Forgiveness – a powerful word; a powerful gift from God!  Forgiveness whether we give it, receive it, request it or accept it.

Do you have the courage to ask for forgiveness from others & from God?  Do you have the courage to offer forgiveness to those who ask for it?  Part of spiritual growth occurs when we realize we have sinned & ask for (beg for) forgiveness!

Sometimes we are too proud to admit we need God’s forgiveness & God’s grace.  This psalm reminds to ask God for forgiveness.  ”Lord, forgive the wrong I have done.”  We should (each one of us) take some time to examine our conscience (our attitudes & our actions) in light of Jesus’ message to “Forgive.”

John R. Aurelio, in his book Colors, gives us a beautiful portrayal of this side of God, in the story, “The Flip Side of Love.”  On the sixth day, God created Father Adam and Mother Eve.  On the seventh day, as God was resting, they asked Him if He would give them something special to commemorate their birthday.  So God reached into His treasure chest and took out a sacred coin. Written on it was the word “LOVE”. On the eighth day, Father Adam and Mother Eve sinned.  As they left the Garden of Eden, they asked God for an assurance that He would not abandon them.

“You have the coin,” He told them.  “But, the coin says LOVE,” they answered. “We have lost love. How ever will we find it again? “Turn it over,” God said.  On the other side of the coin was written the word “FORGIVENESS.”   Aurelio goes on to say that there is no love without forgiveness and no forgiveness without love.

They are the two sides of the same coin. 

 

The poet John Donne wrote, “God never says, you should have come yesterday; he never says, you must come again tomorrow, but today if you will hear his voice, today he will hear you… All occasions invite his mercies, and all time are his seasons.”

May God Be Praised!

“Ten [lepers] were cleansed, were they not?  Where are the other nine?”

One of the focuses in Wednesday’s Gospel is Gratitude – today give God thanks: for life, for faith, for family, for sunrise, for sunset, for air to breath, and for the Eucharist!

St. Ignatius of Loyola wanted the Jesuits governed the with all the love, modesty and charity, we should govern ourselves with those virtues.

The is a story told about a man and woman made a sizable contribution to their church to honor the memory of their son who was killed in the war.  When the pastor announced the generous donation, a woman whispered to her husband, “Let’s give the same amount for our boy!”

“What are you talking about?” her husband asked.  “Our son wasn't killed.”  “That's exactly why we should make the gift,” his wise spouse responded.

Gratitude should be a hallmark of our lives from bed bugs to our home, family & our meals for everything.

We live in the land of the dying preparing for the land of the living, let’s commit to living here filled with GRATITUDE.

May God Be Praised!

The importance married love and fidelity as part of God’s original plan cannot be overstated.   The Gospel, in particular, emphasizes love and fidelity between husband and wife as part of Jesus’ Kingdom.

Robert Quillen wrote, “A happy marriage is the union of two good forgivers.”

A good marriage is based on forgiveness, trust and love. The sacrament of marriage…is a total giving and sharing by each spouse so that the line between “his” and “hers” disappears into only “ours.”

DeSales, “Nothing in this world can satisfy the person who is not first satisfied with God.”

Each of us married or single, ordained or lay, are called to focus our lives on doing God’s will!  Our relationship with the Lord is the most important relationship in our lives. If you are married then, our relationship with our spouse is next in importance.

Each relationship we have with another human being should bring us closer to God.  A good marriage must be created. In the marriage, the little things are the big things… It is never being too old to hold hands. It is remembering to say “I love you” at least once each day.  It is never going to sleep angry.  It is having a mutual sense of values and common objectives.  It is standing together and facing the world. It is forming a circle of love that gathers in the whole family.

It is speaking words of appreciation and demonstrating gratitude in thoughtful ways.  It is having the capacity to forgive and forget.

It is giving each other an atmosphere in which each can grow.  It is a common search for the good and the beautiful.

It is not only marrying the right person.  It is being the right partner.

        

In the book of Genesis, we read “… a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife and the two of them become one flesh.”

Whether you are married or not you can listen to and act on the words of St. Francis de Sales and Thomas Milton, “I see good in you and am happy for your sake. I choose and act to make your goodness grow for your sake;  “… love seeks one thing, only the good of the one loved… Love, therefore, is its own reward.”

