On planning...

The best gift anyone can give me this new year is a planner.
I like planners because I am a planner.
I like thinking ahead.
I like being prepared.
I get a high from being on top of things.

But some things are beyond planning.

And life doesn't always turn out as planned.

You don't plan for a broken heart.
You don't plan for a failed business venture.
You don't plan for an adulterous husband.
Or a wife who wants you out of
her life.
You don't plan for an autistic child.
You don't plan for spinsterhood.
You don't plan for a lump in your breast.

You plan to be young forever.

You plan to climb the corporate ladder.
You plan to be rich and powerful.
You plan to be acclaimed and successful.
You plan to conquer the universe.
You plan to fall in love - and be loved forever.

You don't plan to be sad.
You don't plan to be hurt.
You don't plan to be broke.
You don't plan to be betrayed.
You don't plan to be alone in this world.

You plan to be happy.
You don't plan to be shattered.

Sometimes if you work hard enough, you can get what you want.
But most times, what you want and what you get are two different
things.
We, mortals, plan. But so does God in the heavens.
Sometimes, it is difficult to understand God's plans - especially when
His plans are not in consonance with ours. Often, when God sends us
crisis, we turn to Him in anger. True, we cannot choose the cross that
God
wishes us to carry, but we can carry that cross with courage knowing
that
God will never abandon us nor send something we cannot cope with.

Sometimes, God breaks our spirit to save our soul.
Sometimes, He breaks our heart to make us whole.
Sometimes, God sends us pain so we can be stronger.
Sometimes, God sends us failure so we can be humble.
Sometimes God sends us illness so we can take better care of ourselves.
Sometimes, God takes everything away from us so we can learn the value
of everything He gave us.

Make plans but understand that we live by God's grace.

====================
From: larrainecriss@email.com

Risk

To laugh is to risk appearing a fool

To weep is to risk appearing sentimental

To reach out for another is to risk involvement

To express feelings is to risk rejection

To place your dreams before the crowd is to risk
ridicule

To love is to risk not being loved in return

To go forward in the face of overwhelming odds is t
risk failure

But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in
life is to risk nothing

The person who risks nothing does nothing, has
nothing, is nothing

He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he cannot
learn, feel, change, grow or love

Chained by certitudes, he is a slave

Only a person who takes risks is free.

-Anonymous

====================
From: dbryting@yahoo.com

rock solid

from: "Good Night, God!" by Honor Books
*jgat

An environmental news network report released in late 1998 indicated
that, contrary to what some people believed, the Antarctic ice sheet
is not melting rapidly and has been stable for more than a century.
The ice sheet is the largest grounded repository of ice on the
planet, and some scientists have argued that the melting of this ice
sheet would lead to a dramatic rise in sea levels and extensive
world-wide flooding.

That news report eased fears for a short while, but then between
March 1998and March 1999, nearly 1,150 square miles of ice shelf
collapsed, and another 1,250square miles of ice shelf disintegrated
in January and February 2002.

Scientists continue to argue about the causes and the implications of
these events, some noting that the world has had warmer times without
human help. Scientific truth shifts with natural events, research,
and their theories about what it all means.

God, on the other hand, has been around with the same rock-solid
truth for centuries. And that truth will not disintegrate suddenly
beneath our feet when things get hot....God with all that He promises
will not wear away nor melt..

Your life may be unsettled and stormy, causing you to feel as if you
were bouncing about on rough waters. But if you allow God to enter
into your life, He will melt away your fears and bring a spring-life
freshness to your heart.

As you meditate tonight in preparation for sleep, let God help you
prepare for tomorrow. Pray to Him for guidance in your daily
decisions...and trust Him to bring you through the rough waters of
tomorrow. Let Him be your rock and your refuge.

---------------------------------------------------------------
* There is a certainty of a brighter tomorrow,
For where God leads, no storm will follow.
---------------------------------------------------------------

Shared by Joe Gatuslao
Bacolod City, Philippines

====================
From: JoeGatuslao@smartwifi.com.ph

the yellow shirt

The baggy yellow shirt had long sleeves, four extra-large
pockets trimmed in black thread and snaps up the front. It was faded
from years of wear, but still in decent shape. I found it in 1963
when I was home from college on Christmas break, rummaging through
bags of clothes Mom intended to give away.

