In her book, Mary's Mantle - Consecration Prayer Journal, Christine Watkins asked her readers: "Where do you place your hope? In the things and people and dreams of this world? Or in God?"

She then shared the insight of St. Charles Borromeo:

“God wishes us not to rest upon anything but His infinite goodness; do not let us expect anything, hope anything, or desire anything but from Him, and let us put our trust and confidence in Him alone.”

Yes, St. Charles speaks the Truth - but one that is often difficult to live.
Watkins' questions and St. Charles' observations prompted my writing the following personal reflection - in hopes something in it will resonate with you and stir your soul:

Lord, You know well, how often I have allowed the demons of despair to destroy my spiritual and physical peace. You know Lord how I allowed this destroyer of souls to take me to a point where I begged You to end my physical life. How painful it is, even now years later, to recall those dark days, those hopeless days.

If I had really believed in You at that time, if I had placed my hope in Your hands, there would have been nothing I would fear, nothing that would have caused me to despair. It should not come as a surprise then that I have struggled immensely in my spiritual journey. Folly it is for me or any other sinful soul to put our trust in anyone or anything but You. Yet time after time, I did what I knew was futile and eternally destructive.

My twin sister’s death was a devastating loss, and, at the same time, a powerful and undeserved gift - a reminder of what You intend for all of us and what we can expect when we place our hope in You – eternal salvation. You know Lord how I begged for Jane’s return to Your loving and merciful embrace and how she fought (You and me) tooth and nail. She too was tormented by the demons of despair as she battled with cancer for so many years.
But prayer and hope in You never fails. In Your mercy, You answered my long-standing prayer that she not die without first reconciling with You and without receiving the Last Rites. You sent a priest to her bedside. You welcomed Jane home. What more proof does this obstinate thick-headed man need after the miracle of Jane’s salvation?

Lord, help me to place my hope and trust in You and You alone - not in others or even myself. Fill me to overflowing with the virtue of hope, so that I will command the demons of despair to depart the instant they arrive. Lord, let me never forget that I will destroy my soul “if hope in You is not present” in my heart."

You created us to know love and serve You on this earth and to be with You eternally in the next. You promised Lord that good will come to those who trust and love You. That is Your promise to me and to all who believe in You.

You are God! You keep all Your promises! Nothing, no one can prevail against You, almighty and loving Lord – You who offers us eternal life. 

​May I never lose sight of Your promises. Let nothing or no one steal this hope from me!

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​I am blessed to be a Lay Dominican. However, the ideas expressed on this blog are my own and do not represent the endorsement of or position of the Order of Preachers as a whole. I am neither responsible for, nor endorse content (e.g. banner ads, pop-up ads, etc.) that may be linked to this blog.

As I have acknowledged previously, Father Ignatius John Schweitzer, O.P gave birth to Godhead Here in Hiding Whom I Do Adore – Lay Dominicans Reflect on Eucharistic Adoration two year ago, when he invited the Lay Dominicans of the Province of St. Joseph to share their thoughts on the Eucharist and Eucharistic Adoration. He did this not knowing how many would respond or in what genre they would write.


As a result of Father’s invitation, we now have a symphony of diverse reflections – from the simple to the sublime. Each reflection is a gem in its own right. Each one an invitation to a greater belief in, and reverence for, God’s Presence among us.

Try this gem on for size:

                                                            In the Presence of the Lord
 “Come out of the marketplace, put down your vegetable knives, the laundry, your coming and going. Let your hands drop from the work of the world. Bring me your heart. Leave everything else.”
Imagine Jesus entering a village, and the excited residents calling from house to house, “He is here! Come! He has arrived!” A bucket drops back into the well, dough is covered with a bowl for later, the loom goes quiet, a plough tilts to one side in the furrow. Breathless villagers rush to sit at the feet of the rabbi named Jesus. The room is warm, and the energy is electric around Him. They listen, some with questions beating in their chests like birds in a cage. Jesus answers their unuttered questions as He speaks. Some bring sadness like baskets of dust, some bring the charred remains of long-held anger, some are as full of worry as a tall jar of olives. A secretly wrapped wound, a coughing child, a pain that is old and never relents - people bring all of these things to Jesus. He heals, transforms, steadies, and uplifts with both His words and His gentle, penetrating gaze, and everyone there feels this grace of His touch, even if He does not touch them physically.

