The Mystical in Me, Jim, and You

During the crucifixion scene of The Passion of the Christ, Jim Caviezel received an interior locution. Of this locution he said,

"God spoke to me... they don't love me. There are very few."

Jim responded,

"Well, I'm going to love You and I'm going to tell You that I love you."

In 2019, Jim, along with his friend Fr. Calloway and a large group of pilgrims traveled to the holy land. After walking the Stations of the Cross, they arrived at the tomb of Jesus just after 6 A.M. The doors were closed, and Fr. Calloway was standing near them, when another fellow pilgrim took a photo of the doors. The doors looked ordinary to the eye, but  the photo has an extraordinary event occurring, as there is a figure visible in them that was not present. It's a shrouded man.

In essence you have, at a minimum, two people that God directly communicated with. It happens and it seems to be happening more and more these days. It's like an incredible veil has been lifted and God is sending signs and wonders to more of those that are listening to Him.

Here is the tomb photo, which according to the youtube channel that published it, Mystic.com, it is enhanced so that you can see it:

Jim has said that he feels a deep spiritual connection to God. I get that. I feel the same connection and pretty much have for a few decades now.

My own most deep spiritual experience was when I was "told" to take a photo of the Host in the adoration chapel, Christmas day, 2011. Of course when the photos were downloaded onto the computer, I found it hard to breathe. Just as with the above photo, the Host looked ordinary to my eyes. The photo was beyond extraordinary. It's mystical, and a miracle and I was and still am awed that God shared Himself with me.I cannot say this loud enough or often enough, JESUS CHRIST IS PRESENT IN THE EUCHARIST..... Approach Him in grace and with reverence. I beg of you.

Glory Glory Gifts was created because of an interior locution. While in the adoration chapel, back in April 2008, I was told to, 

"Bring prayer to those that no longer come to my Father's house." 

I actually looked around to see where it came from and He repeated it because I was like, um... what? It was a direct commandment to me. 

That's why I'm always harping on you all to pray. Pray always. Thank God for everything that you have. Pray for everyone even your enemies. PRAY. PRAY. AND PRAY.

Also, in case you missed it before, JESUS CHRIST IS PRESENT IN THE EUCHARIST.

Another important, but short, locution that I received, while sitting in my living room, was:

"Do not sleep with your rosary in your hand, lest you drop them on the floor..." 

You should not sleep with any blessed item in your hand because of this. If you feel the need to sleep with a rosary, wrap it around your wrist so that it doesn't fall off. Put smaller blessed items in your pocket or next to your bed. Hang larger ones above your bed. I often sleep with a rosary around my wrist, particularly when I have felt attacked. That, and prayer, have helped me sleep many a night.

Who is attacking me you ask? Satan, that's who. The closer that you connect with God, the more that jerk is going to try and break up your relationship and break you down. On a daily basis, I deal with many health issues. Add to that machines breaking down for no reason, products disappearing and reappearing later,lost mail, irate customers, theft, scammers, spammers, trolls, and throw in a few stalkers for good measure. I'm having a major issue with our Word of God Bible Study page that FB hasn't been able to fix in a full two months now. I can't schedule posts. Now who do you think throws all those wrenches into our daily job of promoting prayer and spreading the Gospels? It's the darkness trying to seep into my life. The good news is, though, that God and light keeps all the darkness from taking over. It will try, but it will not win.

What's the point of this post? God speaks to those that listen. God speaks to those that speak to Him.God could be trying to get your attention right now. Are you open to Him? YOU will grow closer to him with every prayer that you utter. YOU grow closer to Him with every word in the Bible that you read. YOU grow closer to Him with every work of mercy that you do for someone. YOU grow closer to Him with every act of love that you give or show. Whatever you do for the least of your brethren, you do FOR Him. He KNOWS all about you. You need to know all about Him.

If you truly open up your heart to God you will hear Him. WE ALL have the power to be as close to God as is humanly possible. We all have a bit of mysticism in us when it comes to Him. We are all open to receive His messages and signs. You just have to look for them, and no, I'm not talking about through the new age crapola. I'm talking serious dialogue with God the Almighty, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. 

The mystical me wants to surrender totally and completely to God.

LOVE GOD, always. Say I love you God, every day. Be like Jim.

Pray and Listen, that is my message. By the grace and glory of God, you too will hear Him when he calls.

Mare 

A Tale of Three Families

I heard the most amazing story this morning, which totally and completely elated me. A friend of mine just met her siblings for the first time. She, and her Mom were abandoned by her Father when she was just a toddler. It seems he went on to start a family elsewhere and out of the blue my friend was contacted by her brother through FB. They recently all met for the first time and the pictures she shared with us show the remarkable family resemblance between them.