"You're not taking that old thing, are you?" Mom said when
she saw me packing the yellow shirt. "I wore that when I was pregnant
with your brother in 1954!"

"It's just the thing to wear over my clothes during art
class, Mom. Thanks!" I slipped it into my suitcase before she could
object.

The yellow shirt became a part of my college wardrobe. I loved it.

After graduation, I wore the shirt the day I moved into my
new apartment and on Saturday mornings when I cleaned.

The next year, I married.

When I became pregnant, I wore the yellow shirt during big-belly days.

I missed Mom and the rest of my family, since we were in
Colorado and they were in Illinois. But that shirt helped. I smiled,
remembering that Mother had worn it when she was pregnant, 15 years
earlier.

That Christmas, mindful of the warm feelings the shirt had
given me, I patched one elbow, wrapped it in holiday paper and sent it
to Mom.

When Mom wrote to thank me for her "real" gifts, she said
the yellow shirt was lovely. She never mentioned it again.

The next year, my husband, daughter and I stopped at Mom and
Dad's to pick up some furniture. Days later, when we uncrated the
kitchen table, I noticed something yellow taped to its bottom. The
shirt! And so the pattern was set.

On our next visit home, I secretly placed the shirt under
Mom and Dad's mattress. I don't know how long it took for her to find
it, but almost two years passed before I discovered it under the base
of our living-room floor lamp.

The yellow shirt was just what I needed now while
refinishing furniture. The walnut stains added character.

In 1975 my husband and I divorced. With my three children,
I prepared to move back to Illinois. As I packed, a deep depression
overtook me. I wondered if I could make it on my own. I wondered if
I would find a job.

I paged through the Bible, looking for comfort. In
Ephesians, I read, "So use every piece of God's armor to resist the
enemy whenever he attacks, and when it is all over, you will be
standing up." I tried to picture myself wearing God's armor, but all I
saw was the stained yellow shirt.

Slowly, it dawned on me. Wasn't my mother's love a piece of
God's armor? My courage was renewed.

Unpacking in our new home, I knew I had to get the shirt
back to Mother. The next time I visited her, I tucked it in her
bottom dresser drawer.

Meanwhile, I found a good job at a radio station.

A year later I discovered the yellow shirt hidden in a rag
bag in my cleaning closet. Something new had been added. Embroidered
in bright green across the breast pocket were the words "I BELONG TO
PAT." Not to be outdone, I got out my own embroidery materials and
added an apostrophe and seven more letters.

Now the shirt proudly proclaimed, "I BELONG TO PAT'S
MOTHER." But I didn't stop there. I zig-zagged all the frayed seams,
then had a friend mail the shirt in a fancy box to Mom from Arlington,
VA. We enclosed an official looking letter from "The Institute for
the Destitute," announcing that she was the recipient of an award for
good deeds. I would have given anything to see Mom's face when she
opened the box. But, of course, she never mentioned it.

Two years later, in 1978, I remarried. The day of our
wedding, Harold and I put our car in a friend's garage to avoid
practical jokers. After the wedding, while my husband drove us to our
honeymoon suite, I reached for a pillow in the car to rest my head.
It felt lumpy. I unzipped the case and found, wrapped in wedding
paper, the yellow shirt.

Inside a pocket was a note: "Read John 14:27-29. I love you
both, Mother."

That night I paged through the Bible in a hotel room and
found the verses: "I am leaving you with a gift: peace of mind and
heart. And the peace I give isn't fragile like the peace the world
gives. So don't be troubled or afraid. Remember what I told you: I
am going away, but I will come back to you again. If you really love
me, you will be very happy for me, for now I can go to the Father, who
is greater than I am. I have told you these things before they happen
so that when they do, you will believe in me."

The shirt was Mother's final gift. She had known for three
months that she had terminal Lou Gehrig's disease. Mother died the
following year at age 57.

I was tempted to send the yellow shirt with her to her
grave. But I'm glad I didn't, because it is a vivid reminder of the
love-filled game she and I played for 16 years.

Besides, my older daughter is in college now, majoring in
art. And every art student needs a baggy yellow shirt with big
pockets.

====================
From: greaper49@yahoo.com

Happy New Year!