When He was born, Jesus was brought gold, myrrh, frankincense. People were still coming to Him with full hands, but whether it was a gift of kings, or a tear-streaked face and an apron full of dusty figs, He accepts everything. Jesus leans forward to stress a word, raise a palm, tilts His head back and laughs, and the people know He is not only a teacher, but a healer, a master, and a joyful friend. Like dawn spreading pink and gold across the sky, they begin to realize who He is: the anointed one, long awaited, the Messiah.

When He left the village, they cried, already missing Him, and most returned to their work thinking about His words, but even more, remembering how He made them feel. They would never be the same, and they knew it.

The world is still a marketplace, a busy village, not that different from the way it was two thousand years ago. And still, God, is calling us to put down some of the busyness, and to sit with Him.
​
The voice of God is not a cinematic production, at least not for me. It doesn’t rock the sky with fireworks. Instead, it comes quietly the way snow arrives silently in the night, the beauty of its arrival lost if we are not awake to see it. In the stillness and silence, we can feel the presence of God. Our time in prayer is like taking new yarn and dipping it into a vat of dye. The yarn emerges tinted with the dye bath just as we emerge from prayer with hearts saturated with love.

But there is another step in this metaphor because colored yarn is not too useful left as it is. When we receive the Eucharist, we are bringing everything that we are, what we have, into the presence of God. Like the people who once sat at Jesus’ feet, we bring Him our fears, our worries, maybe our thanksgiving, a heart full of joy. Or maybe we offer our hearts, like bundles of yarn, freshly dyed, and we say, like St. Ignatius, "Take, Lord, receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, my whole will, all that I have and all that I possess. You gave it all to me, Lord; I give it all back to you. Do with it as you will, according to your good pleasure. Give me your love and your grace; for with this I have all that I need.” And God receives the humble yarn of who we are. But the thing is, He doesn’t just take it. He changes it and creates with it. The Master Weaver makes something new, with his own hands, from who we thought we were, into what He calls us to be.

In our modern world change is constant, and even feels accelerated. We may be eager to change, but we often can fear change. We can be inspired by it or resent it. Do you remember being a child and going through the car wash, sitting in the backseat while the soapy rags dragged over the top and sides of the car? Inside, the car was dry and untouched. Similarly, we can drive through life’s car wash, everything swirling in rotary brushes and beaters, while inside, our hearts remain the same. Wouldn’t we want God to clean our hearts, sparkling bright and to change us? To fulfill our Christian vocation as it was designed by God: to be conformed to the image of his Son?

As the wool cannot resist the dye, we too are changed in the presence of Jesus on the altar. Day after day, we sit in His presence, maybe silently, with silence being the sacred corridor of prayer in the heart. We bring the fibers of the day, and the skeins of our longing, and God as Weaver takes them all, and changes them into something more beautiful, because it is in His design. Perhaps we think of the many things in our lives that need changing, but the main work is the transformation of the heart as it is gradually repaired, healed, and maybe even turned from stone to flesh, all in His presence.

Isn’t God everywhere? Can’t we meet Him while matching socks and folding laundry? Yes, because God is in everything like the tiny drop of water in the center of a kernel of corn that makes it pop. But some things are felt and understood best when we stand in their presence. The world is mostly covered in ocean, and we can spin a globe and tap our fingers across the blue paisley of the oceans. Yet if you dive past the breakers and float on your back off the Jersey shore and feel the salt in your eyes and how it lifts your body under the great expanse of sky, then you will know the ocean. The idea of the ocean pales in comparison to the experience of the ocean.

