Seven Ways God is With You

Volume XXVIII, Number 3
February 27, 2024

Boy oh boy oh boy oh boy, today I bring you a beautiful gift, as promised.

It was inspired by the first person I see when I wake up every morning.

Because She Looks at You

Lately it's become impossible for me to ignore Our Lord's gentle but persistent prompting planted in my soul as I suffered during Operation True Cross, and it's this...

For you to have the same beautiful and miraculous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe that I see on my wall every night when I go to sleep and every morning when I wake up.

So I personally designed one just for you, from the hardwood oak frame to the rich burgundy matting and premium textured stock.

May Our Lady gaze upon you and console you as she does me!

It's touched to the same True Cross I carried with the other Cyrenes to form a mantle over our disintegrating nation—the same cross that triumphs on Easter Sunday.

Look closely at Our Lady. You are part of her hidden army.

See her. She sees you. She is a divinely-created gift.

Order Online $30

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The modest proceeds from this framed print will support our mission, and I simply cannot express how much I long for you to enjoy her loving gaze every day.

Seven Ways God is with You

I've been praying a lot more than any time in my life, and I took Father Ripperger's advice to read Saint Francis de Sales' brief guide to meditative prayer.

De Sales advises to begin mental prayer by bringing to mind four ways Our Lord is present.

First, the Holy Trinity, in all His Three Persons, is everywhere.

Second, Jesus is inside you (but only if you are in a state of sanctifying grace, so get thee to Confession forthwith if you've committed any mortal sins).

Third, Jesus is next to you, like a friend coming to sit with you in your living room.

Fourth, Jesus, King of Kings, is looking down upon you from his throne in the heavenly court with a burning love of his Sacred Heart. He is intensely concerned about everything happening to you on this day.

Two More Ways + A Bonus Way

To Saint Francis de Sales, I would add three more ways (not that he would disagree).

Fifth, when you receive the Holy Eucharist, Jesus is physically present body, blood, soul, and divinity inside your body.

Sixth, Jesus is actually inside the tabernacle—and the monstrance during adoration. So pray inside a church whenever you can!

Seventh, and this way gives me great consolation, perhaps because I love Aristotle and Saint Thomas Aquinas so much:

As Yahweh (which translates I-Am-Who-Am, that is, The One Who Is Being Itself), God is the source and cause of all being, and thus, anything that exists is being held in existence by Him.

That includes you and me, always.

New Light Bulb Jokes

Question: How many Buds does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Answer: One.

Question: How many Buds does it take to stew in a tight hole?

Answer: Bud, are you on drugs?

(I just made those up, and it shows.)

Pray with Me and Tens of Thousands

Let us call to mind all the ways God is with us, and look up to the throne of heaven, as we begin in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit...

Dear God,
In all the ways you can be with me...
I love you everywhere.
I love you inside me.
I love you next to me.
I love you gazing upon me.
I love you in the Eucharist within me.
I love you in the Eucharist before me.
I love you holding me in existence.
I beg you for the grace to love you more!
Amen.

And that's all for today. I'm right there with you during Lent. If you're off to the bad start, remember that Jesus fell three times, and got up three times.

So get up. Carry your cross.

Jesus needed the help of Simon the Cyrene, so ask a friend to encourage you in your Lenten reparations.

We pray. God wins.

Everything is fine.

With Our Lady of Victory,

Bud Macfarlane
Founder

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