MTA= What good is it to keep me for myself? What good is it to give myself wholly to dogs or throw my pearls before swine, who will trample them under their feet and turn and tear me to pieces? It makes sense to give myself wholly to God's providence and trust in His guidance as He leads me step by step, day by day in the direction leading to eternal life, and to joyously bathe in His love.
⚪️ "Rejoice, my dearest brothers, because you are blessed and because of the bountiful hand of God’s grace upon you. Rejoice, because you have escaped the various dangers and shipwrecks of the stormy world. Rejoice because you have reached the quiet and safe anchorage of a secret harbor. Many wish to come into this port, and many make great efforts to do so, yet do not achieve it. Indeed many, after reaching it, have been thrust out, since it was not granted them from above. By your work you show what you love and what you know. When you observe true obedience with prudence and enthusiasm, it is clear that you wisely pick the most delightful and nourishing fruit of divine Scripture". By St. Bruno
🔵 "God’s Promises Are Always Greater Than Our Hopes”. By St. Julian of Norwich
My child, blessings and graces follow those who love me. Strength and courage is theirs who call on my name. Look to me, your helper in time of need. Know that I will never leave or forsake you. You belong to me, not one given to me by the Father will be lost. My child draw near, I will hear your cry, I myself will set every captive free, come to me.
Turned at random to 1 Thessalonians 3. These are the three verses that were written down:
Info from this site:
https://nealobstat.wordpress.com/2016/06/11/hope-in-god/
"Hope is certitude that the future holds good in store for me. Theological hope, the infused virtue, sister to faith and charity, is the certitude of faith that the immovable ground of reality is love. That the promised future of God’s Kingdom, punctuating the Beatitudes, holds imperishable good in store for me. If I make the Kingdom my treasure, and the words of the Word my life’s foundation, joy remains, abides.
Joy is delight that springs up from hope’s certitude.
Hopelessness is not simply an absence of hope, but attachment to a form of hope that has been lost, that lacks enduring substance.
Hebrews 11:1 — “faith is the substance of things hoped for.” Substance!
We have so many hopes! Some proximate, some remote. Some trivial, penultimate, some ultimate. Where are my anchors set? If you wish to see which hopes truly define you, watch what remains firm in times of adversity. When you lose everything, what’s left? Only what was substantial. The psalms are filled with this insight.
Substantial hope thrives in adversity. St Therese: When everything in you and outside you rages against hope and still you make an act of will to hope in God — then you have awakened within the theological virtue of hope, and not just optimism or well-wishing.
You can’t really call faith faith when you feel it’s all settled and obvious. When everything falls apart, the sun sets and night falls, faith begins. When you cry, “My God! My God! Why have you abandoned me?” or “How long, O Lord?”– only then can you meaningfully say, “Into your hands, Father, I commend my spirit.” When you cry out in distress, sinking down with hands raised up, then you know you really believed someone was listening.
Hardship alone exposes and tests the structure of our inner hierarchies of hope: which hopes define me, which don’t. My spiritual director said to me once when I complained — “Why is this happening? Why is it so hard?” — “One day you tell me you begged God for greater trust, now you tell me He gave you a chance to trust and what do you do? Complain. What do you want?” I said, “I guess infused trust and not the virtue, or a reason to trust.” We laughed.
Sometimes hopelessness is necessary, as it can in short order expose the sandy securities we’ve built our lives on and lead us down to the bedrock. Trust is the hard virtue to acquire, but is absolutely necessary. Without trust, no one would dare hope. Babies stop crying when they cease to believe anyone will answer. When I cry out to God from the pit, decrying His absence, I have received a new and more profound mode of the divine presence: God under the from of yearning. Veni! Veni! O Come! O Come! Yearning stretches your capacity for God, and your capacity to give away what you receive.
Those who have suffered darkness are uniquely empowered to be missionaries of hope to those who live in darkness.
In the darkness illumined by faith I can reset my anchors. In the transition from sand to rock, it seems I almost lose who I am. But what I lose are the illusions. What I gain is the faith of the Cross. Try it now, “In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
There’s no turning back."
"To give myself wholly to God’s providence", this Maxim is the key to our peace of mind and heart, because it implies perfect trust in God alone and detachment from human possessions. Jesus says to us: “Do not be anxious what you shall eat. Think more of the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, yet God feeds them – how much more you!”
Luke 12:22-24 "He said to [his] disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life and what you will eat, or about your body and what you will wear. For life is more than food and the body more than clothing. Notice the ravens: they do not sow or reap; they have neither storehouse nor barn, yet God feeds them. How much more important are you than birds!" |
God, who is love, cares for every atom of creation. God’s loving hands fashioned us; his anxious care sustains our every moment. So we can have trust in this God who cherishes each one of us.
• At the start of the gospel passage above Jesus addresses us as his friends, without condition. Not ‘if you are good’ – but ‘whether you are sinners or not.’
• If we are truly God’s friends, we are foolish to rely on our own powers. “If I scale the heavens... if I dwell beyond the ocean, even there your hand will be guiding me”
• We could even embrace actual poverty, content to choose God alone as our patrimony. “Wherever your treasure is, there will be your heart too”
• In our poverty we can confidently ask the Father for our daily bread, since anything we need is a means to establish God’s kingdom and his justice. By praying in these words we acknowledge our dependence on God, trusting him to give us what we need – and more.
• We can attend to present duties, but we should not fret about the future. The acid test is whether we worry about the outcome of any decisions we take or about public events. They are in God’s hands.
• If we seek only to please God we shall not always be looking for change. We are happy with our status and condition of life, because this is where God has put us. And we shall not be constantly seeking to better our situation.
• On the other hand we are perfectly content to accept change when it comes, and at the time and in the manner God decrees. The important thing is to serve God the way God wants, even at the expense of our health, wealth or reputation."
- Link to the audio presentation: