a gift freely given

God has done everything; he has done the impossible:
he was made flesh. His all–
powerful love has accomplished something which surpasses all human understanding:
the Infinite has become a child, has entered the human family.
And yet, this same God cannot enter my heart unless I open the door to him.”
Pope Benedict XVI

(Rosemary Beach / Julie Cook / 2020)

“God travels wonderful ways with human beings,
but he does not comply with the views and opinions of people.
God does not go the way that people want to prescribe for him; rather,
his way is beyond all comprehension, free and self-determined beyond all proof.
Where reason is indignant, where our nature rebels,
where our piety anxiously keeps us away:
that is precisely where God loves to be.
There he confounds the reason of the reasonable;
there he aggravates our nature, our piety—that is where he wants to be,
and no one can keep him from it.
Only the humble believe him and rejoice that God is so free and so marvelous
that he does wonders where people despair,
that he takes what is little and lowly and makes it marvelous.
And that is the wonder of all wonders, that God loves the lowly…
God is not ashamed of the lowliness of human beings.
God marches right in.
He chooses people as his instruments and performs his wonders where
one would least expect them.
God is near to lowliness; he loves the lost,
the neglected, the unseemly, the excluded,
the weak and broken.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God is in the Manger:
Reflections on Advent and Christmas

And so He has come…

God of God
Light of Light
Very God of very God…

Begotten of woman, not made
Born man
Crucified
Dead
Buried
and yet Risen again for our Redemption and Deliverance

And so it is on this Christmas day…
this day of Light and Hope…that we find not only life…
but it is in that life that we must also find death…

For it is in the miracle of both life and death…
That of His birth, His life and eventually His death…
it is there that we actually find our most necessary Hope…

It is a hope found in both life and death—
of which each mingle together so blessedly and painfully…
yet oh so poignantly…
melding into that single transcendence of the Resurrection.

So on this Christmas day we are reminded, once again, that yes,
we are to rejoice…
We rejoice because we have each been invited to a grand banquet…
We have been invited to claim our rightful place at the table…
taking in all that is freely given and yet that which is gravely
undeserved…
but miraculously given nonetheless.

So in that Hope, found in both birth and death,
is a brilliance of illumination…scattering the
darkness from wherever it yearns to spread.

A great Light has shown in that darkness.
And that darkness scatters
because that Light has overcome the darkness.

Hope
Joy
Salvation
Redemption
Deliverence
Resurrection
Life…

All of which is offered to each man and woman, young and old,
sick and in-firmed, lofty and simple…underseved, yet a gift
freely given…

So yes, we are told to rejoice…

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

Again I say,
Rejoice!

“What worthy return can we make for so great a condescension?
The One Only-begotten God, ineffably born of God,
entered the Virgin’s womb and grew and took the frame of poor humanity.
He who upholds the universe, within whom and through whom are all things,
was brought forth by common childbirth.
He at whose voice archangels and angels tremble,
and heaven and earth and all the elements of this world are melted,
was heard in childish wailing.
The Invisible and Incomprehensible,
whom sight and feeling and touch cannot measure, was wrapped in a cradle.”
St. Hilary of Poitiers

fear vs awe

“We are a generation that has been stripped of our awe”.
Lisa Bevere

“The fullness of wisdom is fear of the Lord,
she is present with the faithful in the womb (Sirach 1:14).
Fear of the Lord does not mean to be afraid of God.
It means to stand in awe and wonder before the greatness of the Lord.
When we recognize that God is God and we are creatures,
we develop a healthy sense of humility.
We acknowledge our need for wisdom and grace, which are both
gifts of the Holy Spirit.”
Rev. Jude Winkler, p. 9

(Dingle Peninsula / Co Kerry / Julie Cook / 2015)

Fear, the dictionary tells us, is defined as:
an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something
is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat.

The dictionary also tells us that the definition of Awe is:
an emotion variously combining dread, veneration,
and wonder that is inspired by authority or by the sacred or sublime

And so for those who have read both the Old and or New Testaments,
the word fear is often found throughout the various texts within both
halves that make up the Christian Bible as well in the Jewish Torah.
Even the Quran instructs those of the Muslim faith to fear Allah.

So we believers of the one Omnipotent God,
those of us who make up the three pillars of this monotheist faith of ours,
are often told, or so it seems, that we are to fear the Lord our God.

And yet within that same command, we are also told that we are not to be afraid–
that we are not to be fearful…
Rather we are told to love the Lord our God with all of our heart and soul.

For our’s is a great and powerful God…Master Creator.
He breathed life into our nostrils as he formed us in secret within the womb.
He has known us before we were even formed.
And he has loved us before time.

But we also know that He is a God of judgement.
A God who has cast out evil and will continue doing so until His
time has come.

