The many facets of His Holy Face

I was thinking about the Nativity this morning and about the time Mary had with Jesus before His presentation in the temple. Prior to presenting Jesus in the temple, Mary had a time of infinitely deep Joy as she gazed moment to moment upon the Holy Face of God.

As I thought about this I wondered about the many facets of our sweet and Holy Lord’s Face during those days and nights with Mary. Did it change from instant to instant as the light and shadows and angles changed? Mary would have noticed every detail and change as she contemplated His Beautiful and Holy Face.

Was there an infinitesimally small moment when Jesus looked like my daughter? Did our sweet and holy Mother gaze upon Him and see my daughter’s infant face shining through for one tiny moment? Did Mary see each of us shine through the infinite facets of our Lord’s Holy Infant Face during this precious, holy, and hidden time?

I don’t know if this true, but I pray that all of our infant faces are treasured up and pondered within Mary’s heart, and as we look upon each other remember there is a sweet and tiny baby buried within everyone!

Luke 2:19 But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. 

The never-ending story…

I loved the movie The NeverEnding Story when I was younger. I watched it recently with my girls and it was not as good as I remembered, but there is a depth to this movie that I still love.

So often we think of never-ending, the infinite, in terms of numbers going on forever. We rarely tie it back to anything we experience in our daily lives unless we are studying mathematics or the universe. I think this is one of the reasons why I loved this movie so much. It opened my eyes to the perspective of my life being part of a bigger story, to the idea of a living story, and it brought the infinite into my finite world.

As a child I wondered where the book of my story sat and how the pages were magically added every day, but as I have grown I see that for a story to truly be living and never-ending, the depth is found within a finite number of pages, hidden between the lines where infinite new meanings, insights, and inspirations are waiting to be discovered every time it is read. Just as the numbers between 0 and 1 stretch to infinity, the meaning buried within the lines of a never-ending story is inexhaustible.

Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

An image of His Immensity

When I am running I like to pray and place people at the foot of His throne. I have always imaged that our Sweet Heavenly Father is big, but in the image I have conjured up in my mind I come midway up His dais if I am kneeling before Him and come up to His foot if I stand before Him. This must sound silly to most of you, but I have a very visual imagination. This morning He gifted me an amended image of His Immensity. Today as I prayed over my children’s school, in my mind I pulled their school out of the ground and lifted it up to His Throne. Instead of the normal image I see of a large room with a big school inside, He filled my mind with a new image. In this new image I saw how minuscule their school was before His throne. Their large elementary school looked like a tiny speck before the immense dais of His Holy Throne. When I looked across the vast space I saw a few more specks in the distance that I realized were large groups of people gathered and I somehow knew that these groups were families that had believed and walked in His Holy Will over many generations. If the whole earth had been placed there it would have look like a child’s toy ball laying on the ground before His Throne.

The only words that come close to describing what I saw are IMMENSE and VAST. Isaiah saw this too and described it for us, but now I have seen it in my minds eye and truly there are no words to describe it.

Isaiah 40:15 Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the dust on the scales; behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust.

Sun-Kissed

We visited the Grand Canyon over the Thanksgiving Break, and I woke up to see the sunrise on our first morning. When I arrived at the rim, the canyon was still in the shadow of dawn light. The colors were beautiful, and I could clearly see the nooks and crannies deep in the canyon.

As the sun peaked over and illuminated the north-rim, the contrast became striking. The sun-kissed ridges took on new and bolder colors, while the nooks and crannies below became darker, their details fading into the gloom of shadow.

Witnessing this beauty a wedding came to mind and I thought of how quickly the beautifully dressed wedding guests fade in the midst of the groom’s great joy reflecting in the eyes of his bride as she gazes upon him. Without speech or words, but declaring through creation our Lord poured the beginning of Psalm 19 into my heart and reconnected me with Isaiah 60:1-2 in the silence of that early morning.

Oh my Lord, please let us all be sun-kissed by You as Your Glory rises upon us and let us never be deprived of Your warmth.

Psalm 19:1-6
The heavens declare the glory of God;
    the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
    night after night they reveal knowledge.
They have no speech, they use no words;
    no sound is heard from them.
Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,
    their words to the ends of the world.
In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun. 
   It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber,
    like a champion rejoicing to run his course.
It rises at one end of the heavens
    and makes its circuit to the other;
    nothing is deprived of its warmth.

