Prayer, penetrating to Heaven

“When we pray, the voice of the heart must be heard more than the proceedings from the mouth.”
St. Bonaventure

(somewhere over the Pyrenees Mountains / Julie Cook / 2018)

“Prayer, considered as petition, consists entirely in expressing to God some desire in order
that He may hear it favorably; a real desire is, therefore, its primary and essential condition;
without this, we are merely moving the lips, going through a form of words which is not the expression
of our will; and thus our prayer is only an appearance without reality.
The way, then, to excite ourselves to pray, to put life and fervor into our prayer,
and to make of it a cry which, breaking forth from the depths of the soul, penetrates even to heaven,
is to conceive the real desire mentioned above, to excite it, to cherish it;
for the fervor of our prayer will be in proportion to the strength of the desire we have to be heard;
just as what we have but little at heart we ask for only in a half-hearted way,
if even we ask it at all; so what we desire with our whole soul we ask for with words of fire,
and plead for it before God with an eloquence that is very real.”
Rev. Dom Lehody, p. 4-5
An Excerpt From
The Ways of Mental Prayer

the great escape or a bad case of follow the leader….

… Men for the most part follow in the footsteps and imitate
the actions of others…”
Niccolò Machiavelli

(a working sheep farm near Killarney, County Kerry, Ireland / Julie Cook / 2015)

I caught an interesting story day before yesterday…
interesting but also a bit sad.

Seems there was a herd of sheep, on a farm located somewhere in the
Pyrenees Mountains along the border of France and Spain,
who were apparently being stalked or chased by a bear.
All 200 plus sheep leapt to their deaths off the face of a cliff as they were
desperate to escape the bear.

So rather than scattering…with some of their numbers dashing off in one direction,
while others dashed off to a different direction…
with chances being pretty good that 199 or so should survive,
they all opted to jump to a joint death.

And it seems this odd phenomena is nothing new as it’s been known to happen
to other herds.

here’s the link…
http://www.foxnews.com/great-outdoors/2017/07/24/bear-panics-200-sheep-and-jump-to-their-deaths.html

So this mob mentality of herd animals and their reaction to panic and hysteria
obviously got me thinking….

See this picture….

(a working sheep farm near Killarney, County Kerry, Ireland / Julie Cook / 2015)

It’s the picture of a sheep farmer with his sheep dogs and his herd of sheep.

Notice how the farmer has his hand out alerting the dogs to stay.
Notice one of the sheep looking back over his shoulder at the dog,
a bit hesitant and nervous, as if he’s anticipating what the dog is about to do.

As soon as the farmer gives the word or signal or both,
the dog will go about his task, herding the sheep…
keeping them all together while working them into the direction he wants them to go.

And the sheep who are afraid and nervous, despite the fact that their numbers
and physical size exceeds that of the dog, place themselves at the mercy of
the guidance of the dog.

They say sheep aren’t the brightest animals on the planet.

And yet we the faithful are often referred to as sheep…
as we are reminded of our similarity to sheep throughout much of the Bible…
With us being the proverbial sheep of his pasture while Jesus is in position
of the Good Shepherd.

We are reminded that when 99 sheep out of a flock of 100 are present
and accounted for—with one errant sheep being lost and left behind
as expendable…
Jesus will go out and seek that one errant sheep until all sheep in the
fold are present—not willing to allow even one to be lost to some sort of
collateral damage.

And like sheep, we have the same tendency to go running about all willy nilly
as if being chased by some sort of threatening bear…
even if there isn’t any real physical threat–
perceived threats are counted as equally as powerful in our own little
world of pandemonium.

So perhaps it would behoove the herd to remember the voice of the Shepherd
lest we continue heading toward the cliff…of our own demise…

So Jesus again said to them,
“Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.
All who came before me are thieves and robbers,
but the sheep did not listen to them.
I am the door.
If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.
I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
I am the good shepherd.
The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep,
sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees,
and the wolf snatches them and scatters them.
He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.
I am the good shepherd.
I know my own and my own know me,
just as the Father knows me and I know the Father;
and I lay down my life for the sheep.
And I have other sheep that are not of this fold.
I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.
So there will be one flock, one shepherd.
John 10:7-16

the mountains are calling………….

“The mountains are calling and I must go.”
John Muir

I need more time than what I am currently afforded to express to you my life long love of “the mountains”…this love may have been innate–something that was instilled in me at birth. The culmination coming during college when I spent my summers in Black Mountain, North Carolina.

Be it the Swiss Alps, the Pacific Cascade Mountain Range, the Appalachian Mountains, the Pyrenees, The Rocky Mountains, The Apennines in Italy….my heart and soul are at peace in “the mountains”–I always feel closer to God when I’m in the mountains (that whole getting higher and closer to Heaven…remember from yesterday)…so it is no wonder that mountain laurel, that kin to the Rhododendron family, is the primary calling card to spring/summer time in the mountains. Joyful, vibrant and screaming….”the snow has melted, the weather has warmed, come, I’ve been expecting you….”

This particular mountain laurel bloom is from Oregon’s Cascade Mountain range, near Mt Hood—it’s a beautiful calling card beckoning all of us to come visit, all of these mountains have been expecting us…….