05 September 2012

More from Sr. Mary Roberta

Here I am with a quick, late-in-the-day reflection on today's Gospel. Like the rabbit in "Alice in Wonderland" ("I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date!"), I was hurrying, hurrying, hurrying today with too much to do and supposedly no time to stop and sit in prayer before Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament.

But in today's Gospel verses from St. Luke (4:38-44) he shows us Jesus surrounded by sick people, clamoring to be healed, but despite all that "work" of his, Jesus "departed and went into a lonely place" to pray - except it's not really lonely because Christ finds His Father there.

And when I finally found time this afternoon to go apart and pray in our chapel, I found Christ, and through Him, His Father. As our founder St. Francis de Sales points out in a one of his sermons, "There is only one thing necessary to pray well, and that is to have Our Lord in our arms...Prayer is nothing else but an elevation of our mind to God, which we in no way can bring about by ourselves. But when we have Our Savior in our arms, everything becomes easy for us. Consider the holy man Simeon and how well he prayed when he had Our Lord in his arms."

So, once recharged and re-energized through Christ (my soul's transformer- like the one I used traveling in Europe to get "juice" for my travel iron), I threw myself back into the day's fray!

Sr. Mary Roberta Viano, VHM

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