The only certainty of life is God!
I have been praying very much these last few days for all the people who are sick and suffering.
There are people who had cancer and are now well for whom I give thanks, but there are also those who are sick and slowly recovering, and still others who will not recover from their various illnesses. Regardless of the physical results of their illnesses, my prayers and yours for them, send them the same spiritual cure. They receive Grace, and in pleasing God, so too do we, all of us who pray for them.
While I pray for those, I remember the Lost Souls of Purgatory. They are a great gift to us here on Earth – for though they cannot pray for themselves, they can pray for us and our intentions. They are one more of the weapons in our arsenal against the Evil One. And in experiencing the devastation of Purgatory, and understanding more completely God’s love for us, their incentive to pray is ever so much greater than ours – for their understanding of the consequences of prayer is closer to God’s…
Those Lost Souls love us as their neighbours. Those Lost Souls are the action of Christ’s second commandment to love one another as God has loved us. They selflessly wish to save us from the same torments they endure – they love.
And they love us as Saint Paul speaks to us of love…
“Love is patient, Love is kind. Love is not boastful or envious or arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (1 Corinthians, 13:4-7).
This is a reading that has been read so many times in so many wedding ceremonies that I have attended (including my own) that over time the words have lost some of their wonder through familiarity. And yet, today, when I reflect on these words I am struck – very suddenly – by the power and radicalism of these words.
GOD IS LOVE. No wonder Love is so perfect. It is patient, kind, not envious, boastful, arrogant, rude, resentful and rejoices in TRUTH. But most importantly, “It BEARS all things, BELIEVES all things, HOPES all things, ENDURES all things.”… ALL THINGS… There is no limit to love. God who is perfect goodness and perfect love bears, believes, hopes and endures ALL THINGS – without limit or proviso.
How lucky we are!
I was reflecting on the Twelfth Station of the Cross where Jesus Dies over the last few days, I see this LOVE. In the beautiful mediation that I read for this Station there is included the following phrase from the perspective of Christ… “And then when I have borne enough, have emptied my humanity, I let my mortal life depart.”
Christ gave until He had nothing left to give to us and He gave it in the face of ridicule, mocking, misunderstanding and abuse! Because God is LOVE.
In praying the associated prayers of this Twelfth Station of the Cross, part of what I pray is… “I offer you my death with all its pains, accepting now the time and kind of death in store for me. Not by a single instant would I lengthen my life’s span.”
For though I am uncertain of the trials through which I must walk on this path from Life through Death and into Eternity, I am CERTAIN of He who awaits me there!
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.
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