As Catholics we exist in the realm of the miraculous. It is a miracle that Jesus was born in a simple and humble way, yet in Him, the pulse and heartbeat of God was manifest in the world. It is a miracle that the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist is available to all of us in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and in Adoration. The pangs of loss felt by those ancient villagers who loved Jesus but had to say goodbye has been resolved by His outpouring of Himself on the altar. We don’t have to say goodbye. We can say hello, daily, and we can both welcome Him and be welcomed by Him. Some people live lives of work and activity punctuated by prayer. But we are called to live lives of prayer punctuated by work and activity. Prolonged prayer keeps us united with God. Through all our activities, a habitual state of simple prayer and union with God varies in intensity at different times of the day but creates a rhythm in our lives. When we take that time in Adoration into the world, every hour carries the sacred texture of Holy Hour.

If we somehow received news that Jesus was in town, that He had arrived, can you imagine the heart-bursting joy that we would feel? We would rush to wherever He was, dropping everything, and we would crowd into whatever space held Him. We would sit and pay attention to every word that came from His mouth, and long to be close enough to brush up against His clothing. When we sit or kneel in Adoration before His body in the Eucharist, we are really in His presence, every bit as much as the villagers who abandoned everything to fly to where He taught. And just as they came away changed after being in His presence, we, too, cannot help but come away changed.

Put down the kettle, the garden hose, pick up the baby, and run. He waits for you. Come out of the marketplace, put down your vegetable knives, the laundry, you’re coming and going. Let your hands drop from the work of the world. Bring Me your heart. Leave everything else.

harvestingthefruitsofcontemplation.blogspot.com/2025/09/eucharistic-reflection-in-presence-of.html

​I am blessed to be a Lay Dominican. However, the ideas expressed on this blog are my own and do not represent the endorsement of or position of the Order of Preachers as a whole. I am neither responsible for, nor endorse content (e.g. banner ads, pop-up ads, etc.) that may be linked to this blog.

St. Dominic de Guzman founded the Order of Preachers – the Dominicans – to preach the Gospel and to save souls. His zeal to save souls knew no limits. He reportedly spent every night in prayer tearfully asking God, “What will become of sinners?” Does such zeal for the salvation of souls exist today? In a recent post on Missio Dei, Kaleb Hammond questioned how many individuals in the world today believe that:

“Jesus is the one and only way to salvation, without whom we cannot enter heaven" and

“Hell is a real possibility for each of us and that Heaven is guaranteed to no one.”

Not many, he concluded, since we live in a culture that believes one religion is "just as good as another" and that all of us will go to heaven. I highly recommend that you read his post, The Heresy of Universalism. Here is a link.

Sadly, Kaleb is right. Our Church has long abandoned its primary duty - the salvation of souls. Not enough of its leaders have shed a tear over the countless souls who have lost their souls because of their failure to teach the Truth and their decision to remain silent in the face of rampant heresy.

Although we can do little for those souls who have already stood before the Throne of Justice, the sons and daughters of St. Dominic have neither quit the battle for souls nor lost their zeal for doing so. As long as the Order of Preachers continues being faithful to preaching the Truth and their mission to save souls, the proponents of religious indifferentism and universal salvation will, in God’s perfect timing, be defeated.

In the meanwhile, we must not remain silent in the face of lies and untruths. We must engage in the battle to save souls. We must know, teach, fraternally correct, live and defend the Truths of our Catholic Faith.

We must join our prayers and tears with those offered and shed by St. Dominic during his lifetime – unwilling to concede, from this point forward, the loss of even one more soul.​

I am blessed to be a Lay Dominican. However, the ideas expressed on this blog are my own and do not represent the endorsement of or position of the Order of Preachers as a whole. I am neither responsible for, nor endorse content (e.g. banner ads, pop-up ads, etc.) that may be linked to this blog.

What if the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was always and everywhere offered in accordance with the dignity, reverence and obedience our God merits? If we truly worshiped Him as He deserves, do you think more Catholics would willingly and lovingly come to Mass and give their Lord the worship and adoration He ought to receive?

May the following reflection help move us in that direction wherever there may be a need to do so.

