Dara’s Corner Try an “Seville Bitter Orange Marmalade”
· Spirit hour: Isabella Cocktail in honor of Blessed Isabel of France
· Bucket List Trip: Hang in Beijing-The Havermale’s & China
· How to celebrate Feb 26th
o Start your day by telling a fairy tale to a friend or family member. Let your imagination run wild and transport your listener to a magical world of enchantment. Embrace the whimsy of the storytelling process and have fun with it.
o For snack time, indulge in some delicious pistachios. Whether you crack them open one by one or enjoy them in a pistachio-based dish, savor the unique flavor and health benefits of these green gems.
o In the spirit of Levi Strauss Day, rock your favorite denim attire. Dress head to toe in denim or simply add a denim accessory to your outfit. Embrace the timeless style and versatility of this classic fabric.
o Show your support for anti-bullying efforts on National Pink Shirt Day by wearing a pink shirt. Take a stand against bullying and promote kindness and acceptance in your community.
o Take some time to write a heartfelt letter to an elder in your life on Letter to an Elder Day. Share memories, words of wisdom, or simply let them know how much they mean to you. Your words will surely brighten their day.
o Challenge yourself with some tongue twisters on International Tongue Twister Contest Day. Have a friendly competition with friends or family to see who can tackle the trickiest twisters without stumbling over their words.
o Celebrate Tex Avery Day by watching classic cartoons or indulging in some animated fun. Enjoy the lighthearted humor and creativity of Tex Avery’s beloved creations.
o Seize the day on National Carpe Diem Day by embracing new opportunities and making the most of each moment. Try something new, take a chance, and live life to the fullest.
o Get into the festive spirit on Carnival Day by hosting a mini carnival at home. Create games, serve up some carnival-inspired treats, and enjoy a day of fun and laughter with loved ones.
o On Inconvenience Yourself Day, perform random acts of kindness for others. Whether it’s helping a neighbor, volunteering your time, or simply spreading positivity, make a difference in someone else’s day.
o Set a positive example on National Set a Good Example Day by embodying kindness and compassion in your actions. Lead by example and inspire others to follow suit.
o For Pete’s Sake Day, take some time to relax and unwind. Treat yourself to a little self-care, whether it’s a bubble bath, a favorite movie, or a cozy nap. Put your well-being first.
o Lastly, observe Maha Shivaratri by spending some time in reflection or meditation. Connect with your inner self and find peace and serenity in the stillness of the moment.
February 26 Wednesday
GRAND CANYON Established 1919
Sirach, Chapter 4, Verse 17-18
17 “I will walk with them in disguise, and at first I will test them
with trials. FEAR and dread I will bring upon them and I will
discipline them with my constraints. When their hearts are fully with me, 18 then I will set them again on the straight path and reveal my
secrets to them.
Do
you walk with others and engage or walk away?
Are
you tested with trials?
Are
you constrained?
Then bring your hearts to the Lord.
According to Copilot we can do this as a Catholic
by several meaningful 8 steps:
Remember
the number 8 Eight is associated with
joy and the resurrection. There are eight beatitudes, and Christ rose from
the grave on the eighth day after his triumphal entry into Jerusalem,
symbolized in the octagonal shape of many baptismal fonts.
1. Prayer: Engage
in regular prayer, both personal and communal. This can include praying the
Rosary, the Divine Mercy Chaplet, and other traditional prayers. Speak to God
from your heart, seeking His guidance and expressing your love and trust.
2. Sacraments:
Participate in the sacraments regularly, especially the Eucharist and
Confession. The Eucharist strengthens your connection with Christ, while
Confession provides healing and forgiveness, helping you stay on the right
path.
3. Scripture
Reading: Spend time reading and meditating on the Bible. God's Word offers
wisdom, guidance, and insights into His will for your life.
4. Adoration: Spend
time in Eucharistic Adoration, where you can be in the presence of the Blessed
Sacrament. This quiet time with Jesus can deepen your relationship with Him.
5. Spiritual
Guidance: Seek guidance from a spiritual director or a trusted priest. They can
help you discern God's will and provide support on your spiritual journey.
6. Acts of
Charity: Live out your faith through acts of love and service to others. By
loving your neighbors and helping those in need, you reflect God's love and
grow closer to Him.
7. Devotion
to Mary: Develop a strong devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. She is a
powerful intercessor and guide who can help you grow in holiness and lead you
closer to her Son.
8. Examination
of Conscience: Regularly examine your conscience and reflect on
your actions. This practice helps you stay aware of areas in your life that
need improvement and brings you closer to God.
