Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Do you have a prayer time?

Hi all,

Every day, around 2:15pm, when I'm alone, I call upon Jesus to sit with me while I sing to Him songs of praise.  I love this time alone with God so much.  It's not that I can just feel His presence, I know He's right here with me.  I sing mostly old Christian songs, such as:  My favorite/ Amazing Grace, How Great Thou Art, The Old Rugged Cross, Here I am Lord, Make Me a Channel of Your Grace, and many more.  I know that God is right there in my living room while I sing these songs of praise. 

Then at the three o'clock hour, I sing The Divine Mercy Chaplet.  Once again, I feel God's presence with me.  As I sing each decade, in remembrance of Jesus' Crucifixion and death, I can visualize in my mind, each of the passion movements.  The first is while Jesus is brought before Pontious Pilate and the crowd yells to release Barabbas instead of Jesus.  When Pilate asks what should be done with Jesus, they all shout, "Crucify Him!, Crucify Him!", over and over again.  At that point, Pilate washes his hands of the entire situation and releases Jesus to them.

The second one is when Jesus is brought taken out for the scourging at the pillar.  They chain Him to a pole and He's whipped, over and over again.  As Jesus falls to the ground, the whipping continues as even as His clothes are sliced and He's bleeding from every place on His body, the whipping continues. 

The third is as they pull Jesus up from the ground and make Him walk to the spot where He is instructed to carry a heavy cross, made  from a tree, on His shoulder and back.  After all the beatings He's already gone through, it's a miracle that Jesus is able to carry it even a small ways.  Finally, after falling, over and over again, Jesus is unable to stand up once again.  So, Simon is instructed to carry the cross for Jesus.  Even now, as Jesus falls because He simply can't stay on His feet any longer, He is once again whipped and made to return to His feet.

The fourth decade is when Jesus is instructed to approach His cross for His hanging.   As Jesus approaches the cross He falls and embraces the cross, as He knows He indeed has to give up His life on that cross.  Now the soldiers tie His arms to the cross beam of the cross and then proceed to hammer large, heavy nails through His wrists and into His feet.  After all that, when they stand the cross up straight, Jesus has to endure the pain from His weight being pulled from the nails.

The fifth decade is when Jesus knows He needs to die on that cross, as His Father instructs.  It is at this time, that the soldiers want Jesus to hurry up  and die, so one of them takes a large spear, attached to a long pole, and pierces Jesus' heart and lungs.  Thus draining every ounce of blood and water from the body of Jesus Christ.  At that time, darkness overcomes the land and the people become afraid.  Jesus utters, "Not my will, but Thine be done!" and dies on that cross.

As I finish up the Chaplet, I am filled up with Jesus' mercy and graces.  This Chaplet was founded by Sister Maria Faustina.  Jesus appeared before her many, many times, during her short adult life and He instructed her to pass this chaplet on to all His creatures.  He even showed her a portrait of Himself showing red and white lines coming from His heart and lungs.  This depicts the blood and water of Jesus. 

I discovered this information about five or six years ago and my life has changed since I found out about the Chaplet of Divine Mercy. EWTN. which is the Eternal Word Television Network and is the Catholic station, broadcasts the Divine Mercy Chaplet almost every day at three o'clock.  If I miss it, I sing it by myself.  It has become so very important to me and for this, I am so thankful. 

If you'd like more information about St. Faustina or the Chaplet, tune into  EWTN anytime.

Here's the image that Jesus intended to go with the Chaplet.  I'm sorry it's not very good.  This is a new laptop and I'm still learning how to improve things on it.
Susan



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