Thoughts on Saint Particks Day

Hello Saint Monica followers if there are any. Well I know there is at least one beside myself, thank you Kris.
I usually start with a prayer but today I need a little help Let me see Psalm 103 Bless the Lord, O my soul;
and all my being, bless his holy name.
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits.
He pardons all your iniquities,
he heals all your ills.
He redeems your life form destruction,
he crowns you with kindness and compassion.
Amen

I was just thinking about what I wanted to be when I grew up. I have done many things in my life and found some of them rewarding. I just don't know where it will lead me. I guess I am thinking in terms of success as the world understands it and not as success as God understands it. Isn't that the problem many people face? We always view our lives in the wrong terms and then become disallusioned and depressed because we don't meet the criteria. Especially when it comes to having a career and making money. I have always felt that I was a failure in this area and that I was less than I could be because I didn't fit the super mom mold. The world did not treasure being a stay at home mother as important instead it viewed it as a drain on society because I was not contributing to the economic structure of the system. So I worried about what I could do to add to the family income and how I could be a more productive member of society. I would worry day and night and I would feel more and more usless as time when on and I could not find a job that could pay me a living wage. My two years of college seem to count for nothing even though I had a degree. I wasn't much better off than someone with a GED or high school diploma. It was always frustrating to be turned down for a simple cashier job and watch it go to someone who wasn't even out of High School. Then to finally get a job only to be treated poorly and paid next to nothing. What was I doing wrong? Why was I hearing stories of people who found good jobs with hardly no skills and going places with the money they earned when I could have done those jobs as well as they and yet I never got one and even they could not figure out why. There was one time when a job did come up that I was well suited for and it was something I liked doing but my family obligations did not permit me to take it. The oppertunity never came up again. Sometimes I kick myself because I didn't try to work things out and go for it anyway, after all what was the harm in trying.
I am adding to this at a much latter date, it is June 26th and I am just getting back to the thoughts I started in March. A lot has happened in the time between now and then. One of my good friends and God sister Kris has been trying to help me find a job that I would be suited for. Bless her heart. And I do have my non-paying work which I find rewarding which is my storytelling and one of my great loves. My dream job would be where I could incorporate my storytelling into it, that would be wonderful. But in the mean time I will with the help of my friends still try and fit in and help to pay so of the bills that keep pileing up. In the mean time summer is here to be enjoyed so I am going to do my best to do that as well.
Oh before I go I have to tell you that my daughter who just graduated from high school got a job at Sears and we are very happy for her but they can not let her start until she is 18 which will be the first week in July. See noone believed me when I told them she was looking and could not get hired because she was not 18. People do not realize that the times have changed and unless you know someone or get a job through a school program or fall into some other special catagory you just have to wait. I was talking to another mother of a teenage boy who was going through the same thing so I felt vindicated. Can you believe that people thought I was making it up to cover up the fact that my daughter was lazy. Sometimes people without information can be so cruel, can't they. Now she can work on getting a car and going to Red Rocks Community College. Yea!
Now I can close with a prayer of thanksgiving.

Dear Lord, thank you for your many blessings that you have bestowed on my family. May we be ever mindful of the fact that they are blessings and that they come from you and not from anything that we have done. Thank you Lord for loving us so much.
Amen

Dear Saint Monica,
Help me to be more deligent in my prayer life. Keep me mindful of the family members that need my prayers on a daily basis so that I do not become complacent and forget that if I don't pray my prayer can't be answered. Help me always to remember that your suffering lasted 30 years so I should not expect results over night. Give me patience to continue my prayers through the ups and downs of my life journey. I ask this in Jesus Name and your intercession. Amen

I have been thinking a lot about this blog but I have had nothing to say that would be of any spiritual help to anyone in months. I could copy things form my readings but to be honest nothing has struck a chord so to speak. So I have had a few dry months and if anyone out there has been looking for me I apoligize.

Then tonight, as I am looking through my e-mail I recieved one from a friend that I haven't been in touch for a while and it was about letting God change you. It was a devotional for women written by a separated brethren and it wasn't half bad. However, we Catholics have something that our protestant counter parts don't have and that is the grace of the the sacraments. I answered my friend with a few chosen words that I thought I would also like to post here. I pointed out to her that we as Catholics have been given much and that we should use what we have been given in the form of evanglization just as the late John Paul II said we should. Too many of us keep our talents in the church thinking that we are fulfilling our giving by doing various ministries at the Liturgy. while these duties are important they are not the end of what we should be doing. We should be living out our faith that is our vocation. We have the grace and means by which we can do this and we should not hide this talent under a rock and wait for somebody else to do it. We are all called to witness and proclaim the Good News but more then that we are called to be like the one we consume at the Mass we should be what we est. Jesus Christ or King Jesus as he is rightful called has mandated all of us to be just like him and do just like he did right down to the suffering and humility that we find so hard to imitate. To those that have much will be expected and to those that have little even what they have will be taken away. I use to think that this applied to monitary wealth but it doesn't. It is talking about our spiritual gifts. We as Catholics have been given much for we have the sacraments and I am thinking about the sacrament of Eucharist. If we truely understand this sacrament we have to become what we consume and that is the Body and Blood of the risen Lord. We should be one with Christ and take on all that entails. We should accept the gifts along with the suffering. We should see that there is a reason for everything that we go through in life and that everything has a purpose. We shouldn't ask to be released from it but to understand why it is, and what we can do with it. We should not seek to change but to be changed into that which we are partaking of. The sacrament of the Eucharist is the sacrament of seeing. Because the two disciples had their eyes opened when Jesus broke bread. Did you know that there are saints who when asked to give up the partaking of the breaking of the bread told their captors that they would rather die. That many did die because they celebrated the Eucharist and that every time the early church gathered they broke bread. Paul mentions it more than 12 times in the Acts of the Apostles. It was important enought to die for. So we should pray that our eyes are opened and that our hearts are changed that we become that which we consume in all ways with the gifts and the suffering.
And while we are at it this Lent and in the process of giving things up we should consider giving up our pride, selfishness, concite, and any other un Christ like behavior that we may have and keep giving it up for as long as we live. Now I would like to close with one of my favorite songs because it is a prayer. It is called Open My Eyes Lord
Open my eyes Lord, help me to see your face, open my eyes Lord, help me to see.
Open my ears Lord, help me to hear your voice, open my ears Lord, help me to hear.
Open my heart Lord, help me to love like you, open my heart Lord, help me to Love.
I live within you, deep in your heart oh Love, I live within you, rest now in me.
I have added a verse: Open my mouth Lord, help me to speak your word, open my mouth Lord help me to speak.
May the Lord Bless you and Keep you,
Peace, Joy, Love and Hope,
Your God-sister, Nancy