Lord, Hear Our Prayer

The internet is a formidable force for bringing the comfort and consolation and hope of the Lord to all of us. It can be an incredibily powerful medium for community. There is an unfathomable resource for prayer here. We have on the 'net the privilege of praying for people and of being witness to the miracles brought forth when fervent, faith-fulled people pray for one another.

Let's be that community of hope and faith for one another.

How about this idea? What if I pop in here every weekend, share Sunday's gospel and talk a wee bit about how we can live it and pray it in our homes? And then you tell me how we can pray for you that week? Deal?

{And please, do return and let us know how prayer is bearing fruit.}

Gospel

Jn 6:24-35

When the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there,
they themselves got into boats
and came to Capernaum looking for Jesus.
And when they found him across the sea they said to him,
"Rabbi, when did you get here?"
Jesus answered them and said,
"Amen, amen, I say to you,
you are looking for me not because you saw signs
but because you ate the loaves and were filled.
Do not work for food that perishes
but for the food that endures for eternal life,
which the Son of Man will give you.
For on him the Father, God, has set his seal."
So they said to him,
"What can we do to accomplish the works of God?"
Jesus answered and said to them,
"This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent."
So they said to him,
"What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you?
What can you do?
Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, as it is written:
He gave them bread from heaven to eat.?
So Jesus said to them,
"Amen, amen, I say to you,
it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven;
my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.
For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven
and gives life to the world."

So they said to him,
"Sir, give us this bread always."
Jesus said to them,
"I am the bread of life;
whoever comes to me will never hunger,
and whoever believes in me will never thirst."

Think

"The many wonders of creation can only fill us with astonishment and admiration. But when we speak of the most holy Eucharist we can say that here is to be found the miracle of divine love for us.... Has there been, or will there ever be, a nobler or more magnanimous love than that which He has shown us in the sacrament of love?"

- St. John Vianney

Act

After communion this week, when everyone else hurries out to the donuts and coffee, stay. Stay and pray. St. Alphonsus Liguori once wrote that “there is no prayer more dear to God than that which is made after communion.” He continued that our prayers after communion are so very precious “because they are then animated by the presence of Jesus Christ, who is united to our souls.”

Pray

Prayer after Communion

Stay with me, Lord, for it is necessary to have You present so that I do not forget You. You know how easily I abandon You. 

Stay with me Lord, because I am weak, and I need Your strength, so that I may not fall so often. 

Stay with me Lord, for You are my life, and without You, I am without fervor. 

Stay with me Lord, for You are my light, and without you, I am in darkness. 

Stay with me Lord, to show me Your will. 

Stay with me Lord, so that I hear Your voice and follow You. 

Stay with me Lord, for I desire to love you very much, and always be in Your Company. 

Stay with me Lord, if You wish me to be faithful to You. 

Stay with me Lord, for as poor as my soul is, I want it to be a place of consolation for You, a nest of Love. 

Stay with me, Jesus, for it is getting late, and the day is coming to a close, and life passes, death, judgment, eternity approach. It is necessary to renew my strength, so that I will not stop along the way and for that, I need You. It is getting late and death approaches. I fear the darkness, the temptations, the dryness, the cross, the sorrows. O how I need You, my Jesus, in this night of exile. 

Stay with me tonight, Jesus, in life with all its dangers, I need You. 

Let me recognize You as Your disciples did at the breaking of bread, so that the Eucharistic Communion be the light which disperses the darkness, the force which sustains me, the unique joy of my heart. 

Stay with me Lord, because at the hour of my death, I want to remain united to you, if not by Communion, at least by grace and love. 

Stay with me Jesus, I do not ask for divine consolation because I do not merit it, but the gift of Your presence, oh yes, I ask this of You. 

Stay with me Lord, for it is You alone I look for, Your Love, Your Grace, Your Will, Your Heart, Your Spirit, because I love You and ask no other reward but to love You more and more. 

With a firm love, I will love You with all my heart while on earth and continue to love You perfectly during all eternity. Amen. 

~St. Padre Pio

Ten Ways to Make it a Good Day.

