We never know the hour or the day when our Lord will come back for us to take us back to himself.  Our bags should always be packed and what I am really saying is our soul must be prepared.  Are you living in the state of grace?  God will one day come for all of us and he will automatically know the state of life we have lived all that was lived out in grace as well as the mistakes we may have made, creating disgrace in our life and in the lives of others .  Grace is important.  How do we obtain grace?  The first word that enters into my mind is humility.  To be humble is to walk with God knowing who we really are as a person.  We know our lives are complicated and filled with trials, tribulations, error, regret, ego, and sorrow.  All the above,  need our attention, and so we do our best to iron out all the wrinkles that have created stumbling blocks along the wavy road of life.  Without turning the other way, we look head on when we really want to change.  We can change with the help of God.  I don't think we can fully change without God.  With him there is lasting permanent change, that takes deep root in us as individuals.  Something supernatural from God himself solidifying permanent growth, that something is our permission to engage with our creator on a very real level.  Are you willing and open to giving up what you want, and allowing God to remain at the helm of your life?

Not too many people are that open unfortunately, to the detriment of their own life.  But on the flip side there are people who have surrendered their life to God, graciously, in exchange of living a life consumed by worldly desires.  Why that is that?  I think it is because they want the one most important relationship, that money cannot buy and that is a relationship with God.  And as that relationship grows and strengthens molding us and perfecting us into his likeness and image we remain true to the most important person on the planet and his grace fills every soul that dares to enter into his holy presence. The most graceful men and women I have ever met in my lifetime have the grace of God as the fuel in this tank to prosper in life and in eternity.  I am grateful to share my thoughts on grace because each one of us is in need of it. So we humble ourselves before our maker, hoping to receive all the greater gifts that make us truly His.  Desire grace and you will become graceful.  Desire humility and you will become humble.  Desire God and you will become Godly men and Godly women.  Leaving behind you a beautiful legacy worthy of remembrance!   

Eliminate the uncertainty you are experiencing.  Bring yourself to the place of silent reflection.  Light a candle and invite the Holy Spirit to enter into your heart and spend an hour in silence with Him. 

Silence is a gift.  It is there we can sort out all  the confusion that is within us.  Silence is where we find ourselves and our conversation with our creator begins.  Entering into silence we remove all the borders that seem to crash in on us from every side.  But through silence we can truthfully see what is in front of us, along side of us, and behind us.  We need to sort it all out, and come to the conclusion about our self on the other side.  We can do this with a little bit of effort on our part, and a lot of silence.  Shut off your mind,  and get rid of all the things that distract you from entering into the great gift of silence.  Choose that perfect place, that no noise can enter into this time alone.  And begin your very first session.  You will over time begin to really appreciate silence as a gift.  A gift to yourself that will over time change you.  And as you change, you grow.  And as you grow, you learn.  You learn to appreciate the great company you are keeping silently with our Lord.  

Only He can make us.  Only He can change us.  Only this I know is the Truth.  So silently, he created us in our Mother's womb, and silently He will remove from us all that is harmful, all that is of no worth in His Eyes.  He made us out of love.  We are love, therefore we must love, in Him and to be loving we need his example of love.  When we go to Him, he reveals love as love should be and not a distorted love but a genuine love that originally was created by Him.  


       

The Divine Office also known as the Liturgy of the hours is one of four volumes of leather bound books, mine is copyrighted in 1975 containing the Liturgical Days of the Year, the Proper of Seasons, The Solemnities, The Psalter, Proper of Saints, Commons, Office of the Dead, Appendices, Indices.  

It starts with the general Roman Calendar for the year which includes the Memorial, Solemnity, Feast Day of all the Saints.   The Saints inspire me daily to live out a holy life, by following in the footsteps of some of the greatest theologians in the history of the Catholic faith.  The Franciscan seculars use to have a saying;  "For up until now we have done nothing", meaning just that - We have done nothing because we were not aware of what was missing in us, until we discovered the truth in Jesus Christ.  

Once we have accepted him and acknowledged our faults, our weaknesses, our blind spots, and welcome him back into our hearts, and into our daily lives, we can genuinely begin the wonderful process of Living in His Truth --We are forever changed!  We never realize it at the time how much we truly want to be like Jesus.  We go roaming through this earthly existence without a compass, searching and never finding the true purpose of our existence.  

In the Catholic faith there is a manual.  We have some many rich resources to indulge in.  The Holy Bible, the Liturgy of the Hours, the Magnificat, Mother Angelica's Eternal Word Television Network just to name a few.

