God's Gift of Peace

     While on retreat, after soaking in the realization of God’s love for me, I remembered the scripture my director had suggested I bring to prayer: “For I know well the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare, not for woe! Plans to give you a future full of hope. When you call Me, when you go to pray to Me, I will listen to you. When you look for Me, you will find Me. Yes, when you seek Me with all your heart, you will find Me with you, says the Lord and I will change your lot”
(Jer 29:11-13).

     I wanted so much to hold onto the truth of God’s constant, never changing love for me. I did not want to allow life’s disappointments or my unmet expectations, to be the measuring stick with which I determined God’s love.

Not Alone

     “What worthy return can we make for so great a condescension? The Only-begotten God, ineffably born of God, entered the Virgin’s womb and grew and took the frame of poor humanity. He who upholds the universe, with Whom and through Whom are all things, was brought forth from common childbirth. He as Whose voice the archangels and angels tremble, and heaven and earth and all the elements of this world are melted, was heard in childish wailing. The Invisible and Incomprehensible, Whom sight and feeling and touch cannot measure, was wrapped in a cradle.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         St. Hilary of Poitiers


     The rush of preparing for our Christmas celebrations, along with the hustle and bustle of our holiday visits, can make it both challenging and difficult for the true meaning of the celebration to penetrate.

     “And the Word became flesh, and made His dwelling among us” (Jn 1:14).

Become a Saint

     “Although we have formed good resolutions in our mind, we always feel handicapped by the weakness of sustained effort, which rebels against the weariness of sustained effort, and seeks to free itself from it, or at least to reduce it to a minimum. Our bodies are subject to fatigue; our minds are disturbed by emotions which are always fluctuating. That which at one moment fills us with enthusiasm may, at the next, become distasteful and annoying to such a point that we think we can no longer endure it. This is our state while on earth and no one can escape it. However, God calls us all to sanctity, and since sanctity requires a continual practice of virtue, He, who never ask the impossible, has provided a remedy for the instability of our nature by giving us the virtue of perseverance, the special object of which is the sustaining of our efforts. Though fickle by nature, we can by the help of grace become steadfast.”                                                                             Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, O.C.D.


     Holiness does not come easily. It is an impossible task to carry out on our own. We often forget our weaknesses and become discouraged when we fail. We think we should be able to accomplish the resolutions we’ve made, and when we don’t, we beat ourselves up. Our pride blinds us, making us believe we should be able to do it with our own strength. We had been doing so well. What happened? We really thought we had finally overcome our weakness, but then the fall!

     “Whoever thinks he is standing secure should take care not to fall” (1Cor 10 vs 12).

The Hour of Temptation

     “Lead us not into temptation. . . We ought to offer this prayer very seriously. Our Lord knew what it was to be tempted and what bitter struggles temptation may entail. Who can be sure of himself? When things are going well we let these words pass over us negligently, thinking very little about them as if they really did not apply to us at all. And then all of a sudden the sky becomes overcast -- a storm arises, and with the wind blowing from all directions at once, we do not know which way to turn.
      Take this journey of mine up the perilous face of my cliff. How many hours of weakness and despair have had to be endured in making that climb, hours of sheer helplessness, of doubt, not knowing which was the best course. How is it that conditions suddenly get distorted, their balance disturbed and their threads twisted and entangled, producing a pattern far from our intention and quite beyond our power to unravel?
     No one can escape the hour of temptation. It is only in that hour that we begin to sense our weakness and have a faint inkling of the vital decisions we are expected to make. If only I can manage to keep a hold on this perilous perch and not faint and let go.
     I have committed my soul to God and I rely on the help of my friends.”                                                                                                                               Father Alfred Delp, S.J.


     Oh the wisdom of Father Delp’s words! How often the phrase, “lead us not into temptation,” passes mindlessly through our lips. We have become so adept to praying the “Our Father” that the words have lost the meaning that Jesus intended. Christ was very deliberate in composing this prayer and did not haphazardly add this phrase without the knowledge of our need.