Michaelmas

In the Christian Church September 29th. is the Feast Day of Saint Michael the Archangel; it is also a significant day in the Camphill year.  St.Michael is the Warrior Angel, adversary of Satan and patron of Knights during the Middle Ages.
In England and Wales it is a Quarter Day.  This was traditionally any of the four days in the year on which rents were paid, leases began and expired and servants and farm-labourers were formally engaged and dismissed.
The Quarter Days are Lady Day (25 March), Midsummer Day (24 June), Michaelmas (29 Sept.) and Christmas Day (25 Dec.).  Scotland and the USA have different dates.

                Tiffany Window - 'St.Michael' - Fyvie Parish Church, Aberdeenshire, Scotland

The Guardian Angel

Thou angel of God who hast charge of me
From the dear Father of mercifulness,
The shepherding kind of the fold of the saints
To make round about me this night;

Drive from me every temptation and danger,
Surround me on the sea of unrighteousness,
And in the narrows, crooks and straits,
Keep thou my coracle, keep it always.

Be thou a bright flame before me,
Be thou a guiding star above me,
Be thou a smooth path below me,
And be a kindly shepherd behind me,
Today, tonight, and forever.

I am tired and I a stranger,
Lead thou me to the land of  Angels;
For me it is a time to go home
To the court of Christ, to the peace of heaven.

                                                               from the Carmina Gadelica

Saint Pio of Pietrelcina

Today is the Feast Day of St. Pio of Pietrelcina, probably better known as Padre Pio.
He was born May 25th. 1887 and died September 23rd. 1968.

I first read about him in a biography I borrowed some forty or more years ago; it made a deep impression on me which still remains to this day.  [ Do find a good biography and read it yourself with an open mind.]  In particular I recall his many spiritual gifts which determined my own search over the years for my own pathway.  On many occasions when praying for healing for someone I ask for Padre Pio to intercede and to send his own healing.  

                                                    Picture of Padre Pio by Fczarnowski.


Prayer of Padre Pio after Communion

Stay with me Lord, for it is necessary to have you present so that I do not forget You.  You know how easily I abandon You.
Stay with me Lord, because I am weak and I need Your strength, that I may not fall so often.
Stay with me Lord, for You are my light, and without You, I am in darkness.
Stay with me Lord, to show me Your will.
Stay with me Lord, so that I hear Your voice and follow You.
Stay with me Lord, for I desire to love You very much, and always be in Your company.
Stay with me Lord, if You wish me to be faithful to You.
Stay with me Lord, for as poor as my soul is, I want it to be a place of consolation for You, a nest of love.
Stay with me Jesus, for it is getting late and the day is coming to a close, and my life passes; death, judgement,eternity approaches.  It is necessary to renew my strength, so that I will not stop along the way and for that, I need You.  It is getting late and death approaches, I fear the darkness, the temptations, the dryness, the cross, the sorrows.  O how I need You, my Jesus, in this night of exile.
Stay with me tonight Jesus, in life with all it's dangers.  I need You.
Let me recognise You as Your disciples did at the breaking of the bread, so that the Eucharistic Communion be the Light which disperses the darkness, the force which sustains me, the unique joy of my heart.
Stay with me Lord, because at the hour of my death, I want to remain united to You, if not by communion, at least by grace and love.
Stay with me Jesus, I do not ask for divine consolation, because I do not merit it, but the gift of Your Presence, oh yes I ask this of You.
Stay with me Lord, for it is You alone I look for, Your Love, Your Grace, Your Will, Your Heart, Your Spirit because I love You and ask no other reward but to love You more and more.
With firm love, I will love You with all my heart while on earth and continue to love You perfectly during all eternity.
                                      Amen

Amish - Rules of a Godly Life

Finally, be friendly to all and a burden for no one.
Live Holy before God; before yourself, moderately; before you neighbours, honestly.
Let your life be modest and reserved, your manner courteous, your admonitions friendly, your forgiveness willing, your promise true, your speech wise, and share gladly the bounties you receive..

