words to Juan Diego at Guadalupe now addressed to me: “Why do you fear. Are you not within the folds of my cloak? Are you not in my arms?”

At those words I moved forward once more into a ride on “Rolling Thunder”. But there was no fear in the face of the fiery ordeal before me. In union with Christ her Son I moved forward in her arms without fear into the Unknown, into “the valley of the shadow of death”.

At 11:30 AM I awoke from my anesthetic stupor in a room on the third floor of the hospital in the cardiac unit. A nurse was opening the curtains of a wide and spacious window to my left. My room was so high up in the hospital that the treetops were all I could see out that window on a beautiful summer morning. No other buildings in that area beside the hospital were all that high – with one exception. There in the middle of that very wide window was a magnificent white church steeple rising high above the treetops. A large gold cross crowned its summit, and that cross was now shining in the full strength of a midday summer sun.

For the four days remaining of my hospital stay, that’s all I could see in the exact center of my window: a large shining gold cross rising above the treetops, framed against the beautiful deep blue of a summer sky.

For five hospital days then I had lived in the shadow of the Cross of Christ. I had let the Breath of God’s Life given up from the Cross fill me. I had let the Love that radiates from the pierced Heart of Christ consume me. I had let the Blood of Christ fall from the Cross and touch me, touch me and transform me.

So for five days then perhaps I began to know with Jesus and in communion with Him the Power of the Love that endured the nails which pierced Him. I began to know the Power of the Love by which Jesus raised Himself up on those nails, raised Himself up at the end of the third hour to breath forth His Spirit upon the world and so set us free; raised Himself up to shock the world really, with a loud and shattering cry, with a loud roar like that of “Rolling Thunder”, in order to make a “new earth”, to make a new and redeemed earth come alive once more with God’s Love.       

          

  

Thank God for "Thanksgiving"!

THANK GOD FOR “THANKSGIVING”

“I come that you might have Life, and have it with abundance.”

-Jesus, Jn. 10:10

“The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty Savior. He will renew you in His Love and rejoice over you with gladness. He will sing joyfully because of you this day, as people sing at celebrations.”

-          Zephaniah 3

What a great day “Thanksgiving” is, when life is made to slow down and opportunity is given to see and appreciate the gifts and graces of God’s Love, to give thanks for the blessings of His Love that surround us and literally permeate our lives.

But do we see them? And if not, why? Often enough it is the cares and anxieties of a stress-filled society that blind us to the blessings which reach out to us each day, to the love which reaches out to us each day. I can remember so many years ago a dramatic event in my life, a defining moment if you will, that made this sad fact of modern life all too clear to me.

It was the late 1980’s and I was a Director of Religious Education and Youth Ministry at St. Joseph’s Parish in Needham. Mass. It was September and I remember that I was new on the job, having only begun my position the month before. I had a great office in the parish grammar school, and early on – from the first day of school – I realized that the children liked to come into the office and visit. They were curious about the new “Director”. Many of them too were genuinely determined to help me adjust to my new circumstances. They would assist my office in whatever way I needed help. They were concerned that I liked being at St. Joseph’s, and determined to make my stay a pleasant one- more than that, a most memorable one. And looking back now, my three years there was precisely that! 

Many of the students also began to visit regularly, especially once they realized that I always had a candy dish on my desk – in every position I’ve had working with youth, I’ve always had a candy dish! It’s the St. Ignatius in me: when evangelizing, lead the youth into your ministry by their own door; then after ministry, whether retreat or youth excursion, lead them out back into life through the Lord’s door. “Candy” brought the youth into regular contact with me, and those contacts for a fact became a valuable vehicle for the workings of Grace.

One such student who became my most regular visitor was Christopher Rudolf, a handsome first grader at our school, full of personality, who was the picture of joy and happiness. Almost every day during a free period he would find his way to my office desk, and situate himself right in front of the candy dish. And while stuffing his pockets with bite-size Snickers, would ask me how I was doing that day. I enjoyed Christopher’s visits immensely, and especially enjoyed watching that twinkle in his eye when he first saw each day that I was always faithful at re-filling the candy dish.

After some weeks of his regular visits, I decided I was going to find out just where this new found relationship was heading. So as Christopher was visiting one day and filling his pockets, I looked him right in the eye and said to him – almost sternly – that I needed to ask him a most serious question.  He paused in his efforts to raid the pile of Snickers. His hand left the candy dish and moved to where it would be when grammar students stand at full attention. His face became a little apprehensive, as if to say to me non-verbally, “Am I in trouble?”

I quickly though allayed any fear with my serious question. I said, “Christopher, you come visit me every day. I think we’re becoming friends, even best friends. Am I your best friend?” I’ll never forget Christopher face in that moment. His hands now joined together behind his back, and with a big smile on his face, he nodded up and down a most handsome non-verbal “Yes!” He literally skipped out of the office, and never thought to finish filling up his pockets with Snickers!

It was a Friday about three weeks later, and I was walking over to the rectory during the children’s morning recess. I needed to have checks signed for the upcoming Antioch Retreat that weekend which involved nearly a hundred youth from nearby Needham high – checks for the food, the lodging, the rental vans. You know what they say about the “Devil in the details” – nothing could have been more true in that moment when I was walking over to the rectory to have the pastor sign the checks. Had I remembered all the details in preparation for the retreat? Was I forgetting anything? I was harassed, worried, and anxious; totally stressed out by all that had to be done in preparation for the retreat – a retreat mind you! The irony of it all! A retreat is a time when we lead youth to see and experience the Spirit of Christ’s Love present in power among us, surrounding and filling our lives. Yet, as I was walking over to the rectory, the Spirit was the last thing in the world that I was experiencing.

Well, I got about two thirds of the way through the school yard when I felt a tug on my suit-coat. I turned around and there was Christopher Rudolf. Before I could say anything to him, he began to jump up and down, while yelling out loud, “Mr. Michaud, it’s Christopher Rudolf, your best friend in all the world!”

In that moment, that defining moment, it was like I woke up from a dark dream. I suddenly realized that I had just walked through a whole school yard of young children; yet consumed and blinded by worry within my own heart and mind,  I had not seen them playing or heard at all their laughter and joy. Tears filled my eyes as I suddenly became aware of how blind and deaf I had been to the beauty and the blessings, the gifts and the graces which were even at that moment all around me.

The tears though soon gave way to Joy as I began to laugh out loud at the magnificent spectacle of Christopher jumping up and down with happiness. He was the face of Jesus for me in that moment, and God through that little boy was teaching me a profound lesson that has never been lost to me since that day. If today you don’t see God’s Love, or hear Him singing out loud at the thought of you, then open your eyes and have ears to hear! See the gifts of His Love reaching out to you this day, and be the gift of His love reaching out to others.

The dawn of Light will happen when you make a child smile, when you make them jump up and down with happiness; when you call a friend and be a friend, and when that friend feels valued, cherished and loved because of you. The dawn of Light will come when you savor Life, when you savor God’s Life among us, His Life present in power through  the Spirit of the Risen Jesus; when you savor the Spirit of His Love which fills your life; when you open your heart to that Love and become the face of that Love for others                  

The Lord came precisely for that reason, that we might have Life and have to the full – have it with abundance, or with “abundanza” as my Italian friend Dom would often say. When you hold hands with family and say Grace at Thanksgiving meal this year, may there be tears -  not tears of sorrow, but tears of Joy in your experience of Life among us, His Life present in abundance, filling your life with His Love.

- Have a beautiful and blessed Thanksgiving!

  God bless, 

                             Doug +