Reflection

For my third Lenten blog post I thought I would share some different things that have been helping me along my journey to the Resurrection.  I hope they help.  The Blessed Mother Teresa quotes all come from a great book called, Come Be My Light, a collection of her personal writings.  The St. Francis De Sales quotes come from a variety of sources.

“To carry God on the tongue with beautiful words, to carry God in the heart with beautiful affections, is not everything.  We must carry Him, like Simeon, in our arms, with good works…The bed of the sick is an altar of sacrifice.”

-St. Francis De Sales

“There is no saint who has not walked the path of affliction.  This thought consoles us when we are asked to suffer.”

-St. Francis De Sales

“Observe how kind Divine Providence is to us!  God encourages us to have confidence in Him.  A son will never perish while he is in the arms of his Almighty Father.  If God does not always give us what we ask, He only does this to keep us near Him.  He wants us to ask Him for help, storming heaven with a loving violence.  He is kind and merciful.”

-St. Francis De Sales

“Why must we give ourselves fully to God?  Because God has given Himself to us.  If God who owes nothing to us is ready to impart to us no less than Himself, shall we answer with just a fraction of ourselves?  To give ourselves fully to God is a means of receiving God Himself.  I for God and God for me.  I live for God and give up my own self, and in this way induce God to live for me.  Therefore to possess God we must alow Him to possess our soul.”

-Bl. Mother Teresa

“Cheerfulness is a sign of a generous and mortified person who forgetting all things, even herself, tries to please her God in all she does for souls.  Cheerfulness is often a cloak which hides a life of sacrifice, continual union with God, fervor and generosity.”

-Bl. Mother Teresa

“I want to smile even at Jesus and so hide if possible the pain and the darkness of my soul even from Him.”

-Bl. Mother Teresa referring to spiritual dryness which she called darkness

-Psalm 139.  There are few passages in the Bible that bring me more comfort than this one.

-Psalm 27.  The first Bible passage I ever memorized was verses 1-3, the whole Psalm has taken on great meaning for me and I memorized it all for Lent. 

“We need, I believe, to be more self-critical in regards to our anger, harsh judgments, mean-spirit, exclusiveness, and disdain for other ecclesial and moral paths.  As T.S. Eliot once said: The last temptation that's the greatest treason is to do the right thing for the wrong reason. We may have truth and right morals on our side. But our anger and harsh judgments towards those who don't share our truth and morals may well have us standing outside the Father's house, like the older brother of the prodigal son, bitter both at God's mercy and at those who are receiving that mercy.”

-Ron Rolheiser

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