When the Host is held on high and a chalice lifted…look up! Look up and see what Mary saw.  See a naked man squirming as He bleeds against a blackened sky; see a battered human body, writhing on a tree, prisoned there by savage spikes that have torn through Sacred hands and feet; see thorn-tortured head tossing from side to side as anguished torso labors, lifts and strains; see the eyes of God roll towards heaven beseeching, as broken lips blurt out that soul piercing cry: “My God, My God, Why has Thou forsaken Me?”

What is this?  This is the Mass.  This is Crucifixion.  This is what Mary saw at the elevation of Christianity’s first Mass.  This is what you should see at the Elevation of every Mass!” 

(Father M. Raymond, O.C.S.O. from God, A Woman and the Way)

https://harvestingthefruitsofcontemplation.blogspot.com/2025/08/eucharistic-reflection-look-up-and-see.html

​​I am blessed to be a Lay Dominican. However, the ideas expressed on this blog are my own and do not represent the endorsement of or position of the Order of Preachers as a whole. I am neither responsible for, nor endorse content (e.g. banner ads, pop-up ads, etc.) that may be linked to this blog.

“Have you noticed that you always have plenty of time for the things that you love, but there's never enough time for the things that you don't? Some people dread, avoid or find little joy in prayer because they spend their time worriedly digging into their troubles, rather than focusing on the Lord.

It is so much harder to be diligent in prayer if prayer is more a matter of discipline than desire. Turn your thoughts heavenward, look up to Jesus who walked on water. Keep from peering down into the stormy seas. The more you gaze at Him, the more prayer will be a joy."

I have excerpted the words above from a reflection on Diligence in Prayer contained in Mary’s Mantle – Consecration Prayer Journal by Christine Watkins - a book I highly recommend and one which has provided me with much fruit for mediation.

Let me share my journal response to Christine’s reflection in hopes that something she or I have written will stir your soul:

I do set aside time every morning and evening to pray, to meditate and to think of You Lord. The problem with my prayer life revolves around aridity, routineness, inattentiveness and distractedness. Prayer is often the first thing that I discard when my normal routine is disrupted. There have been times when I have gotten upset when something occurs that interrupts my prayer time or when someone does not respect it or makes it difficult or impossible for me to pray. But ultimately, it is only I who can thwart those impediments by simply being faithful to my prayer commitment.

Lord, your spiritual advisors over the centuries make it clear that the better form of prayer is to not just repetitively recite the words of others (though that has much value) but to use one's own words, to talk to You, heart to heart and, most importantly, to let You speak to me. This, of course, requires me to remain silent so I can hear You.

I admit Lord that I use the words of others too often. I acknowledge Lord that many times I just read the words without much reflection, recollection or understanding. While that is better than no prayer, You have so much more to offer me.

I thank you Lord for the exercises in Christine Watkins’ journal because they have helped me to focus on You with greater attention. I thank you Lord for the insight You have given me; now I must allow all that to take root in my heart, mind and soul- all for Your glory.
Please Lord, sanctify the time I spend in prayer. Remove the routineness and distractedness that is sometimes a part of my prayer time. Let me not gloss over a single word, since each one is a gift from You and is intended to take root in my life and to blossom.
Whenever the evil one manifests itself (especially while I am attempting to pray) “turn my thought heavenward”, make me “look up to You, Jesus, and keep me from peering down into the stormy sea.”

Lord, please bridge the huge gap that exists between what I profess to believe and how I actually live my life. NEVER, LORD, NEVER I PLEA, may I abandon my prayer life, no matter how dry and unproductive it may seem to be. Give me “the grace to focus more on You during my prayer time than digging into my troubles”.

Your words, O Lord, are alive as are the words you have placed on the lips of Your saints. Bring these Words to life when I pray, read and ponder them. Make my prayer time fruitful and joyful and a source of comfort to You. For this I pray.

harvestingthefruitsofcontemplation.blogspot.com/2025/09/monday-musings-be-diligent-in-prayer.html

​I am blessed to be a Lay Dominican. However, the ideas expressed on this blog are my own and do not represent the endorsement of or position of the Order of Preachers as a whole. I am neither responsible for, nor endorse content (e.g. banner ads, pop-up ads, etc.) that may be linked to this blog.