We can reference Catholic Saints who have gone before us fighting the big fight and winning the war with Jesus for the salvation of all souls.  Yes as we delve into all the above,  we  dwell richly --in Jesus, while on earth and for all eternity.  Enrich your spirit with great books not just any books but the kind that will form you in God's truth and in God's ways.  And living in His truth, we have great wisdom  transforming us and our conscience, and eventually our very lives are transformed.  

When we live in God -- We Truly Live because He Is Living In Us and we acknowledge His presence and his presence is a gift and a grace all wrapped up into every beautiful soul that ever lived.  Live in his grace always, live in his truth always, and watch what he accomplishes in you as you become the great blessing to the world!    

Probably one of my most favorite prayers include the five Sorrowful Mysteries.  It was the first of the four Mysteries that I was able to recite by heart.  I think I am so drawn to this mystery because of the amount of sin that has entered into the world that we live in.  The sin is exponential however sin can be forgiven through showing our face to a catholic priest.  And when forgiven we can re enter into all of our relationships better.  First with Christ, second with our family, third in society and so forth.  Our soul needs tending.  It needs to be cleaned.  And that cleanliness, all removal of sin comes from God himself.

And only a Catholic priest can remove the stain of sin that has entered into the heart of man.  He is ordained by Christ to absolve you in the name of the Father, the Son, and The Holy Spirit.  Repentance of sin is critical.  If we do not repent we carry with us that sin in our heart, mind, body, and soul.  Never a good idea.  Without us realizing it that sin takes over everything that is good, pure, holy, and ordained by Christ himself.  We must be purified so that sin cannot go any further in us.  So we as Catholics confess our sins, we receive the grace of forgiveness at confession and we try with all our might never to commit those same sins in our lives ever again because we know the gravity of pain sin can bring.  Repeated sin hurts others in our company, sin is like a disease that if left unchecked it spreads.  We must take control of our sinful nature, our blind spots, all our weaknesses because they set us back from being our truest and best selves.  We were made for greatness and sin only gets in the way of our prosperity, so it is important to have a deep look into our souls and if they are dirty we need to clean them out.  

We can live our entire life never recognizing the importance of having our souls purified by this powerful gift of an examination of conscience, a conversation with a priest that can lead to an amazing revelation about oneself and then receiving the great gift of  having a confession with a holy trustworthy priest is life changing.  We can be transformed into the men and women God had originally made us to be.  What ever your state in life is, do not be afraid to open your heart to God and He will guide you lovingly and He will heal you completely.  Just trust, pray, and your path will be one that will forever remind you of a Lord whose love is larger than any need in your heart.  God has great plans for you.  You were made in His likeness and image.  You were made perfect.  He will show you.  Go to Him.  He loves you more than anyone else on this planet.  And wants to be in a relationship with you.  I pray that you give him your YES.     

The Holy Rosary.  A most important prayer.  Cherished and loved by all Catholic's. It is said everyday and at different times of day and for different reasons.  It is also said before mass begins.  It is a great way to enter into a meditative state with God no matter what we are personally going through in life, this prayer calms everything down within us, to enter into Christs presence.  In prayer we step away from everything around us and enter into the realm of Jesus Christ.  With all the angels and saints all of our ancestors who have gone before us in this lifetime we pray in union with them.  We also include our personal intentions before beginning every rosary.  Each of us are on a different journey in life and with that comes inner difficulties that we are presented with that need our full attention and prayer helps us to enter into those situations with the right sense of mindfulness necessary to tackle each situation properly.  Prayer gives us clarity of mind, body, soul, and spirit.  To listen to our hearts and to be honest with our self and our situation and to invite God into the depth of what we are truly experiencing and the rosary is a great prayer to recite daily as we are growing in our faith walk with our Lord. In praying the rosary we enter into repetition of prayer to our Blessed Mother, calling on her to intercede for us and remarkably she does exactly that she enters into our prayer life our prayerful situation and without us fully understanding how it all works we invite her through our intercessory prayers to be with us as we journey through life and every struggle she bears with us.  And knowing that we are not alone for a single second, is exactly the strength we all need for this journey.  And who better to help us than the Mother of God.  And this beautiful devotion of prayer has brought me exactly to this moment in my life because I truly believed in my heart as a Catholic woman of great faith that we are all given a special grace in this life, to live out and all grace comes from God and is given to all of his children not to be wasted.  And if we all realized just how precious of a gift we have been given we would never waste a single breadth on anything less than honoring and serving our Lord.  The Rosary is very misunderstood by our brothers and sisters who do not believe and so much is lost when we don't take the time to understand our true purpose.  If anyone suffers from this unknowing of self, please know how greatly you are loved and to find oneself is to find the pearl of great price, and that pearl of great price is Jesus Christ.  Yes, He can be found.  Yes, He is all love.   And He want's more than anything else in this lifetime, to be in a personal relationship with you.  Don't miss out on meeting Him.  He lives inside of every heart He has ever created.  Begin there.  Talk to him.  And as you invest in this relationship, your life will begin anew.  And you will no longer live. But Christ will live in you. And the two of you will live the life beyond what you ever imagined and that life begins there and it never dies.  It goes on for all eternity. Yes our bodies our tents as Father O' Doherty calls them will die, but our soul will go on to live forever. 

