His state was divine,
Yet he did not cling
To his equality with God
But emptied himself
To assume the condition of slave,
And became as we are;
And being as we are,
He was humble yet,
Even to accepting death,
Death on a cross.
But God raised him high
And gave him the name
Which is above all other names
So that all beings
In the heavens, on earth and in the underworld,
Should bend the knee at the name of Jesus
And that every tongue should acclaim
Jesus Christ as Lord,
To the Glory of God the Father.
(Ph 2:6-11)

         The two words thy peace are the most significant part of this request of Saint Francis. When you think God, think peace. That occurs when we are in conscious contact with God. Connecting with your highest spiritual essence is the same as living in the peace that we refer to God.

           And what is this peace? It is the expression of the universal creative intelligence, which winds its way in and through everything. It is the perfection of creation. This is what the term ‘’thy peace’’ means to me. It’s something I am always connected to, since there is no place that it does not exist. I lose peace when I allow my thoughts to entertain the illusions of problems.

          ‘’Thy peace’’ is the essence of our universe. It is God at work, at play, and everywhere in between .Its is infinite love. ‘’Thy peace’’ becomes what you are an instrument of, as Saint Francis requests in this opening life of prayer. When followed, it provides you with a spiritual solution to every problem.

            We should avoid loud and aggressive persons. They are vexations to the spirit. And they keep you away from your peace. When others don’t come to you in peace, they can only reach the outer protective coverings. You choose to process events, not the events themselves that determine your level of peace.

            You can become an instrument of peace in any given moment of your life by deciding that you are not going to use your mind for anything other than peaceful thoughts. When you are an instrument of thy peace, you are not seeking anything, you are  peace provider .You do not seek peace by looking into the lives of others and wishing that they would change so that you could become more peaceful. Rather, you bring your own sense of calm to everyone you encounter.
            You have the freedom to choose a peaceful thought, or to quietly remove yourself from the immediate scene. How you do this? Memorize this line of the prayer and silently repeat it: Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.

SUGGESTIONS FOR BECOMING AN INSTRUMENT OF THY PEACE

            Give yourself a specific period of time each day to be alone and undisturbed. Take a brisk walk, or lock your bedroom so you can sit quietly, or leave the frantic pace of your office to go somewhere else to be alone and remind yourself that you are making conscious contact with God. The well-known phrase, let go and let God, is as well a useful. Say to yourself, ‘’I am letting go and letting God.’’ By giving yourself only a few moments of alone time which I call God-time, you become an instrument of peace if only for those moments. Your return to the noisy world will now be with a new partner, God, which is really ‘’thy peace’’. Gradually, with this exercise, you will find yourself becoming a regular instrument of peace in all your waking moments.

           Make meditation a part of your daily life.   I hear everyday in our community ‘’I am busy’’ ‘’ I was busy’’. I have too much in my mind .But I am certain that you have your own versions of why you can’t find the time or the way to meditate .These excuses are nothing more than your fear of coming to know God and therefore taming your demanding ego. In meditation you go to the silence. And when you practice meditation regularly  it is like lifting the weight of your problems off  your  shoulders for those moments and a feeling of having your soul  nourished  so that you now approach everyone  and everything with the accompaniment of thy peace . Saint Francis told his devotees. ‘’What is it that stands higher than words? Action. What is it that stands higher that action? Silence.’’

           Your peace is between you and God .Period. It is not between you and anyone else, or any set of circumstances, as difficult as that is to accept sometimes .You must come to the point where you bring your peace to everyone and everything, rather than attempting to secure it from outer experiences.

            Practice thinking peace.  How often do you clutter your mind with thoughts of none peace? How terrible world you say many times a day? How violent we have all become? How racist we are? All these thoughts and their expression are indications that you have become trapped in a nonepeaceful mind and, therefore a none peaceful world. Use your mind to think peace, because peace is the happy and natural in your mind and not our disgrace.

           Become a peacemaker.  Each day you are provided many opportunities to practice peacemaking .Saint Francis wrote,’’ For it is in giving that we receive.’’ By giving peace you will receive peace, and after you are in peace, your problems are dissolved.

