Become Whole-Hearted

     “An obvious sign of attachments is also your sadness in situations when God takes something away from you. He will, therefore, take that by which you are enslaved – hence everthing that is your greatest enemy, that which causes your heart not to be free for Him. It is when you start to accept this and do it cheerfully that you will become more and more free.
     During prayer in the presence of the Lord, show Him not only your empty but also dirty hands, defiled by the attachments to mammon, and pray that He will have mercy on you. Prayer can develop only in the atmosphere of freedom. As a disciple of Christ, you are called to prayer; and that is to contemplative prayer. For your prayer to become contemplation – that is, a loving gaze on Jesus Christ, your beloved – a free heart is essential. That is why Christ fights so much for your heart to be free. He fights through various events, through difficulties and storms, by putting you in difficult situations, all the while giving you a chance to cooperate intensively with grace. In all these situations, Christ expects that you will try to cleanse your heart, soiled by attachments and servitude to mammon. In this way, all these difficulties and all the storms are a grace for you. They are the passing by of the Merciful Lord, who loves you so much that He wants to give you this magnificent fight – the gift of total freedom of your heart. Your heart should not be divided, it should be a heart solely for Him.                                                                                                                                               To have faith means to see and understand your life’s sense in accordance with the Gospel – God is most important. Your life is to be aimed at Him: to seek and build primarily His kingdom believing that everything else will be given to you (Mt 6:33). God wants to bestow on each person all His love. However, He can gift a person only to the extent of his openness, of his readiness to be stripped of attachments, so that room may be made for Him. It is faith that creates in us this emptiness and vacuum for God.                                                                                                                                         Father Tadeusz Dajczer



     God wants your heart – your whole heart. He also wants you to be free, to love Him as you should. Jesus became man, suffered and died in order to give you this gift of freedom. Walk in that grace, realizing that it was bought with the blood of Christ.

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.

Shake Off the Shackles of Discontent

     “When you sit down to eat, pray. When you eat bread, do so thanking Him for being so generous to you. If you drink wine, be mindful of Him who has given it to you for your pleasure and as a relief in sickness. When you dress, thank Him for His kindness in providing you with clothes. When you look at the sky and the beauty of the stars, throw yourself at God’s feet and adore Him who in His wisdom has arranged things in this way. Similarly, when the sun goes down and when it rises, when you are asleep or awake, give thanks to God, who created and arranged all things for your benefit, to have you know, love and praise their Creator.” St. Basil the Great



     Working on having a heart full of gratitude toward God, can sometimes be a challenge! We are a society who often sees the glass “half empty,” instead of thanking God that it had something in it in the first place. We look to see who has more than we do and instead, feel discontented with what we have been truly blessed. Our culture espouses that whoever has more is the happiest and most fulfilled. Possessions are looked at as treasures, and we are encouraged to do our best to accumulate them, sometimes at the cost of relationships; even our relationship with God.