A book of prayers to the Holy Face of Jesus

  Loving The Selfie-Shtick? Instead, Try These Top Ten Ways To Be The Best You Can Be.  Theses days, It’s all about self-awareness, self-actualization and self-idolization! How dare we place our own desires, interests, preferences, and convenience before God’s! Our God knows what we need most and defined it in ten simple (not easy) commandments! For 4,000 years it has been the creed by which we marry, we raise our family, we practice our faith and a fundamental code of conduct for how we interact with others, carry on our business, live our lives and advance God’s kingdom! It will be inconvenient and sometimes outright painful at times, but necessary to live and grow in faith! Our ultimate life goal should always be to unite ourselves with God! We need to recognize that everything God gives us in the world we live in is to assist us in uniting ourselves with him! Not necessarily with uniting ourselves with our own desires, our own luxuries, and certainly not with our own vanity and self-worship!We seem to have no patience for God and no tolerance for pain or for anything inconvenient to the comforts of our own lives! It’s time to sit down daily with quiet time before God, in self-reflection, in adoration, and self-denial, and in reparation for our own shortcomings! There is a ten-point checklist you can use as a measuring stick of progress! It’s called the “Ten Commandments!” Now just imagine this world if we all lived by that ten-point code of conduct, starting with the First Commandment which says “selfless” not “selfie”…. (Just saying).————–“And the Lord spoke all these words:I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.Thou shalt not have strange gods before me. Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven thing, nor the likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, nor of those things that are in the waters under the earth. Thou shalt not adore them, nor serve them: I am the Lord thy God, mighty, jealous, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me: And shewing mercy unto thousands to them that love me, and keep my commandments. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain: for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that shall take the name of the Lord his God in vain. Remember that thou keep holy the sabbath day. Six days shalt thou labour, and shalt do all thy works. But on the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: thou shalt do no work on it, thou nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy beast, nor the stranger that is within thy gates For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them, and rested on the seventh day: therefore the Lord blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it. Honour thy father and thy mother, that thou mayest be longlived upon the land which the Lord thy God will give thee. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house: neither shalt thou desire his wife, nor his servant, nor his handmaid, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is his.”Exodus 20

“Mansuetude”-noun: man·​sue·​tude | \ ˈman(t)-swi-ˌtüd  , man-ˈsü-ə-, -ˌtyüd  \Definition of mansuetude: the quality or state of being gentle: MEEKNESS, TAMENESS-Merriam-Webster—————–Practice radical mansuetude (meekness and gentleness) for charity is patient and tolerant. Love does not moderate at different levels! It is always achieved with a full cup, being poured out for those present with you in this Eternal Now, and in the same equal measure, with complete conviction and in the fullness of Christ Jesus!Perfect Charity, the kind that was poured out for humanity in the passion of our Lord!When the Meek and gentle Lamb of God, through perfect charity, takes away the sins of the world! “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”John 15:13.​

Conflict is the first step to problem-solving.  But it only works when both sides are humble and selfless to find truth and not to win at all costs nor to favor their own interests. So what can we learn from conflict so that we can resolve problems?  We start with the pain points and then work to the hurdles to ease them or heal them. Finally, we openly “work together” to solve the problems,  including through a willingness to compromise!  It takes continuous effort! Marriages are built on this foundation and when couples work together great things happen.  When teams work together great things happen. When communities work together, great things happen. When political parties “work together,” great things can happen. Only vote for candidates that are willing to work across party lines to solve problems, otherwise, we will be destined to endless conflict and problems that never get solved! We need to be a People of Faith with a message of Hope! “Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint! “–Isaiah 40:30-31 —————————————–“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” –Galatians 6:9

 Your Majestic Beauty – A Prayer Lord, I perceive myself as a rock, when in reality I am nothing but a frail flower, subject to the wind and the turbulence of the elements that surround me! Lord, please give me strong roots, so that I can withstand the tumultuous winds and torrents that come to me! Through the living waters and the food you give me, let me grow in strength and to flower in beauty, looking always and reaching always to the Son, so much as to force others to stop and appreciate the fragrance and the beauty of your majesty in me! Lord, let me draw others to you, for you, through me!

  Stop. Look. Listen. Turn Around!  Turning BackIt is not the wrongs that we do that define our destiny, it is our response to the wrongs we do that define us! We all fall or stumble at times, but If there is no remorse, if there remains a present persistence in that wrong, then there can be no healing or repair! And if God is absent, Satan takes his place, and he will do his best to keep you bound in that wrongdoing, trying his best to keep you in despair! We must “turn back” to God out of  Love and out of remorse, with a willingness to reconcile ourselves and to change for the better, and exercise the discipline to change those wrongful tendencies. In doing so, we will find the joy, love, and peace and the welcome and open arms of God! We have to “turn back” and let go of the chains that hold us back and keep us down! “Let us throw off the chains that prevent us from following him,” says St. Augustine! Penance, reconciliation, mortifications, and deep prayers of repentance are all means of “pruning the vine” to grow stronger in our connection to God, and to flower and to bear more fruit! “The gardener cuts the green shoots from the root of the bush, not to kill the rose, but to make it bloom more beautifully.” The Venerable Fulton Sheen. “Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me!I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing!”        John 15:4-5​