Where Is Heaven?

Heaven is difficult to pinpoint.  It is a place but it is everywhere.  It is not a physical place so there is no kitchen or bathroom.  It is a state of mind so anyone can go there wherever one is and whenever one chooses.  Heaven is not only accessible from a beautiful place with wonderful people; it is also accessible during times of tribulation, pain and suffering.

Heaven is a place where one is next to Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary, a place at God's side.

To conclude, I have a prayer:

Lord, please let us live the rest of our lives having Your Peace, Your forgiveness and Your Love. [1]


[1] It is never to young to say this prayer for no one knows how much longer one's life will last.

Three Questions

Paul Gauguin left France for Tahiti and painted "Where Do We Come From?  What Are We?  Where Are We Going?" [1]

I would like to live the life of Gauguin and have his talents [2], move to Tahiti and ask profound questions, but I am not Paul Gauguin, I do not have his talents or his courage to live life passionately.  Ergo, I am left to ask three self-centered questions:

1.  Why am I afraid to live the life I want?
2.  How am I enriched by my attachment to earthly possessions?
3.  What will I have to show for on Judgment Day?

I do not have a painting to entitle, but life is a canvas.  Hopefully, mine still has enough time left for it to be filled with meaning.

Do not abandon me, Lord.  May the Blessed Virgin Mary continue to intercede on my behalf so that I may walk along Your Lighted Path.  Should I stray from it, forgive me, hold my hand and guide me, so that I would continue to grow in Your image, Lord, and in Your image, Mother Mary.  Amen.


[1] http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/where-do-we-come-from-what-are-we-where-are-we-going-32558
[2] Although I would like to live Paul Gauguin's life, I do not wish to live it in its entirety, just the artistic part, and the part when he was in Tahiti for I love to be able to paint and I love Tahiti.  In truth, my true love has always been reserved for Vincent Van Gogh.  Somehow I have a natural attachment to his soul and his art, but I dare not live his life: he had a cross heavier than I could carry.  Van Gogh's Pietà (after Eugène Delacroix's Pietà) is my favorite painting.  Zoom in and take a close look at the facial expression of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of the crucified Jesus.  For someone who does not watch many movies, Vincent &Theo is one I like a lot.

Prayer For Holiness

Dear Mother, allow Your holiness to permeate my mind, my heart and my soul, to be followed by Your Son's holiness, equally permeating my mind, my heart and my soul, so that I am able to experience for a moment the Love joining Mother and Child, and to realize that I want nothing more, caring about none of the things that trouble me, leaving behind all my demons and rising above them, so that the moment of holiness can grow to an eternity united to the Love that unites Mother and Child, that perfect abiding Love.  Amen.

First Time Sharing My Prayer With Others -- In Person

It was during Vespers last Friday when as usual the participants were asked for their prayers that I shared this prayer [1] with the Dominican friars and the four novice brothers:

"For Your Love for us, and for our love for You."

[1] I had thought about it for days and days and finally had the courage to join in and when it came time to do it, I actually had a voice which I was afraid would make no sound out of fear.

A Prayer When Alone Or Lonely

Dear Lord:
Keep me company with Your presence,
Show me my purpose from day to day,
Grant me the courage to do Your work,
and the necessities so I can,
with the faith to wait for them,
plus good help to keep it going.  Amen.

2011 Year-end Reflections – Disappointments And Loves Forgone

This is a year of personal awakening, venturing out of my make-belief world into one full of disappointments, inhabited by certain people existing under the guise of progressive liberalism while acting out their relentless passive aggression in petty power trips to benefit their own self-serving interests. Their abundance of envy, bitterness and/or hypocrisy together with their unforgiving nature in life may earn them a place in a Dantean-like inferno upon death, eternally watching the wasting away of their maggot-rejected bodies cheapened by the disdain they continuously and willfully harbored against God’s other children.

While few, if any, are completely selfless, unconditionally loving and free from sin, those with the compunction to self-examine one’s inner cruelty and the heart to exercise a modicum of humility and compassion and pray for God’s grace to grow in His image may one day see their prayer answered. [1]

This is also a year of personal realization, among the many lesser disappointments is one of the greater, regretting my youthful years when I wore a coolly confident exterior, leaving a trail of broken hearts while wallowing in inexplicable depression and coping with intractable anguish from the unfathomable depths of anxiety. For I had not loved well, enough or at all, I am now punished by an unfulfilled desire to know how my life would have been enriched had I lived wisely and learned patiently rather than judging harshly and prematurely. To the extent that I am able to seek redemption through prayer, I have, by asking Mother Mary to protect and love those who had given me the chance to love them. A chance to love is a gift so simple and so pure that I was, and perhaps still am, incapable of comprehending and accepting. While I am sure that Mother Mary’s love and embrace, even for a moment, would make up for a lifetime of mine, I remain regretful, even if I had been forgiven or forgotten. I am also certain that those beautiful souls for whom I yearn are far better off and their earthly lives far more happily lived without me. [2]

Another one of the greater personal disappointments, an on-going one and probably the greatest disappointment of all, is my refusal to answer yes to God’s calling because I am afraid of my certain failure to meet such high expectations. Instead, I have chosen not to fail by not trying at all, which in itself is a failure: the failure to try. Freely trapped between these two suffocating failures, salvation at once seems elusive even as salvation imagined seemed possible. [3], [4] & [5]



[1] For everybody, as well as for the reprehensible, this Fatima prayer is helpful: “O My Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of Hell, lead all souls to Heaven, especially those who have most need of your mercy. Amen.”

[2] “Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne!

“Chorus.-For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne.
We'll take a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.” http://www.carols.org.uk/auld_lang_syne_song.htm

[3] In Your infinite justice, please grant us Your infinite mercy. Amen.

[4] “O My Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of Hell, lead all souls to Heaven, especially those who have most need of Your mercy. Amen.”

[5] Perhaps there is still time. Lord, please grant me the vision and the voice, the courage and the confidence, the strength and the stamina to do Your will. Amen.

Ne'er A Burden Too Heavy

Thank you Lord for never giving us a cross too heavy to carry. Amen

Un Moment de Paix - 6 août

Dear Lord,
In your infinite justice, please grant us your infinite mercy.
Amen.