May God be Praised!

Today I want to share with you a powerful reflection on preparing for Mass, I hope and pray that you benefit from Msgr. Guardini’s insight.

"When we come into church from the outside our ears are filled with the racket of the city, the words of those who have accompanied us, the laboring and quarreling of our own thoughts, the disquiet of our hearts’ wishes and worries, hurts and joys.  How are we possibly to hear what God is saying? That we listen at all is something; not everyone does. It is even better when we pay attention and make a real effort to understand what is being said. But all this is not yet the attentive stillness in which God’s word can take root. This must be established before the service begins, if possible in the silence on the way to church, still better in a brief period of composure the evening before."  Msgr. Romano Guardini, Meditations Before Mass, p. 17 May God Be Praised!

A few insights from St. Francis de Sales

"Always be impartial and just in your deeds.  

Put yourself into your neighbor’s place, and him in yours, and then you will judge fairly . . .

Frequently, therefore, examine your heart, whether it is so disposed towards your neighbor, as you would have his disposed towards you, were you to change places; for this is the true test."

“It is a fact that people are always well aware of what is due them.
Unfortunately, they remain oblivious of what they owe to others.”

“God takes pleasure to see you take your little steps; and like a good father who holds his child by the hand, He will accommodate His steps to yours and will be content to go no faster than you. Why do you worry?”

Today give your worries and your concerns to God, He is waiting for them.

May God Be Praised!

 Does your soul thirst for the Lord?  Does your soul thirst for the Lord?

“…like the earth parched, lifeless & without water?”   

St. Paul reassures us about those who have died.  Each November we remember in a particular way those who have gone before us to “the land of the living.” 

Our union with Christ cannot be broken by death.  If the world were going to end tomorrow, what would you do?  Today? Tomorrow?  If you are wise - - you will be living prepared.  How do you prepare, if you are wise?  By living, the way the Prophet Micah recommended.  “This is What God asks of you: only this, to act justly, to love tenderly and to walk humbly with our God.”

In the Baltimore Catechism there was a question, why did God

make me?   The answer was [and still is] “God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, so I can be with Him in the next.”

Our current Catechism puts it this way, we were created "... to know

& love…Him.”  The Gospel reminds us that our personal time on earth will end someday and we should be prepared.

Hourglass Story

Once a little girl lived near the beach.  She loved her grandfather and always looked forward to visiting him.  Her grandfather had a collection of hourglasses and always had fun turning them upside down and watching the sand sift through.  She asked her grandfather why he had all of those hourglasses.  He said because they reminded him that time was the most precious thing in the world.

It was getting close to Christmas and the little girl had not seen her grandpa for weeks.  Eventually her mother explained to her that grandpa was in the hospital because he was very sick, and he might die.

The little girl wasn’t sure what death was, and her mother said that life was like one of grandpa’s hourglasses and that grandpa had very little time left.

One morning her mother told the little girl that they would be going to visit grandpa that afternoon and asked her to make a Christmas present for him. 

The girl excitedly went to work on her gift.  When they got to the hospital, the little girl gave her grandfather a beautifully wrapped box. 

Her grandfather slowly unwrapped his present and looked inside and smiled. He understood immediately.  She had filled the box with sand.

Oh, were it that easy, some additional sand for our hourglass for more time?  Our time here on earth is a gift from God; how we use our time is our gift to God.  Jesus calls us to conversion, to a way of seeing and acting,

Jesus calls us to His attitudes, His way of living.  That conversion of mind and heart will transform our lives and the lives of those around us.

May God Be Praised!

Today reflect on the prayer of Teilhard de Chardin, asking God for patience and asking God to be patient with me.  “Above all, trust in the slow work of God.  We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.  We should like to skip the intermediate stages.  We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.  And yet it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability— and that it may take a very long time.  And so, I think it is with you; your ideas mature gradually let them grow, let them shape themselves, without undue haste.  Don’t try to force them on, as though you could be today what time (that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will) will make of you tomorrow.  Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be.  Give Our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.” We are called to be are best and to do are best, God will take care of the rest. May God Be Praised!