Restart My Heart

We have just heard the scripture readings for the Easter Vigil.  These readings are an abbreviated summary of salvation history – the story and promise of more life to come!

Listen to St Paul to the Romans 6: 3-11.  Are we unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?  We were buried with him in Baptism so that we too might live in newness of life.  Again, we know that our old self was crucified with him, so that our sinful body might be done away with, that we might no longer be in slavery to sin.

Jesus died once for all for all time!  He died for each one of us!

Would you like to hear a story the good Lord reveled to me to share with you this holy night!  Ready or not here it comes.

On Friday morning October 21, 2012 I underwent open heart surgery to replace my aortic valve and repair an aneurism which had developed at the top of my heart.  When I woke up I remember thinking, the good Lord must have wanted to keep me around because I am still here.

Normally a patient with this type of surgery gets sent home after five days.  However, I discovered I wouldn’t fall into that normal category.  My heart rhythm was beating in what is referred to as A-Fib or irregular heart rhythm.  I was told my heart rate was varying between 90 and 150 beats per minute even though I was lying in bed.  As a result my doctor was concerned that I would have a stroke or heart attack and he had experience doing thousands of these surgeries.

With preventive action came numerous medications which were supposed to correct or control the A-fib.  Among these where blood thinning pills and  intravenous medication to prevent a blood clot.  Each time my doctor came and visited he would sit down as if his mind was working hard to figure out what to do net.  I began to understand the meaning of practicing medicine.  I could see he was becoming more and more concerned because the medication plan wasn’t changing the rhythm of my heart.  To add insult to injury the taste of the hospital food was growing worse and I almost didn’t sleep at all.

On the 5^th day I was told I wouldn’t be able to go home until my heart returned to a normal rhythm or they came up with a game plan.

Finally on the seventh day they sent another heart doctor to see me.  This doctor told me I could go home with the A-fib condition and hope that it went away.  If not in seven weeks I would have to come back into the hospital and have my heart restarted.  Or I could elect to have my heart restarted the next morning.  I choose the next morning after all the good Lord had kept me around this long!

But before they would restart my heart they had to run a tube down my throat to look at my heart to make sure there wasn’t a hidden blood clot there.  In that case a restart would likely result in a stroke or heart attack!

So I was told I could not drink water after mid night so I would avoid throwing up during the procedure.

Finally I fell into half wake half asleep state.  I was very aware as that my mouth, throat and tongue were becoming more and more dry with every breath.  I recalled words of Psalm referring to the dry patched earth.  I clearly was aware all I wanted was a drop of water on my lips and tongue!  Where is that water?

With every breath the dryness of my mouth and throat became more and more painful.  In fact my breathing became very labored.  I was keenly aware my body was working very hard with each breath.  I wasn’t looking fo4ward to the next breath.  Oh heck I could not wake myself enough to call a nurse.  The dryness continued to get worse and worse.  My mind began to wonder if I would make it through the night.

As I laid there many feelings rushed upon me.  I was physically tired.  I hadn’t sleep for days.  The food was awful.  I was growing spiritually discouraged and depressed.   Again my mind began to grapple with the idea I just might not make to the next day.

It was then, that I began to think about how Jesus suffered on the cross.  His mouth, tongue and throat must have been at least as dry as mine, the pain as great and the breathing more labored.  Not only was his mouth dry and his breathing labored.  His feet and hands must have ached beyond comprehension.  The muscles of his arms, shoulders and chest must have been screaming for relief from exhaustion.  The overpowering pain from trying to hold him up so he could breath was suffocating him.

Gravity and the weight of his body was overcoming every last once of strength left in his body.  His eyes must have been burning as blood and sweat rolled off his forehead.  The fly’s and insects had to have begun to eat him alive.  He could not move his hands to drive away the insects or wipe the sweat and blood from his eyes.   There was nothing he could do but wait.

It was then that I looked to my left.  There looking back at me was Jesus Christ laying next to me and He was on his cross.    He looked at me as if to say – I am with through it all.  I will never leave your side.  I love you.  No cross is too heavy, no sin too great, I did this once for all so that sins might be forgiven.  I am always with you and I will not fail to fulfill the promise and grant you newness of life.

