"Lord, your love surpasses all. Flood my heart with
your love and increase my faith and hope in your promises. Help me to give
myself in generous service to others as you have so generously given yourself
to me."
Rosary Intentions
For all pregnant women; that
they realize the importance of their gift from God and appreciate the blessings
He has bestowed on them.
 |
| Immaculate Heart of Mary Pray for us who have recourse to thee! |
For all of the unemployed; May
Saint Joseph help them find meaningful employment at a fair wage.
For all who are searching for
Christ; that their eyes may be opened to the Truth through the gentle
intercession of our Blessed Mother.
Reflection
Both Alicia and Sarah are running in a half-marathon race here
in town tomorrow morning. That’s 13.1
miles! I’m pretty proud of both of them
for the dedication it takes to train for—much less run in—a long distance
race. Because the race starts pretty
early in the morning, Sarah came down to spend the night here with us. After everyone else was in bed, Sarah and I
talked for about 45 minutes about love, religions, faith in general, and this
and that. I quite enjoyed my time with
her alone. It’s been a long time. A lot of our discussion centered around love
of one another and love of neighbor and of God, so I was pleasantly surprised
when I read the Gospel for tomorrow(Matthew 22:34-40), as it relates very well
to the topics she and I were discussing.
I’m guessing Sarah’s insights and observations in the course of our
conversation were the Holy Spirit’s way of preparing my thoughts for tonight’s
entry.
When we begin to love, we look at the world very differently,
we appreciate new things and we make sacrifices that seem small for the sake of
the beloved. Love transforms our lives.
When we discover the love of God, even more amazing things
happen to us. First of all, we
experience an indescribable fulfillment.
Human beings have a God-sized hole in their hearts that cannot be filled
with anything but the Lord Himself. As
St. Augustine said so beautifully, "You have made us for yourself, O Lord,
and our hearts are restless until they rest in thee."
The love of God opens our eyes to the beauty of many things
that we never appreciated before. Things
we used to value are no longer important.
Things we used to laugh at become surprisingly important. The difficult teachings of Christ in the
Gospels and the challenging moral truths proclaimed by his Church begin to make
sense. In fact, the love of Christ
inspires us to embrace those truths and live them with passion. The burden seems small when it is carried for
the sake of the Beloved; the love of Christ so transforms Christians that they
can’t imagine not sharing with their friends the joy of this new found love for
God.
The saints teach us volumes about this kind of transforming
love. St. Columban, for example, prayed
this way: "Loving Savior, be pleased to show yourself to us who knock, so
that in knowing you we may love only you, love you alone, desire you alone,
contemplate only you day and night, and always think of you. Inspire in us the depth of love that is
fitting for you to receive as God. So
may your love pervade our whole being, possess us completely, and fill all our
senses, that we may know no other love but love for you who are
everlasting".
With God's love coursing through our veins, we are driven into
the world to love our neighbor like St. Francis of Assisi, Blessed Teresa of
Calcutta and St. Maximilian Kolbe. The
love of God is indeed our fulfillment.
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