Thy will be done...

I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me; insofar as I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who has loved me and given himself up for me.--Gal 2:20

  

Life is pretty simple--it's usually me who complicates it!

Why? Because I am not in control of it! I think that life is pretty simple, but I always think that if I know anything,  life is better.  To be perfectly honest, life is not always better when you know things.  They say knowledge is power and although there is truth to that, I feel that the more knowledge I have the less open I am to be free of expectations. 

God needs an open heart and an opportunity to make himself free to move as he pleases in our lives--even if that means all my plans fall right on their heads (which is usually what happens in my case)  So life--why do I want to be in so much control of it? Why can I not just live and let live? Why can I not just accept what I cannot change? For me, the answer has a lot to do with, change. The changes that I have to make, especially in my perspective. I have to say that I like to look at life the way that I like to look at it and wish people could just see it that way (I mean wouldn't life be better-- :D just kidding) 

Anyway, being that I have to change my perspective drives me crazy, because I don't want to have to change, I don't want to have to be the bigger person--I want to see everything the way that makes me feel better about me--basically I like to look at life the way that I can handle it--whoops here comes that control again!  I get angry because I don't want to live life on life terms, but mine.

This causes the anger, frustration, turmoil in my interior at times--that I am not getting what I think I want or deserve to or what I think I am entitled too--Life is not moving the way I want it to!

So what do i do? I have to learn to let go and let God.  I have to learn that if things are not going my way or are not to my liking or to my expectation level, it is what is best for me. What a concept? A dear friend of mine always reminds me that I am exactly where I am suppose to be. That is so hard to believe in the midst of the hard times. In the midst of the times where I can hardly breathe, when my interior is undergoing a major overhaul, and when life seems like it's standing still!! I can't tell you how many times I have been there and I am still there. The key to all of it is that to remind myself in that moment that I have choices and can do something loving for myself.  Also that I am in the midst of all the hard times because a growth spurt is on its way! It 's hard to get a clear picture of that, when all you see is yourself in the midst of suffering. But life can always look sweeter when we seek Our Lord--even when we cannot see him, feel him, or can really experience him at all.

I think of the scripture when Peter asked our Lord that if that was Him walking on water that Peter could come to him and be able to do the same. Our Lord said to Peter to come--and Peter walked on water--the second he took his eyes off our Lord and looked to himself, he began to sink!!! That is us--we ask our Lord to help us and all he wants is for us to trust him and surrender to his will, wherever it may lead, and the second we think we got it, we freak out and are back to square one. We continue to suffer because we have not let go! We continue to rely on our strength to move mountains, when our Lord has a storehouse filled with grace so as to undergo all he is calling us to. 

Life is a pretty simple gift when we are ready to surrender and resign to the way that it is being dealt out to us.  I think that it is said best when "we resist, God persists." God has so much planned for every single one of us, so the longer we wait to surrender the longer it will take to actualize that plan.  All we need is to be willing to let go and let God. God will always supply for us what we are lacking--I think that is why we don't know it all, so that we will always depend on Him and not on ourselves. All we must do is ask, seek and knock--the door will open--maybe not the way we thought it would, but it will! 

But we even boast of our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance,and endurance, proven character, and proven character, hope,and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the holy Spirit that has been given to us.--Romans 5:3-5

He Lets us Suffer...

Time is but a shadow, a dream; already God sees us in glory and takes joy in our eternal beatitude. How this thought helps my soul! I understand then why He lets us suffer..
-St. Therese of Lisieux


I find it so fitting to speak of suffering right now. Why? Because i find that so many people are truly under going so much strife as  they walk this road towards the Lord's will and healing in their lives.  I find it so interesting to journey in the spiritual life. I find that there is process of what happens. Like in every relationship it starts out as if you are eating candy all day and not getting sick.  The sweetness and joy is amazing and nothing in the world could ever compare to the happiness you feel, knowing the love you are experiencing with God. 


As you continue to walk, little by little there is less sweet and a bit of sour, even some bitter.  The interesting part is that it happens here and there so you do not feel it as much.  Then as God continues to replace the sweet with the bitter...you are still walking with him, but you realize that things are different now.  You realize that the sweetness is less, the bitterness more, and you recognize that you are choosing to continue to take the bitter as you long for the sweet. You are realizing that bitter or sweet means nothing to you anymore, it is the journey itself that counts.


The point of the above analogy is the idea of choice and how love is a decision and walking in the spiritual life is a daily struggle, yet we walk. We walk knowing that we will not always get the sweet and sometimes God will withhold both.  God wants us completely without incentives. He wants us to choose to love him no matter what he hands out to us. 
I said to a friend one day who was speaking to me of feelings in the spiritual life--people think that feelings make the journey real, and I say when there is no feelings at all is when the journey becomes real.  It is then that I must choose to love the Lord, with nothing that he has to give me to do so, but with a desire to be completely his.


That is hard place to be when our lives are filled with feeling and touching and lots and lots of sweetness and pleasure. Archbishop Sheen once said: We have a greater capacity for suffering then for pleasure. There is so much truth in that statement, for example:  think about how awesome it is to eat a big feast.  It is so good, yet you have a limit that your stomach can testify to. You will explode if you eat anymore. You can't ask for the grace to eat more.(you can try, but I am not sure of what happens!)   On the other hand, when it comes to suffering, people can spend years and years, sick and in pain, and the beautiful part is that we can always ask God for the grace to endure that pain.  
We can always ask for the strength to continue to suffer as God is calling us to.  We can do this because Christ died on the cross and did not come off until he died to all that God was calling him to die for and suffer for.  He was taken down from the cross.  He did not all of a sudden tell them,  no take me off this thing. I don't want to suffer anymore.