By incorporating these practices into your life,
you'll open your heart to God's grace and allow Him to guide you on the path He
has set for you.
What the
Grand Canyon tells us about God[1]
(est.
today in 1919) A
view from the South Rim of the Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona.
Contemplation always involves knowledge of one’s true scale, of a reality that
dwarfs the ego.
Many years ago, I was
telling my spiritual director that I found it easiest to pray in a beautiful
garden, and I was warming to my sense of myself as a contemplative. The wise
Dominican asked with disarming candor:
“But are you in the
garden, or is the garden in you?”
It
took a long time even to realize what the question meant. I remember another
similarly disarming question at the very beginning of my adult search for God.
I was an undergraduate and took myself to a Benedictine monastery for a few
days’ retreat in Lent. I was captivated by the silence, prayer and retreat from
the world, swept up in the chant and the romance of monastic life. What I did
not realize was that I was attracted to it as something that would make it less
painful to be what I thought I was – something I needed for my religious
amour-propre. Thus, many searches for God begin, but one can only search for
God because he has already found you. What must happen is that someone else
must put a belt around you and lead you where you would rather not go. It is
not the intensity of the search, but of the willingness to be led that is
ultimately the measure of vocation. Vocation is not finding the garden in you;
it is finding yourself in the garden.
Perhaps the wise abbot
sensed this. Anyway, I remember being rather discombobulated by his direct
manner. As I emoted about the spiritual life, he looked at me carefully and
asked:
“Is God real to you?”
It
was like a torpedo below the waterline of all my high-sounding talk about my
attraction to the monastic life versus secular priesthood, the script I was
busy constructing of an encounter with the living God in which I remained
firmly the star. The best answer I could manage was: “I think so.” In the
moment of asking I doubted it, or rather I realized suddenly that so much of
what I thought was God wasn’t actually God. It was the paraphernalia of God, of
religion. (In fact, the moment wasn’t too confounding, for soon there came
another answer from deep inside: “He’s real to me in the Blessed Sacrament.”
There – perhaps because, as Aquinas put it, “Sight, touch and taste in thee are
each deceived” – I couldn’t confuse feeling for the reality.
I realized that I had been
given something to work with.) All of this came to mind when I visited the
Grand Canyon at the end of my trip to America.
What’s the connection?
One
may grasp what one might call the paraphernalia of the Grand Canyon. It was
formed by billions of years of imperceptibly slow change, of almost every
possible kind of geological activity: sediment layering, tectonic plates
shifting, glaciers melting and rivers carving a gorge a mile and a half deep
into solid rock. These are processes that can be mapped and understood, but the
result overwhelms the sum and the mind of man. It’s astonishing, ancient beauty
can only be contemplated – that is, it must act on you, overwhelm your mind
with its four-billion-year-old scale, stillness and silence which is in
constant change.
Spontaneously, the words
of the psalmist rose from my heart at the breathtaking sight: “Before the
mountains or the hills were brought forth, you are God, without beginning or
end.” Contemplation always involves knowledge of one’s true scale, of a reality
that dwarfs the ego. As if this were not enough, as the sun set, the sky above
came alive with stars. I have never seen so many or so clearly. They were like
the lights of some vast celestial city calling, a million points of light and
security like some distant homeland, like the medieval fantasy that the stars
were rents in the sky through which one could see the light of heaven. To count
them I must be eternal, like God. The psalmist said:
“When I see the
heavens, the work of your hands, the moon and stars which you have made, what
is man, that thou art mindful of him?”
And
the answer comes back that in Jesus Christ the Father has united himself to the
heart of every person in such a way that the vastness of the universe becomes
an image not of alienation, but of the vastness of a love that was there before
the hills were set in order. This love causes even rocks to exude a soft beauty
which seems like the desire of the Eternal Hills for the Heart of their maker.
Catechism
of the Catholic Church
Day
256 1949-1960
PART THREE: LIFE IN CHRIST
SECTION ONE-MAN'S VOCATION LIFE IN THE
SPIRIT
CHAPTER THREE-GOD'S SALVATION: LAW AND
GRACE
1949 Called to beatitude but
wounded by sin, man stands in need of salvation from God. Divine help comes to
him in Christ through the law that guides him and the grace that sustains him:
Work out your own salvation with
fear and trembling; for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his
good pleasure.
Article 1-THE MORAL LAW
1950 The moral law is the work of divine Wisdom. Its
biblical meaning can be defined as fatherly instruction, God's pedagogy. It
prescribes for man the ways, the rules of conduct that lead to the promised
beatitude; it proscribes the ways of evil which turn him away from God and his
love. It is at once firm in its precepts and, in its promises, worthy of love.
