One Human Family

"Pray for the unity of the human family." Jesus prayed for our unity at the Last Supper, so this unity of all mankind is God's "dream." We do our best to build unity with the people closest to us, and this can have a ripple effect, like a stone dropped into a pond. But, let's never underestimate the power of prayer, and of imitating Jesus. I'm praying with you...

Passing by...

"Love those who pass by us, near to us." We may encounter people only briefly in a variety of places--at the grocery store, at work, even on the road. How might we love them? Perhaps a greeting or a kind word, a smile, or a silent prayer. Pope Francis has spoken about those "small gestures" that communicate love. Let's never underestimate them! They can brighten someone's day and assure them that they're not alone. Remember, it's really Jesus (in disguise) passing by... (Matthew 25:40)

Taking Action

"Bear witness to God with our life." There's that old saying, "Actions speak louder than words." Also, James 1:22 tells us to "Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves." I remember singing a hymn many, many times in Catholic school: "They will know we are Christians by our love." Our love and our faith have to be put into action, or they are empty. What kinds of actions? Helping the poor and needy, and all the acts of mercy; bearing with one another and bearing one another's burdens. It isn't easy and we'll fail at times, but if we keep starting again, we can experience the joy that characterized the lives of the saints.

More Than Words

"Let's concretely live love among us."  The love that we give and receive is much more than an emotion, which is often expressed only in words, and sometimes very poorly at that.  Love is an act of the will, and expresses itself in actions, actions that can require sacrifice.  We can give money or other tangible things from our surplus; but, we also give our time and attention; we give an open heart, an open mind, and listening ears; sometimes we can provide service, helping with a project, with household tasks or errands.  At the very least, we can give our prayers and unity to each other.  Count on mine...

Judging vs. Loving

"Don't judge each other."  As Mother Teresa said, "If you are judging people, you have no time to love them."  In the Gospel today, Martha judges her sister Mary for sitting at Jesus' feet and not helping her prepare for his banquet.  But, Jesus tells Martha that Mary has chosen "the better part."  Many times, it's challenging, but we need to love a person where he/she is at.  We don't (and can't) condone sinful or selfish behavior.  However, we always have to love the person first and foremost.  If we really feel that prompting from the little voice/Holy Spirit to advise or "correct" someone, we need to do it gently and with love.  Sometimes that's best accomplished by asking a question, such as, "Have you thought about...?"  Of course, I'm no expert in trying to advise or correct.

On a slightly different note, if we start judging ourselves, we won't live the present moment well, or do the will of God, which is always loving him and our neighbor.  We can acknowledge our sinfulness, but remember that we're God's children and precious in his eyes, regardless.  Again, we do our best to avoid sinning, but it's best not to beat ourselves up about it. 

Let's simply go ahead together today to avoid judging and to love the people we meet.

Wearing the Divine Badge

‘By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another’ (Jn 13:35).

Here we have the badge, the mark, the typical brand of Christians. Or at least it ought to be, because Jesus saw his community in this way.
A fascinating text from Christianity’s early centuries, the Letter to Diognetus, recognizes that ‘Christians cannot be distinguished from the rest of the human race by country or language or customs. They do not live in cities of their own; they do not use a peculiar form of speech; they do not follow an eccentric manner of life.’ They are ordinary people, just the same as others. And yet they have a secret and it allows them to influence society profoundly, becoming as it were its ‘soul’ (see chs 5-6).

 It is a secret that Jesus passed on to his disciples shortly before dying. Like the ancient sages of Israel, like a father for his child, so too he, the Master of Wisdom, left as his legacy the art of knowing how to live and to live well. He had taken it directly from the Father: ‘I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father’ (Jn 15:15), and it was the fruit of the relationship between them. It consisted in loving one another. This is his Last Will and Testament, the life of heaven that he brought to earth, which he shares with us so that it can become our very own life. He wants this to be the identity of his disciples, who should be recognizable as his followers by their mutual love:

 

‘By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’

 

Are Jesus’s disciples recognized by their mutual love? ‘The history of the Church is a history of holiness’ wrote John Paul II. Nonetheless ‘history also records events which constitute a counter-testimony to Christianity’ (Incarnationis Mysterium, 11). For centuries, in the name of Jesus, Christians have fought endless wars with one another and their divisions continue. There are people who still today associate Christians with the Crusades, with the Inquisition, or who see them as the defenders to the bitter end of an outdated morality, and as opposing the progress of science.

