In the "New Covenant" made by our Creator God with humanity, as reported in Jeremiah 31:31-34, every human being can know God from within - because the Holy Spirit is revealing our Creator to all who are willing to know the Lord and trust in Him. We can still help each other along the way; so may you be pleased to find here a variety of helps to the life of faith in God through Jesus Christ. G.S.
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“From This Day Forward”
WORKSHOP 💘 GOD 💘 LIFE 💘 MARRIAGE 💘
💘 FAMILY 💘 PRAYER 💘 TRINITY 💘 SEMINAR 08.1
Rosary prayer testimony by Tammy Peterson, renowned professor Jordan Peterson's wife, about her faith, the practice of praying the Rosary, and her apparently miraculous healing of a cancer from which she is the only person who has ever survived it. - LINK
Saturday, June 8th, 2024 👈
by Bridget Bagshaw, Coordinator
Father Gilles Surprenant in Capernaum, Galilee, Palestine
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GOD IS OUR CREATOR... HE DESIGNED US... LOVED US BEFORE WE WERE CONCEIVED... WE BELONG HERE. GOD OFFERS FRIENDSHIP.
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Your thoughts on the KEY to the MYSTERY of LIFE. Your questions?
💘 Who am I to talk about prayer? Brief sketch of Fr. Gilles' life to trigger our own memories.... 💘
Family… Sunday Mass…Grade school… prayers… the Rosary…High School… puberty… college… young adult rebellion……life without God = empty? …the Good Shepherd seeks the lost…
Age 22 to 34… exploring God…10 years working on our family farm… studying / teaching high school / air traffic control / Master Card collector... Philosophy… Theology… young adult rebellion… life without God = dead end (suicide?) …the Good Shepherd seeks the lost…
At 27: 1st opportunity to look back… The Holy Spirit helped me to remember… Confirmation / First Confession / First Holy Communion / God lit a “fire” inside…This “holy Fire” has been attracting or pushing ever since… I know that God is real and that He loves me. Our goal here is to give you an opportunity to reflect on your own connection with God and to be refreshed in it…
💘 Faith accepts the friendship God offers everyone.
Your thoughts or feelings on the brief summary of my life? Your questions?
Jesus said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Mt 18:3
ORIGIN OF THE BIBLE
The Book of Genesis, in the Bible, tells about Adam and Eve... how humans stopped trusting in God.
This is the origin of doubt and fear.
It is very human to find it difficult to trust in God....
God’s way to fix this broken trust is one person at a time.
GOD IS
FOREVER REACHING OUT TO YOU….
God loved you before you were conceived...
God has whispered in your heart…
God has brought light into your thoughts…
God has been present in events in your life…
1. Take paper and pen or open a text on your device...
2. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you remember…
3. Start noting points in your life where God was
close…
Any question on all of this? Any other
questions?
We can choose to use faith and practice trusting in God.
If I don’t know God, where and how do I start?
If I know God or have experience of prayer, how do I advance?
We live much of our lives in between two poles or extremes:
Jesus offers to bring us away from frantic activity and worry…
towards serenity, confidence, and a peaceful spirit.
Every life situation is an opportunity for prayer.
💘 FAMILY 💘 PRAYER 💘 TRINITY 💘 SEMINAR
Please join me as we begin with a PRAYER
OPENING PRAYER
LED BY FR. GILLES
💘 GOD 💘 LIFE 💘 PRAYER 💘
“Lord, I can’t pray properly.
I’m weak; I’m human;
I’m fragile. I’m easily distracted,
taken into thoughts of myself and the world.
But you, Lord, lead me past that.
Help me to pray truly as I am.
Help me to focus on the Father, the Son,
and You, Holy Spirit,
so that my soul may be opened,
and I can receive the grace that is there
for everyone in prayer. Amen.”
Prayer published by C. Alan Ames inspired by St. Teresa of Avila
“The Warning: Testimonies and Prophecies of the Illumination of Conscience.” By Christine Watkins, Queen of Peace Media, 2020. Sacramento CA
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Man & Woman both can spend themselves to exhaustion God has a plan …
Husband & Wife praying for each other = “ Spiritual Tag Team
You daily know where each other is, what’s happening, and are
praying for those situations = You’re constantly united...
MATRIMONY = mater + monium = burden of mothering
THE BRIDE the woman God designed to give & nurture life
THE BRIDEGROOM the man God designed to “groom” or “care for” the bride in her giving and nurturing life
Constantly praying for one another…
you constantly call on God to save each other’s life…
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GO NOW TO THE POWERPOINT SLIDES TO SEE TODAY'S ACTUAL WORKSHOP / SEMINAR
Link to Fr. Gilles' 👇 Power Point 👇 Presentation:
Beyond this workshop seminar...
Violence, troubles, dangers threaten humanity. Our human condition causes us to suffer insecurities, fears, doubts, and concerns for the future. We endure the faults of others and dislike admitting our own faults.
The awesome truth is that our Creator God loves us without limits. God gives us freedom because He designed us for friendship love. It is only in learning to love our Maker back that we will be perfectly happy. We can please others but we cannot “make happy” anyone; it is unfair to even expect a human, other than Jesus, to try to “make us happy”.
We're off!
Living Prayer
By Anthony of Sourozh, Metropolitan. Living Prayer: The Pocket Library of Spiritual Wisdom. Foreword, p. 5. Darton, Longman & Todd LTD. Kindle Edition.
