~Meditation for today~

Be an example of sincere faith and of a life pleasing to God, and, like the Apostles, you will be the fragrance of Christ, drawing all people to follow Him.  But do not importune all people indiscriminately with your words, for in this way you will only destroy your peace with others and in yourself.  Have an ardent zeal and a strong desire for everyone to know truth in the same degree of perfection as you have it, and to be intoxicated with this wine, which God has promised and which is now given by him without price (Isaiah 55:1)  This thirst for the salvation of your neighbors you must always have; but it must arise from your love of God, and not from ill-judged zeal.  God himself will plant such love for your brethren in your soul, when it has renounced all things, and will come in his own time to collect its fruit.  But you must not sow anything of your own accord; all you have to do is offer to God the earth of your heart, free of all tares and thistles, and he will sow the seed in it, how and when He wills.  This seed will bring about  fruit in its proper time.

Remember always that God wishes to see your soul withdrawn from everything in order to unite it with himself.  So leave Him to act in you, and do not hinder him by the interference of your will.  Make no plans for yourself, except one--always seek to please God by obedience to His will.  The householder has already gone out to find laborers for his vineyard, according to the Gospel parable.  Put away all care and all thought, strip yourself of all anxiety about yourself and all passionate attachment to anything temporal, and God will clothe you in himself and will give you things you cannot even conceive.  Wholly forget about yourself, as much as you can, and let only Love of God live in your soul. ~Fr Lorenzo Scupoli (+1610)

Meditation: Losing our Life for Jesus' Sake

God is there in these moments of rest and can give us in a single instant exactly what we need.  Then the rest of the day can take its course, under the same effort and strain, perhaps, but in peace.  And when night comes, and you look back over the day and see how fragmentary everything has been, and how much you planned that has gone undone, and all the reasons you have to be embarrassed and ashamed: just take everything exactly as it is, put it in God's hands and leave it with him.  Then you will be able to rest in him--really rest-- and start the next day as a new life.

O my God, fill my soul with holy joy, courage, and strength to serve you.  Enkindle your love in me and then walk with me along the next stretch of road before me.  I do not see very far ahead, but when I have arrived where the horizon now closes down, a new prospect will open before me, and I shall meet it with peace. Amen.
~Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

A prayer to remember...

God of mercy and compassion, you hold out to us the hand of your mercy to raise us up from the misery our selfish sinfulness has brought upon us and upon those whose lives we touch.  Teach us to weep where we have caused weeping, to mourn where we have caused mourning, and to lift up what we have brought low.  In hope and trust, we turn to you for healing, through Jesus Christ your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy spirit, one God for ever and ever.  Amen

A reading from the first Letter of St John 4:7-16

A reading from the first Letter of St John 4:7-16
Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God.  Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love.  In this way the love of God was revealed to us; God sent his only-begotten Son into the world so that we might have life through him.  In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.  Beloved, if God so loved us, we also must love one another.  No one has ever seen God.  Yet if we love one another, God remains in us, and his love is brought to perfection in us. 
this is how we know that we remain in him and he in us.  That he has given us of his Spirit.  Moreover, we have seen and testify that the Father sent his Son as savior of the world.  Whoever acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him and he in God.  We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us.
 God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him.The Word of the Lord....

Meditation~Come to Serve

Freed from inner barriers,
unprotected from pain,
Jesus was more totally vulnerable to people,
a gentle lover
in love with each person.
From his eyes, his hands, his flesh,
his whole being
flowed this total presence to people
in their uniqueness.
Totally present to each person,
he received more fully the pain of each one.
He took that pain in him;
he suffered with each one;
he touched the deepest need in each one:
the cry for love, for value, for uniqueness,
for intimacy and for communion,
the cry to be.
But he also touched the fears,
the terrible fears of love in each person,
the pride, the need for independence,
the barriers that protect vulnerability,
the screams of "no,"
"I do not want you!"
One senses the broken heart of Jesus
when he says:
     "You refuse to come to me
      to receive life."
The heart of Jesus was so vulnerable;
it suffered more totally as he was pushed away by
   people.
The love surging up within him,
thirsty to give communion,
to give life,
and to rest in the hearts of people,
is shoved aside.
Gentle, humble lover,
silent lover,
rejected,
in anguish,
the broken heart of a lover.
He experienced pain more deeply than any of us.
~Jean Vanier

nothing more to say

Doing the Will of the Father

God alone can teach us to love God.  All we can do is prepare the inflammable substance as best we can and, as the physicists say nowadays, wait for the chain reaction.  All we can do, within the limitations of our miserable egotism, is listen for and help along that feeble cry that struggles to say;
Father!  Abba!

The conversion of the mind is difficult enough, but how much more so the conversion of the heart!
For the love of God is total, embracing all things, and jealous; it is at once personal and transcendent.  It beckons us to that path which leads to his heart of hearts, for God is love.  He is not too weary after all the miracles, or all the miseries in which we founder, or all the extremities through which our fortunes lead us, to reveal himself to us as our one hope of salvation.    Paul Claudel