 It was not like that for the new-born community of the first Christians in Jerusalem. People admired the communion of goods they practiced, the unity that reigned among them, the ‘glad and generous hearts’ that characterized them (see Acts 2:46). In the Acts of the Apostles we read that ‘the people held them in high esteem’ so that more and more ‘believers were added to the Lord, great numbers of both men and women’ (Acts 5:13-14). The living witness of the community had a powerful attraction. Why today are we not known as people who stand out because of their love? What have we done with the commandment of Jesus?

 

‘By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’

 

Traditionally, in Roman Catholic circles, the month of October is dedicated to mission, to reflecting upon the command of Jesus to go into all the world and proclaim the Gospel, to pray for and support those who are in the frontline. This Word of Life could be a help for all to put into focus the fundamental dimension of every Christian proclamation. It is not about imposing faith on others, nor proselytism, nor a self-serving handout of aid to the poor so that they will be converted. Neither is it primarily a matter of the challenge to defend moral values or a firm stand against injustice and war, even though such stances are a duty the Christian cannot evade.

 Before all else the Christian proclamation is a witness of life that every disciple of Jesus must offer personally. People in the modern world ‘listen more willingly to witnesses than to teachers’ (Evangelii Nuntiandi, 41). Even persons hostile to the Church are often touched by the example of those who dedicate their lives to the sick and the poor and who are ready to leave their homelands, going far away to the toughest places and offering help and solidarity to those in most need.

 But above all the witness Jesus requires is that of a whole community which demonstrates the truth of the Gospel. It must show that the life he brought really can generate a new society, where we live genuinely as brothers and sisters, helping and serving one another, collectively attentive to the most fragile and needy.  The life of the Church has seen these kinds of witness, such as the settlements for indigenous peoples built by Franciscans and Jesuits in South America, or monasteries with the townships that grew up around them. Today too ecclesial Movements and communities give life to little towns of witness where it is possible to see signs of a new society, the fruit of Gospel life, of mutual love.

 

‘By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’

 

Without abandoning our homes and the persons we know, if among us we live that unity which Jesus gave his life for, we can create an alternative way of living and sow seeds of hope and new life around us. A family that every day renews their will to live mutual love in a practical way can become a ray of light in the mutual indifference of a housing block or a district. An ‘environmental cell’, in other words two or more persons who agree to put into practice the demands of the Gospel with total commitment – in the field of their work, at school, in local government offices, in administrative buildings, in a prison – will cut through the logic of the struggle for power and create a collaborative atmosphere that favors the birth of true fraternity, a fraternity previously unhoped-for.

 Did not the first Christians behave like this at the time of the Roman Empire? Is not this the way they spread the transformative new life of Christianity? In our own day it is we who are the ‘first Christians’, called, as they were, to forgive one another, to see each other as always new, to help one another – in a word, to love one another with the intensity that Jesus loved us, in the certainty that his presence in our midst has the strength to draw others too into the divine logic of love. -- Fr. Fabio Ciardi

One

"Make of humanity one sole family." How can we create one family of mankind? It starts in each heart. Every person needs to open his/her heart to each person around them at the moment. Each trying to love the other as him/herself. God created everyone in His own image and likeness because He loved them, so every individual is His precious child. Let's go ahead together to be one family in love, in God who is Love itself.

Golden

"Don't do to others what we don't want done to ourselves." It's the Golden Rule, but stated in the negative. Some form of the Golden Rule is found in just about every religion. Let's go ahead together to love others as ourselves, remembering that we're all brothers and sisters in God's family.

Enrichment

"We are mutually enriched by our diversities." As Pope Francis reminded us yesterday, the United States is a nation of immigrants; every culture brought traditions, gifts, ideas and strengths that built up our country. Let's keep enriching each other by getting to know one another, to understand one other, and to love one another as ourselves.

The Good

"Desire the good of everyone." When we love someone, we want only what is good for them, just as we want what's good for ourselves. But, what is the greatest good? To have a relationship with God, to know His immense and personal love, and to love Him in return. Of course, we don't try to force God on anyone, because God also leaves us free to respond to His love, or not. We simply love each person as much as we can, and--if our joy and our way of life attracts them and they say that they want to "have" what we do--then we can share "the cause of our joy."

Don't "Spare" Ourselves

 I once heard someone say that when it comes to being a Christian, the question isn't "Are you saved?" but "Are you spent?" How are we spending ourselves, our time, effort, talents and energy (not to mention material goods)? We need to spend it loving God and our neighbor, especially those neighbors who are "the least" in the eyes of the world. 1 John 4:19-21 reminds us: "We love, because He first loved us. If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also." But, we don't have to go so far as hate; all we have to do is neglect our brothers and sisters in need. Let's be mindful of them and spend ourselves for them.

