. St Thérèse of Lisieux once said that if we were to pick up a blade of grass with the love of God, we could save many souls. How does this connect with the current reflection?2. That same saint is famous for her “little way” of growing in holiness. What are some seemingly simple acts that we can do to serve and grow closer to God?3. Does this idea of doing small, humble things seem counter-intuitive to you?4. If we have a high station in life, such as in our career or otherwise, how can we guard against t
Feb 9, 5:28 PM
VisitationSiste: against the temptation of pride
in our work?
5. How might we apply these concepts to our prayer life or any other area of
our lives?
Feb 9, 5:29 PM
VisitationSiste: Sun chat Feb 9 730pm est
Feb 9, 7:24 PM
VisitationSiste: Good evening!
Feb 9, 7:34 PM
VisitationSiste: Hi Ruth! Thanks for your e mails!
Feb 9, 7:34 PM
Ruth (Guest): Hello Sister Susan Marie.
Feb 9, 7:35 PM
VisitationSiste: Hi Dawn!
Feb 9, 7:35 PM
Ruth (Guest): Oh, sorry it took me soooooooo long to finally send it.
Feb 9, 7:35 PM
Ruth (Guest): Hi Dawn.
Feb 9, 7:35 PM
Dawn (Guest): Hello Sr Susan and Ruth!! thank you
Feb 9, 7:36 PM
VisitationSiste: several months!!?
Feb 9, 7:37 PM
Ruth (Guest): Actually I think it is kind of you to thank me. I’m always afraid I am writing too much, and fear I’ll be putting unnecessary stress on your busy schedule just to read it.
Feb 9, 7:37 PM
VisitationSiste: I missed 2 weeks of chat but made it back last week.
Feb 9, 7:38 PM
VisitationSiste: You are a good writer and your life is very interesting Ruth- and your spirit- indomitable!
Feb 9, 7:38 PM
Ruth (Guest): Yes. And sometimes I cannot find a draft when I look for it, or pops up and stares me in the face as if to say, “Don’t you want to finish this and send it before you do anything else?”
Feb 9, 7:38 PM
VisitationSiste: Were you surprised tosee St Therese heading the questions this week?
Feb 9, 7:40 PM
Ruth (Guest): I missed last week. I was just so tired, exhausted, and always with lots of aches and pains. I often take a Sunday afternoon nap, but had some long telephone calls. When I finally got myself into the horizontal I was out for some six hours.
Feb 9, 7:42 PM
Ruth (Guest): Not really. A bit of an anachronism I think, but a good example.
Feb 9, 7:42 PM
VisitationSiste: ST Therese and others always, Mother Thersa too I think say do little things with great love
Feb 9, 7:43 PM
VisitationSiste: When we do something for the pure glory of God and a good intention God does save souls
Feb 9, 7:44 PM
VisitationSiste: We tend to overlook the simple things for the heroic sometimes
Feb 9, 7:45 PM
VisitationSiste: But for someone with back pain, bending down to that blade of grass can be heroic
Feb 9, 7:48 PM
Ruth (Guest): I sure hope God uses my good intentions AND ACTION for his glory and to save souls. But sometimes it seems everything I undertake winds up getting the opposite result.
Feb 9, 7:48 PM
Ruth (Guest): Like the saying “No good deed goes unpunished!
Feb 9, 7:49 PM
Dawn (Guest): We can never know, little things can plant seeds in another
Feb 9, 7:51 PM
Dawn (Guest): however I agree, I have often thought no good deed goes unpunished!
Feb 9, 7:52 PM
VisitationSiste: had to step away I am back
Feb 9, 7:53 PM
VisitationSiste: 2. That same saint is famous for her “little way” of growing in holiness. What are some seemingly simple acts that we can do to serve and grow closer to God?
Feb 9, 7:53 PM
VisitationSiste: Right now, praying for victims of that virus epidemic
Feb 9, 7:54 PM
VisitationSiste: Bring all those souls before God in prayer
Feb 9, 7:55 PM
Ruth (Guest): True Dawn, and I do remember a few times when going out of my way to be kind — and especially when a group of young people I was leading at the time did their part, too, brought about an a amazing “turn around” in a very troubled, disruptive 15 year old. And the Lord let me just run into some of the youngsters from the retreat group I was leading — in the Black Forest, a year or so later, by “chance” — and they were able tell me about the transformation. Wonderfully encouraging.
Feb 9, 7:55 PM
Dawn (Guest): responding to a prompt from Holy Spirit to do or say something , for him?
Feb 9, 7:57 PM
Dawn (Guest): this is a wonderful story Ruth…!
Feb 9, 7:58 PM
Ruth (Guest): Yes, we prayed together for that kid who seemed to have come on the retreat just for a cheap vacation, and even actively apposed what we were trying to do.
Feb 9, 8:01 PM
Ruth (Guest): Today I have to pray for a man I pay to plow my driveway who plowed a 5 foot plus pile of snow behind my car and across the entire area where one could WALK out. To get to a friend picking me up for Mass I had litterally lie down in the snow and roll over the peek of the little mountain he’d made, because even with a ski pole and the buried car to help me I couldn’t get over it upright.
Feb 9, 8:02 PM
VisitationSiste: My goodness!
Feb 9, 8:02 PM
Dawn (Guest): on the virus, I am disturbed the people in Wuhan are on lock down. can not leave their homes. they go out on balconies, of many stories high building and they call out to one another.
Feb 9, 8:02 PM
Ruth (Guest): And now I have to figure out how to get help to get out for at least one of two meetings tomorrow. AND to deal with what certainly LOOKS like aggression.
Feb 9, 8:03 PM
Dawn (Guest): oh Ruth! you are hearty…I believe God loved you were doing this to go to Mass
Feb 9, 8:04 PM
VisitationSiste: Yes!