           Make peace with yourself. You cannot give away what you don’t have. If you are not at peace with yourself you cannot give peace away. If you don’t give peace away, you will never become an instrument of peace. Make the decision to forgive yourself for all your weaknesses and failures, to let go of your self-destructive guilt over past mistakes .When you make peace with yourself you take a hard look at everything you have ever done and you remind yourself that you needed all of those experiences in order to provide you with the energy to propel   yourself to a higher spiritual frequency.

            Get back to nature. Go for a walk in nature, a park or a beach. Away from the fast-paced world of high technology, cell phones, noises, email. And mostly a crowded world, nature beckons you. Listen to the sounds of birds and bugs, and the wind. Just walk among the trees and flowers and quiet mind.

Nature gives you peace because you are in the energy of God.

PRAYER of Saint Francis of Assisi
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy;

I couldn’t wait to bring it back and share it with my wife. Back home, she was a little less excited than I about the book because her mind was on our first child that she was carrying.

What di dhe mean by at the right hour? She asked. I don’t know. We began to speculate. Maybe at noon on Good Friday. Maybe after the First Vigil. Maybe at the moment when we are in deep distress. Perhaps we should wait for God to reveal to ous the right hour. It might be even years from now.

We decided we`d better wait for a sign. Two weeks later my first son was born. How can I tell you what it was like. First the worry, then that child. I was a father. When I looked at that child I was so proud. I knew I was somebody. And yet humbled. I scarcely knew how to hold him, much less to bring him up. I used to think I had it all figured out, but that kid was bigger than I. That night the child appeared to me in a dream. What is God likeÉ he asked. That did it. I got up and reached for the book. I brought it to my wife and told her, this the right hour. We`ll open it now. “I opened it random. I read it. “It`s very simple. God is  a father.“ My wife opened it again. She  read, It“s very simple. God became a little child. Let`s open it together I exclaimed. I took heer hand. She opened it and we read.

“It`s very simple. Each breath you take is the breath of God.“
Happy Valentine`s Day!
Bonne St. Valentin!

          Dieu a tant aimé le monde qu’il a donné son Fils unique; sûrs de son amour, présentons-lui nos prières. Aujourd’hui, un enfant nous est né, que l’Église ne cesse d’en proclamer la Bonne Nouvelle à tous les hommes.  Aujourd’hui, le Verbe s’est fait chair, que la paix qu’il apporte touche les victimes de la guerre et de l’oppression, des femmes maltraitées et des démunis. Aujourd’hui nous est né un  Sauveur, que la joie du salut illumine toutes les familles de la terre.
          Aujourd’hui, la vie s’est manifestée, que la joie de savoir que Dieu est avec nous fasse de notre communauté un foyer de vie. Aujourd’hui prions en particulier à tous les membres de  nos familles aux Philippines, que l’on soit un jour réunis ensemble .
          Dieu qui , en Jésus, est venu sauver tous les hommes, écoute nos prières et donne-nous la joie d’être exaucés. Amen

Joyeux Noël avec tous ainsi qu’à vos familles.
Feliz Navidad
Maligayang  Pasko

I thank you for the loved ones and strangers
Whose inner beacons of light
Have warmed and welcome my pain.
I thank you for your Presence in my depths,
Protecting, guiding, reassuring, loving.
I thank you for all those life-surprises
Which sparked a bit of hope in my ashes.

And yes I thank you for my darkness,
Because this pushy intruder comes with truth
And reveals my hidden treasures to me.
Amen

Night  Prayer
Lord my God,
Thank you for bringing this day to a close.
Thank you for giving me a rest
In body and soul.
Your hand has been over me
And has guarded and preserved me.
Forgive my lack of faith
And any wrong that I have done today,
And help me to forgive all who have wronged us.
Let me sleep in peace under your protection,
And keep me from all the temptations of darkness.
Into your hands I commend my loved ones
I commend to you my body and soul
O God, your holy name be praised.

Often enough, sickness occasions an anterior renewal. You might notice, for example, that after several weeks of severe suffering, those you are visiting have a new vision of life that reflects a return to essentials.

They have given up many false and superficial values. Their sickness has been like a key unlocking the mysteries of the interior life, or, as psychologist Carl Jung has said, inviting them ‘’ to give up superficial being in order to penetrate always more into one’s inner depth’’.

Spiritual accompaniment facilitates the discovery of Christ within oneself. Saint Augustine prayed the Lord, in his Confessions:’’ So long have I sought you outside myself, when you were so close, within me ‘’.       
Helping someone to find their deepest Source: is that not the goal of spiritual accompaniment of the sick?

