The Power of Praise: Reflections on the Psalms from Santa Barbara Mission, California Including Music

By J A Russell

The Psalms enter Gods heart, reaching from the height and depth of our being. What makes the Psalms so especially relevant to our prayer life is that they were part of the prayer life of Jesus, hallowed words prayed to His Father in Heaven. The beautiful surroundings of the Santa Barbara Mission in California lend themselves to contemplating the splendour of creation and the marvel of God as Creator. In this book the chosen Psalms reflect the joy that is found in delighting in God, the comfort found in resting in Him.
However we pray the Psalms, saying or chanting them, we can come ever deeper into the healing Presence of God, knowing His love for us as His beloved children in Christ Jesus.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Nov 17, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496995094

J A Russell

With the coming of Vatican ll in the 1960s, the author, as a Catholic mother of young children, welcomed the invitation to become a catechist involved with preparation for the sacraments of first confession and holy communion. She found that the more she expressed her faith, the more her faith was strengthened. It was certainty in God’s presence in the sacraments that enabled her to continue practicing her faith in times of adversity, with constant awareness of living in the light of God’s presence on the journey back to him. It is through a deep and continuous relationship as daughter of a loving father who is here with us in every aspect of our lives—whether serving him at home in the kitchen or at the altar in church, suffering in illness, or running freely along a beach—that the author wishes to encourage the reader to also seek a personal encounter with the Holy Spirit of God, holding on to the promises Jesus gives in the gospels. As a young person, the author found a great sense of God’s omnipresence through traveling widely and attending mass in foreign countries (mass still being said in Latin), being greatly influenced by the beauty and wonder of creation. Throughout a time of suffering, it was a great comfort to her to experience this same God present in her difficulties—still loving, still guiding, and patiently leading her into a deep experience of his powerful healing and grace. The author has great devotion to the mother of God and over the years has found immense joy as a Eucharistic minister. As a Catholic, she has seen the coming together of Christians in shared services. She has love of prayer, singing, and composing sacred music and is author of several inspiring books on God’s powerful presence, having a long-held desire to share the wonder of God’s life and healing light, which remain with us throughout even the simplest of things in our everyday life.

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© 2014 J A Russell. All rights reserved.

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Published by AuthorHouse 11/13/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4969-9507-0 (sc)

978-1-4969-9509-4 (e)

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In loving memory of my brother

Christopher M Carroll 1944 -2010

Montecito,

near Santa Barbara, California

1965 – 2010

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Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church,

Montecito

CONTENTS

Forward Christmas and the Santa Barbara Mission

The Spanish Presence

21 Missions

The Power of Praise

Walking in the Light

Unmerited Love

Santa Barbara Mission

The Message and Origins of the Crib

The Virgin of Guadalupe

The Poinsettia Plant

Reflections

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Fray Junipero Serra, OFM

the founder of the Missions system in Alta California

Forward

Christmas and the Santa Barbara Mission

Santa Barbara on the west coast of California in the U.S.A. is such a place that it seems the sun hits the earth and seeps right into it, rather like the soul pleasing to God, who then rests there and chooses to make His Home in it.

There is balm to be found in this place of tranquillity where the presence of centuries of prayer and the very surroundings themselves provide a setting in which to bring oneself directly to the feet of the Lord.

In this naturally beautiful area of the Ynez Valley, it seems equally natural to the spirit within to look to the hills, to the magnificence of our Creator and to let praise freely flow to Him.

California at Christmas time appears rather unusual to the native English eye with live animals in the mangers, the thick, white wool on the sheep seeming heavy and superfluous in the warmth of the sun. The Churches, squares and streets are filled with the bright red of poinsettias, with rows of colourful flowers in array, shining, dancing, swaying, as if delighting in being held in the gentleness of God’s Hands.

At this time of the year, all that we in England outwardly associate with Christmas seems so out of place in this benign climate, its soothing air reaching into the depths, gladdening the heart and mind. So remote now the hostile steely-grey of winter, with far distant vistas unimpeded by cloud or fog or mist, replaced by the piercing brilliance of azure-blue skies, soft translucent colours of shimmering trees and well laid-out gardens reminiscent of an English summer. And yet, praise God, this very contrast inwardly magnifies the Feast of the Incarnation, heightening awareness of the fact that God becoming man is being celebrated throughout the world once more, adored and worshipped by believers right around the globe.

The Universe is aglow with God’s love and Christmas is the perfect time for recalling how one Babe in one manger saves one world, saves not one man but everyman, saves not one land but all the land. The whole world is alive with the power, creativity and benevolence of God; this theme was captured by the English poet, a convert and Jesuit priest, Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889) when he wrote the poem ‘The World is Charged with the Grandeur of God’ in which he speaks of Creation as a means through which we can expect to find God where, for all mans’ blindness to His mercy and blessing, ‘nature is never spent’.

Immersed in God’s Creation, it is easy to ponder on His power at work, how He upholds the mountains, the stars, the sun, the moon, the seas and all that is therein, and to be at one with the Holy Spirit, contemplating how He permeates through and around and in the earth night and day.

It is as though a current of electricity continually circulates the world waiting for all men to be alerted to its actions. In these beautiful surroundings it is easy to recognise the omnipresence of our Loving Father