We are Pencils....

Small Things

We are all pencils in the hand of God.

Nobody

One of the greatest diseases is to be nobody to anybody.

Hunger

The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.

Love

I am not sure exactly what heaven will be like, but I don't know
that when we die and it comes time for God to judge us, he will
NOT ask, How many good things have you done in your life?,
rather he will ask, How much LOVE did you put into what you did?

If we want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To
keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it.

The success of love is in the loving - it is not in the result of loving. Of
course it is natural in love to want the best for the other person, but
whether it turns out that way or not does not determine the value of
what we have done.

Judging

If you judge people, you have no time to love them.

Jesus

Each one of them is Jesus in disguise.

Actions

It is not the magnitude of our actions but the amount of love that is
put into them that matters.

Words

Words which do not give the light of Christ increase the darkness.

Kind Words

Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are
truly endless.

Prayer

Sweetest Lord, make me appreciative of the dignity of my high
vocation, and its many responsibilities. Never permit me to disgrace
it by giving way to coldness, unkindness, or impatience.

Silence

We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness.
God is the friend of silence. See how nature - trees, flowers, grass- grows
in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence...
We need silence to be able to touch souls.

Smile

Peace begins with a smile.....

Mother Teresa

Patience (jen)

The Chinese character for patience (jen)
shows a knife poised over a heart:
the willingness to hold still, in painful settings,
until we know what we are feeling

-Shadows of the Heart

Wherefore seeing we are compassed about by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

(Hebrews 12:1-2)

Food for Thought...

James Zullo describes the result of trying to bury our feelings in our body:

We think about our feelings and get migraine headaches;
We swallow our feelings and get ulcers;
We carry the weight of our feelings and get back pain;
We sit on our feelings and get hemorrhoids.

-Shadows of the Heart
( A Spirituality of the Painful Emotions )

It's something I found by flipping through this book and would like to share.

So, what problem are you facing?? Haha! ;)

Quotes...

This week....

"Spit out your venom lest it turns into poison & shrivels up your soul..."

- pepperose

_________________

Last week from the movies...

Katherine Hepburn said..."Love me little lamb or leave..."

Queen Elizabeth I said... "The hardest thing to control is the heart..."

_________________

Last month,

Thum ti dee tum, Ti dee, Tum tum tum! ;)

- pepperose

On All Saints Day, Fr. Marshall talked about the Beatitudes and told a really funny story on wisdom by Fr. Anthony DeMello. It was about 4 desert monks who lived in a monastry. Well, that's not what I'm going to blog about.

It brought to mind to me about something I read before. Here it is..

BLESSED ARE THE PURE OF HEART, THEY SHALL SEE GOD
Mt. 5:8

What does pure of heart mean? Does it mean somebody who
has never experienced temptation, someone who lives in an
antiseptic, isolated, trouble free world? I do not think so. The

Spanish writer, Unamuno, puts it this way:

Those who believe they believe in God
But without passion in their heart,
Without anguish of mind,
Without uncertainty
Without doubt
Even at times without despair.......
Believe only in the idea of God
Not in God himself.

Purity of heart and the recognition of God are rooted in daily
reality. They are not found in ecstasy but in struggle. The pure of
heart are seldom aware that they are pure of heart. They are just
trying to be faithful and the words "Lord, have mercy on me, a
sinner" are much more likely to be on their lips than the words,

"Thank you, God, that I am not as the rest of people." Sanity has
been defined as having the same sickness as everyone else.
Insanity, living outside of reality, is thinking that we are unique!

To have a pure heart, then, is to be struggling to be faithful in a
jungle of impurity.

To ask who is pure in heart is, in a sense, to ask a wrong
question. Purity of heart is a direction rather than an
achievement.

I have often wondered why the common comment of people who are seen spending a lot of time in church...praying, etc. are called 'Holy.'

Does this mean that if a person is not seen often in church...daily masses, church activities etc. .. then the person is not holy... Wouldn't it be wise to describe them as prayerful people instead??
People praying for purity of heart..

Because many a times I have found that these very 'prayerful' people are more of a 'holy idiot' as Fr. Gerry Pierce says, those who lack and fail to practice Christian love. Agape??
Why is this so?

Which brings me back to Fr. Marshall's homily which actually was about the 4 monks being told that Jesus was in one of them... So, they started to be nice to each other because they feared that Jesus was in disguise... ;) Haha!