1951 Law is a rule of conduct enacted by competent
authority for the sake of the common good. The moral law presupposes the
rational order, established among creatures for their good and to serve their
final end, by the power, wisdom, and goodness of the Creator. All law finds its
first and ultimate truth in the eternal law. Law is declared and established by
reason as a participation in the providence of the living God, Creator and
Redeemer of all. "Such an ordinance of reason is what one calls law."
Alone among all animate beings, man can boast of having
been counted worthy to receive a law from God: as an animal endowed with
reason, capable of understanding and discernment, he is to govern his conduct
by using his freedom and reason, in obedience to the One who has entrusted
everything to him.
1952 There are different expressions of the moral law, all
of them interrelated: eternal law - the source, in God, of all law; natural
law; revealed law, comprising the Old Law and the New Law, or Law of the
Gospel; finally, civil and ecclesiastical laws.
1953 The moral law finds its fullness and its unity in
Christ. Jesus Christ is in person the way of perfection. He is the end of the
law, for only he teaches and bestows the justice of God: "For Christ is
the end of the law, that everyone who has faith may be justified."
1954 Man participates in the wisdom and
goodness of the Creator who gives him mastery over his acts and the ability to
govern himself with a view to the true and the good.
The natural law expresses the original moral sense which enables man to discern by reason the good and the evil, the truth and the lie:
The natural law is written and
engraved in the soul of each and every man, because it is human reason
ordaining him to do good and forbidding him to sin . . . But this command of
human reason would not have the force of law if it were not the voice and interpreter
of a higher reason to which our spirit and our freedom must be submitted.
1955 The "divine and natural"
law
shows man the way to follow so as to practice the good and attain
his end. The natural law states the first and essential precepts which govern
the moral life. It hinges upon the desire for God and submission to him, who is
the source and judge of all that is good, as well as upon the sense that the
other is one's equal. Its principal precepts are expressed in the Decalogue.
This law is called "natural," not in reference to the nature of
irrational beings, but because reason which decrees it properly belongs to
human nature:
Where then are these rules written, if
not in the book of that light we call the truth? In it is written every just
law; from it the law passes into the heart of the man who does justice, not
that it migrates into it, but that it places its imprint on it, like a seal on
a ring that passes onto wax, without leaving the ring.
The natural law is nothing other than
the light of understanding placed in us by God; through it we know what we must
do and what we must avoid. God has given this light or law at the creation.
1956 The natural law, present in the
heart of each man and established by reason, is universal in its precepts and
its authority extends to all men. It expresses the dignity of the person and
determines the basis for his fundamental rights and duties:
For there is a true law: right reason.
It is in conformity with nature, is diffused among all men, and is immutable
and eternal; its orders summon to duty; its prohibitions turn away from offense
.... To replace it with a contrary law is a sacrilege; failure to apply even
one of its provisions is forbidden; no one can abrogate it entirely.
1957 Application of the natural law varies greatly; it can demand reflection that takes account of various conditions of life according to places, times, and circumstances. Nevertheless, in the diversity of cultures, the natural law remains as a rule that binds men among themselves and imposes on them, beyond the inevitable differences, common principles.
1958 The natural law is immutable and
permanent throughout the variations of history; it subsists under the flux
of ideas and customs and supports their progress. the rules that express it
remain substantially valid. Even when it is rejected in its very principles, it
cannot be destroyed or removed from the heart of man. It always rises again in
the life of individuals and societies:
Theft is surely punished by your law,
O Lord, and by the law that is written in the human heart, the law that
iniquity itself does not efface.
1959 The natural law, the Creator's very
good work, provides the solid foundation on which man can build the structure
of moral rules to guide his choices. It also provides the indispensable moral
foundation for building the human community. Finally, it provides the necessary
basis for the civil law with which it is connected, whether by a reflection
that draws conclusions from its principles, or by additions of a positive and
juridical nature.
1960 The precepts of natural law are not perceived by everyone clearly and immediately. In the present situation sinful man needs grace and revelation so moral and religious truths may be known "by everyone with facility, with firm certainty and with no admixture of error." The natural law provides revealed law and grace with a foundation prepared by God and in accordance with the work of the Spirit.
Daily Devotions
·
Unite in the work of the Porters of St. Joseph by joining them in
fasting: Today's Fast: Growth
of Catholic Families and Households
·
Litany of the Most Precious
Blood of Jesus
·
Offering to
the sacred heart of Jesus
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