August 11, 2009 Happy feast of St. Clare of Assisi

“… Everything so far has made my day a loving and special one, especially I am experiencing that intimate longing I so desire to love my Lord who is too big for me to define what about him that I love, and I could not describe what and how I love when I say I love him. Now I know how St. Augustine felt.  I could not figure out my heart. I do feel his love in everything I encounter and of course it is overwhelmingly indescribable.  It is more than I could ever comprehend. My dear brothers' and sisters' words of caring and love through prayer have triggered this very special grace today.  It is much more special this time, even though I do not feel as good about my virtues and holiness as I did other years..."

I pray today especially that the dear Lord, through the intercession of the Blessed Mother and St. Clare as well as St. Francis, will grant you all the graces of love and of trust to be patient and be assured of how much you are loved and care for despite all the different struggles we are all experiencing as we travel the journey home.  AMEN.

 

This is the favorite prayer I received today and from the bottom of my heart where it is connected to his and her Sacred and Immaculate Hearts I ardently pray the same for you all:

“On this feast of your holy patroness,
may our Lord draw you ever closer to himself
and fill you with Light and the strength of His Love. 
Not only today but all the days of your life,
until you attain to the fullness of His light in glory.” 

It has been awhile since I last updated the news.  I apologize. Everything is going well.  As we all know, unless the Lord wants us to grow, he does not give us many distractions and problems to deal with.  These keep us alert and aware of our limitations and shortcomings and therefore we will try harder to learn about ourselves as we search for him.  It has been the case for me, though, everything has been rather good distraction and problem!  

 

-Here are some: My part-time jobs are going well.  I enjoy them and those I work with including all customers I have encountered

-I am extra busy and therefore could not do everything I used to do.

-By the grace of God, our Lady’s caring, and the prayers of many, my parents and my brother as a team got me a new car (a different car).  I am grateful to all.  My      280,000 mile Honda finally gave up on me which was a good thing.  It took a dead battery to stop me from driving it... My garage man warned me that the rusted        wheels may come off one of these days… 

-I have not been able to get back to my icon writing just yet. Though I am working on my calligraphy and have written a few new quotes which are available for sale.

-The spiritual group is going through some big changes and we have a new person who may be interested in joining us as she too is seeking to consecrate her self to God.  Please say a prayer for her.

 

Thank you all for your prayerful support.

June 19, 2009 HAPPY SOLEMNITY OF SACRED HEART OF JESUS! and IMMACULATE HEART OF THE BLESSED MOTHER

‘I like what you said: ”Take away my freedom to choose what is not your will.  Do to me as you please, and allow me to abandon my happiness to yours so in faith, I could have the strength to persevere and love you always.  Amen.”  This should be the cry of our souls.‘

How can we get a glimpse of what the Lord’s sacred heart and the Blessed Mother’s immaculate heart are like when we do not have enough faith to let go of our human weaknesses when it comes to love.  When we are open to love, no matter what kind, we are vulnerable. To love unconditionally is to take a risk!!!  Many of us do not have that capacity and are not brave enough to do so.  We either hold back our love for others or do not trust others’ unreserved love for us…  Who can blame us for our selfishness and doubt taking into consideration the many sad stories that happened to good people who suffered for the sake of unconditional love.  Well, they have become saints.  So we too have a choice to make!!! 

O God, come to our assistance. 
O Lord, make haste to help us.
Praise to the Father, to the Son and to the Holy Spirit both now and forever.
The God who is who was and is to come, at the end of the ages.

I praise the Lord for all the fresh graces he has bestowed on me in the last couple months.  There are many challenges which I consider them given opportunities to help me grow stronger in faith.  I have learned some new and valuable lessons.  When one hears God’s voice, unless she abandons her own will and makes an act of faith to carry out his plan for the love of him, she will not grow and advance in her search for him whom her heart loves.

May Jesus’ sacred heart and the Blessed Mother’s immaculate heart help unite our hearts to theirs so that love can conquer and transform this world for the salvation of mankind. Amen.

April 21, 2009

February 2, 2009  HAPPY FEAST OF THE PRESENTATION OF THE LORD!
Here comes the Righteous Joseph.  Dear St. Joseph, thank you for taking good care of the Lord Jesus and the Blessed Mother whose heart was pierced for she loved much and is now suffering for her banished children of Eve.  May you intercede for us all, especially fathers and husbands whom the Lord entrusts the holy task of protecting and providing for their family.  May your holiness, humility, righteousness and love inspire these men to be and to do all they can for the well being of their loved ones.  Amen.

Also, here is St. John the Baptist or St. John and Forerunner.  Once these icons are oiled in a month or so, they will be available for sale.  The fund will be invested in my next icon: the Crucifixion scene.  In God, I trust.  And as the Blessed Mother said, may his will for me be done.  Amen.

January 29, 2009 The beautiful Our Lady of Tender Compassion note cards are now available.  If you are interested, please go to the Order page to down load the Order Form.  In honor of our Lady of Lourdes, New Helfta is having a special sale: 15% off on all orders and free shipping for orders over $40.00. 

