Lynn L'Heureux reflects
Lynn L’Heureux reflects
Being Open – Hear the Shepherd’s Call – Getting your feet wet – Mary A Mother’s love.
Dear Vincentian Family: My prayer for you this week is for patience, understanding and giving up the ugly past. It is good to keep the wonderful things and memories, especially of loved ones. What we have to do is get rid of the hurts. Jesus is waiting to take them from us. Once we give the hurts away, we are free to help those Jesus puts before us. We can look at the lost, lonely and imprisoned with a look of hope for them. We look at them and see Jesus who is the eternal spring of hope. We call on Mary to intercede for us and we look at her life and we use her as a true model of saying “Yes” to our Lord. Have a great week. Make everyday a great day, for yourself and for others. Celebrate mother’s day and enjoy the celebration.
Being Open is freedom. When we hold on to things, we lose. Things are not what make us happy. Things are not what make us great. Things can make us comfortable, but nothing makes us more of everything than being embraced by the Trinity. We must open our eyes, our ears and especially our hearts for the great love we are given freely. Christ comes to us and says He is the water of life. Open the faucet fully, let it pour down. He promises we will be refreshed. We must be open. Open ourselves to receive and then give what we receive in service to others.
Hear the Shepherd’s Call is not always easy. Sometimes when we talk to others and perhaps especially our children, we get no response. Can you hear me? We become frustrated. As we get older we also get into a “Not Listening” habit. I think this happens with our spouses and people we see often. We tune them out so to speak. The Lord calls us each day. He says, “How are you doing?” We go on and say a quick prayer and we forget to listen. Our Shepherd is calling us to serve and giving us our plan for the day. We have to open our ears to the Shepherd’s call. Know where the Lord is calling you to serve, to love, to forgive and to be extraordinary present to someone today. Each person gets a different call, however we are all called to eternal life when we hear the Shepherd’s call
Getting your feet wet is a phrase my grandmother used, especially when I was afraid to do something. Sometimes we join SSVP, for example. We know it is a community, but we don’t want to jump in fully. We test the water with our big toe and we say, I really like serving the poor, but I don’t have to go to meetings, that are a waste of time. They need to need to jump in with both feet. Each meeting is a prayer, or should be. We pray as a community and the prayer in community makes us stronger. We pray for the world of Vincentians we belong to. The Spirit dwells in us as we learn and the same Spirit teaches us to pray. When we are in community in our meetings, it is a family gathering and the family includes the Trinity. The Spirit dwells within us and we learn how to pray with the joy we need to serve the poor. Anyone, atheists, philanthropists and others can serve all in need, and they do. However, they cannot or do not continue that service with prayer and love of serving Christ. We need to be community and we need every member of the family.
Mary, a Mother’s Love is not new to us. She is a wonderful role model, for us, our children and certainly our service to all in need. There is nothing greater than a mother’s love. It doesn’t matter if you are rich or poor, weak or strong, a prince or a pauper a mother’s love will make our beautifully decorated house, or our grass hut and anything in between a home filled with love. We try to follow the example of Mary. We should pray the Rosary and ask for forgiveness. The Rosary is a powerful form of prayer and meditation. When we pray the rosary, we call on Mary and the Trinity and our meditation is centered on Christ. Remember to take the time to listen to God’s voice in your meditation. Jesus said that if we listen, He will give us all the tools we need. We need every tool He can give us for our human works.
I love Dorothy Day, an American Woman who changed the lives of the working poor and she says, “The final word is love. . . .We cannot love God unless we love each other, and to love we must know each other.” With this in mind pray our Lord touches those who have been involved in terrorist activities and bless the families injured. Pray for the tragedy in Bangladesh and especially in thanksgiving for the 2 companies using the facilities that came forward to help.
I encourage you to visit www.famvin.org/en search for the photo gallery with pictures of the Pope and Superior General and a story. I also think you will enjoy “Jesus’ last wishes from May 02 written by José Antonio Pagola. You
Blessings, Lynn
Lynn L’Heureux is Special needs co-coordinator & Advisor of the Society of St Vincent de Paul Calgary Alberta Canada
Subscribe to her weekly newsletter Vincentian Day of Prayer and Fast (English and Spanish) by sending an email to calgaryssvpadm@gmail.com
Tags: L'Heureux, Listening, Mary the Mother of Jesus