After a string of really bad days, I sat down to make a list of ten sure-fire ways to work towards making the day a good one.

Nail the prayer and exercise routine from dawn to bedtime.  

Make a good meal and eat it at the table, all together; candelight is a good thing.

Keep the laundry caught up or conquer the backed up laundry mountain.

Sew something, anything.

Read stories to my little ones-- the more, the better.

Make bathtime relaxed and happy for everyone.

Use online time with discretion, sparingly. Take my time online. *

Choose joy, especially when it's not the easy choice. 

Curl up and read a good book for mama. (...and maybe knit, too. I really miss knitting.)



Um. Curl up with him;-).

*Like the necklace? Me, too! You can shop for them here:-)

Get Back on the Horse

Courage is being scared to death...and saddling up anyway.  ~John Wayne

One of the earliest religious disappointments in a young girl's life devolves around her unanswered prayers for a horse.  ~Phyllis Theroux

Riding a horse is not a gentle hobby, to be picked up and laid down like a game of solitaire. It is a grand passion. It seizes a person whole and, once it has done so, he will have to accept that his life will be radically changed. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

He saw me coming out of the barn with the tack and he bit me. I showed him. Later that day, I saddled him up and I rode him. ~Katie Foss 

The horses paw and prance and neigh,
Fillies and colts like kittens play,
And dance and toss their rippled manes
Shining and soft as silken skeins;...
~Oliver Wendell Holmes

The daughter who won't lift a finger in the house is the same child who cycles madly off in the pouring rain to spend all morning mucking out a stable. ~Samantha Armstrong

needle & thREAD

I knew it was only a matter of time. I'm here before you this morning to confess I didn't sew a thing this week. I was gone all weekend and spent the first part of the week recovering my household. The only thing I did in my sewing room was rearrange the furniture.

It's an odd paradox. I've been tired and overwhelmed and in a bit of a funk pretty much all summer. I always feel better when I sew. And yet, I sometimes can't bring myself to get started. Inertia. It's a bad thing.

I've been reading Talking Back to Facebook. I think this book is well worth my time. I'm only about half way through it and I have the Kindle version, so it's tricky to skip around. The book is focused on social media and children and teenagers. So far, I'm nodding right along. I do think he underestimates the effects of social media for the rest of us, though. Or maybe he's going to get to that. Or maybe it's just me who feels those effects...

What about you? Sewing? Reading? A little of both? What's on your summer reading list? Do you have a summer sewing list?  Or are you embroidering? Pulling a needle with thread through lovely fabric to make life more beautiful somehow? Would you share with us just a single photo (or more) and a brief description of what you're up to? Will you tell us about what you're reading, also? Would you talk sewing and books with us? I'd love that so much.

Make sure the link you submit is to the URL of your blog post or your specific Flickr photo and not your main blog URL or Flickr Photostream. Please be sure and link to your current needle and thREAD post below in the comments, and not a needle and thREAD post from a previous week. If you don't have a blog, please post a photo to the needle & thREAD group at Flickr. 

       Include a link back to this post in your blog post or on your flickr photo page so that others who may want to join the needle and thREAD fun can find us! Feel free to grab a button here (in one of several colors) so that you can use the button to link:-).

God gives Strength, If not Sleep

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a whine about whining. There were lots of thoughtful comments and even more email. I think I've answered everyone, but I'm not the world's best email manager, so if I've missed you, please ping me again.

One of the notes asked, "When you were a younger mom, with lots of little kids and no one big enough to act as your own personal nanny, weren't you tired? Didn't you feel like you couldn't even get out of bed and do the day some days? Did you ever just break down and cry at 3 in the afternoon from the sheer tiredness of it all? I don't think you're remembering right if you think you were cheerful all the time."

Um, yeah.

When I look back on my 20s and 30s what I remember most is fatigue. I was nursing or pregnant or pregnant-and-nursing from 1988 to now, with a "break" for cancer and another 4 month "break" in 2005, hoping to get pregnant. That's a whole lot of hormones and a whole lot of sleep deprivation. 

