JOURNEY

Welcome to JOURNEY! May this be a time rich in Grace for you. I assure each of you of my prayer that you may grow more deeply in love with the God who embraces you every step of the way through life. Many Blessings along the way! Sister Pat Duffy, OP

We can be kind...

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Welcome to JOURNEY! You are joining a community of people as together we enter the Word of God to discover all that God longs to share with us. JOURNEY is an experience of praying with the Word of God. The Scriptures are not just a record of a small group of people's experiences with God thousands of years ago. The Word of God is active and alive. When we pray with the Scriptures we enter the story of God and God's people. We enter the story not just in history but right here and right now in our time. Journaling is not the same as keeping a diary which is a record of our daily activities. A diary is all about "what", a journal is all about "so what" and "what now." When we bring together both praying with Scripture and journaling we have a rich tool for our spiritual life. .

. Throughout this year - on the first Friday of each month - I will email you a Scripture story along with my personal reflections. You will be invited to enter this Scripture and walk with it during the month. There will also be questions to help you reflect and open yourself to what God is revealing to you. JOURNEY will help you deepen your conversation with God. It is meant to be a place where you can safely record and reflect on the thoughts, feel-ings, and questions that arise in your prayer. Being candid with both yourself and God deeply enhances the whole of your life.

MAKE YOURSELF AVAILABLE TO GOD - You are asked to make a commitment to the process of JOURNEY. This is not to give you more work, but to help you focus yourself and weave JOURNEY into your daily life.

Everyone is asked to spend some time on the first Friday with each month’s Scripture. As you prepare to read the Scripture please take a few minutes to pray for everyone who will be sharing the prayerful reading of the Word of God. This means that on the first Friday of every month more than 530 people will be entering the Scripture together.

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TIME AND PLACE - As part of your commitment it is suggested that you set aside a time and place to work with the journal material. It is up to you to how best to do this. Some may find a weekly time while others discover that a series of days each month fits their schedule more comfortably. There is no right or wrong way to journal. It is your journey with Jesus. Be yourself and enjoy your experience and encounter with God. PRAYER COMPANION - Enclosed is a list of the first names of the participants in the JOURNEY. You are asked to circle one name each month and to pray for all those with that first name throughout the month. This is a way we can support each other along the way. PRATICAL MATTERS - To help you organize the material you will continue to receive along with your own writings I suggest you purchase a three hole binder, a package of loose leaf paper, and a hole punch. This way you can download the materials and place them in the binder. The loose leaf paper is for your journaling. You may also feel creative and add some art to your journal. You will be receiving your first installment of JOURNEY before the next first Friday. I assure you of my prayers for each of you during this special time, and ask your prayer for me along the way. with Love, Sister Pat Duffy, OP

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JOURNEY REFLECTION

Am I happy? Is my life a happy one? Am I happy inside my marriage? Am I happy with my family?

Am I happy with my job? Am I happy with my church? Am I happy inside my own skin?

Are these good questions to ask ourselves? No. They are questions with which to torture ourselves.

When we face our lives honestly this kind of question about happiness is more likely to bring tears to

our eves than solace to our souls because, no matter how well our lives are going, none of us live per-

fectly fulfilled lives. Always there are unfulfilled dreams. Always there are areas of frustration. Al-

ways there are tensions. Always there are deeper human hungers.

The question should not be: Am I happy? Rather the questions should be: Is my life meaningful? Is

there meaning in my marriage? Is there meaning in my family? Is there meaning in my job? Is there

meaning inside my church? We need to ask the deep questions about our lives in terms of meaning

rather than in terms of happiness. Meaning is what constitutes happiness and meaning isn’t contingent

upon pain and tension being absent from our lives. Imagine if someone had come up to Jesus as he was

dying on the cross and asked him the question: Are you happy up there? His answer, I am sure, would

have been an unequivocal: “No! And today in particular I am not happy!” However, the perspective is

quite different if, while on the cross, Jesus would have been asked this question” “Is there meaning in

what you are doing up there?” There can be deep meaning in something even if there isn’t happiness in

the way we might have conceived it.

We more easily grasp this when we reflect back on various periods of our lives. Looking back, from the

perspective of where we are today, we see that sometimes certain periods of our lives that were fraught

with all kinds of struggles and within which we had to make do with very little, were indeed, very happy

times. They were meaningful times and our present perspective washes back through time and we see

the joy. This is especially true of the spiritual aspects of our journeys. A very important question we

can ourselves is: “Has God been faithful?” If we can answer yes, even knowing that things did not turn

out as we thought they would, we can move forward in Hope trusting that our Faith will continue to sus-

tain us.

Faith is born of an encounter with the living God who calls us and reveals his love, a love which

precedes us and upon which we can lean for security and for building our lives… Faith, received

from God as a supernatural gift, becomes a light for our way, guiding our journey through time.

Pope Francis

We begin this time of JOURNEY from where we are here and now. But, we do not start with nothing.

We grow from the memory of God loving us and guiding us through our past days. This memory gives

us a holy longing to grow more deeply in love with the God who has loved us first (Jn1) and continues

to love us throughout each day. A holy longing for God helps us keep alert in the face of every attempt

to reduce or impoverish our lives. A holy longing for God is the memory of faith, which rebels before

all the prophets of fear and doom that surround us. That longing keeps hope alive! So, we begin with

the Gospel as our compass knowing that the Gospel is not an event of the past but of the present. The

Word of God is active and alive in our lives (Heb 4:12) Jesus present in his Word accompanies us and

rejoices as we make our prayer to him...

to see thee my clearly

love thee more dearly

follow thee more nearly

Day by Day (Godspel)

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