Worship to me means a relationship. I used not to be a believer, then one day I discovered God and immediately he appeared to me to be the supreme value and the total meaning of life, but at the same time a person. I think that worship can mean nothing at all to someone for whom there is no object of worship. You cannot teach worship to someone who has not got a sense of the living God; you can teach him to act as if he believed, but it will not be the spontaneous attitude which is real worship. Therefore, as a foreword to this book on prayer, what I would like to convey is my certitude in the personal reality of a God with whom a relationship can be established.
Then I would ask my reader to treat God as a neighbour, as someone, and value this knowledge in the same terms in which he values a relationship with a brother or a friend. This, I think, is essential. One of the reasons why communal worship or private prayer seem to be so dead or so conventional is that the act of worship, which takes place in the heart communing with God, is too often missing. Every expression, either verbal or in action, may help, but they are only expressions of what is essential, namely, a deep silence of communion.
We all know in human relationships that love and friendship are deep when we can be silent with someone. As long as we need to talk in order to keep in touch, we can safely and sadly assume that the relationship is still superficial; and so, if we want to worship God, we must first of all learn to feel happy, being silent together with him. This is an easier thing to do than one might think at first; it needs a little time, some confidence and the courage to start.
Once the Curé d’Ars, a French saint of the eighteenth century, asked an old peasant what he was doing sitting for hours in the church, seemingly not even praying; the peasant replied: ‘I look at him, he looks at me and we are happy together.’ That man had learned to speak to God without breaking the silence of intimacy by words. If we can do that we can use any form of worship.
If we try to make worship itself out of the words we use, we will get desperately tired of those words, because unless they have the depth of silence, they are shallow and tiresome. But how inspiring words can be once they are backed by silence and are infused with the right spirit: ‘O Lord, open Thou my lips; and my mouth shall show forth thy praise’ (Ps 51:15).
1* Adaptation of a talk given on the BBC in the ‘Ten to Eight’ programme first broadcast in 1965.
Anthony of Sourozh, Metropolitan. Living Prayer: The Pocket Library of Spiritual Wisdom (pp. 5-6). Darton, Longman & Todd LTD. Kindle Edition.
Suggestions for approaching God with openness, honesty, & trust
From “Beginning to Pray” by Anthony Bloom
(1) Sit with myself and face my boredom, confusion, or poverty
(2) Facing my emptiness, helplessness, or anguish cry: “Lord, have mercy!”
(3) Realizing all my life was outside, and inside, I am nothing - knock at his door.
(4) In trouble, struggle, or despair, hope in Christ, cry out: “Save me!”
(5) Instead of counting on my own efforts or other helps, rely on God alone.
(6) Realizing I am surrounded by dangers, all I need to do is cry for help.
Tips for approaching the new day with God in prayer
(1) On waking, or RIGHT NOW, thank God for the day He has made.
(2) God has made the day and I am to rejoice in it; really mean it.
(3) Now I can continue / get out of bed, get up, and wash, etc.
(4) Come to God again welcoming this day as absolutely new
(5) Ask God that everything in it should be blessed and ruled by Him.
(6) Enter into the day as God’s messenger of his love & Good News
(7) Be ready to endure resistance, humiliation, misunderstandings or persecution
(8) Decide to accept whatever may happen – prayer & life flowing together
(9) When prayer is too much, just tell God: “I need a rest from You.” Then do it.
(10) Let God be the master of my prayer and life.
PRAYER RESOURCES
👉 "Beginners' PAGE"
👉 Catholic Christian Tools page
👉 👉 HOME - https://gillessurprenant.blogspot.com/
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A few additional texts... reflections....
We are created in the IMAGE and LIKENESS of GOD...
God is an infinite "fire" of life-giving love...
Our "soul" / "spirit" in our "center" is a flame of
God within us... God is infinite... so there is in us
a living, dynamic flame of the infinite....
That is why we are never content with just a taste...
something in us wants to...
eat the whole buffet... drink the whole bottle...
completely consume what we love and desire...
A man wants to love every woman in the world...
A woman wants to love every man in the world...
which is why pornography is so dangerous...
not because sex is bad... no, God made us beautiful...
in us is a flame of the infinite, life-giving love-fire of God...
To touch high tension electricity wires is to "fry" and die...
electric power goes through transformers to make it safe...
Human sexuality must also go through a transformer to be safe...
To look at human beauty from a distance is a torturing fire leading to depression and death...
Marriage is the "transformer" that makes our intimate loving safe and life-giving and it takes place in the presence of God.
For a detailed exploration of this theme, go to…
“LIVING IN THE IMAGE and LIKENESS of GOD”
by Father Ron Rolheiser
https://vimeo.com/showcase/8489527?page=3
Father Ron Rolheiser’s website: https://ronrolheiser.com/
or see his books - contact: Samia at https://theologia.ca/
PERSPECTIVE - Victor Frankl's discovery about who survived and who didn't in the Nazi concentration camps - "Man's Search for Meaning"
= the freedom we have to "choose" our interior attitude to life
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In the "New Covenant" made by our Creator God with humanity, as reported in Jeremiah 31:31-34, every human being can know God from within - because the Holy Spirit is revealing our Creator to all who are willing to know the Lord and trust in Him. We can still help each other along the way; so may you be pleased to find here a variety of helps to the life of faith in God through Jesus Christ. G.S.
© 2006-2024 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal QC
© 2006-2024 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC
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