Tag: Catholic

Weekly update: “I had a cunning plan…”

“I’ve got a plan so cunning you could put a tail on it and call it a weasel….” (Blackadder, in Blackadder Series 3, written by Richard Curtis and Ben Elton)

As ever, I had great plans for getting my revamped blog up and running, but things did not go accordingly. The week before last I was knocked flat by very painful endometriosis symptoms. Then last week was extremely busy with two wonderful occasions celebrating my goddaughter and godson’s First Holy Communions.

rosary

The travel involved meant that my chronic pain flared badly, though I am absolutely delighted and thankful we could go and celebrate with them. Their families have become dear friends. I realised I have known my goddaughter’s mum for 17 years. That’s incredible. Looking back it’s quite scary how the time has passed. I’m deeply thankful for her friendship and how she has made my husband and I part of her family, through so many ups and downs and so many times that I have not been able to be the friend I’d want to be and have not been easy to be around.

Here is some baking I did last week for tea with my godson’s family. It’s the first time I have baked since Christmas. It’s therapeutic for me as well as a good way to make a gift. These cakes and tea bread were all gluten free.

baking

Today, we got some more unexpected bad news about my husband’s health, including the fact he needs yet another surgery. A problem we had thought to be relatively minor could be or could become very serious. Coming as it does, clashing with what had been elation at his getting through his previous surgery, this is a shock for him. We are both somewhat stunned. I feel a certainty we can walk through this whatever it leads to, because we have each other, the sacrament of our marriage strengthening us, the unchanging love of God, and good and quick medical care here. I will say more in future posts but it’s another case of “thank goodness it was caught early”.

On the positive side, the doctors are still permitting us to go on our holiday to Greece next week. This will be a very important rest and please God, time of happiness, for my husband before he faces his next surgery. We are going to take things slowly in Greece and take plenty of time to appreciate the little beauties in each day. We will be by the sea for much of the time and I think that itself is healing, through God’s grace.

As you can see, this means I have not been able to do with my blog what I wanted to. I am sorry not to fulfil the schedule I had set out. I don’t want to let you down. I am going to postpone making any major changes until we come back from holiday and I can dedicate particular time each week to this blog. In the meantime I will update when I can and share some of the joy of our travels.

Ginny xxx

 

A beautiful day

Today was amazing. I don’t know why but we were both full of hope for the future. It wasn’t that the many obstacles in our way at the moment had been moved. Yet we both felt lifted up by God’s grace. The magic and beauty seemed to be stirring in our hearts and giving an energy Ive never felt before. This evening I’m buzzing and high even though I’m exhausted physically and mentally. The voices are telling me this happiness and goodness isn’t for me and doesn’t happen to me; they are trying to fill me with the dread and guilt I always feel after any brief elation.

No. I choose Jesus. I choose my life by grace with Him and in the love of my fiance R. We are richly blessed. We are created for good.

Thank you Dear Jesus.

Ginny xxx

God whispers and the world is loud

I stumbled across this quotation today.

It’s apt for me. I need to rest and listen for God’s “still small voice of calm”. Amid anxiety, distress, confusion and an awful lot of dishonesty around me right now, His voice guides and assures and gives hope for now and the future; His voice is always there if I allow myself to hear Him. I know He is with me working out His plans. Where I am right now, He needs me to be and needs me to serve Him.

I don’t know who drew the beautiful illumination in the quotation or who wrote it, but I found it thanks to the Facebook page Contemplative Monk.

Ginny xxx

In Athens

In Athens

I thought I’d share with you some of the beautiful things we’ve seen and experienced in Athens so far.

There are countless interesting churches. In the rear of this picture is the main Greek Orthodox metropolitan cathedral, The Cathedral of the Annunciation, recently refurbished, whilst in the foreground is a centuries-old church known as Little Metropolitan, really St Eleftherios Church (which we haven’t managed to go into yet as it is often shut, unusually for this area). On our last trip here my fiancé and I prayed outside under the moonlight, giving thanks for each other and asking God’s guidance during our engagement.

This past Sunday we were able to go to Mass at the Catholic Cathedral of St Dionysus where we found this very peaceful portrayal of St Joseph and the Christ Child.

