About receiving forgiveness

 We can only receive forgiveness

when we acknowledge that we need it.

About the heartbeat of God

The love of God is the heartbeat of the Universe. 

About healing

Only God's tender touch 

can heal the travails of our hearts.

 

If I could fold my arms around the world - a poem

If I could fold my arms around the world

And hold each living creature in embrace

To soothe away their sorrows and their fears

Then would my heart be satisfied at last.

I cannot though, no matter how I try

Bring solace to this troubled world of ours.

I can but place each soul before our God

Whose widespread arms can carry all our pain.

I know that God alone can bring us ease

And wipe away the tears of every grief.

Befriend us Lord and hold us in your heart

That we may know your comfort and your joy.

A prayer of thanksgiving to Jesus

Beloved Jesus, I implore 

that I may love you more and more

for all you have done for me.

Beloved Jesus, I implore

that I may thank you more and more

for all you are doing for me.

Beloved Jesus, I implore

that I may trust you more and more

for all you will do for me.

About believing in God as much as in love

I find it hard, in some ways, to use the term 'believing' in connection with God because the 'idea' of God as the creator of all that exists, has always seemed to me to be totally self-evident. If I were to try to explain my awareness of the reality of God, I would say that it is similar to my awareness of the reality of love.

Love, however, is as hard to define and as mysterious as is the 'concept' of God. I believe in love because I have experienced being loved and feeling love, for family and friends; for nature too, and music, poetry and art, in all its many aspects.

Love, in its many forms, can "move mountains" and melt hearts of stone. I have looked at my young children and almost felt something leave me and reach out and attach itself to them in a tangible bond.

It is this love which seems to me to be the absolute manifestation of the love of God. This love is that which I see as powering the universe, from the heartbeat of the atom to the explosive power of the stars. I feel this love as I feel the warmth of the sun, and I see God in everything as I see by the light of the sun.

Non-believers will give utilitarian causes for the existence of everything and some even believe that love is a result of self-interest, another aspect of evolution, and that may even be partly true. I wouldn't profess to know all the secrets of that wondrous process.

However, nothing can explain to me the concept that this all started from nothing. To quote Shakespeare and The Sound of Music, as I have before in some post or other, ''Nothing comes from Nothing.''

About the name changing of Holy Communion

Throughout my life as a practicing Catholic, I have spoken of 'going to church' as 'going to Mass' but in recent years we frequently hear it referred to as 'The Eucharist.' It has been explained many times that this is the Greek word for thanksgiving but the Mass is much more than thanksgiving. surely.

More specifically, it is Holy Communion, as many of us have always known it, that is now termed The Eucharist. To me, the term Holy Communion is the nearest expression of the miracle and wonder of receiving the life of Jesus within us.

Jesus is the 'Holy One' as we say in the Gloria, he is in communion with us and we with him. What could be more precious than that and what expresses it more closely than Holy Communion? And as we adore him when he is held aloft before our very eyes, what expresses his presence more closely than The Blessed Sacrament, the outward sign of the inner divinity of God?

For me, nothing.