0 comments on "A Morning Prayer"

You wake me so gently, Lord
My eyes open to praise You for this new day
Touched by Your awesome presence, I don’t fear what lies ahead
Instead, I’m on fire for Your Word, Your mission

I love the way You paint the sky, the leaves in every season
The way You orchestrate every wave in the ocean, every wind, every new child who is born
How You tell me You love me with plants, animals, angels, and saints
In Your astonishing glory, You still take the time to meet me, personally

I’ve neglected You so often
When You are really everywhere
How could I have ignored Your tremendous graces?
Forgive me, Lord, my ingratitude, and inspire my heart to seek You always

0 comments on "Does It Make a Difference?"

In many cases, our best intentions and actions are shrugged off
Unappreciated, we begin to lose heart
Perhaps we are angry or hurt, disappointed or even despairing

That time that you confessed your love in a beautiful note
Or when you donated an arm and a leg to the poor children in Africa
Or when you let your drunken friend crash at your place whenever he needed to

Were these gestures so quickly forgotten?
Did you give a part of yourself that you can never get back?
Why has the loneliness increased and you feel like a nobody?

I’m finding myself quite selfish sometimes…
They say that it’s a love tank gone empty
But I remember someone who passed away to cancer
How the littlest things meant so much to her
And how precious that time was
How I wish I could have done more

Being human can leave us so tragically broken
But Jesus became man so that we can transcend this state of original sin
Through the Heart of Jesus, we can see that everyone’s worth saving, healing, loving

Only God knows if it makes a difference in the end, and He gave us His only begotten Son
Surely, we mustn’t think it was a lost cause
Despite the sufferings of the Cross, we know the victory was, and is, His
And we firmly believe that that makes all the difference

0 comments on "And lead us not into the test"

We mustn’t pay much heed to Satan
Like any bully, he’ll just drain the life from you
It’s a far better thing to pray
That the good Lord may always defend and guide you

In dealing with the wolves, we’ve been instructed
To be shrewd as serpents, innocent as doves (Matthew 10:16)
And yet, without His most Holy Spirit,
We cannot know of wisdom, much less His gift of perfect love

Discerning in God’s Spirit is the key
To unlocking what’s right and wrong,
When to act and when to wait,
And like Jesus, how peacefully to stand up to those who hate

The admission price for this discernment
Is simply humility
Coming to our Father in full surrender and submission
Trusting that His Will be done can make us someone holy

0 comments on "In the Darkness"

I know that You are at the end of this darkness
Not that You are a being of darkness,
But that You want for me to exercise my trust muscles—
To be faithful not only in word, but also in deed

If my heart is planted in fertile soil,
It will eagerly wait for the Son to come
It will depend on You, surrender to You, exist for You
The only life worth living is the one where You are

So in the darkness, there is hope…

0 comments on "Valley of Tears (in the wake of Hurricane Dorian)"

I’m thinking of those thousands of newly homeless people in the Bahamas
While my friend carelessly throws away a quarter of a plate of perfectly good food
Simply because he ordered too much

I don’t know what I’m doing here enjoying such a good meal
I’m certainly grateful and savoring the various flavors
But it seems wrong to be in sunny California instead of that place I saw on the news
Where family members are missing, and the storm floods have ruined everything

One of my favorite promises in Scripture is how God will wipe away all our tears (cf. Revelation 21:4)
Right now, so many of our brothers and sisters are hurting in a valley of tears

0 comments on "A Cry for Your Mercy (My Life to Your Mercy)"

I don’t want to write, don’t wanna say a word
Because I know I’m full of pride, cowardice, worldliness
All I’d do is infect others with my base corruption
Bringing the opposite of glory to Your Name

You gave me talents, and I misused them
Wasted so many years in selfishness
An agent of Satan, rejecting purity and the divine order of things
Preferring hedonistic pleasures and the approval of all the modern Caesars

I didn’t stop to think how I had thrown You to the wayside,
How I had slowly adopted other gods, false and unworthy of worship
Did my sins add sharp pains to Your Heart, and during the agony of the Cross?
When You thirsted, was it for my broken, fallen soul?

I was so full of anger, mostly towards myself
The loss of childhood innocence and joy, I subconsciously knew,
Was the result of my complicating things into a twisted mess of a life
They were my choices, my responsibility, my own character assassination

I don’t want to lose You, Lord
I would rather lose all else
Take everything from me, Lord
In Your hands is the only safe place
Where there is mercy, goodness, and everlasting Love

0 comments on "An Honest Confession"

Before Mass, I went to confession
And nearly broke down
My biggest sin—
I don’t know how to love, with the heart of Jesus
Nor do I know how
To see Him in others

Burdened by resentment and a general distrust
I judge where I have no right
So the priest, being in persona Christi,
Tells me to pray for wisdom
To know how to love
As Christ loves us

0 comments on "Where are the heroes, where are the saints?"

Oh, that the Judas-like of the world
Would be more like Peter, John, Paul, Matthew, Lazarus, Mary Magdalene…
Why would anyone choose to give the betrayer’s kiss
Which infused the cup of our Lord with such a bitter taste to drink?

But it’s better for our hearts to break in silence
Than to rebel against our good God in anguish over scandalous behavior
As long as a person is living here in this world, by God’s Holy Will,
They still have the choice to be the wheat or the weeds

The devil’s deception can be such a subtle thing
To convince us that we don’t ever have a chance of being holy
Or that sanctity is the sole responsibility of priests and religious
When we are all called to be the Body of Christ, His Bride, the Church

May we be together as one, as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one…

0 comments on "How We Ought to Pray"

On this subject, I’m conflicted…
I know that we ought to pray for each other, and with each other,
But what did Jesus say about praying to the Father—
Mustn’t we close the door of our inner room and pray in secret? (cf. Matthew 6:6)

When prayer becomes a public spectacle—
About who can pray the loudest, the longest, with the most tears—
Or even giving alms, with our left hand knowing what our right is doing,
Haven’t we become as hypocritical and prideful as the Pharisees?

Only God knows the depths of the heart, but what if we’ve made our hearts impure?
What if we’re trying to serve multiple masters—God, the world, and ourselves?
These are tough questions we shouldn’t shy away from
If we sincerely want to love and serve Him
With all our heart, mind, soul, and strength

0 comments on "Made for More than This"

When you curl up into a fetal position
It means you’re vulnerable
You wouldn’t want to hurt someone in this state
Much less, tear them limb from limb
Selling each part for science
Or throwing them away without even a proper burial
 
But this is precisely what’s been done
And I’m sure heaven is outraged by these crimes
If you were God, what would you say
If the beings you created were murdering themselves?
 
Stop it! Enough!
Can’t you see that you were made for more than this?
 
God is not silent
He is speaking through people like you and me
He is speaking within our consciences
And He is listening to every cry, every prayer
Offering us mercy
So that we might have the means of salvation