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I am struggling with the idea of “practicing the presence of God” – what can I do?

Posted on February 7th, 2011 by Father John Bartunek Q: I have had a pretty regular prayer life for a few years, and have been going to confession regularly as well, and receiving Communion frequently. In my spiritual reading, though, I keep coming across the idea of “practicing the presence of God.” This means staying aware of Jesus throughout the day’s activities, right? Well, I have been trying to do this, but can’t seem to make any progress. The end of the day comes around, and then I remember that I should have been aware of his presence. Is this something I should be worried about? A: A beautiful question. Beautiful for two reasons: 1) If “practicing the presence of God” keeps coming up in your personal reading and reflection, you can be sure it’s because the Holy Spirit wants you to keep this on your spiritual agenda. This is how he coaches us – he puts something on our minds or hearts, and he keeps insisting on it. And if God is drawing you towards this rather advanced

THE ROSARY AND CONTEMPLATIVE PRAYER

By Father Paul K. Raftery, O.P. The Rosary, as a gift of prayer from the Mother of God, leads us to Christ in a way unique among the devotions in the Church. Pope John Paul II, in his Apostolic Letter on the Rosary, Rosarium Virginis Mariae, focuses with particular attention on the special way she is active on the soul as we ponder or contemplate Jesus through the eyes of His Mother. We put ourselves under her maternal guidance and allow her to direct our hearts. "The Rosary," he says, "mystically transports us to Mary’s side as she is busy watching over the human growth of Christ in the home of Nazareth. This enables her to train us and to mold us with the same care, until Christ is ‘fully formed’ in us" (RVM 16). What is happening through this "contemplation of the face of Christ" in union with Mary, is far more than just a dry and abstract exercise of thought. The Rosary brings us, through a devoted pondering of its mysteries, into intimate union with t

Leftist Tarpley:Don’t Let Soros Hijack Occupy Wall Street

Is Occupy Wall Street the Obama/Wall Street Machine? An Emergency Program for Anti-Wall Street Protestors: Don’t Let Soros Hijack the Movement Webster G. Tarpley, Ph.D. TARPLEY.net September 29, 2011 Political mass strike dynamics have been at work in the United States since the Wisconsin and Ohio mobilizations of February and March. Now, there are demonstrations in lower Manhattan and Boston specifically directed against the Wall Street banks. Another protest demonstration is scheduled for Washington, DC, starting on October 6. Good: a political challenge to Wall Street is indeed long overdue. The Occupy Wall Street demonstrators are skeptical in regard to Obama. There is no sizable constituency for Ron Paul, and the crackpot Austrian school of economics is hardly represented. Above all, there is a desire to break the power of Wall Street. This much is promising, but still not enough to win. The demonstrations appear initially as leaderless groups, engaged in an organic process of d

What are the Principle Forms of Prayer?

Prayer and the First Commandment by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J. The most generic and fundamental definition of prayer: the conscious adoration of God. We might say it is expressed adoration. Adoration manifest. It is the communication of our minds and wills with God with whom we adore. Prayer is conversation with our adorable God. And my favorite definition, prayer is the voluntary response to the awareness of Gods’ adorable presence. We are still on our introduction. In the present meditation we plan to again ask ourselves the three basic questions: what, why, and how. What are the principle forms of prayer? Why must we pray? And then, this being a retreat, how can we improve our practice of prayer? What are the Principle Forms of Prayer? First then the main forms or kinds of prayer. The Church’s tradition distinguishes not just four but five principle forms of prayer. The adoration of submission, the prayer of adoration of love, the prayer of thanksgiving, the prayer of peti

Obama "[U]shering in the Time of Great Trial for the Church"

-I also believe that he is a carrier of a deadly moral virus, indeed a kind of anti-apostle spreading concepts and agendas that are not only anti-Christ but anti-human as well. In this sense he is of the spirit of Antichrist (perhaps without knowing it), and probably is one of several key figures in the world who (knowingly or unknowingly) will be instrumental in ushering in the time of great trial for the Church under its last and worst persecution, amidst the numerous other tribulations prophesied in the books of Daniel and Revelation, and letters of St Paul, St. John, and St. Peter. StudiObrien newsletter, The U.S. ElectionSaturday, November 1, 2008 1:20 PM From: "studiObrien" Add sender to Contacts To: undisclosed-recipients All Saints Day, 1 November 2008 Dear Friends, From just north of the border, we Canadians, like other people throughout the world, are observing and praying for the coming federal election in the United States of America. I would prefer

True Account of Survival of Jesuits in Hiroshima

Stop for a moment of silence, ask God what He want you to do next. Make this a practice. By doing this you are doing more good than reading anything here or anywhere else on the Internet. http://historycontroversy.blogspot.com/2011/01/jesuits-who-survived-bomb.html The Jesuits who survived the Bomb The priests who survived the atomic bomb The remarkable survival of the Jesuit Fathers in Hiroshima has echoes in the Bible and in the story of Fatima By Donal Anthony Foley on Thursday, 5 August 2010 This Friday, August 6, will see the Feast of the Transfiguration celebrated in the Church. It commemorates the occasion when Christ, accompanied by Peter, James, and John, went up a high mountain – traditionally identified with Mount Tabor in Galilee – and was there “transfigured” before them, so that “his face shone like the sun, and his garments became as white as light” (Mt 17:2). The Greek word for transfiguration is metemorphothe, from which we get the word “metamorphosis”.