Our Lady's Lamp

My Desire Totus Tuus - Totally Yours. This, more than anything, is what I desired of my life. One of my first posts, a year and a half ago, was about how God shaped my heart to desire His Glory . God has since changed my desire. Anyone can give glory to someone - think of the soldiers that gave great glory to conquerors like Alexander the Great, the Roman Empire, or the Champions that fought in the place of the king to settle disputes. Achilles was one of the great Greek glories.... but he despised the rulers. You can bring glory to someone you don't necessarily love. And I realized that I didn't just want to serve God - I wanted to love  Him. I didn't just want to be His soldier. I wanted to be His bride, His lover. This was a distinction I did not make until after I graduated college and had time to sit and stop being a Martha and start being a Mary. After graduation, I had almost 8 months of no job, so I spent lots of time in the Adoration Chapel, sitting as t...

"My Lord and My God!" It's an entreaty, words of adoration, a cry of the heart. But first, it is a title - a name. The first time it is used in the New Testament is when Thomas - Doubting Thomas - drops to his knees before Jesus and recognizes the pierced man before him not just as his Teacher, nt just as the Christ, not just as the Son of God but as "My Lord and My God!" Thomas is usually best known for his refusal to accept Christ's resurrection based on the testimony of all his friends and fellow disciples. He says he has to see proof - the wounds that killed Him. He has a week to ponder their testimony, and then Jesus comes, and instead of saying just "I believe it's you!" He instead becomes a vessel through which the Spirit reveals more about Jesus and becomes a source of revelation, of clarification, of insight: He cries out "My Lord and My God." No longer is Jesus just this Teacher, just their Rabbi, just the Messiah and So...

For the third year in a row, I have watched The Passion of the Christ on Good Friday. For the third year in a row, I have cried like a baby. But I think I cried harder this time than any other time I watched it. Looking back, I can see little signs of how God has begun to prepare me for last night, but little could prepare me for the stark understanding of the truth that flooded my heart as all the little things culminated in the viewing of that movie. Jesus has been using Mary to teach me about the Annunciation (post in progress!) and about the beautiful mystery it was, and I have been drawn more and more to songs by Kelly Pease and Danielle Rose  from Mary's point of view, to a deeper understanding of how His whole life led to calvary and how painful that road would been, especially for those dearest and closest to Him. LAst year, I expected to walk the sorrowful road with Mary, but instead walked with John and Magdalene . This year, I walked both with and beside Mary and l...

This is a transcription from my journal from tonight.  As I sit outside in the Rosary Garden tonight, Holy Thursday, I am reminded of Christ's Agony. That is where His Passion started, not before Pilate. Full aware of the horrors about to come, He prayed. And he begged His dearest friends to pray with Him. But they had just eaten a good meal, and they were tired and ready for bed So, they kept dozing off, and Jesus begged them to remain awake, not just for His sake, though I imagine He greatly desired their company and support. When they did not give it, an Angel came and ministered to Him, but it was not the same. Today, tonight, Jesus sits on the eve of His passion in the garden. He will not die again tomorrow, but daily, He offers Himself to the Father on our behalf, and daily He offers Himself for us - to  us . His agony is not that of being flayed to an inch of His life then beaten, bruised, crucified, and mocked. Instead, His agony is watching us commit the sins ...

The heart is the part of the body that is responsible for spreading life to every other part. Without the heart pumping blood, no other part can survive. It is also the part of the body the soul is personified as. "Heart" implies totality, the core of essense, and so much more. It is the life and love giving portion of the body. If one offers his heart to a person, he is offering everything to that person - his love, his emotions, his sufferings, his joys, his weaknesses, his strengths, and the promise that as long as that heart still beats, he will be true to that person. Every beat of our Lord's Sacred Heart was for us. He only took a physical heart for us, and from the moment in started beating, every beat was for us. The heart beating in the body of the infant Lord is the same heart that beat in the chest of our crucified Lord. It beat for one reason and one purpose - a love for us so deep that he would cover us all with his blood. This love consumed his heart...