Please pray for special intentions, for wisdom and discernment.  These last few weeks, the Lord has been showering graces on New Helfta.  Some of which are more desirable and sweet (I categorized them because I am still a weak human) than others which showed me how much of a sinner I am.  I thank you for all who have been praying and supporting me, especially with my calling as an icon writer.  I just now finished two icons: St. Joseph and St. John the Forerunner.  I will update their pictures in a couple days or so. 

I have some good news to share.  Last Wednesday my icon teacher finally told me: “Congratulations! Finally you got it! J “  It was quite a compliment coming from him. What really reassured me of his sincerity was that when I asked him for a next icon to write, he entrusted me with a complicated and sophisticated one: The Crucifixion scene with five figures, architecture in the background and mountains)!  I always dreamed of doing something that big but never thought I could do it this soon when I consider myself a nobody compared to the great masters.  I felt so humble but at the same time very happy because I know it was the Lord who knew I could do it with his help.  I will benefit greatly from it as I meditate on the Crucifixion scene while depicting it, in both body and spirit as those who were there with him, and so will you all.   

This icon is going to be beautiful and will take me a very very long time as I am going to put all my heart, soul and mind into it.  I will have to invest a lot of time, energy as well as resources to allow God to bring it to life through my faith in him.  In the past, artists had generous patrons who commissioned them to create religious masterpieces that are now treasures which people all over the world flock to museums and churches to see them, especially in Europe.  I pray that I could find such a patron or patrons who are generous and faith filled enough to allow God to use their generosity to support the reviving of religious arts into public places.  Our Church needs them to help people in their living the faith more fervently and fruitfully as the artworks in Italian churches have helped convert me to Catholicism. 

With faith, as I dare to invest everything into this calling, I trust that God will provide somehow as he has sent generous people to help me with my many icon lessons of the past.  So please pray for his will be done and that we will cooperate with his grace to bring about what are good for our search and our love for him.  If you know of anyone who would be interested in commission such an audacious and elaborated icon, The Crucifixion scene, please have him/her to get in touch with me.  Many thanks for your prayer and your help spreading the words.     

O dear Tender Compassion Mother of our Lord, please teach us how to be good servants who are always ready to do his will for the honor and glory of God who so deserves our service, our fidelity and our love for the beloved Son who gave us his very self.  Amen.

January 10, 2009 I hoped and prayed that you had a grace-filled Christmas. May this year bring you even closer God who faithfully walks by your side day by day in love and fidelity. Amen.

Well, I trust the Lord and our Lady are pleased with the new icon image of Our Lady of Tender Compassion because it is the Holy Spirit who helped guide me through the process of writing it. Thanks to Jim and Ginny for commissioning an icon of that style. It is the combination of Eastern and Western styles and techniques I have learned from both Traditions. Note cards of the image will be available in a couple weeks. We probably will have some prints available in a few days in Genesee Abbey store. Remember that personalized note cards are always more especial if you want to give them to someone as a gift. The image sure is very beautiful! I thank you all who generously and faithfully prayed and are praying for me. I am now working on the icon of St. John the Baptist. It probably will take about two months or so to complete. I hope that it will be on time for my icon presentation in March.

Our spiritual group is reading the Steps of Humility and Pride: "As a growing Christian, I am learning how to recognize and trying to distance myself from my pride a little at a time with God's grace. Well, the sad truth is that I have come to accept the fact that my pride is not going anywhere any time soon. However what encouraging is that the loving and merciful Lord loves sinners who desire to cooperate with God's grace and try to repent. I pray for the grace to always perceive that when pride emerges, it is an opportunity for me to learn humility. As St. Bernard pointed out, only when I know how worst I am, I am able to have compassion for my neighbors. I have gone through the humiliation enough times to have begun to experience the miracle of true compassion, and even so it takes even greater effort at times,(thank God for his patience with me) for me to cooperate with God's will."

November 13, 2008 I spent some time with a young friend yesterday. She has many good qualities that you would not find in a typical teenager. Actually, I take it back. I am sure all teenagers have many good things in them, but because of the circumstances they have been through or have been exposed to, they do not have the opportunities and the inspirations to live out what are best in them. I pray that their hearts will be touched by God's love through others whom they will encounter because only then, they will find their way home to Him, who is love and is the only One who can give them everlasting happiness, security and peace. Amen.

With permission, my friend and I are trying to raise a certain amount of fund for an important project for her. So instead of doing something fun, we agreed on doing something good and saving the money we would spend toward our fund. We went to church, visited an elderly friend and dinned at the nursing home with the Italian grandparents. We ordered the pizza and ate with them there. We had a good time. Praise the Lord!

God sure uses this special friend to inspire me to pray for the grace to be able to help more young teenagers like her to find love and rest in Him and to be the best they are made to be. I am following the light wherever the Lord and his Blessed Mother are showing me. Please pray for us. Thank you.