Isaiah 60:1-2
Arise, shine, for your light has come,
    and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.
See, darkness covers the earth
    and thick darkness is over the peoples,
but the Lord rises upon you
    and his glory appears over you.

Cross my heart

Only when His cross is written on our hearts will it pour forth into all aspects of our lives.  It is then that the crosses we display on our bodies, in our homes, our yards will gain new meaning and power.  It is then that the crosses we bear and carry through our lives will gain new meaning and power. They will all become His Cross and it is here, at the foot of His Holy Cross, that Our Mother, Mary, waits patiently for us.

John 19:25 – Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.

My sweet Lord – please cross my heart!

Come all ye faithful…

He beckons to us, calls to us and asks us to come.  Come and see, come and adore, come all ye faithful, come.  My friends let us go together, let us run in great joy to our Lord shouting out…

Yes, sweet Lord, we are coming, we are coming through the darkness and the light, we are coming through the valleys and over the hills, we are coming through everything and we will help each other along the way.  

Thank you my Lord for making us faithful and calling to us – we are coming!

John 6:37
All those the Father gives Me will come to Me, and whoever comes to Me I will never drive away.

 

Giving us Time

He who does not know TIME – came up with the idea for TIME.  This alone should awe us into silence and yet there is so much more.

He designed an amazingly wonderful plan for creating soul filled beings that could learn, change and grow within TIME.  It is in these few moments that we have here on this earth that we have an opportunity to grow.  Watching as we learn, change and grow, greatly pleases Him.  We amaze Him as we strive for and grow in Holiness, and we bring Him great sorrow when we don’t, yet He is always cheering us on, giving us many more chances and opportunities to grow by giving us TIME.

When the final bell tolls on our life, our opportunities for change and growth end too.  It is this final state of our soul that is grafted into His infinite, eternal moment, and determines the depth of joy and pleasure we will be able to hold as we dig deep and explore His infinite love and goodness.

Oh my sweet Lord – please let the rest of my life be a prayer for all of my brothers and sisters to fully surrender to Your Holy Will so we may all grow in love and holiness as we journey through TIME.  Please teach me how to be Your gardener!

John 9:4
As long as it is day, we must do the works of Him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work.

And His fire spreads…

My sweet friends, I am not looking for readers, I don’t advertise this blog.  I am just sharing tiny bits of my journey with the hope and prayer that a little light is given to those who find these words (His words I hope) and they are pointed towards Our Sweet and Precious Lord, our Savior Jesus Christ…
~ h ~  o  ~  m ~  e  ~.

I usually have 1 or 2 readers a day at the most (one of which is usually my sweet Dad), but yesterday after writing about the torches we carry and praying for the sweet and precious Holy Spirit to..  keep their flames strong and continue to spread the fire of Your love by reigniting many torches that have grown cold.” 23 people found this site.

Don’t forget – the Holy Spirit is active and working in our lives! Let us pray to give Him the freedom to do His work through you, me, all of us –
Thy Will be Done!

Glory Be to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit  – AMEN

When I close my eyes…

Here in this place a veil is drawn, there is so much we don’t see when our eyes are open, but what about when they are closed?

Oh my Lord, I pray that when I close my eyes the darkness surrounding me is the protective darkness of the hem of our Blessed Mother’s mantle.

For here, hidden in the hem of her mantle, Mary’s feet will crush the head of any serpent that ensnares me, Mary’s words and teachings will soak into my ears, my heart, my soul, and knowing that Mary remains lovingly and faithfully near her Son always, I too will be near her sweet and precious Son, our Savior – Jesus Christ!

Close your eyes and let us crawl to the feet of our Blessed Mother and hide in the protective darkness of her mantle!

Luke 1:45
Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!

Strong Roots

Remember – it is trees with the strongest roots that bear the most glorious fruit!

My friends, dig deep into the Gospel, connect with others in prayer, silent or vocal, believe Him and in His wonderful promises, and LOVE – only then can you bear fruit worthy to be set before the King.

Colossians 1:9-10
… we have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s  will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God.