There are several people we need to buy gifts for and also we are going to bring some non-perishable Greek foods home to form part of the meal after our wedding. So we went through the Monastiriki which is a set of narrow, winding streets packed with little open-fronted shops selling jewellery, leather bags and sandals, T-shirts, traditional dresses and embroidered shirts, icons, crosses, ornately covered Bibles, food (olives, baklava, Turkish delight, sweets, herbs, stuffed vine leaves, olive oil), drinks (lots and lots of Ouzo and Metaxa brandy miniatures), replicas of Ancient Greek artefacts and statues, toys, and countless souvenirs (some tackier than others – apparently you can fit a picture of the Parthenon onto everything from a teacup to a wooden replica of a certain part of the male anatomy!!).

It’s worth looking up, as well as at the shop fronts, because there are often pretty balconies above you and twisting grapevines where doves sometimes sit.

With new sensory experiences around all day long, I have needed to balance busy hours with down time, and we are so fortunate to have a pool at the hotel to cool down or rest beside.

My fiancé has been utterly impressively amazing at getting me and my wheelchair around – not at all easy when the streets are cobbled and up / downhill. I’ve been really concerned he will wear himself out caring for me. I walk where I possibly can but it is not much at all. My fiancé’s love is a deep blessing I never could have imagined existing. I want to help him rest and care for his own needs too.

I will post another Greece update with more photos soon.

Ginny xxx

“…And indeed it was very good.”

After my earlier panic, to ground and orient myself I’ve been meditating on some of the Scriptures that can be read at the Easter Vigil Mass (we are not going to church tonight and will attend the Easter Day Mass rather than the Vigil). One of the passages that can be read at the Vigil is the first chapter of Genesis , that is to say, the very start of the Bible. Fittingly, as we celebrate at Easter our new birth in Christ, sharing His Risen Life, our relationship with God restored by His gift to us, we read in Genesis how we are God’s creation.

However we interpret the creation narrative in Genesis, I think it is very clear that God created for good and created in love. This particularly hit home with me today and chipped away at my constant fear of my own inner badness.

God created light, dark, sky, earth, sea, sun, moon, night and day, every breathing creature, every plant. He created, “and it was so”; he looked “and saw that it was good,”. We are assured ten times “and it was so… and it was good”. Then, to have stewardship of all this good, God created man and woman. You and me. After creating all this good, would He make His stewards bad? Of course not. He created us good. Not only did He create us good but “God created mankind in His image.” He made us in His image and gave to us stewardship of all His wonderful creation, for our joy, for our nourishment, for our good. He looked on us, “and indeed it was very good.”

God is the same yesterday, today and forever. His love never changes or ceases. He created us good, for good. You and I are first and foremost good and loved by God. Loved so much that He created us in His image. Loved so much that however much we mess up, He still desires our good, and calls us back to Him, through His own Son’s suffering, death on the Cross and rising again. God wants the best for us just as He wanted the best for us from the first moment of creation, from the instant He conceived us in His loving heart and brought us into being to be loved by Him, to love Him, and to love one another as He loves us.

And indeed, it is very good.

Happy Easter.

Ginny xxx

For you alone and all of you

Today is Good Friday. Today at 3pm we commemorate Our Lord Jesus’ passion and death for us on the cross.

It is more than a commemoration. As we pray, as we venerate the cross, as we approach the altar and receive Jesus, Body and Blood given for us, we take part in the sacrifice He makes for us and the redemption that flows from His Sacred Heart.

On a Good Friday several years ago, the Priest gave the briefest and possibly most powerful sermon I have ever heard. After the reading of the narrative of Christ’s Passion he simply said: Jesus did this for you, and He would have done it for only you. That very simple amazing truth about the cross lifted me right into the arms of Our Lord.

At the Cross, if I only stop there and look at my Jesus, there is no hiding and no pride. None of my sin, need, failure, weakness, pain, despair, is bigger than what He did on the Cross. And none of my pain, longing or grief is too small or stupid for Jesus to care about either, even the things I try to hide from everyone because I feel they are so childish or bad. Jesus did this for me and for all of me.

It is really hard for me to comprehend a love that wants all of me. So often I set myself apart, sure that this love cannot be for me really because I am too bad inside, sure of an angry God and that I deserve punishment. As a child my abusers convinced me utterly of my evil, the awful things I did and would do and the awful intentions and desires that were inside me. They set up a world where I believed they were the only ones who knew the terrible person I really was and the only ones who could stop the terrible consequences if I did what they demanded. They proclaimed their love for me but looking back I don’t know how I understood this love or how the supposed love was shown. In a way might it have been simpler if they just outright hated me?!