No matter the darkness of the night or the depth of the pain the good Lord is with you and will not leave your side.  No matter seriousness or difficulty of life or lateness of time there is hope for each and every one.  He did this once for ALL.  No greater act of Love was possible!

The next day my heart was restarted and I recovered so quickly I was sent home where the newness of my new life began and continues as I stand here this greatest of nights to share this testimony!

Pray for Our Nation March 31, 2012 –  Military – Servant

Having just moved into his new office, a just promoted colonel was sitting at his desk when a PFC knocked on the door.  Conscious of his new position, the colonel quickly picked up the phone, told the PFC to enter, then said into the phone, “Yes, General, I’ll be seeing him this afternoon and I’ll pass along your message. In the meantime, thank you for your good wishes, sir.”

Feeling as though he had sufficiently impressed the young enlisted man, he asked, “What do you want?”  “Nothing important, sir,” the PFC replied, “I’m just here to hook up your telephone.”

Many in this nation including national leaders have grown proud and full of themselves.  In their quest for power they have failed to realize life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are grounded in the spirit of our creator and not secular progressive humanism.

So, you and I, we the PFC’s of faith, stand in this vacant gap together, just as our founding fathers did, when they grappled in the darkness of humanity unable to overcome the division that separated a fledgling nation.  It was only when they opened their spirits to the words of truth that flow from that higher authority and established communication with the spirit from which every right originates that this nation became a light of freedom on a mountain top the whole world recognized.

We gather here my friends in prayer at a most serious and grave moment in the history of our nation.  The spirit and forces of division seek to destroy this one nation under god, indivisible, with life liberty and justice for all.

We stand here together looking into the mirror of truth.  Knowing we must turn again to prayer to begin the journey to save our nation from itself.

Let us begin in prayer by listening to the words of Kristi Hofman, wife of a soldier and mother of four young children.  United together they served through deployments in both Iraq and Afghanistan

Almighty God, Lord of Hosts, we call out to you as the One who is sovereign over all.  Watch over and protect our nation’s military members and their families.  Sustain them with your everlasting arms.

Take into your most gracious protection our service members currently deployed. May you be their comfort and their guide as they live and walk in a foreign land.  Give them reassurance that you are a shield around them, an ever-present help in time of need.  Grant our service members courage so that in all things they may serve without reproach.  Encourage them while they also encourage one another.

As they serve around the world, we ask that you guard their families and loved ones back home.  Provide them with peace and surround them with love as they mourn the absence of their loved one and long for their return.  May they find hope and strength in you for the trials of each new day.  Be with military children who endure the difficult burden of knowing their father or mother is in harm’s way for months on end.  Guard these children’s hearts and minds despite the loneliness and uncertainty of having a parent deployed.

Lord God, be with marriages in the military.  Preserve the bonds of husband and wife despite the stress that military life brings, stress only compounded by the decade of war our nation is in.  Help military chaplains in their efforts to equip military marriages with ways to stay connected and communicate effectively despite the challenge of frequent deployments.  Give husbands and wives strength and resilience to endure separations, frequent moves, and all the uncertainty military life brings.

For some, Lord, service takes their toll permanently in physical and emotional damage. For those wounded in battle, we pray you would come beside them.  Sustain and strengthen them amidst treatment, pain, and adjustments to life with an injury.  Help them to find competent care and support, and to not be afraid to reach out for a helping hand or a listening ear.  Be with their caregivers in the demanding role they have.  Give caregivers renewed energy to offer support and love as they tend to the needs of the injured.  Strengthen them as they both monitor and advocate for their loved one.

We know that war is very costly.  Some have made the ultimate sacrifice, laying down their precious lives in service to our nation. Each one of them was a son or daughter, perhaps a husband or wife, father or mother.  For all those who feel the pain and the toll of this war in the loss of their loved one, comfort them.  Be a father to the fatherless and defender of widows.  As they cast their cares on you, may they know the consolation of your love.  We thank you for the freedoms these service members fought for which we enjoy today.

For each and every veteran who has served our country through the years, we thank you for their sacrifice. Comfort those who struggle in life after war.  Help us to honor and care for those who have given so much for us.

