Hi Y’all,

There’s two million things in my head I want to share and write you about, but I often fall short with expressing myself in words.  Do you ever have this trouble?  Or the little voice that reminds you, “you have nothing good to say – so don’t bother”.  Friends and family tell me it’s a matter of confidence.  I believe them.  As a religious brother, I made a promise to pray every day the Liturgy of the Hours.  It is a text that has daily prayers in it for the morning, evening, night, and special feast days for our Blessed Mother and the Saints.  The prayers are made up of the psalms, responsory, reading from Scripture, prayers of intercession and the Our Father.  It’s quite beautiful really and once you get into it it has a way of transporting you spiritually.  Getting started with trying to enter into a mood of prayer will be a real struggle a lot .  At the beginning of developing a relationship with God will be somewhat like a honeymoon or like enjoying the company of a new friend you are getting to know.  Somehow that will get boring or the fire will slow down.  This is very normal.  What matters is sticking with it no matter what your feelings are.  I am more of a feelings person more than a rational “thinking” person so my struggle is with wanting to feel everything in my heart.  I know I have to think higher though and keeping my prayer life alive takes effort and discipline. In school, as a young person, I loved to party with my friends, I wanted to be liked by everybody, I wanted to be rewarded “class-clown” in high school. I didn’t win “class clown” which I was disappointed with and now looking back I see how silly that was.  But the desire to be accepted drove me to do some foolish things.  I know now that my disability had much to do with this need for acceptance.  I got laughed at everyday, stared at everywhere I went.  In high school, Instead of feeling sorry for myself, I turned it into feeling like I was a rock star and people looked because I was famous.  It got me through some difficult times. It made me not want to hide under a rock and be angry with those who were mean.  I also learned that many people laughed or stared or said mean things because they did not understand.  When I sat with them and answered their questions most of the time their whole demeanor changed.  This gave me a lot of confidence.  I also began to realize that by smiling and opening up to others I would be helping my fellow disabled brothers and sisters who were going through the same struggles all around the world.  I’m sure my life these days would not be the same if my mom had not handed me over to our Blessed Mother those many years ago.  That and the grace of God has helped lead me to where I am today, in the eyes of the world, basically no where, but hopefully in the eyes of God His friend and helper.       Your little brother,         Mark  hermits@hermitsofstgiles.org

Well everyone,