The understanding of me and of love that this left me with is so far from the love of God. He created us in His image. When we messed up, He sent His Son Jesus, right into our dark and confused world, drawing us back to follow Him to God the Father. He didn’t demand our perfection. Rather the opposite. He takes on all our imperfection, suffers and dies for us, and rises again, so that weak as we are we can do the same and follow Him to His Father’s house. The fact Jesus wants me, only me, all of me, is something it will take me a long long time to truly understand. The Cross is a good place to start and ask Jesus for the grace for His truth to replace the lies and confusion in my heart, so that I can lay down all of me and let Him love me, even though for all the years I have so wanted to believe, I don’t know yet what this kind of love is.

My prayer for you today is that Jesus show you tenderly how He loves all of you.

Ginny xxx

With thanks:

Image 1 from Mount Carmel Edmonton

Image 2 from Slideshare.net

Image 3 with thanks to Bertha Chelemu from Sermon quotes.com

Gesthemane

Today is Holy Thursday, or Mandy Thursday. Today we remember – and share in – Jesus’ institution of the Eucharist, the Last Supper where He gave His Body and His Blood for us, so that we should never be apart from Him again. We also recall Jesus’ prayer and suffering that night in the garden of Gesthemane. We wait and watch in prayer.

I was not well enough physically or mentally to go to Mass tonight and watching at the altar. I have been trying to pray, read, listen at home. I wanted to find some words to say, some hopeful answer or some words to write here…. and I can’t. I don’t know what is happening to me. And I feel so guilty. In the liturgy of today, my God and Saviour Jesus has just given the most indescribable gift to us that makes us one with Him forever. He is about to suffer death for us. For me, so that I am lifted up with Him in His resurrection to God. And what do I feel? I feel empty, blank and cannot see for panic and hurt and darkness. Right when I should be thankful, grateful, filled with hope. Maybe what I most hate about this illness, and about myself as I am with this illness, is that unbearable emotions block out everything even what I most believe to be truth.

Jesus asks his disciples “Will you not watch one hour with me?” They also struggled. They were overcome with exhaustion, confusion, grief and fear. Jesus went away a little distance to pray and returned to find them sleeping.

Will you not watch one hour with me?

Here I am, Lord Jesus. My Jesus, I am here, but I do not know what to do or say. I am with You, yet I fear. You give Yourself to me, yet I lose hope. You died for me, yet I deny You and forget You when I despair and when I am consumed by anger or fear. You call me Your own, but I do not know who I am and I’m terrified of what is inside me, of my “others”. You are Love, You made me to love, but when it matters most, I do not feel.

Right after the Last Supper, came the darkness and agony of Gesthemane. Christ was still to go through His ultimate suffering and sacrifice. There was still the Cross, and still the Resurrection, without which everything before would have been meaningless. The way was not instantly rejoicing and light and the disciples did not yet understand what was to come and that Jesus would be risen from the dead. But the darkness and confusion did not mean Jesus’ love was gone away. It did not mean He had abandoned us. Rather, in suffering His love was about to be poured out for the whole world. Everything and everyone was part of His redemptive plan.

Please Lord Jesus, help me know that when it is dark You have not abandoned me. Please help me lay down now the terror of what I am, the terror that I am beyond Your help and beyond Your love. Because that denies the enormity of what You did for us, when I think You came for everyone but me. Here I am Lord, all of me. Please give me the grace to know You came for me.

Xxx

Resurrection eggs

I have been making some little gifts for the elderly at the Christian day centre where I volunteer. This isn’t my own idea – I came across a similar project on YouTube for “resurrection eggs”. I bought a set of plastic eggshells from a craft store and filled the insides with not only some chocolates but also a Scripture passage I wrote out, a different one for each person. There are a few different versions of this project and often pictures are put in numbered eggs which are opened to tell the Easter story to children. For the day centre I chose to include passages that share God’s mercy and that we are tenderly loved by Him. Please God it will bring some encouragement to our visitors next week (we still celebrate the joy of Easter beyond Easter Sunday!).

Copying out the passages today gave me a little bit of help as I have been extremely low and feeling I’m sinking, not able to carry on. I need to keep reaching out.

