"To write well and speak well is mere vanity if one does not live well." St. Bridget of Sweden
God is not interested in how well we write or speak. But he looks at how well we live. The ability to write and speak are gifts from him. Using them from his glory and the proclamation of truth reflects how we live in relationship to him. Even when we write and speak on his behalf, if we are not living what we profess, there is no merit for us. Write well, speak well, but above all love and live well.
"I call to you from my quiet darkness. Show me your mercy and love. Let me see your face, hear your voice, touch the hem of your cloak. I want to love you, be with you, speak to you and simply stand in your presence. But I cannot make this happen. Pressing my eyes against my hands is not praying, and reading about your presence is not living in it. But there is a moment in which you will come to me, as you did to your fearful disciples, and say, “Do not be afraid; it is I.” Let that moment come soon, O Lord. And if you want to delay it, then make me patient. Amen." Henri Nouwen
"I cannot make this happen." It is a grace from God. Mary Magdala sought the Lord with tears, when she found the empty tomb. While Peter and John saw the empty tomb and went away. Mary Magdala remained with a searching and longing heart. When Jesus came to her, she did not recognize him, because she was seeking a dead body. When Jesus uttered her name in love, she recognized the Lord and clung to him. God gives us the grace to seek him with our whole being but only reveals himself to us, when our hearts are ready to receive him as he is, not as we want. Like the bride in the Song of Songs, we need to continue to seek the Beloved no matter what it takes. He will come, not on our terms, but on his.
" Worldly love aims at pleasing everyone and saddening no one. Many call this politeness, but it is simply, self-praise and flattery." At. Anthony Mary Zaccaria
How often have we fallen into this type of behavior! This type of love is opposite to the love that Jesus commands us in the Scriptures, the love true disciples must avoid. If true love is to be other-centered, sincere, and unconditional, then it refuses to flatter for the sake of response. We profess our love to many people in our lives, how authentic is it? If it is then whether the other receives it or responds to it, really doesn't matter, only my motive and intent. True love seeks to please God, whether it pleases the other or not. True love leaves us fulfilled in Christ. Worldly love leaves us empty, repeating the same pattern. True love is being true to self, in so far as it is seeking the real good of the other.
"Believe more in his love than in our weakness." St. Theresa of Calcutta
St. Paul had the same conviction from God, who revealed to him: "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." To this St. Paul concluded: "For when I am weak, then I am strong." (2 Cor. 12:9-10). Yes, in my humanity because of sin, I am weak and broken. That is why the Son of God because Man. He came to overcome the chains that keep us in bondage and weakness. I am still am weak, but when I turn to the Lord and yield to him my weakness, in his loving mercy he gives me the grace to stand firm. Not only must I believe in the power of his love, but I must embrace it . If I don't reach for and cling to the life preserver thrown to me, I will drown. But if I hang on to the grace of God's grace, I shall be saved.
"Words often leave us with a sense of inner defeat. They can even create a sense of numbness and a feeling of being bogged down in swampy ground. Often they leave us in a slight depression, or in a fog that clouds the window of our mind. In short, words can give us the feeling of having stopped too long at one of the little villages that we pass on our journey, of having been motivated more by curiosity than by service. Words often make us forget that we are pilgrims called to invite others to join us on the journey. Peregrinatio est tacere. “To be silent keeps us pilgrims.” Henri Nouwen
Why is silence so hard for many people? Is it a fear of being alone? How often do we talk for the sake of talk, as a way of avoiding the awkwardness of silence? Yet, many times it is only in the inner silence of our hearts that we will be able to hear the gentle whisper of God's loving voice. But you may say, what if he doesn't speak? Even so, the grace of silence puts us in his presence, acknowledging our dependency upon him. He owes us nothing. We owe him everything, from existence, to redemption, to sanctification, to our inheritance.