Feb 9, 8:05 PM
VisitationSiste: according to the inside Chinese news
Feb 9, 8:05 PM
VisitationSiste: So keep on doing all you can to get to Mass and pray
Feb 9, 8:06 PM
Ruth (Guest): Wow! Under those circumstances, people are probably grateful that they cannot go out to work. They probably feel safer staying put. But those who were already out of their homes and couldn’t go home, had to stay in their work places, may be even more frustrated.
Feb 9, 8:07 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): 4. If we have a high station in life, such as in our career or otherwise, how can we guard against the temptation of pride in our work?
Feb 9, 8:08 PM
Dawn (Guest): I will speak with my church, today there was nothing said of it.
Feb 9, 8:11 PM
Dawn (Guest): good question. Pride. I believe reflecting on our day to see how we experienced things or acted, and this may help to show us where we are acting in pride?
Feb 9, 8:12 PM
Dawn (Guest): oh, I do not have a high station. Ruth as a physican you may be better to respond to this question
Feb 9, 8:13 PM
Ruth (Guest): I think it is important to take pride in our work; that means we will do it as well as we possibly can. But arrogance, thinking we are more important than we are, I find that utterly repulsive.
Feb 9, 8:14 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): There is a good pride, yes, and a negative one, which gives no credit to God
Feb 9, 8:14 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): One can have false pride een in how one raised one’s children
Feb 9, 8:15 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): Giving again, no credit to the grace and blessing of God
Feb 9, 8:15 PM
Ruth (Guest): I try to treat each person before me with the greatest respect, no matter what their “station” in life.
Feb 9, 8:15 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): Not only high stations but important work, like motherwhood or fatherhood
Feb 9, 8:15 PM
Ruth (Guest): I often think,”There but for the grace of God go I.”
Feb 9, 8:15 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): That is absolutely true!
Feb 9, 8:15 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): And people can be so complex
Feb 9, 8:16 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): I had a friend, recently deceased who was the most loving, giving person one could imagine
Feb 9, 8:16 PM
Ruth (Guest): And I TRY to understand . . .
Feb 9, 8:16 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): Yet her mental status included serious pychosis and hallucinations
Feb 9, 8:17 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): but she was truly loving and helped others so much, esp disabled people
Feb 9, 8:17 PM
Dawn (Guest): and yet she lived out of love.
Feb 9, 8:17 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): absolutely
Feb 9, 8:18 PM
Ruth (Guest): It makes me happy when, for example, when I guy who spent half his life in prison and most of that in solitary confinement starts finding happy memories . . . and HOPE.
Feb 9, 8:19 PM
Ruth (Guest): a guy, not I guy
Feb 9, 8:19 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): real conversion
Feb 9, 8:20 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): Do you grasp the last question: 5. How might we apply these concepts to our prayer life or any other area of our lives?
Feb 9, 8:21 PM
Ruth (Guest): Or I am able to show trust even when I have to ask if a patient has any weapons, and one picks up a heavy old type telephone holding it over my head and says “ANYTHING can be a weapon.” And without flinching I say, “You are right about that, but I mean things like knives or guns.”
Feb 9, 8:22 PM
Dawn (Guest): if in said sincerity, our prayer can be little, and God would hear all the same
Feb 9, 8:22 PM
Ruth (Guest): How is it I can trust these patients, but there are a lot of doctors I do not trust?
Feb 9, 8:23 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): yes Dawn!
Feb 9, 8:23 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): You expect more from doctors?
Feb 9, 8:25 PM
Ruth (Guest): Maybe I need to pray for my doctors more . . . BUT being DISTRUSTFUL and taking matters into my own hands some of the time has actually saved — or rather restored my hearing — and probably saved my life on at least two occasions. Sometimes I wonder how people who are not physicians get through illnesses . . .
Feb 9, 8:25 PM
Ruth (Guest): I do expect — or think I should be able to expect more from doctors.
Feb 9, 8:27 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): At this time doctors are being tempted with end of life questions that are not moral- yes we need to pray for them
Feb 9, 8:27 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): Thank you both for being here tonight- I have to go. Let’s continue to pray for one another!
Feb 9, 8:28 PM
Ruth (Guest): But the SYSTEM they work under is also at fault, AND the time pressures, artificially created by administrative policies, scarcity of physicians (perpetuated by medical schools), and almost everyone thinking about “the bottom line.”
Feb 9, 8:29 PM
Dawn (Guest): Thank you Sr Susan, also Ruth. you remain in my prayers.
Feb 9, 8:31 PM
Dawn (Guest): It is a money driven system, that can be good and ok. but it seems things are going in another direction right now. Sr Susan said several times to pray. I believe this is the time to do so!
Feb 9, 8:34 PM
Ruth (Guest): Wow! It’s that time again already. Dawn, I have thought of you and prayed for you often this week. I hope you and yours are well.
Feb 9, 8:35 PM
Dawn (Guest): Thank you Ruth, everyone is well but much has happened.
Feb 9, 8:36 PM
Ruth (Guest): Yes, Drs are being asked to make moral decisions for which they do not have adequate training. And laws are being proposed — in NYS — which would allow physician assisted suicide. And the doctor would have to document the suicide not as what it is/was but based on the underlying illness.
Feb 9, 8:36 PM
Dawn (Guest): I appriecate your prayers very much. and I do for you. Thank you for the letters
Feb 9, 8:37 PM
Ruth (Guest): You are precious to me, Dawn. God loves you very, very much. And I appreciate our growing understanding and friendship. God bless you and yours! Good night.
Feb 9, 8:40 PM
Dawn (Guest): God bless you Ruth. very much. thank you for being my friend and sharing ~~ God Bless you and Good night!