THANK YOU FOR BEING THERE, LORD
By: Rev. Normand Provencher, OMI

When life has become a chore,
When our nights are disturbed by nightmares,
Thank you for being there, Lord,
And for being present to us

When we are alone and forgotten,
When we are afraid of loving and being loved,
Thank you for being there, Lord,
And for offering us your love.

When sickness strikes,
When trials are heavy to carry,
Thank you for being there, Lord,
And for extending your hand.

When we have lost hope,
When blackness fills the horizon,
Thank you for being there, Lord,
And for bringing us your light.

The perspective presented here are based on the words of Jesus: ‘’Be compassionate as your Father is compassionate ‘’ (Lk 6:36)

We must look in a radically different direction to understand the place of compassion in our lives and through compassion our humanity grows into its fullness.

The word compassion, generally evokes positive feelings. We like to think of ourselves as compassionate people who are gentle, good and understanding. So why then, are millions of human beings suffering from separation, loneliness, torture and kill each other?

What does it mean the word compassion?  It is derived rom the Latin words pati and cum, which together mean ‘’to suffer with’’. Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. It requires us   to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. To be also kind and gentle to those who get hurt by competition.

We do not aspire to suffer with others. On the contrary we develop methods and techniques that allow us to stay away from pain.

Must we simply recognize that we are more competitive than  compassionate, and try to make  the best of it with a ‘’healthy dose of skepticism’’? Is our greatest ideal a maximum of satisfaction with a minimum of pain?

This topic says NO to these questions and proposes that in order to understand the place of compassion in our lives , we must look radically  to different directions. And the perspective here is based on the words of Jesus: ’’Be compassionate as your Father is compassionate ‘’( Luke 6:36), and is offered in the deep conviction that through compassion our humanity grows into its fullness.

We shall speak about: The compassionate God who is revealed to us in Jesus Christ, because God’s own compassion constitutes the basis and source of our compassion.

The compassionate God: God is a compassion God, He has chosen to be God-with-us .But what counts is that moments of pain and suffering someone stays with us, it is just the simple presence of someone who cares .When someone says to you ,  to us in the midst of a crisis ,’’ I do not know what to say or what to do, but I want you to realize that I am with you, that I will not leave you alone .’’

We have lost the gift of being present to each other .We say why should I visit this person? I can’t do anything anyway. Or what use can I be? Because being simply with someone is difficult and it asks of us that we share in other’s  vulnerability.

When we say God is a God- with- us, means he came to share our lives in solidarity .He is willing to enter with us with our problems, confusions and questions.

We also call him our refuge, our stronghold, our wisdom, our helper, our shepherd, our love. And we will never really know God as a compassionate God if we do not understand with our heart and mind that ‘’he lived among us’’ (Jn 1:14).

When we look at ourselves, we have to recognize that competition, not compassion is our main motivation in life. Being compassionate   would require giving up differences and distinctions. Jesus invites us to be as close to each other as God is to us. And it allows us to say with Paul, ‘’ I live now not with my own life but with the life of Christ who lives in me ‘’ (Ga 2:20)

This new identity, free from greed and desire of power, allows us to enter so fully and unconditionally into the sufferings of others that it becomes for us to heal the sick and call the dead to life. Paul gives us a beautiful example in his letter to the Philippians, he writes : GOD IS MY WITNESS HOW MUCH I MISS YOU ALL WITH THE TENDER COMPASSION OF CHRIST JESUS .  (Ph 1:8)

Spring, a time for sprucing up. After a long winter, many of us enjoy being outdoors in the fresh air, cleaning the yard or preparing the soil for the garden. Our home is put in order and made beautiful.

Lent is a time when we do a spring cleaning of our souls. We take an inventory of our lives by asking ourselves how we are living and where we need to change. What kind of relationship with God and our concern for others? This is the time when we pull up the weeds of self-centredness, laziness and rash judgement about others. The tools we use in cleansing our hearts are prayer and reflection with scriptures, fasting for justice and sharing with othersin need. We also participate in the sacrament of the Eucharist so that we may be nourished by God’s love. So we will breathe the f resh air of Resurrection. Praise and honour to you, Lord Jesus Christ!