                       _________________________________________

There is no true wealth beyond a man's need.
                                                                          Kahlil Gibran

                        ________________________________________

                                A quick dip into my big green scrapbook.

The Centre of the Soul

                              'The Centre of the Soul' - Watercolour by Margaret M Brownlow


All that is can form itself into individual droplets of consciousness.  Because you are part of all that is, you have literally always been, yet there was the instant when that individual energy current that is you was formed.  Consider that the ocean is God.  It has always been.  Now reach in and grab a cup full of water.  In that instant, the cup becomes individual, but it has always been, has it not?  This is the case with your soul.  There was the instant when you became a cup of energy, but it was of an immortal original Being.

You have always been because what it is that you are is God, or Divine Intelligence, but God takes on individual forms, droplets, reducing its power to small particles of individual consciousness.  It is a massive reduction of power, yet the power is as full in that droplet as it is in the whole.  It is as immortal and as creative and as expressive but in its tinier form its energy is reduced appropriately to its form.  As that little form grows in power, in self-hood, in its own consciousness of self, it becomes larger and more God-like. Then it becomes God.

You are both individual and one with all that is.

                                                     Extract from "The Seat of the Soul" by Gary Zukov.

Open my eyes that I may see.

Open my eyes that I may see,
Glimpses of truth Thou hast for me;
Help me to set the higher self free,
So shall I serve and worship Thee.

      Silently now I wait for Thee,
      Ready my God, Thy will to see,
      Open my eyes, illumine me;
      Spirit Divine.

Open my ears that I may hear,
Voices of truth, serene and clear,
And while the wave-notes fall on my ear,
Discord and strife will disappear.

      Silently now I wait for Thee,
      Ready my God, Thy will to see,
      Open my eyes, illumine me;
      Spirit Divine.

Open my mouth, and let me bear
Witness unceasing to Thy care;
Open my heart, and teach me to share
Love, with Thy children everywhere.

      Silently now I wait for Thee,
      Ready my God, Thy will to see,
      Open my eyes, illumine me;
      Spirit Divine.

                              Words and music by Clara H Scott (b1841 Illinois - d1897 Iowa)

This is the version we have sung for a number of years which is slightly different to the two other versions I have found on the web.

Prayer

                                                          Albrecht Durer  (1471 - 1528)



Prayer is indeed the soul's sincere desire, and few of us find our miracles, because we cannot discover what we want the most.  And sometimes we never start to find out until our whole world crashes and we are forced to look at life from a new angle, one which we perhaps see for the first time only when God says "No!".

When disappointments come, there are two things we must question before we question God or His purposes.  No matter how great our longing or how fervently we pray, when God says no, we must question our desires and ourselves.  Many times, we should ask not what is wrong with our prayers but what is wrong with us.

We would not be realistic, however, unless we faced the fact that while our desires may be right, and we ourselves fully worthy of receiving that for which we pray, still God may say no.  Why?

Sadly enough, very often only time alone can give us the reason.  But if, along with the cry, which comes to all of us sooner or later:  "Why, God, why?"...... we can give the simple affirmation, "There is some reason, and one day I shall find it", we can save ourselves untold heartbreak.

 Besides no or yes, there is a third answer God often gives us when we pray.  Time and again, when I used to ask my mother for some gift, "we'll see", she would say, "just be patient and do all you can do about it, and then we'll see".

So I think God answers us - many times.

But other times what happens depends, ultimately, on how much we work with God, with any and with all of the manifold powers through which He works.  Thomas Edison said, "We don't know the millionth part of one per cent about anything.  We don't know what water is.  We don't know what electricity is.  We don't know what heat is.  We have a lot of hypotheses about these things but that is all.  But we do not let our ignorance about these things deprive us of their use".

So with Prayer.  We really don't know the millionth part of one per cent about it.  But what we do know is enough to enable us to use it, and through it, to let God use us.

                          Extract from  'There is no unanswered Prayer' by Margaret Blair Johnstone.