Her amazing homecoming reminded me of someone near and dear to my own heart. His Father also left his Mother and him, but she was still carrying him in her womb when that father split.  He too has siblings that he has never met but, so far, there hasn't been any happy ending and joyous reunion of any sort. It doesn't mean that there won't be one in the future though. You just never know what life will bring you.

The third story is the one about Melissa Ohden. I'm reading a book about her life called, "You Carried Me." Melissa was an aborted baby that survived and was subsequently adopted and raised by a loving, supportive family. I am slowly reading it, and do not want to give any spoilers away but she does search for her biological Mother and the book details it along with her feelings and questions. I can tell you that I'm finding it very difficult to read not because of the subject matter. It's because I can relate to Melissa, her biological Mom and her adoptive Mom on so many levels. You see, I am the Mother mentioned in that second scenario.

Though some of the stories share some talking points the one thing that ties all of them together is just how much one person's decision can have consequences not only to their life but to the others in it as well. In essence, all three babies had a parent abandon them, yet, all of them were raised in good, nurturing, homes and they all grew up to be wonderful human beings in spite of the circumstances. God bless them all.

Life is chock full of challenges and choices that have to be made. It's been said that most people encounter 3 serious issues a year that they have to deal with. (Judging by my own life I think that's a bit understated.) I think in this day and age of narcissistic behavior we have to be reminded again and again that there are other people in our lives that we have a responsibility to. Think long and hard about the serious issues that arise in your life and the affect it will have on your loved ones. Pray to God to guide you in your decision making. Let him help you with the big stuff. I promise you, he is always listening.

Best wishes to my friend and her new found family. May God bless us all with peace, joy and love.

Mare

Clarity, Conscience and a Dose of Reality

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As I write my blog post this week I am reminded of the Mother Teresa quote about people.  I do not have it in front of me, nor remember it by heart, but it does have a line that says, “People will be unreasonable, love them anyway.” It reminds me of another famous quote, “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” ~ Jesus Christ.

Judging by the way that barbs are flying left and right, IRL and on social media we have all forgotten that commandment, myself included.

Admittedly, I didn’t just dip my toe into the cesspool of ill dispute on Facebook over the last few days; I dunked my whole damned foot into it. Now, mind you, I’m not mad at myself for my response, nor that they unfriended me. I’m angry that I allowed that person to get under my skin. I’m even angrier that I broke my cardinal rule of social media and that is to leave my really personal stuff off of it. Nope, instead I hung it out there to dry, as publicly as a sorority pledge’s undies are hurled up onto a flagpole in the middle of a campus. Lately, I don’t like the person that FB and Twitter brings out in me. I don’t like the personas that it brings out in some of my friends, or acquaintances, either. Even the Pope said something that made me go, wait…. WHAT?  

Whatever happened to respect and dignity? I blame social media for the breakdown of decency. After all, anonymity breeds contempt. Visit a public forum or news feed on Facebook to see that in all its glory. I’m pretty sure that things that are said on there would probably not be said to someone’s face. Generally speaking, if you can call someone a demeaning term to their face you have some real issues that you need to address in yourself.

If your conscience is clear well then good luck to you and God speed. Just a little reminder~ your will is not God’s will. What is okay in your book may not be in His book. You may want to crack open His book so that you can justify your actions and words when your time comes. I’m not an expert on much but I can say, with absolute certainty, that you ARE going to die.  We all are. That rant you are about to post or tweet? You know, the one about how someone else is wrong and you are right or you are smart and they are stupid? Yeah, that one; God will ask you about that. God will ask me about that. Of that, I am certain.

Which brings me to clarity.