New Year's Day 2006: Mary, Mother of God

Resolution with Mary

Numbers 6:22-27

Galatians 4:4-7

Luke 2:16-21

 

The name "January" comes from the Roman god Janus, the god with two faces, one looking to the past and the other looking to the future. This is indeed a time to look back at the year that has just ended and to look forward to the new year ahead of us. How did I spend this one year of my life that has just passed? Did I use it to advance my goals and objectives in life? Did I use it to enhance the purpose of my existence? Could I have done better last year in the way I invested my time between the demands of work, family, friends and society, and the demands of my spiritual life? What things did I achieve last year and what did I fail to achieve? How can I consolidate the achievements of last year while reversing the failures and losses in this new year? Through soul searching questions like these we find that a review of the past year naturally leads to setting goals and resolutions for the new year. There are people who tell you that there is no point making new year resolutions. Do not believe them. We must set goals and make resolutions as a necessary conclusion to our review of the past year. And we do need to review our lives from year to year because, as Socrates says, the unexamined life is not worth living. Today's newspapers are full of individual and collective new year resolutions. Most of those, however, are not resolutions at all but only wishes. What is the difference between a resolution and a wish? A wish identifies a goal one wants to reach, a resolution specifies the steps one will take to reach it. A wish says this is where I want to be, a resolution says this is the road I will take, this is what I will do to get there. The wishful person says "I want to pass my exams this year" and the resolved person says "I will devote an extra hour to my studies everyday in order to pass my exams." The wishful person says "I will have more peace and love in my family this year" and the resolved person says "I will spend more time with my family at table instead of rushing off to the TV, so that we get to know and understand ourselves better." The wishful person says "I will live a life of union with God this year" and the resolved person says "I will set aside this time everyday to pray and hear God's word." The difference between wishing and resolving is: are we prepared to do what it takes to make our dreams come true, are we prepared to pay the price? The gospel today presents Mary to us as a model of that new life in Christ that all of us wish for ourselves in the new year. There we see that Mary was prepared to do something to realize this goal. What did she do? We read that the shepherds, when they went to adore the Child Jesus in the manger, told all that the angels had said to them. " But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart" (Luke 2:19). Again after the boy Jesus was found in the Temple, we are told that "His mother treasured all these things in her heart " (Luke 2:51). Mary was a woman who valued the word of God, who treasured it and made time to meditate and ponder it. It is true that the holiness of Mary is attributed to the grace of God, but this should not make us forget that she needed to make an effort in order to cooperate with the grace of God. She pondered the word of God in order to discern what God was saying to her at every stage in her life as the handmaid of God. The two examples above of Mary pondering the word of God, namely, after the visit of the shepherds and after the finding in the temple, show that Mary found the word of God both in divine revelation (the angels' words to the shepherds) and in her own experiences (her encounter with her son in the temple). Similarly God speaks to us today through divine revelation ( e.g. the Bible, the teaching and preaching of the Church) as well as through our personal experiences, if only we made time to reflect on them as Mary did. Whatever the situation in which we find ourselves - a hardship, a disappointment, a decision to make - God has a solution, an answer that is right for us. We tell God about it in prayer but we also listen to what God has to tell us about it. Prayer is a conversation with God but sometimes all we do is pick up the phone, read out the list of our problems to God and drop the phone without listening to hear what God has to say to us. As the new year begins, let us see this year as another chance given to us to get things right, to grow in familiarity with God our loving Father, and to grow in our awareness of ourselves as God's beloved children, all of us, beloved children of the same loving Father. Let us today resolve to listen more to the voice of God, to treasure God's word and ponder it in our hearts. Then shall we be able to realize our new year resolution of a new life in union with God.