Be with our nation’s leaders as well, and all those who make decisions for our military.  Give them wisdom and discernment in everything they do.

Father God, we long for the day when swords will be beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks.  We long for your peace, for your shalom.

In Christ’s name we pray, Amen.

The policy of the US Government has been discourse the use of the name of Jesus Christ in military prayer services.  Let us ask our selves this question.  Why would our public servants want to remove the name of the only perfect servant who walked the face of the earth?  Could it be our elected officials can not stand the comparison that would show through in the light of truth?  Could it be that throughout history the movement toward socialism and communism can not co-exit with true Freedom of Religion?

Let us pray that the true meaning of the word “Servant” be restored.  Let us pray that this prayer begin with one person present.  Let us pray that word Servant not be usurped by word Ruler!

Let us pray that the people of is a nation and it’s leaders remember we are a people whose rights of life, liberty and freedom come from a higher authority than the any government or any person.  Let us pray that we the people remember our founding fathers turned to God when as they groped in darkness when they attempted to define the guiding principles that created and made this nation great.  Let us pray we remember we a nation founded upon a Christian Judeo Philosophy based upon concept of one almighty God including His Son Jesus Christ.

My Uncle Butch was an Army veteran of WW II.  As a child my mother told me the stories of Uncle Butch.  He drove three tanks and all three were destroyed and in each case his partner lost his life.

Even then Uncle Butch’s willingness to serve was not discouraged.  He promptly volunteered for reconnaissance missions behind Germans lines.  Uncle Butch was awarded three purple hearts and lived to tell his family of the sacrifices made for the Freedom and rights we enjoy.  Uncle Butch had the heart of a servant leader who believed in a merciful and just God.

In 1964 I took the following Oath:  I, (NAME), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.  So help me God.

“So help me God” has been a mainstay all of my life.  As a young man I took an oath to defend our constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic.  That is why I am here tonight.  We are in a battle against domestic enemies for our most basic freedoms.  We are not the property of the federal government.

In 1995 I was ordained a Roman Catholic Deacon in Atlanta by the Archbishop of Atlanta.  A deacon in the roman catholic church tradition is defined in the Acts of the Apostles Chapter 6.  Seven men were selected to serve at table – called to be servants.  Yet the first real story we hear of one of these deacon is that of Stephen.  Stephen was found preaching in the streets with authority for which the people expelled him form the city and stoned him to death.     I stand before you this day following the example set by Stephen.  Will I be persecuted for my faith and conscientious?

Does anyone know what the word catholic means?   It is word that means universal.  The current federal administrations desire to remain in power should have been clearly reveled for us all to see in 2012 — all Christians are catholic.  This American Idol administration has created a false image of a women’s health through contraception used to camouflage the hidden agenda – it’s about power and control obtained not through service but through the division of the people of faith and undermining the peoples right to Freedom of Religious Freedom and right to form ones conscientious!

Let us pray we can discern the truth.  Let us pray we will answer the call to serve in whatever capacity the Lord has created to walk the face of the earth!  Let us pray we have the courage of Stephen to speak the word of truth even if it should place our life in jeopardy.  So help me God!

Hot Chocolate and Angels

I can still remember quite clearly my first major sacrifice for lent.  I was attending Saint Joseph Grade school in Mishawaka, Indiana in the 1950’s.  In those early days of my childhood, my mother prepared hot chocolate for me each morning before I went to school.  We called it hot coco in those days.  I loved coco and toast for breakfast then and I still do today.

One lent I gave up hot chocolate, I don’t remember what grade I was in, but I will never forget the accomplishment because, it was my first real sacrifice.  I managed to give up Hot Coco everyday during that Lent including Sundays.

My reward came on Easter Sunday morning.  In those days my parents prepared Easter Baskets and hide them plus chocolate candy and eggs all over the house.  Easter Sunday morning were a time of great joy for kids as we excitedly hunted for our baskets.  Mom and dad knew the best hiding places where right in front of our noses just above or below the level would would look.

The chocolate candy I received through the love of my parents that Easter morning was the best chocolate I ever tasted.

But the story of Hot Chocolate Doesn’t End There!