I’ve had health issues for a long time, decades in fact. Now, I’m reaching the age where my friends are catching up with me. I have quite a few friends that have horrible allergies and crippling, diseases like RA and MS. I have friends that are dealing with heart disease and I have friends that are dealing with end of life things like cancer and chronic, rare, diseases like the one that I have, Cushing’s. I have found in my own journey that the suffering and illness has brought me a breath away from God, both literally and figuratively. The sicker I got though, the more clarity I had.  It is true, when your mortality is staring you down you think about your life. You don’t think about the big house that you didn’t get to live in, your job nor all the money you could have made. You didn’t think about what celebrity said what and ponder about every political rant out there. You think about the people in your life and those you have known throughout the years. You think about the choices that you made, good and bad, and contemplate the outcomes. You think about the things that you did to hurt people, intentionally and unintentionally.  You regret the hateful words you said or wrote to people. You wonder about what will happen to your loved ones when you are gone and how they will fare without you. You think about God. While you lie in bed you have some pretty long dialogues with him actually. You find yourself bargaining with him; Lord, give me just one more day. You find yourself offering your suffering up to him. It is the least that you can do since some days you are too weak and ill to get out of bed, or to hold a rosary. You pray to him, often and with an open heart. You thank him for every little blessing he has bestowed on you that day and throughout your life. Having been in that state I know that suffering provides two things; It binds you to God in a way that you never expected nor experienced ever before in your life, and it provides you with an immense amount of clarity. I think that I can say, with utmost confidence, that those of my friends that have suffered the most have the most amazingly close relationships with Him. I think they will agree with me on that. I marvel at their devout faith and their love of life and all that is good in it. Though they don’t realize it, they are the very best of humanity even if they are too sick to hold their own fork. They have, and still do, walk through that purging fire of purity. Oddly, those friends, who should be the angriest of all, are the ones most at peace. Perhaps it is because they have learned to embrace the smallest blessings and accomplishments they have. Perhaps it is their closeness to God. All I know, and I include myself in this equation, is that as the world spins itself into turmoil and chaos, we seem to have a quiet peace and a clarity that this is the way it is supposed to be. I spoke to one of them about it. She feels it too. We don't comprehend it, but we accept it as God's will. I think that my own suffering has given me the clarity to see God’s goodness and example shining through them. I too have accepted a life in the balance between life and death. It is just out of my reach but never far from me. It is for me to learn from them and not the other way around. It has also given me the clarity to see the hateful actions and words that people do and say to each other. I know how distressed I am about it and how it is affecting me. I cannot even begin to imagine what it is like to see it all through God’s eyes. If I am weeping, surely God is.

We are all equal in God’s eyes, even though we are not equal in each others' eyes. I leave my closing words to James 4:11-12.

“Brothers and sisters, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against a brother or sister or judges them speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. There is only one lawgiver and judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you ~ who are you to judge your neighbor?”

Peace,

Mare

Winners, All!

We have winners to our Partridge in a Pear Tree contest, which wrapped up on the 7th. Congratulations to Shonequa and Carl on finding that little bugger, hidden on our Quick Reference page. They should be receiving their nativities this week. Good job!

We also have some winners today in our Bible or Babble contest. Congrats to Joan, Anita and Marcella in correctly identifying that the quote was not from the Bible. It was actually something that Mother Theresa said. Their prizes will be sent out to them as soon as they tell us which they would like.

During the year, and especially at Advent, we experienced some awesome feedback from our GGG Facebook family that just blew us away. We love our GGG family and we love to share our faith with all of you. Your comments show us that there are good, faithful, people in this world that are centered on God and prayer. It is just so important in today's world and we are humbled by the feedback, shares and likes. It isn't a reflection on us; it is a reflection of your feelings toward Our Lord so we don't aspire to take credit for anything. The credit is all yours because we know you have your priorities right.

We are also quite pleased with our Ebay feedback and thank all of our new customers on there. Those comments we very much take to heart and we are happy that we have met your expectations with our products and services. We will certainly continue to do that in the year ahead and appreciate honest feedback. Feel free to read the comments at: http://www.ebay.com/usr/gloryglorygifts.

Our thanks go out to all of our GGG family members, whether you are local, national, international, Ebay, Facebook or Pinterest ones for making 2014 a stellar year in sales. We hope to not only meet, but exceed your expectations of us in 2015. Remember, we are a not for profit business and all of our Holy Land product sales are helping to support our Christian brothers and sisters that still live there and depend on us for the livelihood.

I leave you with a quote from Mother Theresa (I love my Mother Theresa)

"We must know that we have been created for greater things, not just to be a number in the world, not just to go for diplomas and degrees, this work and that work. We have been created in order to love and to be loved."

God bless and have a wonderful week!

Mare

Little Christmas 2015

Boy that Christmas season went fast! Didn't it? Right now our Partridge in a Pear tree contest is in full swing. Although today is the Feast of the Epiphany or the 12th day of Christmas, the contest actually ends tomorrow at midnight, EST. Only Facebook members are eligible to be in it so you have a little time to like us and then find the contest rules on the December 24th posting. Good luck and welcome if you become a fan!

I'm not ready to take my Christmas tree and nativity decorations down. This year we didn't get them up until Christmas eve so I know that they have only been up for 13 days. Not that I am very superstitious but I think I will wait a few days before taking everything down. Besides, who wants to look at a naked house? I was thrilled with all of the beautiful cards I received and not one "Happy Holidays" among them. All of them had depictions of the baby Jesus or the Holy Family - except for the ones that had my friends or families' smiling faces on them. A friend of mine told me that he had been to CVS last week and there was not one iota of Christmas left in the store, but the Valentine's Day stuff was already out.

