Here I Am Lord With A Contrite Heart

Posted byValerie Parisi February 15, 2024  EditHere I Am Lord With A Contrite Heart

Today’s Consuming Fire Meditation- – A Daily Dose of the Flame of Love Diary Served Up with Today’s Scriptures

Friday after Ash Wednesday

Here I Am Lord With A Contrite Heart

“You must shake the lukewarm souls out of the indifference which drowns them. My effort to take them to a deeper spiritual level is wasted if they turn their back on Me and abandon Me. (Jesus) (April 17, 1962)

Today’s Readings: Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer, you shall cry for help, and he will say, “Here I am”. (Isaiah 58)

Prayer Meditation: O Lord we so often go our own way and wander far from You. We do the right things but for all the wrong reasons- our hearts are in need of a shake up this Lent so that we truly will be walking together with You in love. Time to turn around and examine ourselves and offer first our contrite hearts (Psalm 51) and wait on You to lead the way out of our lukewarm comfort zones and indifference. Help us to keep walking with You and never turn back- always forward in Your Will and in Your Love!

Lord, it does not make sense we have to die to live, lose to win, lay ourselves down for our friends and our families. The key is for Your sake- without You we can do nothing (John 15:5) but in You we can do all things for Your Glory and the good of all! (Philippians 4:13)

Losing Life To Save It

Posted byValerie Parisi February 14, 2024  EditLosing Life To Save It

Today’s Consuming Fire Meditation- – A Daily Dose of the Flame of Love Diary Served Up with Today’s Scriptures

Thursday after Ash Wednesday

Losing Life to Save It

Jesus: “Do you want to give yourself to Me entirely and without reserve? I, the Man-God, ask this of you. I need you for My work of Salvation. What I am asking you now is a total abandonment. Therefore renounce yourself completely with all your strength and all your will. You must serve only Me. No one else and nothing else now exists for you. Only I.” (Jesus) (September 1, 1962)

Todays’ Readings: Then he said to all,
 “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself
and take up his cross daily and follow me.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. (Luke 9)

Prayer Meditation- Today in the first reading from Deuteronomy 30 we read that You have put before us life and death- our choice. The Gospel shows us the way forward- You ask us to pick up our cross daily and follow You. Not anything big or heroic, just our own little crosses tailor made for us- our family, our work, our health, all of our difficulties. Lord help us in the everyday to choose life and to bear our crosses with patience and perseverance. All things are passing- only You remain!

Oh Lord, on Ash Wednesday what You really want in our fasting, almsgiving, and prayer is our hearts! All of our hearts and all of ourselves! Lord help us finally give up that little pebble of our self will that stands in the way of You truly reigning in us and in all the Earth!

Now Is The Acceptable Time For Salvation

Posted byValerie Parisi February 13, 2024  EditNow Is The Acceptable Time For Salvation

Today’s Consuming Fire Meditation- – A Daily Dose of the Flame of Love Diary Served Up with Today’s Scriptures

Ash Wednesday

Now is the Acceptable Time for Salvation

Accept faithfully the sacrifices that I ask of you for My Cause. Many ask repeatedly to share in My works, but when they must accept a sacrifice from My own hands, they are afraid of Me. (Jesus) (March 4-7, 1962)

Today’s Readings: Do not perform good deeds before men so you can be seen by them. If so, you will receive no reward from your heavenly Father. When you give an alms, do not blow a trumpet, as hypocrites do. They already have their reward. Give your alms in secret. Then, your Father, who sees in secret, will repay you. When you pray, go to your room and pray in secret. Your Father who sees in secret, will repay you. (Matthew 6)

Prayer Meditation- Now is the acceptable time the Second Reading says today, the time for salvation. It is Ash Wednesday ready or not- time to accept faithfully the sacrifices the Church asks of us. Prayer, fasting, almsgiving. It can seem overwhelming but You see our hearts. Lord, help us to seek You in silence so that we would understand the inner movements of our hearts and Your Will for us this Lent. Help us to accept the sacrifices You are asking of us- is it  chocolate or anger, wine or fear, candy or worry- or is it a little of all of these alternatives. Lord let us lay down the little pebbles of our will- living in Your Divine Will is the sanctity of sanctities  but it requires dying to whatever is in the way so we can rise again perfected in Your Love and Grace this Easter.

O Lord how many times our feet slip- sometimes due to our circumstances, sometimes due to our faults and sins and yet how many times can we look back and find that it was Your Mercy, O Lord, that held us up so we could keep going! Lord may we do all our actions in Your Will and in Your Love- trusting that it is You Lord that will pick us up when we fall!

When We Just Don’t Get It

Posted byValerie Parisi February 12, 2024  EditWhen We Just Don’t Get It

Today’s Consuming Fire Meditation- – A Daily Dose of the Flame of Love Diary Served Up with Today’s Scriptures

Tuesday of the Sixth Week of Ordinary Times

When We Just Don’t Get It

In one word, I really do not understand. Maybe I doubt because my pride does not allow me to believe. (Elizabeth) (September 7-8, 1962 )

Today’s Readings: Do you not yet understand or comprehend? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes and not see, ears and not hear? (Mark 8)

Prayer Meditation- Lord it is kind of humorous. You speak of the leaven of the Pharisees, or their hypocrisy. The Apostles just don’t get it, they think You are speaking of literal bread and how they are down to one loaf. Lord, I have to admit we are so often on different wave lengths. Your ways are not our ways (Isaiah 55:8). Most of the time, like the Apostles, we are too focused on ourselves and our temporal concerns. Or our pride, vanity, self- absorption, anxiety, distrust- all of it just gets in the way of our hearing Your Voice clearly and understanding what You are saying. Lord, what we really need to is to totally surrender our hearts to You in total abandonment. Create in us O Lord a clean heart so that we can journey with You in an ever closer walk with You!

O Lord, is there is one prayer You always answer and from my experience answer quickly! In prayer, in Your Word, in what people around us may say, and in our circumstances. Because You are a generous God and a good, good Father who never reproaches us if we ask in faith but not in doubt or skepticism or as a challenge like the Pharisees in today’s Gospel! Lord grant us Your Wisdom! Mary, Seat of Wisdom pray for us!

Consider It All Joy

Posted byValerie Parisi February 11, 2024  EditConsider It All Joy

Today’s Consuming Fire Meditation- – A Daily Dose of the Flame of Love Diary Served Up with Today’s Scriptures

Monday of the Sixth Week of Ordinary Time

Consider It All Joy

Many times you were close to falling beneath the cross of difficult trials, and you still experience many sorrows over your children. Bearing such ordeals is meritorious for you and for any mother. By Divine Will, these experiences that affected your life have not been in vain. I have taken them all into consideration. (Mary) (November 19, 1962)

Today’s Readings: Consider it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you encounter various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. (James 1)

Prayer Meditation- Lord it can be so hard to count it all joy when we are so distracted by the noise of this world- the problems,  sorrows, anxieties, fears- we come so close to falling daily under the cross of difficult trials! But Lord, You know what is good for us- You know that the testing of our faith produces the perseverance we need to stand firm until the end (Matthew 24:13). Lord, all the strands that have gone into the making of the fabric of our lives have not been in vain- nothing is wasted  (John 6) of the scraps that we bring to You but united to Your Cross are restored into a beautiful tapestry of Grace!

Lord whatever we do be for Your Glory! Lord Jesus may we invite You this day into our eating, drinking, thinking, working, even our breathing for Your Glory Lord and for the good of all!