“If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or to be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that country and to help others to do the same.”
C.S. Lewis
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As a devout Jew and a man of deep faith, Joseph of Nazareth would have been highly familiar with the Scriptural promises of a Messiah. While he surely prayed for His coming, the humble carpenter never could have foreseen the crucial role he himself would play in the daily life of this Messiah for whom he longed.
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All human beings come into the world with a few pieces of standard equipment. There’s the built-in fan club, the professional spin-doctor, and the grievance counselor who specializes in taking our side. Should any of this equipment fail and a weakness or two be accidentally revealed, we have an uncanny ability to bury that fault beneath a glittering pile of exaggeration. Insults are automatically sent into our “calculate revenge” circuitry from which few escape unscathed. Where does this fabulous equipment come from?
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“It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be ground down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal.”
-St. John Paul the Great
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There’s a little bit of Jekyl and Hyde in all of us. The inclination to choose wrong over right is a personal battle everyone has had to fight since Adam and Eve made the original “bad choice” by opting out of paradise for nothing more than one lousy apple.
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“Your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.” –Matthew 6:7-15
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Susan Tassone (Photo courtesy of Our Sunday Visitor)
Lent is a time when we open our hearts more fully to the love and mercy of God through prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. What better time to give “prayerful alms” to the Holy Souls in Purgatory which could help to send many souls home to heaven in time for Easter!
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Then I said, ‘Woe is me, I am doomed! For I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips’…Then one of the seraphim flew to me, holding an ember which he had taken with tongs from the altar. He touched my mouth with it. ‘See,’ he said, ‘now that this has touched your lips, your wickedness is removed, your sin purged.’” (Isaiah 6:5 – 7)
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I used to think mortification during Lent was something that belonged to the dark ages. Giving up chocolate (which I rarely eat) and fish on Fridays (I love fish) was my speed. Anything rougher than that? Not so much. And then one year the Lord taught me a lesson . . .
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When it comes to following God’s will, the most challenging task can be figuring out just what His will is. Of course, prayer is a vitally important tool in this discernment process. Best case scenario: we ask God to disclose His plan for us, and circumstances fall into place, quickly and effortlessly, to lead us in the right direction.
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