Isn't it a shame how we rush our holidays along? We wish our lives away. It kind of breaks my heart when I see my own friends post things on Facebook like thank God Christmas (or the holidays) are over with. Maybe they should rethink how they are spending their holidays. I know 2 families that lost loved ones during this holiday season. From now on their holidays will forever be reminders of their loved ones lost, but I hope that they can also remember all of the many joyous celebrations they had with them as well. My dad died the day before my son's 6th birthday. We buried him on a Friday and on Saturday we had the birthday festivities. Life goes on. It is never the same, but time marches forward anyway without our consent.

With the new year looming and the old fading into memory I guess I am a little pensive today. Instead of rushing into the next Hallmark occasion how about we take a breath and just enjoy our lives and our family and friends. If you woke up today how blessed you are to be given another opportunity to do things right today. (If you didn't wake up today and you are reading this you better call Ghostbusters). Seriously, think back on the beautiful moments of your holidays. Personally I can see my son and I bowing our heads at Thanksgiving, saying our grace before our meal, and then each of us taking a moment to thank God for all of our blessings and stating them out loud. I had a beautiful Christmas eve with my family and will cherish our meal together and the laughter and joy of being with them and watching my 6 year old grand-niece pirouetting around the living room. I think back on the beauty and splendor of the church decorated with candles, evergreen and poinsettias and a kiss and hug of a good friend as he wished me Merry Christmas. Even New Year's eve had a moment when I and my son embraced at midnight and wished all good things for each other in 2015 (I pried myself away from the Twilight Zone marathon long enough to enjoy some time with him.)

Instead of saying thank God its over I will say thank you God for all of the gifts I received during it. Not all gifts come in boxes but surely some of them do come wrapped - in joy, happiness, peace and love. Have a blessed week and year...

Peace,

Mare

Social Media; The Good, The Bad and The Downright Ugly

Truly? I am on the fence about social media which is odd coming from a blogger. My personal favorite is Pinterest. On that site I like to include a little bit of me, a little advertising, butterflies and a bunch of purple colored flowers to accentuate and punctuate the page.  Twitter I am just getting the hang of and joined to follow a few on there because, frankly, everyone is on there. Do I use it to it*s full potential yet for the business? Absolutely not. Facebook is wonderful for a business to have to connect with our fans and to network with other small businesses. Blogging? Well by now you should know I have an opinion about everything, but am not necessarily comfortable with sharing them all. Nor do I think anyone needs to be preached too. You have your Priests and Pastors to do that, as well as your own consciences. However, I do tend to do it as well when I get a bee in my bonnet.  YouTube is a whole other ball of wax. If it does nothing else it proves that I do not have photo shop and that my video developing needs, well more development.

This post, though is not about our use of social media as a business; it is about the drawbacks of using it in your personal life. One thing that drives me insane is being with someone, at a dinner, or whatever and they are glued to their cellphone. To me, that is one of the rudest things to do and it gives the impression that the game or text they are involved with is much more important than those around them.

What I do not understand is Facebook. My personal page, not the business page, has followers. Why? To be honest - I am not that interesting. All I can assume is that they are from one of the business communities I belong to and are mistakenly following me instead of the business page on FB. It would freak me out a bit to think that they are so interested in what recipes I share, or quotes I like or what posts I *Like.* The only reason why I went on FB to begin with was to create our business page. I am an incredibly private person and do not share photos, health updates, where I am nor what I am doing on it and I actually cringe when someone *tags* me in a photo or I show up on a map because the person I was with posted it (i.e. at this doctor with my Mom - ahem thanks Tom).

This week on FB, though, bought out the ugly in me and the ugly in a *friend.* We were reduced to cyber arguing. Seriously? Not my finest moment, that is for sure.  It is the last thing I would expect myself to be embroiled in, but it happened. After thinking about this person, prior chats on there with that person and things that the person said to me about others I said to myself, self, it is time you learned how to unfriend people. Why should I open myself up to the possibility that the person is sharing my personal information with others, just as that same person has shared other*s intimate information with me? It is tremendously awkward to know an extremely personal fact about someone that I know just well enough to say hi to in passing. This event had me so rattled, upset and angry that I practically ran to confession yesterday. That is no small feat (or should I say feet?) on these wobbly legs of mine.

