Dearest Readers,
Do you have something you are worried about? Perhaps you have a tooth ache, or a financial need, or an ache in your heart due to loneliness or the loss of a loved one, or maybe a need for forgiveness, or even a fear of possible death due to cancer. Well, if you have a any need -- no matter what the need is: big or small -- then is your peace lost thereby? No. Do not focus on your illness. Focus on cancer can give it room to grow psychologically and physically. Whereas "A cheerful heart doeth good like a medicine!" Do not let your illness or imagined illness fill your mind and soul. Focus on our illness impedes our immune system; whereas prayer and trust in God has been proven by significant medical clinincal studies to greatly aid healing and early patient release from hospitals. Even the medical world has proven that trust in God releases healthy endorphins that actually aid our recoverly and health to grow. So, don't let your God-given peace be pushed away or let it fly away by the winds of worry or self focus; and thus don't let your good imagination of God's healing and personal love for you fly away with you. Let us all humbly listen to these following words from St. Paul to the Philippians. Let us all together dive into them to see and find their true depth. Together let us listen to these most preciouls treasured words that I have shared with everyone who comes to me with a worry:
"Rejoice in the Lord always! I say it again. Rejoice! Everyone should see how unselfish you are. The Lord is near. DISMISS ALL ANXIETY from your minds. Present your needs to God in every form of prayer and in petitions full of gratitude. Then GOD'S OWN PEACE, which is beyond all understanding will stand guard over your hearts and minds, in Christ Jesus.
Finally, my brothers/sisters, your thoughts should be wholly directed to all that is true, all that desrves respect, all that is honest, pure, beautiful, admirable, decent, virtuous, or worthy of praise. Live acconding to what you have learned and accepted what you have heard me say and see me do. Then will the GOD OF PEACE BE WITH YOU." Philippians 4: 4-9
There is so much pure treasure there, it is hard to know which gold coin to pick up first. But for sure, each coin does have: "In God we trust" on it.
Well, first of all, let us zero in on the causes of our anxiety before we focus on our peace: Causes are:
1) IMAGINATION:
The devil stimulates our imagination to live not in the present where God is to be found but to put our minds in the past or the future when God is not and cannot be found. God's Name is not "I was" or "I will be" but "I AM!" We cannot find our Lord in the past or future..He is only here and now! So if we are living in the past or the future, we are living alone. The devil cannot effect our will to choose anything; but the devil can very very much stimulate our imagination. Those who commit suicide have boughten a devil's lie that this problem will be the same into all their future. People who commit suicide are not living in the present moment but are living in the past or future. Judas could have turned to Christ as St. Peter did in repentance if he only was living in the present to Jesus' grace. Jesus had told Judas: "Do you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?" Jesus was calling Judas to repentance not scolding him. Jesus was trying to paint a picture of the present to Judas..who was living in the future..trying to force Jesus strike back at the Romans in the near future.
So, too, the devil stimulates our mind and imagination to worry about whatever is inflicting us. He knows that worry is the beginning of fear. When Jesus was laughed at because he told Jairus' mourners to get out! ,,,when Jesus said to them: "She is not dead but only sleeping."
Jesus commented further: "Fear us useless; what is needed is trust!"
2) ANXIETY:
Seems that St. Paul thinks that anxiety can be "dismissed"! Well, he had no courses in Psychology. Where does he come off in making such a statement without a degree in psychology? Can anxiety be dismissed? Well, since St. Paul had so many trials: imprisonment, stonings, scourgings, shipwrecks, betrayals, hunger and cold, poverty and persecution, it would seem that he has been to school and gotten a Ph.D..in anxiety due to personal suffering.
For St. Paul to survive, he had to learn to dismiss anxiety! How did he do it?
His formula is simple: just re-read his quote above to Philippians. For presents all his needs to God with thanksgiving. He fills his mind with beautiful and good thoughts. Therefore his formula is this: Prayer with Faith and Thanksgiving and Trust. Then replacing his imagination with good and holy thoughts...that are pure and beautiful. He fills his heart with prayer and hope and fills his minds with good and wholesome thoughts to dismiss the untrue imaginations of the devil. Actually, St. Paul is quite a psychologist. Even modern psychologists and medical doctors know by clinical studies that prayer causes their patients to be healed much faster as well as be dismissed from the hospital much sooner/before those who do not pray.