A God who has instructed us how to live…and within those instructions
if they are not followed, there are indeed repercussions for not doing so.
But there is also great compassion and great forgiveness.

So it seems, that as the created, we have a fine line, once again in our lives.
It is a line that consists of both love and fear.

Yet fear is not exactly the right word to use when we speak of our God
and of the love He holds for us, His created.

The translations, over time have taken what was to be one and turning it into
another word completely.
And with the transitions has come a wealth of human emotion both
good and bad.

Yet the Fellowship of Israel Related Ministries explains
The Hebrew word translated into ‘awe’ in the Bible is yirah
(יראה, pronounced yir-ah).
It often directly translates into fear, but it can also mean respect,
reverence, and worship.
But, make no mistake about it, yirah is strongly connected to ‘trembling’.
firmsrael,org

And so I think that as we enter this season of expectation…
this season of Advent…we must remember that whereas we
are indeed watching and waiting with great expectation,
we should also find ourselves in pure wonderment as to what is
to come upon us.
Not so much fearful but rather one of amazement.

We are to be in awe—not so much fear as we know word,
but rather that of trembling both outwardly physically as well as internally.

For in that awe, that which we cannot readily comprehend, as we find ourselves
standing before a crib holding a small newborn child,
we must remember that this newborn child holds in His heart
the future of our own hearts.

And in that thought lies our amazement, wonder and awe.
Because it is there, in that newborn, where the epitome love resides.

There is much around us that is awesome and awful.
We know too well the divisions and suffering that plague our world.
We have seen that the authorities today use tactics similar to those employed 2,000
years ago, and many people scheme to play to our fear,
destroy our hope, and seal off our joy.

But we have the confidence of our faith.
We have seen the risen Lord!
Joyce Hollyday

Awake at night (still)

“When you awake in the night,
transport yourself quickly in spirit before the Tabernacle, saying:
‘Behold, my God, I come to adore You, to praise, thank, and love you,
and to keep you company with all the Angels.'”
St. John Vianney

(sunset over the the gulf /Julie Cook / 2018)

****ok, so I no longer have this particular herniated disc of which this
post highlights, but rather I still, however, find sleep oh so very elusive.
Be it age, hormones, anxiety….who knows the reasons…
all I do know is that both night and sleep have become my equal nemeses…
And thus, I find it perhaps timely that I opt to repeat this post…
as I continue attempting to quiet my mind with the ever ancient prayer…
Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy upon me, a sinner…

——–

The past several nights I have woken up around 2:30 AM—wide awake.
Hot.
Sweaty.
Uncomfortable.
Despite the AC running and my husband gently snoring, sleep for me is over.

My back aching with the slightest of movements–
and now an aching neck and shoulder add to my misery.

It hurts to turn, to roll, to twist.

Dreams, when they come, have been vivid, leaving me wondering and pondering.
Pondering much too much for such an unwelcoming hour.

Time passes with no relief as the numbers of the clock tick on and on.
No calm nor slumber.

Sleep, for me, is often elusive but more so as of late.

When the morning light comes, it is almost rude and unkind as
I find it harder and harder to get up since sleep now tries to
arrive right when it’s time to get up.

Exhausted and ill, I grouse at the day.

Last night, my brain turned on, my eyes popped open and it was only 2:30—
my mind racing.
I ruminated on and on like a cow chewing cud over my latest odd dream.
Unresolved ancient issues or just the aching of a herniated disc?

I examine the past.
“NO”, I shout to my hyper-focused mind…” this is not the time!”

So my brain now toys with me, as the unending partial lyrics to a song
begin playing over and over as the earworm bores deeper into my brain.

“STOP”, I silently plead to my restless brain….”just let me rest”,
I implore.

And so…I pray.
Focusing on that which is greater than the madness, greater than my weariness.
I offer myself over to You of Lord as a sacrifice…
Hear my prayers oh Lord…

“Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy upon me, a sinner”

Over and over I repeat the soothing ancient and time worn words until
I sense my mind and body finally quieting in unison.
Thank you Lord…

“My Lord, I offer you myself in turn as a sacrifice of thanksgiving.
You have died for me, and I in turn make myself over to you.
I am not my own.
You have bought me; I will by my own act and deed complete the purchase.
My wish is to be separated from everything of this world;
to cleanse myself simply from sin; to put away from me even what is innocent,
if used for its own sake, and not for yours. I put away reputation and honor,
and influence, and power, for my praise and strength shall be in you.
Enable me to carry out what I profess.”
Bl. John Henry Newman, p. 135
An Excerpt From
Everyday Meditations

Rest for the weary

The scorched land will become a pool
And the thirsty ground springs of water;
In the haunt of jackals, its resting place,
Grass becomes reeds and rushes.
Isaiah 35:7

(Dried thistle along the banks of the Cliffs of Moher, County Clare, Ireland / Julie Cook / 2015)

(***since the Mayor and Sheriff are here for the Trick or treat weekend…
I opted to seek out a post from 2015—from the wisdom found on the road in Ireland–
thank you always Paul!!)

