Archive Page 2
Ave Maria
This evening at mass I took the body of Christ in my hands and I realized how blessed I am to be able to receive him without fear of harm to myself or my family. I was remarking to a friend that it is sad that I can go to mass any day of the week, and often it is a question of whether I have “time”. Our brothers and sisters in the Middle East, and other parts of the world do not have that luxury. To say Amen and place the host on their tongue is an act of love, for it could be the last thing they do. There are young people our age that risk practicing their faith, whether it be underground, or with the constant tension that they are risking their lives for Christ.
Ironically one of the parishes in Iraq outside Mosul is Mother of Sorrows, yet these people have not let the war embitter them, or cause them to turn against a God, even when all seemed hopeless. Rather we see them now coming forward in alarming numbers, having been steadfast in their devotion. And it reminds me that if they, even in the face of death, claim the faith as true, can not I who in no danger not seek to follow the call of Christ?
The Seminary in Baghdad St Peter’s Chaldean is in need of funds, if any of you have extra money from sacrificing that cup of Starbucks consider putting it towards a people who having lost so much, held onto the truth:
Project Number: M1004-S
Project Title: Keep a Seminary Running.
Country: Iraq
Description: St. Peter’s is the only seminary in Iraq. Don’t let it close.
Amount requested: $24,224.00
http://www.cnewa.org/donate-projectlist-us.aspx?locationID=6
Filed under: Catholicism, International News, Middle East, Peace | Leave a Comment
Tags: Chaldean Catholics, Mother of Sorrows, St Peter's Seminary Baghdad
How often have we heard this? Do not all our mamas tell us this when we are putting on our makeup back in highschool, trying to look pretty to maybe just maybe catch the boy in our ap lit class. We stared at them through mascared eyelashes, thinking to ourselves, they mean well but they just don’t get it. Maybe you all were not like this but I recall this scene played out over and over again. However as a senior in college I see what my mumsie was saying. Do not get me wrong, I do swipe on mascara most days before running off to class, and I am simply in love with the new Covergirl lip stains (it looks like you just bite into a strawberry, and it taste delicious) but beauty does not come from the cosmetics we put on our faces. Nor does it come from the clothes we wear, or our perfected societal conversations, it comes from none of these things….rather beauty becomes apparent when we look through the eyes of the Beholder, through the eyes of Christ.
Today was a beautiful autumn day. The sky was that perfect blue, with white fluffy clouds, and just cool enough to feel fallish, but one is still able to wear a sleeveless dress. Since Wednesdays are my lighter days class wise, I cleaned my room and went to the grocery store to get salmon primarily for dinner. However I also got a bunch of orange roses because the bouquets were priced down for five dollars, and well roses are a weakness of mine:)
my roses
I had wanted to make dinner for a good friend of mine, and the menu was terryaki salmon, sauted spinach, rice, and cornbread muffins with star fruit and strawberries for dessert. In my mind it would all be done before he walked in, and I could be the perfect hostess. Well that did not happen. Rather I didn’t start until he got there and he helped me cook the entire meal. And I realized that it was beautiful just the way it was. And that God knows the plan for our lives, what we really want, even when we think we want something else. He is the one through whom we see beauty, and the beauty we witness is the Christ in our lives! So praise him for the blue skies. And praise him for the fall weather and the smell of apple and pumpkin. Praise him for the ones you love in your life. Praise him for lightened hearts. Praise him for salvation. Praise him.
I praise him for the coffee I nurse constantly, and my roses, and my friends, and the poetry I get to study and write. Every day that I wittness the beauty in this world I find myself falling deeper in love with the one who sees the beauty in me, the beauty he created and the beauty that will be glorified in death.
Praise be Jesus Christ now and forever,
Barbaraanne
Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
Merci Madames
Thank you to the Saint Mary's prayer group! Keep praising the Holy Spirit!
Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
Operation Liberation
While wearing hejeb varies from woman to woman, I found this to be beautiful, because whatever the reason you wear hejeb it should be because you are free to, not because you are scared. http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/12/fashion-in-iraq/
If you have not explored poetryinternationalweb.org, then you must look. It is a non profit organization that unites poets from around the world. It our way as poets to achieve peace, to reveal the soul and thus display the beauty of our respective countries. I found this poem below “Pronouns” by Dunya Mikhail from Baghdad before she emigrated to the United States.
 |
Pronouns
He plays a train.
She plays a whistle. They move away. He plays a rope. He plays a dream. He plays a general. |
Filed under: Fashion, International News, Middle East, poetry | Leave a Comment
Tags: Dunya Mikhail, hejeb, Iraq, poetry
We brought Jesus to the streets!
I do not know if you have seen the YouTube video entitled “Bring Jesus to the Streets” in was produced by grassroots, and filmed on the streets of New York City. The idea is to take the Blessed Sacrament in the c and process with him in the streets, to physically bring Jesus to his people, those who need him most.
At Purdue we did this saturday night, about one hundred of us,ten altar boys and about five to six priests took Jesus to the streets of West Lafayette around 9:30 at night. At first I thought we were just going to walk around the campus, but then Father Patrick started walking down towards Chancey where all the bars and restaurants are. Some people stopped their cars, others honked, others stared. It was the first time anyone has processed through the streets. We sang as we followed our Lord, praying for a revolution of Love, for people to experience his unconditional love for them. The look on the bouncers’ faces was priceless, Jesus in the montronce was coming to them. Part of me wanted to shield Jesus from the smell of split beer, urine, vomit and other pleasant smells that fumigate Chauncey on a weekend night. But then it hit me, Christ would not have been holding his breath like me, these are the people he embraced, the people he called his best friends. It put me in my place., who am I to say where Christ can and cannot go, who am I to say it is too ugly, too painful, to crude for him to see.