I used to spend the night at my Aunt Jane’s house on many occasions.  My Aunt Jane had two sons who were close to my age and we had a great great time playing together.

Have you ever noticed how bubbles form around the top of the rim of Hot Chocolate?   Well my mother and her sister, my Aunt Jane used to tell me that there were angles sitting on the rim of my cup kicking their feet in my coco.  When they would tell me this, the spirit of the boy in me would imagine those angels and eagerly scoop up those bubbles with my toast.  I would gobble them down only to watch as more bubbles would form.

Bubbles the essence of nothing.  Bubbles the essence of angles.  Angels the essence of the unseen.  Angles the essence of the spirit of everything.  Angles surround us and one is our guarding angel!

1^st Sunday of Lent February 26, 2012

In Today’s Gospel we hear Jesus was driven out into the desert.  As we reflect upon this Gospel we should realize from the beginning of time the desert has been an ever changing barren place where humans place their life in jeopardy when they venture there.

If one camped out in the desert in a tent and a hill was to the right of the tent, in the mooring the hill might have been shifted by the wind to the left.  In the desert one might freeze during the night or be roasted alive in the afternoon. The desert is a no mans land where humankind has never had the ability to control.  As such the desert is a place of the creator’s domain.  A place which facilitates ones encounter with the one true God.

Jesus was driven like one who is pushed, pulled, yanked and shoved by the spirit out into the desert.  It was an overpowering force he could not ignore – The Spirit of God himself sent Jesus, his son into the wilderness to endure testing and to encounter wild beasts.  Jesus remained there for forty of testing not just one!

Forty days is a symbolic echoing back to the forty days of testing of Moses on the mountain top and Elijah in the desert.  Forty days is the yarn that has woven the single tread garment of God’s salvation history together.

Jesus is showing us struggles and temptation are in themselves good for us.    This is a Providence story.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches   Providence is the stumbling block of evil.

Further it is a story that demonstrates the honor for the 1^st and 2^nd commandments.  I am the Lord God – there is no other.  Do not create false Gods before me.

The opposite of these commandments is what is taking place in our nation today.  It is called Polytheism.  Secular progressive American humanism and worldly idols are being fostered as tough the authority for our rights come from this human authority that knows better our Creator God.  We are being tempted to exchange our rights, the truth and freedom for silver, gold, technology, sex, lust, power, control, and greed.  All of these are Empty idols which lead us into bondage and slavery.

The lesson is simple, we cannot serve multiple Gods!

Evil is an unavoidable, painful, mysterious question with no quick answer.  Only Christian faith constitutes an answer to the question of evil.  Angles and people have to journey toward their ultimate destinies by their free choice and preferential love.  God respects the freedom of his creatures and mysteriously knows how to derive good from evil.

We are living in providencial times.  We are living in the desert of temptation from every possible angle, political correctness and human secular progressivism are demanding power and control over our God given freedoms.  God is watching just as he did in the time of Noah?  Will the people remember His covenant He regularly sends them in the form of a rainbow or will they turn away?

Will the people of America condemn themselves and their children to learn first hand ancient lessons of bondage and slavery in the desert for forty years before they awaken and turn around to the only spirit that can save them?  Return to me with your whole heart and soul and all your being!

Do we realize the wild beasts of our life originate from deep within our  human condition and the place we make our free choices?  Even Jesus had to confront His human nature for we know He was fully human and fully divine and yet could not escape His human condition.

Today’s scripture teach temptation is an inner test, a struggle that strengthens each individual’s character and teaches each of us valuable lessons.

Lent in the Catholic Church is a time we can prepare for this moment of truth and the wild beasts running loose in our world and Satan who confronts us face to face.  We cannot avoid this encounter it is upon us here and now – yes here and now in 2012.

These forty of days of lent are a gift from God to help us prepare ourselves to come to understand and accept in the midst of turmoil God loves us exactly as we are this very moment.  The question is do you love ourselves more than our worldly stuff?  We are created in the image and likeness of God.  We are each given a soul and the freedom of choice.  The Lord wants to love that spirit which he placed within us.  He wants us to love our own  soul so that we can be opened to begin to love all those who we encounter on the journey through the tumultuous world of 2012.