3) WHAT IS BEAUTIFUL AND TRUE:
Being a painter, I have visited the Louvre and saw Da Vince's Mona Lisa and Museum D'Orse for impressionists in Paris, Museums in Washington D.C, and Chicago, in Williamstown, Massachusettes, the Vatican Museum, and the Detroit Institutes of Arts. I have painted copies of Masterpeices from the very originals with very special permission. One could almost OD on al this beauty! After living in the Vatican museum I had to leave for a while to look at something ordinary to get my spritual artistic breath!
It is hard to be focused on oneself when confronted with all this beauty.
Additionally, what is TRUE is what our minds really want to feed on. Even kids are always saying: "Why?"...they want to know more and more. We all want to know more and more. Even the atheist cannot say: "There is nothing true!" Because if there is nothing true, then what he is saying is not true and that means that there is something true. Also if he thinks that there is nothing true and that he statement is true by making that statment, then if he is right then there is something true: what he just said and thus what he said is proved false by his very utterance. Well, the mind was made for truth and the "truth shall make you free":..free from anxiety!
If you are a parent saw your child running to you with a sliver or something in his or her eye..or with a skinned knee...or with tears because someone bullied them, what would your response be? Therefore, what will God's response be when you run to Him with anything that causes you pain or worry? Would you not explain the real truth of things to your child with words of "Do not worry; Daddy..or Mommy...will take care of it."
Thus Truth and Beauty will smash the false and ugly imaginations suggested to us from the devil....thus St. Paul: "Dismiss all anxiety from your minds"..and think on those beautiful and honest and truthful things....that God loves you more than you can imagine and is taking care of you right now!! Turn to Him; and present all your needs to Him with graititude and hope...and love for Him. Once, I was worried about something - a legal case since I do legal work; but I had prayed over it. All of sudden while watching the Mass on EWTN, God addressed this concern and took it all away with an instant assurance to not worry and that all would be well. You see: God has total access to our souls. He can convey a message of hope and peace and love without using a cell phone. He can do this after we have sent Him a "knee-mail" of placing all in His Hands; but also, He can decide to reach us directly with His love, peace and joy and assurance just because He is God! But our prayers, our Morning Offering, our trust in Him helps Him to reach us because our prayer removes those blockages to Him..and even opens up not God..who aways open....but opens us up to God who is always on the line waiting for our call. God contacted me directly today..addressing my concerns...on His own initiative. How aI love that He does that!
Let us pray: "Father, here is my heart..and all the worries on my heart. Here are my needs spiritual, physical, emotional, and financial. I give them all to you...since You can read and see so much more deep into my heart then I can. But I take You at Your Word when you said: "Delight in the Lord; and He will give you the desires of your heart." [ps 37: 3-7].
Papa in Heaven!...I am worried about these things: [mention them]. I cast all my care upon you....I run to You....please fix my problems or see deeper into them why You would allow them a time...to learn to all the more trust in You. Dismiss all anxiety from my mind by direct grace of peace and joy: Your assurance that all will be well. Help me, Father, when I feel my life is being threatened by cancer or poverty or abandonment, I feel like Jesus did and want to say to You: "Father, why have You forsaken me?" When Your Son, Jesus, said that, He was really hurting inside and out because He knew You could never leave Him: but it felt like that to Him...and I sometimes feel that way too.....so I give you all my feelings...Papa! Please rescue me as You raised up Your Son, Jesus..from the dead in just 3 days! You made all peace and joy for Him! Please give me life, too, now and life to the fullest! Please raise me up from this worry about my cancer or every concern I have...and give me the Joy of new life..and new Hope...and a new all pervading Peace. All this I ask in Jesus; Name. Amen..through Mary, Mother of Sorrow. Help me to know that in Your will is my greatest Peace. Amen."
Therefore, Dearest Readers, May "the God of Peace be with you."
So much Love and Peace,
Pio
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