A Monthly
Kaleidoscope
of Thought
with Fr. Ralph
“Together, we can
do something beautiful for God.” Mother
Teresa
Mary, my Mother,
give me your heart so beautiful, so pure, so Immaculate, so full of love and humility
that I may be able to receive Jesus in the Bread of Life, love Him as you loved
Him and serve Him in the distressing disguise of the poor – God’s children.
Thought
#1
YOU ARE SPECIAL
Do you believe this – REALLY – you are special – God did make you
special. That is a factual truth.
Reflections:
YOU ARE SPECIAL !
THE WORD TODAY FOR YOU IS SPECIAL !
Please say that over and over in your heart and mind....... “I AM
SPECIAL!”
Do you really know, do you really believe, do you really understand
this truth ?
Yes, this is the truth, it is the eternal truth that YOU ARE
SPECIAL !
This thought of individuality and speciality pertains to every man
and woman – every human being. You,
being part of the whole human race, are very important. You as an individual person are a very
important “Plus” to the development of your age.
THE POWER OF GOD’S PROMISE IS:
“His divine power has bestowed on us everything that makes for life and
devotion, through the knowledge of Him who called us by his own glory and
power.”
Thought #2
ARE
YOU WALKING IN THE WILDERNESS?
In every human life, as the song
does say, a little rain must fall. A
concept I frequently use is that without rain, nothing ever grows.
Regardless of polished and pleasant thinking, the
truth does remain that human life with its experiences very often loses us in a
darkened forest. These moments of
darkness of the soul, of which St. Theresa of
Can one fly through a storm? Can one survive the fear of wilderness? Perhaps what we are mentioning here is – can
you and I find strength to travel victoriously as a winner and not a loser?
God has never left us abandoned. He finds many avenues of thought to inspire
us in the holy gifts of perseverance.
One of these thoughts comes from His Holy Book.
I offer you the reflective thoughts of many a
soul in union with God who has walked in the strength of God through wilderness
and storms. Take, for example, the
Israelites. In the Old Testament we read
how they had been traveling through many years in the desert wilderness. Their perseverance during those forty years
was based upon the promise which God gave to them, namely, they would
eventually reach the Promised Land.
Can you imagine their journey as they went about
in circle, in circle, in circle? Can you
imagine how hot the desert was? Even
their sandaled feet seemed to burn on the sandy and tough land. Did you ever feel thirsty? Well, even the Israelites felt thirsty so
very often. They complained and
complained – almost never being satisfied of the promise of God which would
urge them to travel through the storm and the wilderness of the desert. They seem to have been lost in their own
thinking to the extent that their hardships of day by day obscured the promise
of God that He would guide them and continue to offer His Divine Providence for
them.
APPLICATION OF OUR THOUGHT:
The Israelites were not far from our own adventures
in life. All of us experience the
variety of passions of love and hate, of sadness and joy, of pleasure and pain,
of boldness and fear, of desire and aversion, and anger. Like the Israelites, or they like us if we
had come before them, both they and we can become victims of our own
discouragement.
Therefore, is it not true that so very often with
these perplexities haunting us, as barnacles to a
ship, we, too, begin to forget to trust God’s promise? That promise is a reality. That promise tells us that He who urged us on
into our journey of life would without doubt continue to lead us on into
victory. If only they and we could stay
steadfast in believing that He who supplied all our needs at the beginning of
our earthly journey would still maintain His Presence, then each one of us
would inevitably personify “we can be a winner, not a loser.”
PRAYER IS A GIFT:
Strength is needed from the divine to the
human.
What I am mentioning here is the power to
communicate with the Source of all living.
This is prayer.
We who need strength for daily victory living of
necessity must be the strength which comes from the divine to the human. It is by prayer and prayer alone that we can
stay in communication to the Source of all living. All life is worth saving. The ultimate fact of all facts is that the
source of energy must be retained – not occasionally – but second by second
from the womb to the tomb.
In speaking about the gift of prayer, I am
referring to clear, clean thinking. When
we bathe our human thinking processes to the divine Presence, we then have the
power of the divine exhorting us into victory over vice, strength over
weakness.
When reason is blessed by faith, we become blessed with His encouragement rather than with our own discouragement.
CONCLUSION INTO VICTORY:
The point of our encouragement and the spark to
live victoriously simply is what many classic writers of old and present would
offer. This is that discouragement, an
enemy of the spirit and soul, can be turned with God’s holy grace and His Holy
Spirit into encouragement. This
inevitably becomes positive victory when we humans look away from our human
daily circumstances, and when we focus our eyes on the Lord. This is the Holy Spirit’s gift of holy
exhortation.
Look
up to the star – Heaven is not very far away!
Sincerely yours in Christ,
Father Ralph +
From Christina (Father DiOrio’s Secretary):
“BE
A WINNER, NOT A LOSER!”
Doesn’t it seem at times that you find yourself
asking, “How can I ever be a real winner, when not everything I have
done was right, and I know I made wrong choices?” God gives us encouragement because He knows
that past actions don’t determine our entire future. Even though there are consequences to our
actions, our free will gives us the power to choose again, to choose what is
right, to come back to Him and receive the wonder of His promises to us as His
children.
Only with God could we ever have this real
uplift- to realize that no one wins alone, and that each one of us who loves
God is a winner. Or to put it more
accurately, we are sinners who turn back to His love, losers who still win
because God is with us! Whatever your
life has been, God invites you to give up a losing attitude and know that He is
here for you now, and that you can enjoy your life with Him right from this
moment by welcoming Him as you have never accepted Him before.
“I command you: be firm and steadfast! Do not
fear nor be dismayed, for the LORD, your God, is with you wherever you
go.” (Joshua 1:9)
Join with us in moments of prayer and healing at
our services at