Deserving a Second Feast

Interesting how May, the month of Mary, begins with the feast of St. Joseph the worker (his second feast day, the other is March 19). He was a man trained from boyhood in his trade and in his faith. He has no words in the Gospel, but his actions speak volumes. He loved God so much that he was open to God's messages and intervention. He loved Mary so much that he was "unwilling to expose her" to shame and to the law, but willingly accepted the ridicule that his own community must have heaped upon him, based on the culture of the time. No outsider looking in would have had the slightest idea about their real experience.; and if Joseph and Mary had tried to tell others about it, they would have been thought insane.  He began their divine adventure with complete trust in God our Father, and dedicated himself to his extraordinary wife and divine foster Child, providing for them with the work of his hands.

St. Joseph, pray for us, help us to love God and our families, and help us to truly live our vocation for the glory of God!

Our Most Important Relationship

Because God is good, he loves to bless us.  Yet his deepest longing is for a relationship with us...take time to commune with him, to grow closer to him, and to get to know him...  "But it is good for me to draw near to God:  I have put my trust in the Lord God, that I may declare all thy works."  (Psalm 73:28)

50 Days of Easter!

“Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song.”
― St. Pope John Paul II

He is Risen, because He loves us immensely.  May He give you joy today.  

Trust

I don't know about you, but it seems that I've always had a problem trusting, and especially the people closest to me--probably due to something that happened during my childhood.  And, I realized recently that I also sometimes have problems trusting God.  At times I don't understand what's happening or why it's happening, and I forget that God is really the one in control.  Nothing escapes His will, and because He is our Father, it's all for our good...no matter how bad it seems.  He is Love--infinite Love, infinite Wisdom, infinite Mercy.  I know this, but what do I say?  "Yes, Lord...Yes, but please, not that!"

Did Mary say, "Yes, but..."?  No.  She said, "Let it be done to me..."  Her human nature didn't stand in her way, like it does mine.  I pray for the grace to be able to say that, too, and mean it with all my heart, to surrender completely and unconditionally, saying "Yes," and not even thinking, "but..."  We can trust the One who laid down His life for us.  I pray for this grace for you, too, dear reader.

God's abundant blessings and graces upon you.

5 Minutes of Quiet Time?

Jesus needs neither books nor Doctors of Divinity in order to instruct souls; He, the Doctor of Doctors, He teaches without noise of words.
-- St. Therese of Lisieux

Dear Jesus, help me to spend some quiet time with you today, so that you can teach me in the silence of my heart and mind. Amen.

Your Soul

“I understood that every flower created by Him is beautiful, that the brilliance of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not lessen the perfume of the violet or the sweet simplicity of the daisy. I understood that if all the lowly flowers wished to be roses, nature would no longer be enamelled with lovely hues. And so it is in the world of souls, Our lord's living garden.” -- St. Therese of Lisieux, the "Little Flower"

Your soul is beautiful and unique, dear reader. Let it bloom!

Psalm 111

From Psalm 111: I will give thanks to the Lord with all my heart in the company and assembly of the just. Great are the works of the Lord, exquisite in all their delights.

We have so much to be thankful for. God has blessed us with His love, His only-begotten Son, our lives, our family and friends, and all the natural beauty of creation. Let's give Him some thanks and praise today...

Poem for today

MELTING THE COLD WORLD
It seems as if the sun might freeze,
And ice might bring us to our knees.
Let's hold on to one another,...
Each a sister or a brother,
Regardless of our living places,
Creeds, ages or even races.
We will weather any storm,
As long as our hearts are warm.

(by yours truly)
 

An Encouraging Word

Jesus wants me to tell you again...how much love he has for each one of you--beyond all you can imagine...have you seen with the eyes of your soul how he looks at you with love? Do you really know the living Jesus...from being with him in your heart? Have you heard the loving words he speaks to you? Ask for the grace; he is longing to give it...he longs for you. He misses you when you don't come close. He thirsts for you. He loves you always, even when you don't feel worthy.

When not accepted by others, even by yourself sometimes--he is the one who always accepts you...you don't have to be different for Jesus to love you. Only believe--you are precious to him. Bring all you are suffering to his feet--only open your heart to be loved by him as you are. He will do the rest. -- Blessed Teresa of Calcutta

God bless you, dear reader!