Today we remember our Blessed Mother, and in her honor we reflect upon the first and oldest church in Rome Italy.  Saint Mary Major.  I have had the great honor of attending mass there with my spouse and my in laws.  There was a huge attendance of women and men that were born with down syndrome in the first several rows.  The church was jammed packed with people twenty years ago, and we were there on pilgrimage to visit then Pope John Paul II.  We were to attend the Papal Audience which was an entire mass given outside the Vatican.  There were so many young couples there all dressed up in their tuxes and wedding dresses, I could not help but wished I had thought of the idea of exchanging my wedding vows to my spouse in Italy.  That experience was lovely to see as we all began to pray together in unity of our love for God, for faith, and family life.  JPII, holds a very special place in my heart, my ancestor's were of Italian and Polish  Descent.  So I have an affinity towards Naples Italy and Baranova, Poland, where all of my ancestors once lived.  And having been blessed not once but twice to attend two Papal audiences in my life time, once in New York City, and another in Rome Italy, the power of the Holy Spirit pierced my soul on both occasions. I have a greater awareness and duty towards my God for being baptized and for being confirmed into the catholic faith, and my mission is to evangelize and bring information to those truly seeking Christ, Mary, and the truth of their own personal existence.  In every podcast my hope and my goal is to share and instill the truth that will  help others get started on the proper footing in journeying towards Christ.  My compass is my foundation, given at birth, as a gift from my ancestry, and not all were given this gift and yet desire to know the King of our salvation, it is for those men and women I pray for and try my best to reach on this quest to serve with love, where love is so desperately needed.

This is the first I hope of many interviews on our podcast platform.  Today I invited a guest to speak about the holy presence of God.  What is the true presence?  Do we even know in our hearts who it is we are seeking?  Sometimes we can live our entire life and not question who is God?  Why are we here?  In the faith we are formed very young to know these answers, but not everyone is blessed with the gift of knowing and having a true faith.  I will go as far as to say that faith is for me the greatest seed of hope for what is yet to come. 

Those of us who already know Jesus, and acknowledge him as Lord,  understands the true presence, and fortunately as young children we were taught the most importance of why we were born, and the great and wonderful answer we were given was, "To know God, to love God, to be happy with God in this life and all throughout the next.  The Felician Sisters did make sure there wasn't any confusion in the children of the faith. Fortunately they did a great job in mentoring to us as early as the first grade.

The Felician Sisters made it a priority to prepare us  in mind, body, soul, and spirit for the journey in truth.   We were given the greatest discipline, first we learned  to be obedient in how we spoke and acted they not only prepared us to be  good students in school, their  discipline definitely carried itself over into my home life.  Life lessons and school lessons combined with faith, art, music, math, science , and daily exercise in the fresh air outside, gave us as God's children a place to become well rounded.  

I believe that I owe a tremendous amount of debt to the sisters and priests who loved us and united us for and to the greater glory of God.  I am who I have become because of God living in me through their great examples of faith.   And in honor of their sacrifice to God and to every child I devote my writing, my research, my podcast, to them for the blessings that overflow today in my heart because they chose Jesus and gave Jesus to us through their teaching.   And Jesus has brought me to you through this wonderful connection and may we all desire to continually grow in greatness, when it comes to being honest followers and believers in Christ. For he is truly present in you and in me, and together we will take him to the next level. But let us first truly desire in getting to know Him through Holy Scripture and  Daily Mass.