 

 

Feast of the Holy Family -   30 December 2005

Priority of Family Life

1 Samuel 1:11, 20-22, 24-28

1 John 3:1-2, 21-24

Luke 2:41-52

 

A little boy greets his father as he returns from work with a question: "Daddy, how much do you make an hour?" The father is surprised and says: "Look, son, not even your mother knows. Don't bother me now, I'm tired." "But Daddy, just tell me please! How much do you make an hour?" the boy insists. The father finally gives up and replies: "Twenty dollars." "Okay, Daddy," the boy continues, "Could you loan me ten dollars?" The father yells at him: "So that was the reason you asked how much I earn, right? Now, go to sleep and don't bother me anymore!" At night the father thinks over what he said and starts feeling guilty. Maybe his son needed to buy something. Finally, he goes to his son's room. "Are you asleep, son?" asks the father. "No, Daddy. Why?" replies the boy. "Here's the money you asked for earlier," the father said. "Thanks, Daddy!" replies the boy and receives the money. The he reaches under his pillow and brings out some more money. "Now I have enough! Now I have twenty dollars!" says the boy to his father, "Daddy, could you sell me one hour of your time?" Today's gospel has a message for this man and for all of us, and the message is that we need to invest more of our time in our family life. The gospel shows us Jesus at the age of twelve. That was the age that every Jewish boy was expected to make his bar mitzvah and so become a responsible subject of the law. It was a ceremony of legal adulthood. From then on he was required to keep the law and make the annual pilgrimages to Jerusalem like any other Jewish man. One way teenagers celebrate their coming of age is to go out and do those things that the law had hitherto forbidden them to do. You know your boy is growing up when he stops asking where he came from and begins to not tell you where he is going. As we can see, Jesus was no exception. To celebrate his coming of age he attends the Temple Bible class without informing his parents. When his parents catch up with him after two days of searching for him everywhere, all he tells them is, "Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?" (Luke 2:49). Even holy families do have their occasional tensions and misunderstandings. The most puzzling part of the story, however, is the way it ends: "Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them " (v.51). The twelve-year old adult Jesus already knows that his mission is to be in his Father's house and be about his Father's business. From the test-run he did in Jerusalem earlier that day, it was clear that he was already capable of doing it very well, because "all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers" (v. 47). The puzzle then is this: If Jesus, already at the age of twelve, was ready to begin his public mission, and was evidently well prepared for it, why would he go down with his parents and spend the next eighteen years in the obscurity of a carpenter's shed only to begin his public ministry at the age of thirty? Were those eighteen years wasted years? Certainly not! In a way that is hard for us to understand, Jesus' hidden life in Nazareth was as much a part of his earthly mission as his public life. We are reminded that it was at this time that " Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favour" (v.52). And when we reflect on the fact that for every one year of his public life Jesus spent ten years in family life, then we shall begin to understand the importance and priority he gave to family life. We have two lives, a private or family life and a public or professional one. These two lives should be in harmony but very often they are in tension. Whereas Jesus resolved the tension by giving priority to his private life, we, unfortunately, often try to resolve it by giving priority to our professional life, leaving our family life to suffer. Rose Sands writes about the unhappy man who thought the only way he could prove his love for his family was to work hard. "To prove his love for her, he swam the deepest river, crossed the widest desert and climbed the highest mountain. She divorced him. He was never home." The celebration today of the holy family of Joseph, Mary and Jesus reminds and challenges us to value and invest in our private life with our families before our professional life at the work place, even when our job is as important as saving the world.

 

====================
From: em_ang@yahoo.com

New Year's Greetings

      

 

                I Wish You Jesus

This shiny bright new year I wish you Faith ~
Faith that this world cannot dampen or cool,
Faith in your dreams when the facts overrule,
Faith in the Word, though some folks call you fool,
I wish you Faith for this coming new year.

This shiny bright new year I wish you Peace ~
Peace that the world's cares cannot nullify,
Peace that is unswayed though all goes awry,
Peace that this world cannot beg, steal or buy,
I wish you Peace for this coming new year.

This shiny bright new year I wish you Joy ~
Joy that is untouched by earth's trials and fears,
Joy that is constant when sorrow appears,
Joy that is able to smile through its tears,
I wish you Joy for this coming new year.

This shiny bright new year I wish you Love ~
Love that is steadfast, a love to abide,
Love that's a refuge in which you can hide,
Love unconditional, unqualified,
I wish you Love for this coming new year.

This shiny bright new year I wish you Someone ~
One who's the source of all mentioned above,
One who brings Faith on the wings of a dove,
One who's synonymous with Peace, Joy and Love,
I wish you Jesus this coming new year!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"For all the promises of God
in Him are yea,
and in Him Amen,
unto the glory of God by us."
(II Corinthians 1:20 KJV)

 

 

  

 

===================
From:  emarlyn@gmail.com