The Infinite Miraculous Relationships

by Monk Thomas Hildebrand



I will wash my hands in
innocence;
So I will go about Your altar,
O Lord,
That I may proclaim with the
voice of thanksgiving,
And tell of all Your wondrous
works.
Lord, I have loved the habitation
Of your house,
And the place where Your glory
dwells.

Psalm 26


It's 4:30 in the afternoon and it's late to go for a hike. I don’t know where the energy is going to come after work but I start up the hill behind my house deep in the woods. I start to get a second wind and then recognize the moving prayer within myself. It starts without words. Radiating in and radiating out like a field around me. It’s like redemption after the last 3 hours trying not to think about the lump on my daughter’s breast that the doctors biopsied today. Come God… I can feel the atmosphere change… Blessed mother, come close Yeshua.

It’s nice to sit with the life experiences that bring us joy. The scripture says there will be a force against us. Something will come and challenge our beliefs. Today I’m sitting with what is making me feel broken and allow God to enter deeper into my body and soul. It’s easy for me to be a pleasure seeker. I am addicted to feeling good. Also, I often put my kids in front of everything including God. When I completely open my heart and my calendar to God I start to become congruent. It can be as simple as taking communion daily.

I had throat cancer 5 years ago and a bacterial infection close to my heart this last October that put me in the hospital. Mother Mary Guadalupe touched my arm and called out to me during the first MRI. You found me and held me during the 5 weeks of radiation therapy. Whatever that kink in my life that was happening today on the trail, whatever that pain was in my knee that happened while I walked the Camino de Santiago 2 years ago. I can call out to you and have you respond. I call out and ask “what do I do now”. I can surrender the pain. I surrendered and was grateful that I was there on the Camino. Like this moment I am grateful that I am here, that my children are here. That I feel the love of blessed mother, the intercessors, the love of God.

The divine intercessors and their love have come in prayer and without my asking. I was sitting in my car after one of my first CLM retreats and I asked archangel Raphael how to integrate and carry this divine experience back into the world of work and kids. I felt a blanket come over my shoulders. We had a conversation that connected me with a deeper experience of the sacred and a knowing that the relationship is always there for me. In Brazil, I used to walk into the casa and go to the bronze bust of St Ignacious. I would put my forehead against his. He was very clear about what I was going to do that day, where to go and sit and what to focus on. St Ignacious showed me a flow. He showed me a way to swim and allow my uniqueness to be. One day I found a medallion with his head and name inscribed next to my bike at the casa. We have to ask for the relationship for the miracle to happen. It has been a powerful experience to pick a Saint every year and integrate my life with them. I need to constantly choose to be with them in prayer or contemplation.

Last week I had a call with one of my favorite friends who is struggling with a serious health challenge. We talked about what happens and how simple everything gets when we are deeply broken. Simplicity sets in. It’s so different than the heartbreak I feel watching someone I love suffer. If I hit a bump or kink during the day I will stop. I will sit with it and ask for help, ask to surrender and see all that is there. To allow God, or blessed mother, Jesus to show up in a bigger way to remind me that I am not alone that I am never alone. Then I keep moving and grace comes in. Its moving from one moment to the next and I am being held. The experiences of deep brokenness have made my faith deepen. I learn over and over again how to respond to life without the wounds leading the way.

After the last retreat, I am again in a new relationship with the divine. At first some criticism showed up “why am I not with God all the time, why does someone have to tell me about this place with God?”. God patiently, in so much stillness says. ‘It is, it is Thomas’. It’s like I was looking for a reward. I took a next step. I did something. It’s not about failure or success. It’s about being. I feel the character of the divine wants to hold me in deep grace. I feel my mind trying to figure it out figure everything out. The plans are gone. The houses I am building or have built, the dreams of a special life, the children, the loves they are all God. I get to witness the love in them. Ultimately not own them. God wants me to participate like dancing with a leaf in the wind. I’m being stretched and I have no other life experience to relate it to. It feels like the edge of a cliff and I am jumping. I know I can let go and hold on to God.

Having the fullness of God in my life all the time with all my relationships. I would like to walk with this.

Two weeks have passed since writing this. Thank you God that the growth in my daughters breast was benign. Thank you God, Thank you God, Thank you God.


Come holy spirit, bathe us in your loving compassion and your healing. Go deep into those areas of our body, our hearts, our relationships that still keep us from acknowledging you as our God of everything. Mother Father God thank you for our children, our loves, our lives. You have everything that will work together for the good. Thank you for what we walk into. The grounding of our relationship because we are your sons and daughters. Increase your favor, your blessings, your love, your passions. Everything gets resolved in your light.

Prayer by Padre Paul