I was weary…
dry and brittle of body, heart and soul…
Yet you Oh Lord have heard me in my distress.
You have seen to my weariness…
to the dryness and brittle spirit which as clung to me like an ashen paste.
You have refreshed and soothed a parched and thirsty heart

(the wild Atlantic somewhere along the Dingle Peninsula / County Kerry, Ireland / Julie Cook / 2015)

You have attended to a wounded soul…
My offering to you is a simple thankfulness that reaches to the depths of the sea,
and the width of an endless sky…

(somewhere along the road in County Donegal, Ireland / Julie Cook / 2015)

“And the Lord will continually guide you,
And satisfy your desire in scorched places,
And give strength to your bones;
And you will be like a watered garden,
And like a spring of water whose waters do not fail.”
Isaiah 58:11

an adopted path to Grace

“All the natural movements of the soul are controlled by
laws analogous to those of physical gravity.
Grace is the only exception. Grace fills empty spaces,
but it can only enter where there is a void to receive it,
and it is grace itself which makes this void.
The imagination is continually at work filling up all
the fissures through which grace might pass.”
Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace

(Rosemary Beach during Hurricane Sally / Julie Cook / 2020)

Tossed within the surf of a sea churning with tumultuous emotions…
joy, sorrow and even regret now vie for prominence within my heart.

An engulfing crescendo of deep abiding love is gently offered…
yet is is overshadowed by the inward naysaying whispers of a past
that speaks of unworthiness.

Grace and Graciousness, along with open forgiveness,
have each been tenderly extended…
freely extended by the hands of unconditional love.

The very word unconditional has always made these eyes fill with tears.

Humbled by such a love leaves this heart feeling only more unworthy
and even trembling.

Ode to a child of adoption…the child who finds the unconditional
a foreign gift.

Condition most often becomes the wiring of the adopted one.
And thus the thought of such worthiness is oh so far away from anything
the adopted individual finds possible…
for the single sense unworthiness clings for dominance.

If you’ve ever visited this little corner of the blogosphere of mine very often,
then you know I’ve written at length about such feelings and that of
my own adoption over these many years.

The highs and lows, the battles and the healings.

With adoption, the notion of healing and that of worthiness each become
a lifelong quest.

For the one who was given up and given away…to be able to ever feel worthy
of accepting such a precious offering of true and abiding love…a gift given from one
freely to another, feels as a near impossibility.

And so a battle ensues…

The adult who has lived life and attained hindsight now fights with the
ever present child who was born of rejection.

Logic wrestles with raw emotion.

Yet what we know, is that in the end, love does indeed win.

Because we know that anyone who calls
themself a Christian, is adopted by Grace.

I am a child of Grace and I am a person who is so ever grateful
to that of the unconditional…

to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.
And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts,
crying, “Abba! Father!”
So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.
Galatians 4:5-7

At Peace (repeat from 2015)

“There is no way in which a man can earn a star or deserve a sunset.”
G.K. Chesterton

(Henderson Beach, Fl / Julie Cook / 2015

We deserve not, nor have we earned the gift of
the glorious,
the beautiful,
the majestic
the splendid
or
even the sublime. . .
Yet we are privy each dawn and dusk to utter wonderment.

A weary sun sinks low, resting heavy on the melting horizon. . .
As a calming hush is pulled gently across the shoulders of the
sleepy landscape. . .

Do you have any regrets?

Are you sorry, feeling poorly or badly for how events may have unfolded
throughout your day?

Do you stare forlornly out toward the darkening curtain that is slowly
being drawn across the closing day’s stage?

Could things have been better, different, more hopeful, more positive?

Are you now feeling burdened, defeated, regretful, resentful. . .?

Or. . .

Are you at peace. . .
resolved,
resolute
and calmly determined. . .
Finding yourself in a place of no regrets, no remorse,
nor restless spirit. . .
Exhaling a blissful release of self as you feel your body giving way
to the beautiful display that is offered to you in the evening’s gracious sky
by the only One who is truly in control and has offered you a piece of Himself. . .

