Hello Jesus

We held Eucharistic adoration for one of our groups who sacrifice their time and energy to minister to others.

I helped arrange this prayer time. I had no idea who would show up to this prayer session. I sent the invitations, I prayed and then I just let it go and hoped people would come and pray. Come and pray they did. What was most surprising to me was that the men of the group showed up. None of the ladies showed, except me but as I was organizing I don't suppose I count. I was perfectly ok being the lone lady as I relate better to guys than dolls anyway. It was amazing.

It was communion of heart and mind. Knowing that we minister to others perhaps not seeing the fruits of our labors for years or not at all takes a great deal of faith and commitment. Opening ourselves to being ministered to as part of our ministry takes humility but it is necessary. Ministry is not what you do. It's what you allow to happen. It happens in communion, not in isolation. This is a key difference between Christian service and community service. Community service is an activity that is done, a service. Christians exist to serve and to be served. Catholicism is a "both and" mentality and so many people don't get that. Jesus is both son and God. It's very easy to serve, to minister to others, but to be humble and allow someone to minister to you, to acknowledge that there is something incomplete, or in need of healing in ourselves takes humility and a certain amount of vulnerability.

As I informed the priest afterward, "You sucked, but Jesus was totally awesome!", it occurred to me that the whole humility thing... yeah well I need some work on that

Dear Guardian Angel,

You are not funny! I know you are highly amused and given all the trouble I put you through on a routine basis I probably deserve it. Really though, you are not funny and quit laughing. I know you're probably sniggering. Quit it!

Love,

Your sweet little heathen

"Huh", you wonder. Well let me assure you, my guardian angel is NOT funny. Last night I specifically told him, "please get me up on time for my early morning adoration hour". I refused to set my alarm last night. Sometimes I just depend on him. He has yet to let me down when I rely on his angelic alarm clock. So I was surprised when I awoke at 2 am and I let him know that it was way too early. I then drifted back to sleep. When I awoke at 15 after the hour and realized I was 15 minutes late for my adoration hour, I about flipped. Now in reality, I only had about 1 working synapse and was stumbling though the house looking for my prayer book and my beads. I couldn't find my rosary beads. Well I found about 15 sets of beads but none were the ones I was looking for, so when I finally found them I dashed out the door a full 1/2 hour late for my hour. When I arrived at the chapel, the person before me was still there, thankfully. Sometimes adorers fill in and stay a bit longer with Jesus until the next adorer arrives. So I dashed in and apologized profusely to him, explaining how sorry I was that I was so late. He turns to me with this quizzical look and says "Late? You're a full 1/2 hour early."

So I just turned to Jesus, shook my head and smiled. Which is funny because often times that's what he does to me. I'm sure he was amused too. Incidentally, today was the feast day of Guardian angels but not celebrated because it fell on a Sunday and just about no feast day trumps Sunday's, not even the Mother of God. However my guardian angel thought he'd have a little fun on his day. Live it up buddy! I hope you enjoyed it. Ornery little angel!