"The power of the Spirit fills the whole universe, but he gives himself only o those who are worthy, acting in each according to the measure of his faith." St Basil the Great
Unless we believe and act on that faith, the Spirt does not find a place to rest. Many people profess belief in the Holy Spirit, but do not invite him in, do not yield to the movement of the Spirit. They may have received the Sacrament of Confirmation, but they never expected anything to happen. There is a block to the release of the power of the Spirit. It is like a building is connected to a transformer which conveys electric current to the building, but switch at the breaker panel is off.. A conscious effort must be made to to activate the switch. That may be what is missing when the Holy Spirit is not moving in our lives freely. Believe and invite the Holy Spirit to freely have his way.
"In all your deeds and words you should look upon Jesus as your model. Do so whether you are walking, keeping silence, or speaking, whether you are alone or with others, He is perfect, and thus yo0u will be not only irreprehensible, bu praiseworthy.:" St. Bonaventure
St. Paul gives us the same message.in his Letter to the Colossians. "Let everything whatsoever that you do, whether in word or in deed, be done all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God the Father through him." Yes, this is an ideal, but it is one that will bring us into a deeper relationship with the Lord of our lives. For if we can't say or do something in the name of Jesus, it has no eternal value. It may have negative value. If Jesus is our Lord, then we should be choosing to say and do what reflects his centrality in our lives. In this way, sin becomes less a reality in our lives. Instead, virtue becomes more important.
"Every creature is a divine word because it proclaims God" St. Bonaventure
Our very existence is a miracle of God's goodness by virtue of creation. Do we proclaim God by our existence or do we proclaim ourselves? By the fact of being reconciled by the death and resurrection of Jesus, we are a sign of God's infinite love and mercy. How do we proclaim this to others? By adoption we are chosen sons and daughters of God with a destiny to be with God forever. Does our life proclaim this to others or do we forget who we truly are? Be the light to the world pointing to God as our beginning and end and leading others to him.
"What we love we shall grow to resemble." St. Bernard
Love is transforming. It unites us to the one loved in such a way that we begin to become one with that person. We see this with older couples who over the years have seen their mutual love deepened. They seem to know what the other thinks before they speak. They can anticipate the need of the other. Their bond is so complete, that when one dies, often the other follows soon after. The same is true with our love for God and his for us. His love has the effect of perfecting us to be the person we potentially can be. Our love for him inspires in us a desire to be one with him so that we can be like him in all things. As children resemble their parents, so as God's children, we reflect his attributes in our lives. Our desire is to be "a spiritual chip off the old block."
"He who labors as he prays lifts his heart to God with his hands." St. Benedict
Most people limit prayer to an occasional effort. St. Benedict goes beyond and sets the bar higher. Pray as you work. This doesn't happen easily, but with practice it becomes normal and easier. If prayer is both talking and listening to God. Why can't we do this while we are working? St. Paal said "Pray unceasingly." Basically, pray at different times. How different would our labor be if we are sharing with God about what we are doing, if we are thanking God for the ability to work, if we are aware of God's presence with us, while we work. Begin in little ways.
"Take away the fuel, and you take away the fire." St Ulrich
In times of temptation, we provide the fuel for the fire of sin to ignite. Temptations are not the problem. What we do with it is. The more we focus on the object of the temptation, the more we are heating up the situation. It is like placing a magnifying glass over a piece of paper in a scorching sunny day. It is not the rays of the sun that is the problem. It is our magnifying the object that is. Defuse the temptation by distracting yourself, which is removing the magnifying glass and removing yourself from the situation. No fuel, no fire. No fuel, no sin.
"The measure of love is love without measure." St. Bernard
This short, pithy statement is rich in meaning. Most people qualify their love by putting conditions on it. I loved you. I expect you to love me in turn. That is not love but selfishness. For the focus of that statement is self, not other. True love is unconditional and faithful. Its only desire is the best for the other, without anything in return, except the happiness of the other. This is agape love, the love that God manifests to us. God loves us because he loves us for who we are. If we don't love in return freely, that is our lost. He will still love us. In doing, he calls us to love without measure, so that we can fulfill our potential, becoming the person we are called to be.