Christ embraced his cross, took up his cross, mounted his cross, suffered on his cross and died on the cross.  He did not give up, but in his humanity prayed for strength. The strength he knew he needed from the Father to endure all he did from the cross. 


Also, I feel that he received that strength from His mother as he gazed into her eyes from the cross. Knowing that she shared that pain that day.  She was there, as well, to bear that suffering that he could only bear.  She was there for him,  and  as Christ gave her to John, he gives her to us to also to ask her to share our pain with her.  She is a mother who more then understands the heart of her children.  


Ask her for that strength, trust, courage and surrender to what God wills for you. She too said yes to God's will. She surrendered her own will for God's, she trusted in all that God would do for her, she courageously walked the road of calvary with her son and with all her strength watched her son die! That day she died too, as she bore more then we could ever imagine...she too, can be that mother of great tenderness to be there in our time of suffering, loss, woundedness and healing. Ask her for the graces you need to endure all that God is calling you too.  


Suffering is inevitable in the spiritual life! It is part of the journey--and is in that part that we are unknowingly transformed by all the pain we endured. It is that suffering that draws us closer to Christ, in fact, unites us with him in a more intimate way. He understands our suffering more then we could ever comprehend.  This suffering is what makes us who we are, and truly who we are called to be. 


God whispers to us in our pleasures, He speaks to us in our conscience, and He shouts to us in our pain.  --CS Lewis

Doors

In this world, you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.

 ~ John 16:33

This morning two words stood out to me in prayer—trust and acceptance.  Trusting in the Lord, that He loves us as we are and Acceptance, not only accepting His will, but also accepting Him.  And His love.  God is the ultimate gentleman.  He won’t ever force himself on us.  He offers us His love freely, but—we are not always whole, aware, present or fully healed to be able to accept all the things He is ready to so freely pour out. 

God will help us to overcome those things blocking our hearts and blocking the Holy Spirit from acting freely within us…He will give us His unconditional love and help us to embrace it; but the deeper we go, the more united we long to be, the more we have to let go of.  The more stuff we keep packed in, the less room there is for Him to pour in!  We have to be free, more free of ourselves, and more free of the inner clutter that is hitting all those amazing graces and new experiences of love—to the curb.  

I’m not talking self-denial here.  I’m talking about the closed doors in our hearts.  When God’s love and real presence in the Eucharist unites with us, a penetrating light of love, peace, tenderness and serenity can console and bring calm to our innermost, if God so wills.  But in that unity, when Christ meets us in a special way, too often we lock some of the doors in our hearts.  Quick! Hurry! A visitor is knocking at the door and we’re not ready for their arrival! Make sure everything looks okay in the house before we let Him in!  

We invite the King of heaven and earth to dine with us and dwell within us in the home of our soul, but still we keep a few rooms locked…Oh no! Our Lord can’t go in there!  What will He think of the Mess!?  I gathered all the clutter that was everywhere in the house and dumped it there—it isn’t fit to be seen!  I will just lock it and He’ll never know….

We are afraid of leaving those doors open, afraid of what the one who already loved us past that which we are trying to hide will see, afraid of what He might make us do, afraid of what He will force us to face. 

Can the Good Lord peep into every door in your home??

Jesus, the divine Creator, fashioned us in his image and likeness.  He molded and continues to knead our souls towards perfection, sometimes in trials, sometimes in consolation.  But oh the kneading can hurt!!  We have all experienced some sort of pain, fear, rejection, or loss in our lives, often of which reaches the inner part of us and leaves one scar too many.  Jesus, too, experienced pain in His earthly life, a pain which also reached and tore at His innermost, a pain that we could never imagine or closely conceive of.   He carried the weight and pain of the very sin and damage we suffer from today, along with that of every person and all of humanity in the past, present, and future.  Jesus was hurt.  We have been hurt.  Jesus was scarred in the flesh.  We have been wounded and scarred in the flesh.  Jesus was nailed to a cross and left to die and cried out, seeking the Father.  We are struck with pain and fear and cry out, Father, where are you?  

Jesus died and rose again to make all things new--and because He has “overcome the world,” He will help us to overcome all troubles.   As we prepare ourselves this week for Pentecost Sunday, may we ask the Holy Spirit to help us to be more aware of our hearts and dispositions.  Sometimes we have a locked door and we don’t even know it!  As we acknowledge the closed doors in our hearts, ask Jesus to open every door with you, together.  He already knows what’s inside.  He has already taken it up to the Father in His suffering.  He has already stitched and bandaged our wound.  It’s time to sit with the Savior—if the wound still hurts, just grab His hand and squeeze for support.  

We have a clear calling in this world to be the face and heart of Christ to those we encounter.  As we continue to grow free of ourselves and full of Christ, may we be able to be the ears, the eyes, the hands, and the heart of Jesus, exactly where we are.

May the grace and peace of the Holy Spirit always be at the center of your heart.  Place your heart in the open side of the Savior and unite it with the King of our hearts who is within it as on a royal throne, in order that He might receive homage and obedience from all other hearts.  Keep its door open so that everybody can approach Him and gain an audience at all times.  And when your heart speaks to Him, don’t forget, my dearest, to speak in favor of mine again, so that His divine and cordial Majesty may render it good, obedient, faithful and less wretched than it is. ~St. Padre Pio