Spiritual Stuff

If you can find time (hint: make time), CLICK https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnA_I7Yc3wg [3:02:36] to hear a three hour interview with Fr. Carlos Martins.

Also, CLICK https://www.youtube.com/shorts/2a-B4wpSYJc to hear a quick message from Father Mike about asking God for what we need.

I wasted a lot of time demanding God tell me WHY things were so hard for me. I’m thinking now that the answers to a lot of our “Why?” prayers are “You wouldn’t understand it if I told you” or maybe “None of your business.”

Anyway … the point is that I started getting better results when I stopped ranting at Him and started humbly asking Him more immediate “show me” prayers like “How do you want me to handle this?” or “What do you want me to do next about this?“

One recent example … I was having a particularly bad day with my chronic illness/disability. I had finally gotten up and dressed after 2 days in bed, but I was so tired and in so much pain that I couldn’t really think of anything I wanted or needed to do. I was at my desk and prayed (whined is more like it), “What do you want me to do now?” The answer was so FAST. “Mass.” I didn’t feel like it, but I clicked CatholicTV and, wouldn’t you know, the readings were about people whining.

In the OT reading, the Israelites were sick of manna, but instead of asking God what to do, Moses went on a big long rant at God about how he’d be better off dead than having to listen to His people complain.

Then, in the NT reading, the disciples told Jesus to stop talking and send the people away to buy food for themselves and He said, “Feed them yourself.” Unlike Moses, they got it right and instead of ranting about how unreasonable Jesus was being and how difficult it was to follow Him, they asked, “How can we do that when we only have five loaves and two fish?” And Jesus showed them.

His answers are not always about praying more either. Later that same day, I was again feeling at odd ends and asked Him again what He wanted me to do. He told me to lie down and read my novel for a while.