“Pray, Hope, and Don’t Worry!”

“Pray, Hope, and Don’t Worry!”

My recent experiences at the hospital with my husband. I feel compelled to share them to inspire others about the power of prayer and God's amzing grace!

A Ray of Hope

If we didn’t have hope, what would we do? Without hope many would despair. We don’t have to look very far to realize that so many live without much hope. When I think of hope, I recall the virtues of Faith, Hope, and Love which we ask for on our first three Hail Mary beads of our rosaries. Hope becomes ours for the asking. Amazing! We have to remember to ask.

St. Clement of Alexandria wrote, “If you do not hope, you will not find what is beyond your hopes.” Hope makes me also think about trust and surrender, which go hand and hand with our belief and love of God. When we have hope in our hearts we will be putting our trust in Our Lord and will be able to put one foot in front of the other each day, serving Our Lord in the people He surrounds us with. To do this, we surrender our lives to God through prayer so that we grow closer to Him and deeper in holiness.

As we light our first Advent candle very soon, a flickering flame will represent hope. Let us pray that we can focus on preparing our hearts to open wider for Our Lord this Advent season. Let’s hope that we can do our best to turn to prayer at every opportunity during a great season of hope and promise.

Perhaps the craziness of the advertising frenzy that flashes around us is too distracting, and we feel that we cannot find peace to pray during a season that is meant to be quiet so that we can prepare our hearts for the Christ Child. The Liturgy of Advent emphasizes quiet, penance, prayer, but also hope, light, joy, and surrender. Let’s strive to find those things. Let’s delve deeper than the surface and also realize that God is in control of everything. We can find quiet even amid the hustle and bustle, by lifting our hearts to God with a great hope and faith that He hears us – that He knows our hearts – that He loves us more than we can imagine!

An awful lot can be accomplished if we allow God to work through us to sanctify our actions and prayers when we offer it all to Him in full surrender. Our Lord calls us to surrender our lives to Him – everything! Surrendering can be as simple as accepting our circumstances, whether it be our living conditions, our state in life, both little and big annoyances, sickness and suffering, being misunderstood, being criticized and belittled for our Christianity. God’s hand is mystically in it all. He knows what‘s going on.

Will we surrender to Him and allow Him to work through us and around us? He wants us to surrender our wills to Him and respond in love to all who are in our midst. Yes, even to love the one who has just stolen “your” parking space or the one who is constantly criticizing you. It’s not always going to be easy. Jesus never said it would be. However, they all need our love; a healing love that will give others hope.

Mother Teresa had said that “Calcutta is all over the world for those who have eyes to see.” Let’s open our eyes so we can minister to the needs of the people that because of God’s divine providence are near us in some way – our family, co-workers, friends and parishioners. Is there someone who needs our love?

When we learn to surrender our lives over to Our Lord, we will have lasting and true peace, and joy of heart. This joy and peace will radiate as a healing balm to others around us; offering them hope for their journeys. Let’s be that ray of hope by giving our hearts to God and allowing Him to work through us during this upcoming wonderful hopeful season of Advent and beyond!

(My article on hope just appeared at Barry Michael's Festival of Hope Yesterday. You can see my post below regarding the festival and winners of my books)

Happy Thanksgiving and book give-away!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Enjoy the day. Try not to strive for perfection, rather, BE with your loved ones and try not to DO so much! It's difficult, I know. However, you'll regret late in the day that you didn't stop to enjoy a game with the kids or a walk with the family because you were too busy trying to make everything PERFECT! There's no such thing as perfection on Thanksgiving day! It will all come out wonderful...take a breath...say a prayer and BE TOGETHER!!

Oh, and by the way, go on over to Barry Michael's special Festival of Hope when you have a moment to read my piece on HOPE and where he is giving out copies of my two new books, Grace Cafe and The Domestic Church. If you leave a comment, you'll be put in his drawing!

Check out Barry's Festival of Hope and introduction of my piece by clicking here

And the article I wrote on HOPE by clicking here.

This is from Barry's blog about his cool contest and giving away my books TODAY...

"Donna-Marie Cooper O’Boyle’s two newest books are Grace Cafe: Serving Up Recipes for Faithful Mothering and The Domestic Church: Room by Room. And they’re both going to one fortunate visitor this Thanksgiving Day. But feel free not to enter to win them, because we’d love to keep them in this house. I’m kidding, come get them, you’ll be glad you did. (Or one visitor will, anyway.)

To enter, leave a comment in this comment box of this post, naming one thing for which you are thankful today (of course!). As usual, you’ll have to include your e-mail address so that I can contact you if you win, but it will not be viewable publicly. The winner will not be chosen randomly this time; rather, my kids will pick the response they like best."

So, go over to Barry's blog (link above) and leave a thankful comment!



God bless your day!

Hugs,

Donna-Marie

A Time of Hopeful Rebirth

(Check out my article at Catholic Exchange here.)

What is it about the hope of warm breezes and sunshine right around the corner promising to warm our winter-chilled bones and to pop up an array of colorful delicate spring flowers from the once-frozen earth that motivates us to delve into cleaning and organizing projects? It's a feeling akin to the "nesting" instinct that surfaces for an expectant mother before the birth of her baby. One senses the urgency of doing and then experiences the satisfaction that a cleaned out pantry, an organized closet, or a fresh coat of paint on the kitchen walls brings along with it. It's just the right time for it — spring brings it forth from us. It's no wonder that I am in that organizing and cleaning frame of mind. I think I've been bit by a spring cleaning bug!

Spring is similarly a time for fresh new hope that warms our souls because of the Easter Resurrection. We've trodden the path of our penitential Lenten journeys and now we have been blessed with our Savior's promise of new life for us after He selflessly and lovingly shed His Blood. "Jesus, who himself died on the Cross, brought something totally different: an encounter with the Lord of all lords, an encounter with the living God and thus an encounter with a hope stronger than the sufferings of slavery, a hope which therefore transformed life and the world from within" (Pope Benedict, XVI, Spe Salvi).

Along with the miracle of the Resurrection and the gift of new hope, we experience the bright rays of.. (Continued here.)

Entering the New Year with Hope, Grace, and Prayer

You can check out my New Year article at Catholic Exchange today.