Back to Jesus we go...

Whew, it's Tuesday...I don't think I've ever been this grateful on a Tuesday. I think I just had a difficult Monday.

Strange how I used to want time to go by really fast. Now that I have so much to do, I wish I could stretch my days out just so I could complete all my lessons, visit with my coworkers, catch up with my students, call old friends, and hang out with my family...not to mention getting to daily Mass, staying for adoration, writing in my journal after reading a good book, and talking to Gary, if we're not sitting around doing nothing.

I have a dear friend who had rededicated herself to Jesus this past weekend. Praise God. =) She just inspired me to do the same.

As I was putting together a Powerpoint presentation on the Liturgical calendar, I learned that the color green used in Ordinary Time symbolizes hope and growth. Green is the color of life and abundance. We go through life measuring it by monumental events, but usually in the in-between "ordinary time" we don't think anything worth much is happening.

So like my friend and I discovered in our conversation today, it's important to recognize that something is happening while we don't notice...when we're waiting for something to knock us off our feet.

We're growing.

Like my rose analogy.

Soil, water, sunlight, and regular pruning.

Humility, sacramental graces, Eucharist, and frequent confession.

Most of the time, we feel nothing. Often we only see the thorns, but the bud is blooming.

There was a red rose growing next to Mama Mary at work today.

I noticed it early in the day as a bud. I came back in the afternoon and it had opened up.

How beautiful!

That made me smile. Ah, yes, encountering God in all things... =)

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Fr. Larry said yesterday at Mass that we are happy only to the extent that we fulfill the will of God in our lives.

I heard that after talking to Melanie and Ofelia in the SPC Religious Ed office. Melanie saw my ring and I shared with her more of "our story". Ofelia then said to me that Fr. Larry once told her about the 4 different types of Christians...

1. The Christian that refuses to carry their cross.
2. The Christian that carries their cross and either brags about it or complains.
3. The Christian that carries their cross and also looks for others to help as well.
4. The Christian that is willing to be nailed to their cross.

From that conversation and my reflection during Mass, I came to the conclusion that I am marrying Christian #4.

Being the kind of Christian that often cannot bear the weight of my own cross, I have a lot to learn.

"I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead." (Phil. 3:10-11)