This evening at the homily at mass, Father said that through his passion Christ has experienced it all, he has gone and redeemed even the farthest corner that sin has spread, nothing is out of the reach of the Cross. So while we take Jesus to the streets everyday in our witness, remember the power the eucharist has! Remember who Christ called his friends! I encourage you to ask your campus priests to take Christ to the streets, imagine the revolution of love!
barbaraanne
Filed under: Uncategorized | 2 Comments
The title is my current physical location and I am discouraged because it is 2:39 in the afternoon and all I have succeeded in achieving is reading through about 1/3 of the work that I have to write an 8 page anlytical paper that I have due tomarrow. Nor have I done any of the homework for my five classes tomarrow, nor revised another 4 page paper due tomarrow as well…and the day is going by to fast as I sit surrounded by Zora Neale Hurston and commentaries. I love to write it is merely the dilemna of what I want to say and how to best communicate so that the imformation and analysis is recieved in a manner that should merit a high grade. But alas I cannot focus and thus I find myself thinking of poetry lines I want to incorporate, and my christmas list, and everything I am not getting done for graduate school apps all because I am still sitting here with a blank screen and looming deadline.
Filed under: Musings | Leave a Comment
autumnal appeal
When I saw this hat I thought it was one of the prettiest things I had ever seen, and it also had that autumnal appeal to it.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
grace
I love the word grace, because it sounds beautiful and in a way it is like calcium it is what strengths us. This past week I have been the recipient of many graces, and I know this because a) I finished the week without feeling sick and b) Expierienced no major panic attacks even with a significant amount of unplanned stress. I know that God was carrying me day by day, hour by hour, class by class. And as I prepare to sit down and work on what I need to do before I apply to graduate school I desire deeply to take this same approach because God only gives us grace sufficient for the present, and he tells me every day, “My child I have given you the strength you need for today, concern your self not of the future.” I will be doing something after I graduate in the spring and whether I spend my final year at Purdue sick constantly worrying or peacefully enjoying it, Iwill still graduate and something will still happen.
At this point I am rambling however I herby vow that I am going to focus on recognizing and asking for the all the graces that are there simply if I ask. Because we are not called to live the life of a Christian alone, but rather we are to build up the community of Christ, which starts within the individual heart, and that heart find its renewal in the heart of Christ.
I pray for all of you tonight, that you too may expierience this beautiful grace poured out upon us all in heavenly showers.
barbaraanne
Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
enchante
| enchanté | adj | enchanted (charmé, fasciné, captivé, séduit) | |
| enchanté | adj | enthralled (ravi, séduit, captivé, fasciné, charmé) | |
| enchanté | adj | enraptured (ravi, séduit, captivé, fasciné, charmé) | |
| enchanté | adj | charmed (delighted) | |
| enchanté | (très content) | adj | delighted (greatly pleased) |
This has become my favorite new word for the past few days, for the sound and connotation remind in a way of the Holy Spirit, or shall I define, the feeling the overcomes when I am in the presence of the third person of the Trinity. It is the beginning of a new academic term, the beginning of my senior year at Purdue, the beginning of the autumn season. And while the newness of a semesters delights one, at least it does me and perhaps all of those who hope to never stray far from academia, the enchantment of new books and theories and papers fades half way through when the nights grow long and the brain tired. Yet this word, enchanté, to be enthralled, captivated, enraptured that is the Holy Spirit.
If I have lost you let me try to explain myself. I have been reading Father Neuhaus’s book Death on a Friday Afternoon, which the more I read the more I fall in love with and Father writes about the faith in such a simple yet stunning way that his words linger in my head and have reawakened a love and enchantment with what never grows old. Christ is the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end, which one could say he is always the beginning and always the end. When he hung upon the wooden beams on top of the desolate hill outside of Jerusalem he united all of humanity in a single moment. The past, present, and future are defined by a death, one death and one resurrection of God.
I was in the Outer Banks with my family last week and my daddy and I were having a conversation, and I worried about my major and what if I never used my poetic knowledge, what if I was never published, what if my Purdue education would amount to something at least in the eyes of world. Would he be disappointed. His answer surprised me, though it shouldn’t have. He said, the goal of each of us is to go to heaven. That is what you should focus on, everything else is passing. It is a truth defined by the church that we are not meant for this world but rather the life to come, the union with God and the saints and yet I often worry more over my term papers and grad school applications, and whether my work is good enough. Yet as my father stated all of that is passing. The Holy Spirit is not passing he is a constant new beginning every day he enchants me with his beauty.
I see it is one of my closest girlfriends who is pursuing inquiry and rcia, I see it in my friends who strive to live lives for Christ, I see it is the poetry I read, and in the conversations held with the woman at the Starbucks counter who calls me by name. And I realized over these past two days that yes the newness of the semester will fade, and the notebooks will fill up and the pens will run dry but that which is intrinsic to our being, our soul and its creator he is always beginging, always enthralling for ever enchanting.
Filed under: Catholicism | Leave a Comment
Tags: Beginnings, Holy Spirit
