HUMILITY is our refuge.
It is that safe place where Satan cannot lure our eyes, because our face is to the ground. We do not wander, because we are lying prostrate. And we acquire wisdom, because our tongue is stilled.
TONIGHT, again, I sense an urgency to uproot whatever distractions and vices I still cling to. There are abundant graces there to do it… graces, I believe, for anyone who honestly asks.
There is no time to waste. We must begin now to prepare for what is to come “like a thief in the night”. And what is to come?
Let him who has eyes, see; who has ears, listen.
THE Lord sees the desires of our heart. He sees our desire to be good.
And so, in spite of our failures, and even sin, He runs to embrace us… just as the Father ran to embrace the prodigal son, who was covered in the shame of his rebellion.
Hence, Gabriel announced to Mary, "Be not afraid!"; the glorious throng announced to the shepherds, "Be not afraid!"; the two angels encouraged the women at the tomb, "Be not afraid!"; and to his disciples after His resurrection, Jesus repeated, "Be not afraid."
DURING prayer this past week, I have been so distracted in my thoughts that I can barely pray a sentence without drifting away.
This evening, while meditating before the empty manger scene at the church, I cried out to the Lord for help and mercy. As quickly as a falling star, the words came to me:
"Blessed are the poor in spirit".
Tolerance and Responsibility
RESPECT for diversity and peoples is what the Christian faith teaches, no, demands. However, this does not mean “tolerance” of sin.’
…[our] vocation is to deliver the whole world from evil and to transform it in God: by prayer, by penance, by charity, and, above all, by mercy. —Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island
It is charity to not only clothe the naked, comfort the sick, and visit the prisoner, but to help one’s brother not to become naked, sick, or imprisoned to begin with. Hence, the Church’s mission is also to define that which is evil, so good may be chosen.
Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought. —POPE JOHN PAUL II
Leaping Upward
WHEN I’ve been free for a time from trials and temptations, I admit I’ve thought this was a sign of growing in holiness… at last, walking in the strides of Christ!
…Until the Father gently lowered my feet to the ground of tribulation. And again I realized that, on my own, I merely take baby steps, stumbling and losing my balance.
God doesn’t set me down because He no longer loves me, nor to abandon me. Rather, so I recognize that the greatest strides in the spiritual life are made, not leaping forward, but upward, back into His arms.
Peace
PEACE is a gift of the Holy Spirit,
contingent on neither the pleasure, nor suffering of the flesh. It is a fruit,
born in the depths of the spirit, just as a diamond is born
in
the
depths
of
the
earth…
far below either sunshine or rain.
Tolerance?
THE intolerance of “tolerance!”
It is curious how those who accuse Christians of
hatred and intolerance
are often the most venomous in
tone and intent.
It is the most obvious—and easily over-looked
hypocrisy of our times.