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talking to myself

A blog by markdohle in General

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personal stuff

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personal

A deeply relevant talk by Jordan Peterson

A deeply relevant talk by Jordan Peterson   I think this video explains well the process of self-knowledge, and how difficult a path it actually is to take. It makes me also understand better, the understanding of a place after death for what is often called purification, the church calls it purgative, a part of our journey that has to be taken, either now, or after death. Healing is not easy, but necessary. This is well worth watching I believe.   The healing that comes from mercy can only
markdohle

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personal reflection

The Cosmic Battle So-Called

The Cosmic Battle So-Called     Lord,   I am not sure I have ever done lent well, or correctly, though I have the desire.     How I fight change, the shedding needed to grow new skin, more supple and open to your infinite light.     Sometimes I feel like I am under a rock, not wanting to step into the all-revealing light, yet you prod, push, cajole, and won’t let go, of that I am thankful.     For my fear is automatic, my inner walls built before I could reason, only you s
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personal beliefs

To Embrace Life

To Embrace Life   (Ash Wednesday 2022)   Letting go of the many things I love will come about, in one day, or over a lifetime. I can fight it, hide from the reality of my mortality, yet like all things else one day, in a single moment, peacefully or not, I will depart.   The gift of aging is that the corner I have always stood in gets smaller, a hard fact, yet it causes me to wonder, pray, contemplate, what my life is for, and to what am I moving towards.   Christ Jes
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personal reflection

I Just Stumble Along​

I Just Stumble Along   Lord,   I guess the world has always been hanging on by its fingertips, yet today, it seems like there is just one finger clinging to the ridge, just hanging on.   I don’t try to trust lord, I just do it, trust, and let go, for I don’t understand much, except for the revelation of your love, the Father’s love for us.   Even then, understanding is slow. I still do not get it, or live it, just stumble along, getting up very often after I fall on my fa
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personal reflection

We tend to think of ‘Christ in our neighbor’, instead of thinking ‘Christ is our neighbor’,

We tend to think of ‘Christ in our neighbor’, instead of thinking ‘Christ is our neighbor’, “The proof of your love for God is the affectionate care you take of your neighbor. Be sure that you see Me in him, that you charm Me when you charm him. This will keep you humble beside him. Always be the smallest. Think of the size of the Host. Begin today to do your best to speak to Me when you speak to your neighbor. I expect this of you this afternoon when you get together with your friends. Yo
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personal reflection

Learning the price of receiving and giving mercy

Learning the price of receiving and giving mercy   “My love is the source of everything. Did you think it was My pity? My pity, yes, but moved by this love of Mine that is greater than all other loves. I can only teach you about it little by little, because you are so fragile. For you would faint like the beloved in the Song of Solomon if more vehement words from My heart fell upon your ear, and if, as in beautiful books, I added pictures. You’re thinking, ‘He’s talking to me again about love.’
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personal reflection

Monastery Retreat House Newsletter Feburary 2022

Life at the Monastery 110) O Divine Master, what happens in my soul is your work alone! You, O Lord, are not afraid to place the soul on the edge of a terrible precipice where it stands, alarmed and filled with fright, and then You call it back again to Yourself. These are your imponderable mysteries. Faustina’s Diary   ++++++++++ Hello everyone, well another month has flown by, and here I am again writing another News-Letter. The church is still in the process of being ‘redone
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personal reflection

Grace is always at work (Monastic Memory 2)

Grace is always at work (Monastic Memory II)   A big challenge for me is to accept the fact that a great deal of my inner life can seem to be like I am just treading water, keeping my head above the inner chaos. Yet I know that is not true, at least from an experiential level. Grace as the saying goes, ‘does work in secret’. When life is lived seeking God, the truth, and wanting to live from that space, then it is grace that in the end creates us. If we choose not to do that, then we creat
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personal reflection

Living in the Truth (Sunday Chapter 2/13/22)

Living in the Truth (Sunday Chapter 2/13/22)   14 The Prophet indicates this to us when he shows that our thoughts are always present to God, saying: God searches hearts and minds (Ps 7:10); 15 again he says: The Lord knows the thoughts of men (Ps 93[94]:11); 16 likewise, From afar you know my thoughts (Ps 138[139]:3); 17 and, The thought of man shall give you praise (Ps 75[76]:11). 18 That he may take care to avoid sinful thoughts, the virtuous brother must always say to himself: I shall
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personal reflection

Getting out of our own way

Getting out of our own way “Be alive in Me. I live in you; let Me feel everything in you. Of course, even your faults. Am I not compassion personified? Haven’t I the power to blot out everything? To make crooked things straight?” Bossis, Gabrielle. He and I (Kindle Locations 2565-2567).   Pauline Books and Media. Kindle Edition. ++++++++++ I do believe that some of our brothers and sisters, lower down on the tree of life, do have self-awareness, and even some sort of interior life.
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personal reflection

