Let Me Trust You

I kept faith, even when I said,

"I am greatly afflicted!"
I said in my alarm,
"No one can be trusted!"
How can I repay the LORD
for all the good done for me?
I will raise the cup of salvation
and call on the name of the LORD.
I will pay my vows to the LORD
in the presence of all his people.
Too costly in the eyes of the LORD
is the death of his faithful.
LORD, I am your servant,
your servant, the child of your maidservant;
you have loosed my bonds.
I will offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving
and call on the name of the LORD.
I will pay my vows to the LORD
in the presence of all his people,
In the courts of the house of the LORD,
in your midst, O Jerusalem.
Hallelujah! (Psalm 116:10-19)

I Am With You...

Then Jesus approached and said to them, "All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit,teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age." (Mt. 28:18-20)

Dare With God!

Mary thus stands before us as a sign of comfort, encouragement and hope. She turns to us, saying: "Have the courage to dare with God! Try it! Do not be afraid of him! Have the courage to risk with faith! Have the courage to risk with goodness! Have the courage to risk with a pure heart! Commit yourselves to God, then you will see that it is precisely by doing so that your life will become broad and light, not boring but filled with infinite surprises, for God's infinite goodness is never depleted!"

-Pope Benedict XVI, Dec. 8, 2006

Abandonment to Divine Providence

Yes, my heavenly Father, always yes...
-St. Francis de Sales

Surprised by Christ

There is nothing more beautiful than to be surprised by the Gospel, by the encounter with Christ. There is nothing more beautiful than to know Him and to speak to others of our friendship with Him.
~Pope Benedict XVI, April, 2005

Come to the Father...

The time for my birth is close at hand. Forgive me, my brothers. Do not stand in the way of my birth to real life; do not wish me stillborn. My desire is to belong to God. Do not, then, hand me back to the world. Do not try to tempt me with material things. Let me attain pure light. Only on my arrival there can I be fully a human being. Give me the privilege of imitating the passion of my God. If you have him in your heart, you will understand what I wish. You will sympathize with me because you will know what urges me on.

The prince of this world is determined to lay hold of me and to undermine my will which is intent on God. Let none of you here help him; instead show yourselves on my side, which is also God’s side. Do not talk about Jesus Christ as long as you love this world. Do not harbor envious thoughts. And supposing I should see you, if then I should beg you to intervene on my behalf, do not believe what I say. Believe instead what I am now writing to you. For though I am alive as I write to you, still my real desire is to die. My love of this life has been crucified, and there is no yearning in me for any earthly thing. Rather within me is the living water which says deep inside me: “Come to the Father.” I no longer take pleasure in perishable food or in the delights of this world. I want only God’s bread, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, formed of the seed of David, and for drink I crave his blood, which is love that cannot perish.

~St. Ignatius of Anitoch

Oh, let this be the desire of my heart...!

Courage that Comes from Communion

To have courage for whatever comes in life - everything lies in that.
~St. Teresa of Avila

This is Hope

To know that You, Father, hold the world and its wonders in Your creating hand...and there is still room for me! How can I not but totally rely on Your infinite mercy, power, and promises?

Rely on Receiving

[F]rom the point of view of the Christian faith, man comes in the profoundest sense to himself not through what he does but through what he accepts. He must wait for the gift of love, and love can only be received as a gift. It cannot be “made” on one’s own without anyone else; one must wait for it, let it be given to one. And one cannot become wholly man in any other way than by being loved, by letting oneself be loved. That love represents simultaneously both man’s highest possibility and his deepest need, and that this most necessary thing is at the same time the freest and most unenforceable, means precisely that for his “salvation” man is meant to rely on receiving. If he declines to let himself be presented with the gift, then he destroys himself. (Introduction to Christianity, Benedict XVI)

The Beloved of the Father

(Congregation For Institutes Of Consecrated Life And Societies Of Apostolic Life)

The Service Of Authority And Obedience

In the following of Jesus, the obedient Son of the Father

8. On this journey we are not alone: we are guided by the example of Christ, the Beloved on whom the Father's favor rests (Mt 3:17; 17:5), but also he who has freed us thanks to his obedience. It is he who inspires our obedience in order that the divine plan of salvation be completed through us.

In him everything is a listening to and acceptance of the Father (cf. Jn 8:28-29); all of his earthly life is an expression and continuation of what the Word does from eternity: letting himself be loved by the Father, accepting his love in an unconditional way, to the point of deciding to do nothing by himself (cf. Jn 8:28) but to do always what is pleasing to the Father. The will of the Father is the food which sustains Jesus in his work (cf. Jn 4:34) and which merits for Him and for us the superabundance of the resurrection, the luminous joy of entering into the very heart of God, into the blessed company of his children (cf. Jn 1:12). It is by this obedience of Jesus that “all shall become just” (Rm 5:19).

He also lived obedience when it presented a difficult chalice to drink (cf. Mt 26:39, 42; Lk 22:42), and he made himself “obedient to the point of death, and death on a cross” (Phil 2:8). This is the dramatic aspect of the obedience of the Son wrapped in a mystery which we can never totally penetrate, but which for us is very relevant, because it uncovers for us even more the filial nature of Christian obedience: only the child who senses himself loved by the Father and loves him with his whole self, can arrive at this type of radical obedience.

In imitation of the Beloved of the Father, let us draw out the "Fatherness of God". The more we allow ourselves to be His children, the more we behold Him as our Father, Who wants to pour His love and graces upon us who can do nothing without Him.

The Heart of Mary

What was Mary cherishing under the cross but the very Word of God...

Mary lived with her eyes fixed on Christ, treasuring his every word: “She kept all these things, pondering them in her heart” (Lk 2:19; cf. 2:51). The memories of Jesus, impressed upon her heart, were always with her, leading her to reflect on the various moments of her life at her Son's side. In a way those memories were to be the “rosary” which she recited uninterruptedly throughout her earthly life. (John Paul II, Rosarium Virginis Mariae, 11)

Living Stones

Come out Apostolic Oblate, my beautiful friend, come to the light, where the cup is overflowing with the joy of self-giving. Come out Bethany of my dream, come to the fire stronger than death, open your Eucharistic heart to everyone, draw everyone to holiness and send many to sow hope along the city roads. This is the Lord’s invitation: we must come out from our sepulchers (our tombs), remove the stones that block our communion and resurrection. Let us come out from behind the harsh and deadly stone, that we might manifest God’s glory and others may believe. They will believe if they see our effort, our commitment, our love and good will in removing all obstacles to communion. Let us come out from our close-mindedness, so that every Bethany may continue to be for all time the “privileged place” and the life-giving place for all who yearn for life.

The passage from darkness to light demands that we remove the stones. What stones? And how? The unfastening of our hands and feet, in order to go, freed and renewed, to announce holiness to all. “We must stretch ourselves; if I said that we must burst out it might sound too strong an expression; but I say, we must expand ourselves, get larger. In this way we will find more space in our heart for joy, for meaning, and for life” (G. Giaquinta 1990).
-Giuliana Spigone, 2002)

Everything is grace...

"Everything is grace, everything is the direct effect of our Father's love. Everything is grace because everything is God's gift. Whatever be the character of life or its unexpected events -- to the heart that loves, all is well." -St. Therese of Lisieux