They who dwell in the ends of the earth stand in awe of Your signs; You make the dawn and the sunset shout for joy.
Psalm 65:8

miss no single opportunity…

“Miss no single opportunity of making some small sacrifice,
here by a smiling look, there by a kindly word;
always doing the smallest right and doing it all for love.”
St. Therese of Lisieux

(sunset / Julie Cook / 2021)

“When we generously accept God’s Word, especially in the Commandments,
we are doing God’s Will in all things.
To live the Will of God is the greatest sacrifice and personal denial.”
Rev. Thomas J. Donaghy, p. 17
An Excerpt From
Inspirational Thoughts for Every Day

Only God satisfies

“In this life no one can fulfill his longing,
nor can any creature satisfy man’s desire.
Only God satisfies, he infinitely exceeds all other pleasures.
That is why man can rest in nothing but God.”
St. Thomas Aquinas

(a lone pelican cruises the surf / Julie Cook /2021)

“In the spiritual life,
I can promise myself nothing without the special help of God…
From one moment to another, I may fall into mortal sin:
consequently, even though I may have labored many years in acquiring virtues,
I may in one instant lose all the good I have done,
lose all my merit for eternity, and lose even that blessed eternity itself.
How can a king rule with arrogance when he is besieged by his enemies
and from day to day runs the risk of losing his kingdom and ceasing to be a king?
And has not a saint abundant reasons,
from the thought of his own weakness,
to live always in a state of great humility,
when he knows that from one hour to another he may lose the
grace of God and the kingdom of Heaven, which he has merited by years
of laboriously acquired virtues? ‘Unless the Lord build the house,
they labor in vain that build it’ (Ps. 126:1).
However spiritual and holy a man may be,
he cannot regard himself as absolutely secure.
The Angels themselves, enriched with sanctity, were not safe in Paradise.
Man, endowed with innocence, was not safe in his earthly paradise.
What safety,
therefore, can there be for us with our corrupt nature,
amid so many perils and so many enemies who within and without
are ever seeking insidiously to undermine our own eternal salvation?
In order to be eternally damned,
it is enough that I should follow the dictates of nature;
but to be saved, it is necessary that divine grace should prevent
(go before) and accompany me, should follow and help me,
watch over me and never abandon me.
Oh, how right therefore was St. Paul in exhorting us to
‘work out our salvation’—which is for all eternity—
‘with fear and trembling’ (Phil. 2:12).”
Fr. Cajetan da Bergamo, p. 21-22
An Excerpt From
Humility Of Heart

Put your heart aside

“Put your heart aside.
Duty comes first.
But when fulfilling your duty, put your heart into it.
It helps.”
St. Josemaria Escriva

(a summer evening at a beach / Julie Cook / 20210

“In the old days, when there was less education and discussion,
perhaps it was possible to get on with a very few simple ideas about God.
But it is not so now. Everyone reads, everyone hears things discussed.
Consequently, if you do not listen to Theology,
that will not mean that you have no ideas about God.
It will mean that you have a lot of wrong ones—bad,
muddled, out-of-date ideas. For a great many of the ideas about God
which are trotted out as novelties today are simply
the ones which real Theologians tried centuries ago and rejected.”
C. S. Lewis, p. 155
An Excerpt From
Mere Christianity

where lies your conscience?

We should not lament that we do not see the Lord in the flesh,
because we see him in the least of those around us.
Cardinal George Pell
From his book Prison Journal, Volume 2

(a lovely gull / Julie Cook / 20210

Conscience:
ˈkän(t)SHəns/
noun
–an inner feeling or voice viewed as acting as a guide to the rightness or
wrongness of one’s behavior.

A life long friend of mine and I, a person who has been one of my dearest friends
since we where all of 12 years old, would over the years,
speak of our conscience—that still small inner
voice that we knew spoke of truth.

The issue of truth would always come up when we were faced with one of those
issues of the typical trials of growing up…
those sorts of issues that spoke of right from wrong.

Things we knew to be right yet dared, due to age, to challenge…
to test and to often defy…often with dreaded consequence.
Ode to growing up.

We would often vocally proclaim one to another “conscience”,
much like Quasimodo proclaiming Sanctuary when the other was toying with
an issue that was of great question and trepidation.

Always cognizent that we each knew right from wrong…none the less…
as teens and young college coeds, we would test the waters like a moth
drawn to a flame.

Thankfully and blessedly, we each acted for one another as that tiny piece
of conscience deeply rooted within those often poor choices and
actions we took upon ourselves.
Reminding one another that perhaps we weren’t on the right path
we needed to be heading…hoping to redirect one another to the
path of right from wrong.

And thus that notion of conscience has always been rooted in my psyche.

So when I read the following quote by St. John Bosco,
I was reminded of that still small voice deep within our
beings…the voice that today commands us to pick up our
cross and go forth proclaiming victory.

“Many people [in authority] oppose us, persecute us,
and would like even to destroy us, but we must be patient.
As long as their commands are not against our conscience,
let us obey them, but when the case is otherwise,
let us uphold the rights of God and of the Church,
for those are superior to all earthly authority.”
St. John Bosco