Total Abandonment

     “To us, weak creatures, the idea of a complete, final surrender often is frightening, but that is because we do not know God well enough. The fact is that God’s will for us is always for our happiness and when we do surrender to it, it is to our own happiness that we are abandoning ourselves.”       
                                                                                  Caryll Houselander


     Complete and final surrender: we run from it! Since our fall from grace in the Garden of Eden, humanity has always wanted to pick and choose for themselves: Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Abraham and Sarah, and on and on and on. We think we know what is best for us, and at times, become our own little god, by manipulating events in the direction we see fit. We refuse to accept the reality of our lives and instead, sabotage the outcome. 

Masters of the Meaning

     “Our freedom always has this marvelous power to make what is taken from us – by life, events, or other people – into something offered. Externally there is no visible difference, but internally everything is transfigured: fate into free choice, constraint into love, loss into fruitfulness. Human freedom is of absolutely unheard-of greatness. It does not confer the power to change everything, but it does empower us to give a meaning to everything, even meaningless things; and that is much better. We are not always masters of the unfolding of our lives, but we can be masters of the meaning we give them. Our freedom can transform any event in our lives into an expression of love, abandonment, trust, hope, and offering.”                                                                                          Fr. Jacques Phillipe


     Life is not fair! Innocent people suffer. Family and friends betray us. Good people get sick, lose their jobs, their house, their finances, or their lives. We sometimes struggle to take the next step, only to get knocked down by something else. When these things happen, how do we keep our inner peace? How do we believe and trust that, in spite of the circumstances, God still loves us? What can we do to acquire the freedom that Fr. Jacques writes about?

Listen and Respond

     “Even though we know that God’s will and commandments apply to everyone, we do not always have the strength to fulfill them. Now, every time we respond faithfully to a motion of the Spirit, out of desire to be docile to what God expects of us, even if it’s something almost insignificant in itself, that may make us capable of one day practicing the commandments that up until then we had not been capable of fulfilling entirely.”                        Fr. Jacques Phillipe


     There is a very good chance that since you are reading this blog, you are striving to grow in your relationship with God. You are trying to grow in grace, holiness and virtue. You are looking deep within yourself, to discover your weaknesses and imperfections. You long so much to change, to please God in all that you do.

Cherish the Gift

     “If My people humble themselves and pray and seek My presence, I will revive their land.” 2 Ch 7 vs 14


     Today, as we gather to commemorate the anniversary of our country’s independence, let us get on our knees and ask God’s continued blessing upon us. Let us beg God’s forgiveness for the many ways we have walked away from His ways and truths. Let us ask for a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit to convict us of sin. May we repent of the ways we have offended Him and one another. May He give us a new heart on which He sits as King. May we never take for granted the great freedom we have to worship God by giving Him the honor and glory He so deserves. Our religious liberty is a gift that we cannot take for granted. We must cherish it, practice it and defend it with our lives.

Everything Becomes a Grace

     “The most important and most fruitful acts of our freedom are not those by which we transform the outside world as those by which we change our inner attitude in the light of faith that God can bring good out of everything without exception. He is a never-failing source of ultimate riches. Our lives no longer have in them anything negative, ordinary, or indifferent. Positive things become a reason for gratitude and joy, negative things an opportunity for abandonment, faith, and offering: everything becomes a grace.”                                                                                                                                                                                                        Fr. Jacques Phillipe



     That God can bring good out of everything that happens – without exception – is a life-changing attitude to work toward achieving. Father Jacques did not come up with this notion himself. Our good God clearly stated this in His Holy Scripture through St. Paul: “We know that all things work for good for those who love God” (Rom. 8 vs. 28). All does mean everything – without exception – so why do we struggle so much with believing this to be true?

Patiently Enduring

     “In this existence in time and finiteness, we constantly find the tension between what man is and what he would like to be; between that which has been realized and that which remains to be accomplished. And it is patience which endures the tensions.”                                     Romano Guardini



     How impatient we can be with both ourselves and others! We expect that we, and they, should have “arrived,” at the state of perfection to which God is calling us. We grow restless and annoyed with faults as they exhibit themselves, and wish for a magic wand to make them disappear instantly and effortlessly!

Who, Lord, Do You Say That I Am? -- Part 3

     I was back to my original question. Lord, who do You say that I am? If I’m not Your servant, than who am I? Like Jacob, I did a lot of wrestling with God. Through much pain, suffering, and letting go of the burdens I had placed upon myself, the answer finally did come. I was not just God’s servant, but He revealed to me that I am His Daughter, who happens to get to serve Him. He takes all my effort as a gift. He knows that the results of my efforts are not in my control. He reminded me that He is God and I am not. He wants me to trust Him with my children, because He loves them even more than I do. He helped me recall how He has been with me on my journey through life and that I did not always choose as He would have preferred, nevertheless, He was with me in spite of my choices. He has continued to guide and accompany me on my journey.

Who, Lord, Do You Say That I Am? -- Part 2 of 3

     When God poses a question to me, He knows I will not rest until I get an answer. The question that God had placed on my heart was, “Who are you?” I really wasn't sure. What had been such a rock solid identity was suddenly shaky and uncertain. I in turn had to turn to God and ask Him, “Who, Lord, do You say that I am?”  It took some time, but the answer did come, little by little. I knew in the depths of my heart that what I was experiencing was both a natural and supernatural evolution to a better me. I knew that I had to trust that God was involved with every aspect of this change, but that I had to be patient and surrender to His molding and shaping….no matter how painful it seemed at times.

     God had me look at the different identities I played in my life. In my early years, I was daughter, sister, granddaughter, niece, cousin and friend. Later on, girlfriend, wife, daughter, sister-in-law, mother, mother-in-law and now grandmother. I had adjusted well to each identity. I had handled our daughter’s marriage quite well and becoming a grandmother was wonderful! Why was I struggling so? What was so different now? This was a wonderful time in our lives, so why did I feel so displaced?        
  

Loved by Someone -- just because!

     “I have stilled and quieted my soul like a weaned child. Like a weaned child on its mother’s lap, so is my soul within me.”

     These words from Psalm 131 punctured my heart.

     It was part of my penance to pray and meditate on that psalm because my soul was so far from stillness and peace.