The Better Part

A few years ago, my SIL gave me this book The Better Part as a birthday gift. I had lent it to a friend for awhile, so I have only just been using it during prayer times. It goes carefully through each of the Gospels and for each passage there are four categories to reflect on: Christ the Lord, Christ the Teacher, Christ the friend, and Christ in my Life.

I am going through the Gospel of John and today's passage was on John the Baptism seeing and recognizing Christ for the first time. The catagory "Christ the Friend" is a paragraph written from Jesus' perspective in the first person. I particularly appreciated today's.

"Christ the Friend - John saw "Jesus coming toward him."

Jesus: How much I love to do this. I never force my way into anyone's life, but I come towards everyone. I want to attract their attention because I want their friendship and happiness. I am always taking the first step. Isn't that what happened with you and me? Don't you remember? I caught your attention. Even before that, I had been coming toward you in many ways. It's like when you are in love, and you go out of your way to run into the person you love, just to get a glimpse of them, just hoping that they will stop and talk to you. I love you like that. I even come right up to your heart and knock, hoping you will let me in. I always have more to give you, more to teach you, more for us to do. My love never runs out of words, attention, encouragement, projects - my love never run out, period. Keep welcoming me, keep looking out for me. I am still coming toward you, and I will never stop coming toward you."

I was struck by the power of the message of love in this passage. Reflecting on this passage coupled with the book I am reading by C.S. Lewis "The Four Loves" - it is mind boggling to try to comprehend God's love for us and what that looks like. A good way to start the day.

The sacramentality of the present moment

I am loving this book ("Abandonment to Divine Providence" by Jean-Pierre de Caussade) that a dear friend from St. Agnes gave to Mike for Christmas. I often struggle to have patience for tasks I undertake, for finishing projects (which often get partway done before I move on!), having patience with people, the list of which patience is connected to is endless, really. Since I was the youngest sibling in my family, I was constantly looking forward to exciting privileges and stages in life that I saw older siblings encounter.

This book calls a person to be fully aware of the present moment and what the Lord has for you. He presents every single moment as an opportunity to learn, a call to holiness, and a submission to the abandonment to Divine Providence. One thing I have fully embraced the past few years is that I am not in control of what life brings my way! So it is absolutely pointless to worry about the past, to worry about the future or try in any way to shape people and events by pure will or control apart from prayer and humility to the Lord's omnipotence.

Really, this mentality is freeing and quite exciting. Of course, God's plan for us are greater than we can possibly imagine. How wonderful and liberating!

Here are a few good quotes from the book:

"The present moment is an every-flowing source of holiness."

"The duties of each moment are shadows which hide the action of the divine will." (love this one!)

"In reality, holiness consists of one thing only: complete loyalty to God's will."

"You are seeking for secret ways of belonging to God, but there is only one: making use of whatever he offers you."

"The truly faithful soul accepts all things as a manifestation of God's grace, ignores itself and thinks only of what God is doing."

"The more God takes from the abandoned soul, the more he really is giving it...the more he strips us of natural things, the more he showers us with supernatural gifts."

"God continues to write his word in our hearts, but the characters will not be seen until the day of judgment."

"Only God's activity can make us holy, for it alone can make us imitate the perfection of our Lord."

It is a concise book in which every line is powerful and and thought provoking. He couches all his insights in Scripture, the sacraments, and lives of the saints. He reminds us that we daily ask for the Lord's will to be done in the "Our Father", but are we truly meaning that and open to it? He points to the Annunciation with Mary and her 'Fiat', her "Let it be done unto me according to thy will". It is a book that creates a new excitement and invigoration for each day.

Please pray for this little babe...

This is little Thomas. This poor little guy was born at around 25 weeks. He is fighting for his little life. Please pray for him. I was astonished and heart-broken when I read about him. Life is really so fragile. When I see Faustina, I now know how gratuitously blessed we are by the Lord. This little fellow is so innocent, and just wants to live; he should still be in the comfortable warmth of his mother's womb. Please pray that he grow quickly and live a normal, healthy life, if that is what the Lord will for him. "Non mea sed tua voluntas fiat."

Although there is a profound element of sadness here, we can also see how the Lord works through Thomas' (and his faith-filled family's) suffering to bring over 600 unique visitors together to witness his struggle, see his parents' unshakable faith, and pray for his recovery. His struggle ought to cause us all to think about the 4 Final Things: death, judgment, heaven, and hell. It is a reminder that in the end, all that will matter is how we "turned toward the Lord" (in St. Augustine's words) and the relationships that we fostered and cultivated in life. Thomas reminds us of our end, namely God, and how to get there: love.

I'm reading The Brother's Karamazov, and this passage struck me:
[context: the Elder or head of the monastery is comforting a mourning mother]

"Listen, mother," said the elder. "Once in olden times a holy saint saw in the Temple a mother like you weeping for her little one, her only one, whom God had taken. 'Knowest though not,' said the saint to her, 'how bold these little ones are before the throne of God? Verily there are none bolder than they in the Kingdom of Heaven. "Thou didst give us life, oh Lord," they say, "and scarcely had we looked upon it when Thou didst take it back again." And so boldly they ask and ask again that God gives them at once the rank of angels. Therefore,' said the saint, 'thou too, oh mother, rejoice and weep not, for thy little one is with the Lord in the fellowship of the angels.' That's what the saint said to the weeping mother of old."

Read about little Thomas here.

Again, please pray for this sweet, little boy, Thomas.