When Jesus heard ten Lepers call out to Him and beg for mercy and for healing!  With a loving heart and breathtaking mercy – He healed them. Pope Francis said,  “We must not be afraid of goodness or tenderness.”  He also said, “We must promote the Catholic way of life which is increasingly alien in the secular world, where our concern about the unborn children or the sacredness of marriage makes us appear quaint and even nettlesome….  [We need] to pass on the faith.”   The Gospel story of the ten Lepers reminds us to cultivate hearts and minds filled with GRATITUDE; for all that God has given us.  For men and women of faith, GRATITUDE is the characteristic that reminds us and the people we meet that God is in our midst.  We need to cultivate a deep sense of GRATITUDE for the gift of life, for the gift of faith, for the gift of the Word made flesh. For a few minutes, in silence, reflect on the depth of your GRATITUDE? May God Be Praised!

Pride is deadly sin!

Sophocles in his play Antigone wrote, “All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil.  The only crime is pride.”  Pride is not the only sin, but it is the root of many of our sins.

Jesus calls us to be HUMBLE!

Lilly Tomlin, the comedian said, “The trouble with the rat-race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat.”  (Sermon Resources, 9/1/13)

HUMILITY means TRUTH!           

Let’s look at a few TRUTHS: each one of us is a sinner, each one of us must battle pride, and our Christian faith commits us to work on being HUMBLE!

HUMILITY is awareness that we are children of God, that we need God, that God’s love and forgiveness are limitless.

Humility is the TRUTH that our dignity is sacred because we are made in God’s image and likeness.

Ponder this powerful reflection from

Jim Forest, “If I cannot find the face of Jesus in the face of those whom I regard as enemies, if I cannot find him in the unbeautiful and damaged, if I cannot find him in those who have the “wrong ideas,” if I cannot find him in the poor and the defeated, then how will I find him in bread and wine or in the life after death? If I do not reach out in this world to those with whom he has identified, why do I imagine that I will want to be with him, and them, in heaven? Why would I want to be for all eternity in the company of those I avoided every day of my life?” [Source: Daily Dig for August 2, 2019 and Loving Our Enemies: Reflections on the Hardest Commandment]   For a few minutes reflect on where you see the face of Jesus? May God Be Praised!

A few years ago my wife gave me a desk calendar and one of the daily messages was “God doesn’t want shares of your life.   He wants controlling interest.”

All the things we do should be from God, for God and of God!  Some spiritual writers believe that the contemplative life is superior to the active life.

I think the most important element in the spiritual life is to pursue what God wants us to do!  It occurs when God has “controlling interest” in your life!

Maybe our daily To-Do list should read like this:

1.  Prayer

2.  Be Patient

3.  Be present to my family

4.  Spend time listening to God

5.  Prayer

 

That kind of To-Do list will keep us close to God!

Take a few minutes reflect on what God wants you to do, and where the Lord is on your To Do List?

May God Be Praised!

What expectations fill you?

Are you focused on doing God’s will?

Are you Christ-centered each day?

St. Francis deSales said, “With the single exception of sin anxiety is the greatest evil that can happen to a soul.”

It is difficult to live without anxiety is these turbulent times!  But the one who centers her/his life on doing God’s will live without anxiety!

Fr. Henri Nouwen asked Mother Teresa for advice on doing God’s will.  She told him to spend an hour before the Blessed Sacrament every day and not to do anything that he new was wrong.

Not many of us can spend an hour before the Blessed Sacrament each day, but most of us could spend an hour once a month and cultivate a grateful heart.  Each one of us can choose not to do anything that we know is wrong.

Hope, Gratitude and Humility are the hallmarks of true followers of Christ!

Let’s work to be live with Humility and Hope, as Grateful Disciples of Christ.

May God Be Praised!

St. Francis de Sales said, “Prayer accustoms our soul to the presence of God, to produce in us a union with Him which is intimate, simple and perfect.”  St. Thomas Aquinas said, "Friendship is the source of the greatest pleasures, and without friends even the most agreeable pursuits become tedious."

Friendship with God through His Son Jesus Christ is a blessed gift, may we use this gift of friendship through prayer to grow ever closer to God.  Friendship with God takes place within the Trinity, Who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Here is a powerful prayer offered by St. John Henry Newman, “Make me preach you without preaching ...

Stay with me, and then I shall begin to shine as you shine,
so to shine as to be a light to others.

The light, O Jesus, will be all from you.
It will be you who shines through me upon others.

Give light to them as well as to me;
light them with me, through me.

Make me preach you without preaching —
not by words, but by my example
and by the sympathetic influence, of what I do —
by my visible resemblance to Your saints,
and the evident fullness of the love which my heart bears to you.”

Sometime today write your own personal prayer to God, God is waiting to hear from you.

May God Be Praised! 

Rainer Maria Rilke wrote, “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue.

Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them.  And the point is, to live everything.

Live the questions now.

Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

Rilke gives us great insight into our prayer life, occasionally God answers us directly and clearly most times God is forming us to trust Jesus, the Word Made Flesh.  Jesus shows us the way, the truth and the life we choose how to respond.

  

We can TRUST that God has the Kingdom under control; we need to live the Lord’s way to show a glimpse of its wonder and beauty.

St. Thomas Aquinas "To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible."

Today pray with Trust that God who created you and loves you is with you, your prayer opens your heart and your soul to that love, so love the questions and the gift of faith in God.

May God Be Praised!

MERCY!  How often do you think about or reflect on God’s Mercy?

How often do you think about or reflect on THANKING God for the mercy He has shown to you or to others?

  

An elderly man was walking on the beach where he finds a magic lamp.  He immediately rubs it and a genie appears.  The genie says, “I shall grant you one wish!”

The man thought for a moment and said, “My brother & I had a fight 30 years ago and he hasn’t spoken to me since.  I wish he would finally forgive me.”

The genie deeply moved and said, “Your wish has been granted!’  Then the genie said I’ve been around a long time and most people ask for riches or wealth but you have asked for the love of your brother.  Is that because you are old and don’t have much time left?

“Heaven’s no” the old man replied my brother doesn’t have much time left and he is worth 60 million dollars.

The story about the genie and the elderly man had unexpected twist, so does the Gospel story about Zacchaeus!

Zacchaeus was a well-known sinner who was gouging his own people for the Romans.  The Gospel has two unexpected twists: 1^st Zacchaeus admits he needs God’s help and, 2^nd Jesus offers Zacchaeus an invitation to change and improve his life. 

God’s mercy is at work in today and every day make some time today to reflect upon God’s mercy.

May God Be Blessed!