"We should be displeased with ourselves when we commit sin, for sin is displeasing to God. Sinful though we are, let us at least be like God in this, that we are displeased at what displeases him. In some measure then you will be in harmony with God's will, because you find displeasing in yourself what is abhorrent to your Creator." St. Augustin
This will be possible with the grace of God when we are in love with God than we are with self. It is this love that gives us the strength and the conviction to choose the Lover rather than an object. Is it a wonder that the commandment that Jesus gives us is simply love God totally and love self and others because of our love for God. One of the ways that God has taught me to deal with temptation is to say frequently during the day "I love you." If I love God intentionally at the moment, I will choose to please him. I am still a struggling sinner till the moment of death.
"Christian, remember your dignity, and now that you share in God's own nature, do not return by sin to your former base condition. Bear in mind who is your head and of whose body you are a member. Do not forget that you have been rescued from the power of darkness and bought into the light of God's kingdom." Pope Leo the Great
How important it is to keep always before us this truth of our identity in Christ! We belong to the Lord. All we do or say should reflect this reality. To take our focus off God, our source of being and new life and put our focus on ourselves is to move from the spirit to the flesh. When we seek to please God and not self, we will more effectively stay far from sin. The focus of sin is self outside relationship with God. Jesus in his humanity kept his eyes on the Father, always seeking to do the will of the Father and not his own outside of the Father. He taught the same to his disciples. "Seek first the kingdom of God."
"Worldly love aims at pleasing everyone and saddening no one. Many call this politeness, but it is simply self-praise and flattery." St. Antony Mary Zaccaria
If it was true love, it would be spoken for the good of the other with no expectation of any return. But since it is worldly love it is automatically false and superficial. And the fruit it bears is sour and destructive. But if our love for the other reflects God's love for us, it will bear fruit that lasts eternally. Beware of the flatterer for the trapped laid is to enslave us. On the other hand, true love always frees us to be who really are and to reach our full potential. That is the love God shows us.
"My confidence is placed in God who does not need our help for accomplishing His designs. Our part is to pray that we may be worthy of becoming His instruments." St. Aloysius Gonzaga
Sometimes, we think we are the mover and shaker in the things of our lives. We fail to realize that we are only creatures in the guiding hands of the Creator. He is the potter and we are the clay. In our dance of life, he leads and we follow. He doesn't make mistakes, but sometimes we get in his way. We think that we know it all. We sing the tune, "I did it my way," only to realize that my way was not his way. What we end up with is far less than what it could have been, if we followed the lead of God. When we depend on the Lord, there is harmony; when we go on our own, we risk chaos.
"Always forward, never turn back." St. Junipero Serra
This is a simple axiom for the spiritual life. To look forward is to keep our eyes on our inheritance, namely union with God. To turn back is to look or yearn for what is not of God. Recall what happened to Lot's wife. The angel of the Lord was leading the family away from the destruction of the wicked city. When she looked back, she froze in time. Looking forward doesn't make our journey easy nor smooth. It involves ups and downs, but it is a slow progress forward. To look back is a sign of a longing for the past. This was the sin of Israel during the Exodus. God was leading them to the Promise Land. They didn't trust God. They yearned for the fleshpots of Egypt, where they were slaves. As a result, many did not enter the Promised Land. As hard as the journey forward is, followed the lead of the Lord, let go the yearnings for the fleshpot of sin. Be assured of reaching the Promised Land.
"Brief indeed is our time for loving, for giving, for making atonement. It would be very wrong, therefore, for us to waste it, or to cast this treasure irresponsibly overboard. We mustn't squander this period of the world's history which God has entrusted to each one of us." St Josemaria Escriva
While we do the normal things of life that require our attention, do we neglect the more important aspects of our life in relation to God? So often this is the case. We treasure the mundane things over the eternal things. We spend more energy on what is here today and gone tomorrow than on the things that last eternally. Often we wrongly feel that we don't have the energy or the time to do both. But in reality, if we put our relationship with God first, then surprisingly we will have the energy to do both. Why? When we yoke ourselves to Christ, he pulls the heavy load for and with us. He shows us the way to prioritize our duties.