A woman praying in our church (A grace-filled encounter) Pre-Covid experience

A woman praying in our church (A grace-filled encounter) Pre-Covid experience   As a guest master, one of my duties which I enjoy is to set up the books in the choir stalls for our guests. We have 44 places and on some weekends all of them are needed. Today I was setting up the books for Vespers when I noticed two women coming through the back gate into our church. We prefer to keep the gate closed outside of our services because we have a lot of people coming through.   So I walked up t
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personal reflection

Embracing Hope in a Time of Chaos

Embracing Hope in a Time of Chaos   We live in a time of chaos and fear. Our country is in turmoil, people are lashing out, and violence is on the rise. Yet as faith-filled people we are called to hope. No one knows what awaits us, but our faith can root us in the present and spare us unnecessary anxiety and worry. This retreat will help us to remember that our hope is in Jesus Christ Our Lord!   ++++++++++   No matter the times we live in, events are fluid, they flow forward, but what dir
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personal reflection

There is no soul which is not bound to pray

There is no soul which is not bound to pray   Prayer. – A soul arms itself by prayer for all kinds of combat. In whatever state the soul may be, it ought to pray. A soul which is pure and beautiful must pray, or else it will lose its beauty; a soul which is striving after this purity must pray, or else it will never attain it; a soul which is newly converted must pray, or else it will fall again; a sinful soul, plunged in sins, must pray so that it might rise again. There is no soul which is n
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personal reflection

Two Trees, Two Monks (First published in Jan 2009)

Two Trees, Two Monks (First published in Jan 2009)   We have a sidewalk here going East and West laid in different colors of stone… black, and tan and white ending in a little cul-de-sac. Very tiny actually, connected to another sidewalk going North and South. I often like to walk there in the early morning, long before the sun shows it rays.   In the far past, perhaps about 30 years ago, two trees were planted at this spot, where the two sidewalks meet. Corentine was Paul’s assistant;
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personal reflection

How does a place become holy?

How does a place become holy? We get so many people out here, and many find solace, not because of the monks, but perhaps because the holiness and the healing that people experience, actually flow from the love and prayers of the many that come here on a regular basis. We are all used, I guess by God if we are open to it, and perhaps we are used for others, even when we aren’t conscious of God working through us.   What people see here, and what I experience, are two different things. In t
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David the 4th oldest

David the 4th oldest   Growing up in a large family for me was a great blessing. Family life can be experienced as difficult, but also, I believe for most, there are more blessings than there were of problems. Each sibling is unique, and the process that is involved in growing to understand each one of them, has been a great help for me in my life in grasping some little comprehension of those around me. Below is some history that I shared with my brother David. I had the privilege of spending
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personal reflection

An inkling of God, his love, compassion, and mercy

An inkling of God, his love, compassion, and mercy   Let the greatest sinners place their trust in My mercy. They have the right before others to trust in the abyss of My mercy. My daughter, write about My mercy towards tormented souls. Souls that make an appeal to My mercy delight Me. To such souls, I grant even more graces than they ask. I cannot punish even the greatest sinner if he makes an appeal to My compassion, but on the contrary, I justify him in My unfathomable and inscrutable mercy
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The Father's love for each of us​

The Father's love for each of us As I age, if there is a stumbling block to my faith; it would be the conviction that God is the unique Father of each individual. It is much easier to believe that God sees humankind but does not see each of us as separate, loved, and sought after. How is the possible? Well as far as we experience life, I would say it is not possible. Yet it happens. God is other, yet not less than we are but something ‘wholly other’ and incomprehensible to the human mind. Eve
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Fragility is also an important aspect of creation

Fragility is also an important aspect of creation We like to think in terms of strength, power, and control. Yet fragility is also an important aspect of creation. A reality, that as we age, experience more and more. Friends and family members who belong to our generation get sick, have serious chronic health conditions, and die. There is nothing we can do to stop this development, yet we can learn not to fear it, even if unpleasant. In my family, this fragility of life, the shortness of our e
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“As I experience God’s mercy, so I believe it is the same for all”

“As I experience God’s mercy, so I believe it is the same for all”   “It is Jesus you seek when you dream of happiness; he is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; he is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is he who provokes you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is he who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is he who reads in your hearts your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle. --
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A place to stand from

A place to stand from   If we have no place to stand from, something to believe in this can be a terrifying place to live from because of the absurdity of it all. For I believe we fear the suffering and death of those we love, more than we do about our own aging process. Faith I believe gives us the strength to face life and to live out what must be passed through. It is not about pie in the sky, but about understanding the importance of this life and how dark periods do not steal our peace
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personal reflection

New Year 2022 Solemnity of Mary Mother of GodTime, Prayer, and the Inner Journey

New Year 2022 Solemnity of Mary Mother of GodTime, Prayer, and the Inner Journey “Let Me live in you. If your poverty overwhelms you, you may be sure that this is the very thing that draws Me to you. You can always take My love if your coldness makes you afraid. I am your Creator, but you are My little girl, and I know all about your emotions as I know every wave of the sea. Even before you speak, I hear you, since I live in you. Do you want Me to walk in your ‘garden enclosed’?” Bossis, G
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