Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Our Lady of Mount Carmel

I was pondering intimacy and how one acquires intimacy in prayer. How do I go from the intimate union of Jesus in the Eucharist to deeply living out an intimate relationship?
Put another way, how do we Catholics go from our rote prayers for example to intimacy, to a passionate love of God?

It seems to me there is a difference between Catholics who show up for mass and Catholics who live their faith. I'm not talking about evangelical Catholics, Charismatic Catholics or those who are more Catholic than the pope but the ones who accept others for who they are (sin and all - mind you that accepting someone for being a child of God deserving of love is completely different than approving of someone's sin. We can accept the person but disapprove of the sin.), who live a life imbued with joy, peace and tranquility. It seems to me these people have a strong interior life. This interior life flows into their very being and the fruit of this interior life is seen in the fruits of grace: joy, peace, tranquility, love. Some of these Catholics might very well be charismatic, evangelical or whatever label you want to give them but the hallmark of a strong interior life will be manifest in the fruits of grace.

So I don't have to beat someone over the head with my rosary beads. My devotion to the rosary is meant to foster a deeper union to Christ through she who held God inside her very self, who nurtured him, who taught him and who waits upon us to draw nearer to her so she can bring us closer to Him. Mary's greatest desire is that we enter fully into the mystery of God. So perhaps on this feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, you too might consider renewing your commitment to a deeper devotion to the Blessed Mother.

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