You can find the YouTube video by Taming the Frizz, that inspired me HERE .

Ginny xxx

Trying not to choose destructive “safety”

I’m buzzing with anxiety and I don’t know what about. There are loads of things I have been really worried and upset about. But I can’t work out what’s bothering me right now. My stomach is knotted around a cold ache. An actual physical pain. My head feels the same as when my thoughts spiral but there aren’t any thoughts I can catch, just dizzy blankness. My legs are shaky and I’ve lost balance several times. It’s different from the dizziness and fainting that comes with the POTS. I wish I could make it stop. My tablets I regularly take in the evening usually sedate me a bit but it isn’t working. If I could walk for ages, or go running, maybe it would channel the feeling out of me (but I can’t since I can only walk a few yards with crutches).

If I knew why it would help. It’s scarier when the feeling is separated from thoughts. The emotional state seems to have a tighter and limitless hold on me even if rationally I ought to know it will pass. An emotion that shouldn’t be unbearable becomes so because of confusion, fear, and I realise now, the dread that is wrapped up in the associations of previous experiences of this emotion (abuse, being trapped, feeling guilty, feeling unable to stop terrible things happening because of me).

I desperately want to numb it and stop it. Drink, or cut, or binge, or take enough tablets to knock me into sleep. That seems to be the default response my mind and body make. I’m asking God to help me stay right here and feel and know I am with Jesus. This week leading up to Easter we are particularly close to Him in the suffering He went through so we could be with Him. In this small struggle that feels big right now, He hasn’t left me. I will keep on reaching out for His hand, praying and reminding myself of His goodness. Every moment is His way of coming to us now and sometimes we are with Him on a steep path, a storm or a lonely place. What matters is we are with Him.

It seems I’m saying what I really want to believe, rather than give in to the false security of numbness through destructive actions.

Jesus, please hold me, Mother Mary, please help me.

To be continued…

Ginny xxx

Easter crafts – letting the light shine through

We made stained glass window pictures this week at the day centre where I volunteer with elderly people. In a small group we made three pictures – loaves and fish, the Cross and the sun rising above a tomb with the stone rolled away. Here’s the Cross (please excuse the scribbling where I’ve removed anything that could have identified the location; I’m probably being over-cautious but still…):

I made the templates and then we laid them on laminator pages, filled the designs in with tissue papers then added the top sheet and laminated them. This gave them a shiny finish. Once cut out we attached them to window panes to let the light shine through. My inspiration came from a YouTube video of Christian seasonal craft ideas.

It was trickier to do than I’d expected and tested my patience! The tissue paper did not stay in place easily especially when people with limited movement were handling it. Too easily it could be knocked, or the static between the tissue and the laminator sheets pulled pieces out of place. Surprisingly perhaps, all the clients enjoyed it and persevered. It helped that this week everyone seemed curious and wanted to be involved. With clients who often feel depressed or otherwise unwell, this isn’t always the case. This week the clients’ enjoyment encouraged me to keep going even when I thought everything was going to go pear shaped.

Thanks to one of the other staff members we were able to read a bit about how stained glass was and is made and where the colours come from.

We were very happy to do an activity strongly rooted in the hope of Easter. Of course compassion and generosity and love underly everything we do with the clients and we almost always learn, discover and receive blessings as well. However we wanted to do something explicitly exploring God’s gift to us at Easter. In our pictures, each side of the central Cross, the bread and fish represent Jesus’ presence amongst us, His feeding us, His Body given for us 2000 years ago and still on all the altars of the world; the empty tomb and rising sun represent God’s Son Jesus rising from the dead, as He is with us on earth so He is lifting us up to Heaven to be with Him where He is gone. The Cross itself we decorated in bright colours not dark. The Cross is deepest suffering but also and inseparably, our only hope, because there Jesus restored the ruptured relationship between God and man, so that we can now joyfully call Him Heavenly Father. There God’s light shines through to heal our broken hearts.

This Lent time seems to be passing faster and faster for me and I’ve felt I’m grasping at desperate moments to pray between crises, responsibilities, pain and dissociation. It was important to me to have this little time trying to reflect on the Easter promise with those Jesus loves so much, the frail and lonely. Thank you, Lord.

I’m praying for moments of peace throughout your every day.

Ginny xxx