more than a symbol of love.
I never got to the point of studying Theology beyond a rudimentary beginning phase, and I had not considered that a problem until I began to realize some things the Lord has done.
One thing He has done on many occasions is heal me when I was either in very great pain or was very sick and frightened. But it simplified life by spelling out exactly what sin was, what sins I had committed and my obligations to God as a result of His healing interventions.
On the other hand, there were things, and still are things, I wish could be done for me but which do not happen. St. Padre Pio is a great guide. He never tolerated lies or deceptions in the confession box, and was rightly angry when someone did not recognize the seriousness of the confessional and the seriousness of the forgiveness of sins.
I do not take the Lord or His saints lightly. I don't make assumptions that are too easy for people in general assume about God and their relationship to Him. Many a person has come very close to death and were in grave peril of being lost and condemned when the lord spewed them out as the whale that swallowed Jonah did. I tell anyone who will listen, not to take God for granted or make assumptions about eternity.
Hardship in life has a great ability to clarify and simplify life and our relationship with God.
Hardship in life reveals our total reliance on God, and our obligation to love Him as He deserves. The lack of appreciation of the gravity of that obligation should be always before our eyes, and readily available to be seen throughout our days and our lives.
If we have taken Him for granted, a moment will come when we are taken from our comfortable reality and placed where God is to stand before Him to be judged or to be accepted with His customary totality of love. Even if we neglected Him, He has never neglected us, and anyone who thinks He neglected us might respond to Him with an apology for assuming what we have not the right to assume.
The Church has required that we examine our lives and adjust our thinking so we may set aside whatever might try to take God's place. That is something we should find in the confessional. And if we are prevented from getting to Mass or from going to confess our sins in the sacrament of penance, we should pray that He regard us with great love less we fail to see His love and respond appropriately.
What is appropriate ? God is above all things, and there is nothing better than Him or more deserving than anything else, including us. You may be angry, hurt, sad or burdened by unspeakable things, but those very things are not greater than He, and if we realize that with a revelation of how great is His love, we will forget ourselves in Him.
St. Francis of Assisi realized these things, and it grew to be of such importance to him that he formed his Order around those principles and His Rule by which people could reorganize their lives with great benefit because it was redolent of repentance and great affection for Christ.
How great must be the flames of grace to make us turn to Jesus with the realization of how great is His love for us that we should apprehend in our hearts with all our hearts to the point of being completely engulfing the heart.
For someone with nothing, who is nothing and is fully aware that he is nothing, Jesus can scarcely escape notice, and the gravity of our obligation to love Him should reach across whatever gulf still remains to separate us from Jesus. We are given life as an opportunity to practice our life and the way we live it. The saints knew and were very aware that God is perfect and we are imperfect, as is obvious to anyone with introspection who stands very near to Him. The closer we are to Him the more deeply we feel the need of Him and His salvation, the reaching out of Him to grasp us fully and rescue us from where we do not want to be. I do not want to be outside of Him or excluded from Him or without the affection that will save me, and I will pray for sinners who so much need Him, and I will offer my sufferings for them to obtain the grace that saves.
We don't need to look very far to see the emptiness and despair and grief in the world, the violence, selfishness and greed which struggle so hard to cut us off from God and desiccating us, attempt to pry us apart from His Heart.
I can only desire to be what He wants, and try to do what I can. But my desire has in it the seeds of realization of actual grace that effects salvation and makes us happy when we realize we have been placed by Him in His Heart and in His love so we might please Him in such a way, that salvation does not depend on any faulty thing of earth.
Today, let us begin to strip away anything less than Him or unworthy of His love. Let us cherish Him as much as we know Him in this moment, and pray that He advance us to a greater apprehension of His love so as to please Him in all things.
Amen, amn you are happy if you achieve His love and stand in Him in His light.
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