Prophetically God does speak to us.  He is the gentle voice that speaks directly to our hearts.  Sometimes we actually hear him speak and rush to listen.  Other times we ignore the voice and the important message he is trying to convey to us.  But when we are in that fortunate moment of complete surrender listening to the great I Am, something wonderful happens to us.  Without us fully realizing it God is accomplishing something wonderful and if we would just cooperate with his grace we would be so much more further along in our growth process as faith filled women and men.  It took five decades for me personally to be where I am today with Him, I had to struggle and overcome my stubborn nature, until one day I had realized this is truly not working.  I had to switch my own way of thinking and get rid of mine and adopt the mind of Jesus.  When I abandoned my self I was able to break free of distraction, blind spots, and my own way of thinking.  And what entered into my mind set was the ability to overcome any obstacles of my past.  It was as if I had just jumped off of my own ship and entered into a new ship, and new ideas, I was willing to leave my old self behind.  And that was very refreshing. Today's podcast  derives from an old journey that made me realize how far I was once from my Lord and how far I have come and advanced in my life because I distinctively chose to meet him.  To encounter him alive in the 23rd century.  He is not someone we just read about in the bible, He is the master creator of you and I and the entire universe.  He is love.  He is the unexpected truth we are all dying to hear.  And I am so grateful that I am still physically and mentally alive where I can introduce him to you through my own personal journey.  I hope to inspire you greatly, to live a life abundant in Him first, so that you can greatly appreciate everything He is doing in you right here right now in this very moment.  I don't think we give Him the credit He deserves.  And we should because, no one else could have created the earth, the sea, the sky, human life with such precision, such perfection, such awe and wonder as Jesus Christ.  I am so happy you are here to listen and learn from one or some of your elders of the faith, we are followers first of Jesus Christ.  Second, we are followers of the Apostles.  Third, we are followers of all the Saints.  Fourth,  we all have a part to play in the continuation of the faithful.  My part will come to an end and hopefully your part will begin.         

Society as a whole has forgotten God. We have taken prayer out of our schools, We live in a nation divided between not choosing good but choosing evil.  Great confusion has come into play wreaking great havoc in the minds and hearts once created for and by God.  Immorality today continues to destroy the lives of our youth as well as adults of all ages.  We are in a constant crisis.  Lives are taken from us through in climate weather patterns, such as hurricanes, floods, fires, tornadoes, and lately they have been ongoing.  Maybe it is true.  Maybe we are living in the end times according to the book of revelations as we have read about it in our bible.  History may very well be repeating itself.  Obviously, we have not learned from the past and all the warnings given to us are happening right before our very eyes.  Prayer is the only answer to all the destruction we are seeing and experiencing today.  We have lost our way, as if we are all walking in the desert without a compass and that compass is God.  Without God we are all heading down an unescapable  path, full of evil.  It's so very important to recognize and to stay as close as we can to the truth which is God.  The faith full will find protection in our Lord, and the unfaithful will experience the hardship.  It is the choice of every man and every woman God has created to choose righteousness, to choose what is good at all costs.    

Bishop, founder of the Redemptorists. Doctor of the church and patron saint of moral theologians.  The Eucharist was his strength.  How many of us catholic Christian's out there, truly desire and believe that when we receive Jesus in the form of the Holy Eucharist -- 
He Jesus himself, living inside of us becomes all that we will ever desire and need.   

I wish I could say 100 percent of us believe this to be true, but unfortunately, the numbers would be that high if more of us would just show up for daily mass and receive the food at this most holy banquet, and see for themselves the result I am talking about.  

For me personally, it took the  most painful experience of watching Jesus come for my paternal grandmother dying from brain and lung cancer, in order to realize I am nothing ---And that He- God- himself- is everything.  God presence did enter into the room at the exact moment of my grandmothers death, and being there with my parents, sibling, grandparents, and a room full of relatives, it was a moment in time that strongly shaped my faith that day.  I was completely enveloped by God in my heart and in my mind, and in my soul forever.

Seeing  is believing.  Visually God allowed us to watch the beautiful life he had created come back to him for all eternity, never again to be seen on earth.  That last breadth taken away from her body, the body of my grandmother changed me forever. Death forced me to see God NOW!  I did acknowledge his almighty power and presence more so on that day than any other day in my life time of 25 years.  It was a Sunday, Feast Day of Saint Patrick..

Fast forwarding some 32 years later, I see the growth, the push of the Lord coming into focus in my daily life unlike ever before.  They say for some it takes a crisis, and for me well I was the perfect fit.  God wanted more for my life than the life I was living.  And God knew that facing the death of my loved one would pierce me so deeply that was the best way to get my full attention.  I started to attend daily mass, and I would go to pray the Liturgy of the hours with the sisters at Saint Andrews Catholic Church,.  In the main sanctuary of that church, I made a promise to Christ, I was being asked to give all my belongings to the poor, and follow him.  Of course I said yes, and all my items were given to an orphanage, and I did promise I would dedicate the rest of my life to God, if he would consider sending one very special person to spend the rest of my life with.  And we both kept true to the promise. He did send me one very special person and all four of his beautiful children.  They changed my life forever. They gave me a compass in life I never would have had hadn't I not asked God in prayer for that one special gift, my life would have turned out very differently. But realizing when we do have the opportunity to place God in the forefront of our very lives only greatness follows, because God is the greatest given to mankind. God is love and therefore we are loved by Him and for Him forever.