Still, it amazes me what people do post on their FB page. In this day and age I would think that people would be a little more savvy in what they share and in pictures that they post. One of my older friends recently took his page down as he is job hunting. It is a wise decision in my opinion and he is in no way a renegade. The more I read on there, the more I see on other types of media sites, the more I know that privacy is a thing of the past. The more I read of others lives the more I ponder who are these people? Then again, they are probably thinking the same about me.  If I could be affected by cyber-bullying from spammers, trolls and yes even Facebook friends while sitting here selling Christian products, well then nobody is safe. Oh my gosh, I feel it coming on I am going to preach........if we as adults are open to all the downright ugly things that the internet has to offer then I implore you to know who your kids are talking to on Facebook and other media sites.  I have only two words to say about that - Parental Control. At the very least, keep your kids safe! Stepping down from the soap box now.....

Have a good week, and God bless,

Mare

Sushi and Facebook

Last night I treated myself to some good old fashioned Japanese food. I love the sushi wrapped around my Rock n Ladies Roll that I order; the California rolls, the ginger sauce that I dip the salad into. That to me is a little slice of heaven on earth. Though when I accidentally ate some veges that unbeknown to me were next to the wasabi I thought my head was going to explode. I just sat there frozen, not sure what to do as my sinuses cleared, my ears too, my eyes flooded and I thought to myself oh my God I am going to die on my couch with wasabi oozing out of my orifices and a few errant pieces of rice down the front of my shirt.  Well, obviously that did not happen and a bite or two of brown rice calmed my culinary senses and I managed to finish and enjoy my Salmon teriyaki.

I love Facebook too, though not as much as sushi. I hate Facebook too. Sometimes it is just as mind blowing as a bite of wasabi.  I will admit it, I really do not understand Facebook, at all. I do not get the phenomenon of community boards either. I do like reading through the blogs and I am proud of my one follower; she and I go back to our teenage years. That means the world to me, though folks from all over the world read this humble little blog. My stats tell me so.

For a short time when I was sick I visited a message board every day just to break the monotony and to get out of bed and sit up for a bit. This was before my Facebook years.  I used to watch The View every day from the comfort of my couch. Many things that they said made me spring from my prone position to sitting straight up. The last straw with them was when two of them, Joy and Whoopie, actually got up and left the stage because they did not agree with something that a visitor said. That was it for me. I could sit and listen to them  drone on about their viewpoints, which I rarely agreed with, but the moment that someone said something they considered offensive they were up and out of there. I cannot imagine someone like Leno or Letterman doing that. You invite a guest on and then get up and leave because you do not agree with them? That is unprofessionalism at its very best if you ask me (which you didn't [aha, the apostrophe is working today]).  Anyway, that is beside the point now. If I have watched 10 minutes of it since that day it is a lot and they certainly do not even know that I am gone. But, the point I  was getting to was the message board. There were actually some really lovely women that I met on there and we bonded over email instead of the board.  We were just kindred souls that had some how found each other, possibly with a little divine intervention, to bolster each other so that we could heal physically, emotionally and spiritually and then move on. What I learned from message boards is that anonymity breeds contempt, malice and outright disgusting behavior. What a sad reflection of humanity they can be. I keep my distance from all community chats now.

The positive aspect of the experience though gave me the oomph to finally open my first Facebook page, my personal one. At first it was wonderful. Through it I reconnected with old high school friends, relatives that I had not seen in years, old business colleagues, even my first boss with whom I had worked my first real job in 1977. I found it very exciting. Truly, I love to hear about others good fortunes. I will cry with them through the tough stuff and if you ask me to pray for something I will, every single day, until whatever it is you want me to pray for has come to fruition or some kind of conclusion. I love, love, love the ones that share their lives, even just a bit - graduations, weddings, grandkids, moves - all the good things that life has to offer. I just love seeing what my niece and her family are up to on a daily basis and to hear what my great-nephews have said or done. I love watching my other niece live her life with the man of her dreams, her impending graduation coming, her life ahead of her. I pray for my friends that are struggling or have their kids in our military.  It is not like that though. The majority of what you get on Facebook from your friends is garbage - horoscopes of the day, game invitations, ads, no responses to personal messages you have sent them and horror of horrors the friend collectors. I know I have 2 - from the Philippines who I have no clue who they even are and besides who else would have thousands of friends?

I saw a post from a friend of mine one day. His friend was asking him how did you get 413 friends and what can I do to accomplish that as well? His answer? First it was well, get out more and then he basically said well I may have 413 friends but only 2 true ones. That got me thinking about my friend list. How many real true friends do I have on there, not including family of course, I would say 5. If Facebook has taught me anything it is that if I have 5 people in this world that I consider real, true  honest-to-God friends, then I am way ahead of the game and I am truly blessed.

Peace,

Mare