Musings "On the Passion of Christ" According to the Four Evangelists by Thomas Kempis

One of the thing that really jumped out at me in this chapter is how compliant, meek and humble our Lord is to those who are treating him so horribly. Jesus chose to suffer such cruelty to give us an example of meekness and to fulfill Isaiah’s clear prophecy in Isaiah 53:7

Musings "On the Passion of Christ" According to the Four Evangelists by Thomas Kempis

I am loving my walk this Lent with this book.  Today was about the betray of Jesus by Judas in the Garden of Gethsemane.  And a powerful reminder to me of the model Jesus has given me in bearing with my trials and with those who have betrayed, slandered and hurt me and the ones I love.  The take away for me today is praying for greater patience, His patience and His grace to have the desire to endure even greater trials for love of Jesus.

Musings "On the Passion of Christ" According to the Four Evangelists by Thomas Kempis

I received so many nuggets of wisdom in today's chapter.  Trust, surrender seeking the Lord in all things and striving to follow His Will.  I am still mulling over it and I'm praying for His grace to lead me and help me follow and to redirect my path when I veer off course.  

Musings "On the Passion of Christ" According to the Four Evangelists by Thomas Kempis

My take away from today's chapter is that Jesus experienced sorrow and fear.  He is good Shepherd and in this way, he is modeling a way for us to follow Him in every step of our sorrows, trials, anxiety and whatever we come up against, to dive deeper into His great love for us, so that I and we can find a healing remedy for our souls.

 It's Ash Wednesday and this year I am praying for a consistent walk through these 40 days! I am reading the "On the Passion of Christ" by Thomas A, Kempis and already in the first chapter I am convicted of how much I need to ask Jesus to instill the virtue of meekness in my heart in greater abundance. Without Jesus's grace, His peace, His love, His joy, I cannot have true peace of heart and soul and love as He loved.

I am grateful for this time of recovery from my surgeries, it’s given me an opportunity to be still and to find ways to draw closer to Jesus!! Through the pain, hardships and challenges His grace, peace, love and joy have helped me to be more mindful of keeping my focus on Him from whom all good things come!! Because when I take my focus off of Jesus and put it on the storms of life, there is no peace. It is in Him that I find peace and the strength to weather the storms.

Today is the Feast day of our Lady of Lourdes!! I’ve ben celebrating since 3:33 am.

I didn't plan it that way today. But all I can say is that one of the fruits of this long recovery and challenges I’ve had from these two spine sugeries has been a beautiful opportunity for me to draw closer to Jesus and His mother. Truly it Is His grace.

So this morning I woke up looked at the clock and wanted to turn around and go back to sleep but something stirred in me and so I put on my prayer routine on Hallow and snuggled back under the warm covers to listen and pray and accepted that I might just fall back asleep and I was okay with that.

But that's not what happened. At the end of my first routine I pray the Rosary. And as I have been doing, I go to Lourdes Live TV and the grotto to pray the rosary and since it was the last day of the Novena to Our Lady of Lourdes I planned to do my novena there as well. Since our pilgrimages there last year I have been going Live to Lourdes and Medjugorje and Fatima, mostly Lourdes and Medjugorje as we we heading back to Medjugorje on a pilgrimage this summer. After the pilgrimages I was going all the time, but as time moved on, I would go occasionally, since I have been mostly homebound since my surgery and then the second one which was much worse than the first I have been going to Mass online and visiting the Live Lourdes and Medjugorje sites and for the past few weeks, maybe a month, daily. And it has been a blessing.And since today is Our Lady of Lourdes day, I went to the grotto and instead of the grotto it went to the Sanctuary chapel and they were getting ready for Holy Mass. I have been going to the Catholic Daily Mass on TV but I immediately thanked the Lord and his Mother for bringing me to this Holy Mass at Lourdes this morning. It was beautiful, in all languages, French, Italian, Spanish, German and I believe Arabic, I speak fluent Italian and I can get by somewhat with Spanish and French, not fluent at all but my friends you know what is fluent for all Catholics, the Holy Mass, no matter what language we can follow along. But I got out my breviary on my phone as part of the Office of Readings there is the missal and the progression of the Mass, I didn't really use it but it was handy just in case. When I watch online I make a spiritual communion and I join myself to Jesus with a spiritual prayer and my own litany of prayers I pray before and after receiving the Holy Eucharist, it certainly doesn't replace the Holy Eucharist but in the wee hours of the morning it is a blessing. After the Holy Mass there was a beautiful procession to the Grotto. And while there from my comfy bed with heating pad, I was able to pray my rosary and the prayers for the last day of the Novena.And I lifted all of my intentions, my personal intentions, and all those that have been recommended to me, all the intentions in my prayer books from our pilgrimages and all those that have been shared with me and those I’ve been asked to pray for. And as I have been doing throughout this Novena for those I don't know but the Lord knows needs healing mind, body, spirit and soul and as I always pray a prayer for those among the living and dead who have no one to pray for them. All a part of my Novena intentions to Our Lady of Lourdes. Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us.St. Bernadette, pray for us.Amen!My special morning wake up and time is over for now. It's time to head to my home office and work. And I am really going to need this delicious cappuccino that my beloved made for me this morning. And I think may need a full pot of espresso chaser to get through the rest of the day! I think I may replay Song of Bernadette tonight! And make it a total Lady of Lourdes day!

The nuggets from Sunday's Gospel from Matthew 5:13-16 and the reflections from the homily's I heard  were about wasted potential and being who I was created to be, a bold and authentic witness to the to the glory of God.  Boy do I have a long way to go, but just diving deeper into His word, ruminating on what I read and heard yesterday has been with me all day today as well.  Lots of food for thought for me for sure, and maybe some changes that I can work into my Lenten journey next week.....

My second go to aside from the Holy Bible is "The Imitation of Christ" by Thomas Kempis. There is so much wisdom in those pages!