Happy New Year!!!!

Happy 2007!!

& Good riddance to 2006

This is my New Year's Resolution:
Philippians 4:4-9

Rejoice in the LORD always. I shall say it again: rejoice! Your kindness should be known to all. The LORD is near. Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me. Then the God of peace will be with you.
Amen!

What can that mean as a resolution, you could possibly ask?

• To rejoice always in the LORD
• That my kindness should be known to all
• That I should be without anxiety
• Everything is done through prayer, petition, thanksgiving
• That God knows my heart, and that I want to hide nothing from Him
• That I ponder and think of honorable, just, pure, lovely, gracious, and praiseworthy things
• That I continue to practice what I have already learned in and of the LORD.

Looking at 2007

At this time of year, people start to reflect on the past year.

I figure, why look back? Christ calls us to follow Him in every part of our lives: as children of Him and our parents, as relatives (aunts, uncles, cousins, daughters, sons), as active members of society, and so forth. Therefore, if He leads us forward, what need have we to look back? Surely, we should not look back longingly.

Looking ahead at my new, clean and blank slate...I see the need for a New Year's Resolution. The one I made for 2006 was to have read, understand and applied a passage to my life: Ephesians 4: 31 - 5: 20. This year, I know what I am looking for, but not exactly where it is in the New Testament. That's why I'm posting about it, but not typing it out for you. It's along the lines of Philippians 4: 4 and Ephesians 6: 18 - 20; however, it is the passage where we're instructed to pray without ceasing, praise and supplication in all things. In all, I think its not more than 2 verses! I have to read/skim to find it.

A-hunting I will go! ... Well, after I take the GRE exam this Saturday morning.

A Blessed New Year's to you!!
Do you have resolution(s) to make?

Musings

It is difficult for me to adjust and realize that people are beautiful because the Spirit of Christ dwells within, instead of seeking out phyiscal beauty.

I should realize that I am lower than the average person because I sin in full acknowledgment of the Lord.

As a daughter of God, a friend of Christ, and a potential Bride of the Spirit, I am to be the servant of any and every person with whom I come in contact.

Christ took on the Cross for me that I might have eternal life in Him. Now I must take up the cross so He might have eternal life in me.

Mass and revelations

I always pursued child development and sociology rather blindly because it was a good field and somewhat interesting to me.

I now know that I entered the right field of study. God told me so on Saturday night.

I was able to attend Mass Sunday evening, and found that I did not like the Mass that I usually attend: there was little mention of Advent. The only sign it was the Advent season was the purple drop cloth behind the altar, but the hymns were not one of reverence, or longing for Christ, rather they were the up-beat ones the 5pm Mass has adopted in order to draw in the youth. I'm thinking of the other Masses, to try and see which one I would prefer, maybe the 9am or 10:45am Mass. 10:45 am is more likely as it shouldn't interrupt the family's breakfast routine. Of course there is always the option of a 7:30am Mass, but I don't think the reception of that would be any warmer than the shift to a 10:45am attendance.

"To Serve Him in a Concrete Life"

A vocation, then, is nothing other than God's call to serve Him in a concrete state in life, and we can say that every person has his vocation - a concrete, personal path to reach God, very much his own and intransferable. By way of example your specific vocation is to be a Christian (many people are not Christians) in the world (many choose to be religious or priests) rooted in a particular soceity, with a specific profession (engineering instead of others) marked by and indissoluble reality (marriage to a particular woman) and given an apostolic dimension in a Movement called Regnum Christi (and not another). All of this makes up your vocation, very different to mine and very different also to your closest friends'.

You have to accepth your personal vocation fully in all its dimensions. It would be a deception to say: "I'll be a good husband" and "I won't bother about my faith"' or "I'll be a good career-man" and "I will not be faithful to my marriage"; or "I'll be a good husband and a good career man but I will forget about my Christian life and my commitment to God in the Movement". I would be like an engineer who took artihmetic but skipped trigonometry, and thought he was a good engineer.

To Serve Him in a Concrete State in Life
from teh letter of February 17, 1981
Fr. Marcial Maciel, LC