When I got this email, I first remembered a time 15 years ago. Mary Beth was an infant, we'd just moved into a new house, and Mike was working two fulltime jobs, one of which he hated. He was exhausted and grumpy and things were tight and tense all the time. He was rarely home and the physical care of house and children was wearing on me. We lived in a neighborhood full of new construction. On this particular day, our next door neighbors, Ed and Kelli, were having a housewarming party. 

They had just moved in and invited family and friends to help them celebrate. Our houses were practically right on top of each other. They didn't have curtains. I saw Kelli light a great, big apple-shaped candle on the counter. All night, their friends had fun and that candle glowed. I walked my cranky baby, got my rowdy boys to bed, cleaned the kitchen, folded laundry, all while the candle burned a bright beacon of carefree fun next door. It's been fifteen years. I still see that candle. I wished we could afford beautiful scented candles. I remember feeling frumpy and leaky while what looked like a scene from Friends played out next door. 

Because I remember it so clearly, I think I must have written about it. I dug around a little, but can't find it. Ed and Kelli are still our friends to this day. I was at their wedding (I remember I didn't take my coat off in the church and didn't go to the reception; I was wearing a dress two sizes too big because I couldn't afford to buy something new). And we've lived a few crises together that look nothing like a sitcom. So, yes, it didn't all glow honey-tones of joy. In searching for some "tired" pieces from years past, I ran across this one to share with you. My five children were 10, 6, 4, 2 and 6 months at the time. I'll leave you with this for now. Perhaps I will address the snarky reference to my teenagers as nannies later.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

I am weary as I write this morning. Stephen, six months old, has discovered that it is quiet and he can have me all to himself at three in the morning. It isn't very often that he takes advantage of this opportunity. He seems to know that if it's not a routine, he can get away with it. Every once in awhile, he awakens and refuses to go back to sleep. There was a time, two or three babies ago, when I would have fought this nighttime rendezvous. I would have have worried that I was spoiling him, that he would never learn to sleep, that all the experts advised against such encounters. It has been some time since I consulted the experts. Now, I find myself agreeing with Stephen. It's nice to be alone together in the quiet and the stillness.

Last night, I sat with him on the porch. It was blissfully cool, as a long awaited cold front blew in. The streetlights cast a glow across his rounded cheeks and he looked positively cherubic as he smiled and cooed at me. I talked to him and sang to him. Itickled him with a flower from the garden. He yawned and stretched and I melted as he drifted off to sleep smiling. When Stephen was snug in bed, I drifted off smiling, too, feeling good about motherhood and life in general.

Then it was morning. Bright and early, my two-year-old, unaware of my date with her brother, bounced on me and insisted on breakfast. I have never handled sleep deprivation well. My mother will certify that I have always required a lot of sleep. I used to lose sleep, worrying that I was not getting enough sleep. Not anymore.

For nearly twelve years now, I have been sleep deprived. When I am tired, I can be cranky and impatient. Little things that should not bother me become big things. I am tense and irritable. And I lose sight of why I am doing what I am doing. I forget that there are moonlight and flowers, because all I can see is carpet stains and diapers. When my second child was about six months old, it dawned on me that I wasn't going to sleep like a normal person for a very long time. If I wanted to be at all happy, I needed a coping strategy.

Now, when I have a bad night, the first thing I do in the morning is acknowledge that it was a bad night. I tell God that I am grateful that I was able to be there to meet the needs of my children the previous night. I tell Him that He knows better than I do that I don't handle fatigue well. I tell Him that there is no way I will make it through the day under my own strength. I ask Him to help me. I remind myself that I can form my children positively or negatively that day. I can be a grouch and set a negative example: "Look, children, you only have to be nice to one another if you are feeling well and rested and all your ducks are in a row." Or I can beg the Lord to help me be charitable and patient, despite my human weaknesses. After I have thoroughly discussed the matter with the Lord, I usually tell my older children as well. They need to know I'm struggling--so that they can help me and so that I can be a witness to the Lord's strength when He comes through for me. And He always does.

That's the simplifed plan for coping with child-induced sleep deprivation. Pray about it. Come to think of it, that's really the plan for all of life. It also helps to remember that nap time is never more than a few hours away.