Saint John Bosco said, “There are many ways to practice mortification. Just patiently endure heat, sickness, trouble, people, happenings and so forth.”
The most important thing in the entire universe is God.
The most important desire is to achieve redemption in Heaven and to spend eternity with God.
If bad things happen in life, if we get sick or hurt or sad or tired, if tragedies strike or if we feel alone or lost. If we lose every thing and every one who we hold dear. If all things are lost to us as they were to Job, the only thing that matters – the only thing that makes everything worthwhile – is God.
And that means that the only thing that I must hold in front of my eyes is God.
The only thing that I must hold to myself is God.
And that means that I must continuously hold myself accountable to God…
Saint John Bosco said, “There are many ways to practice mortification. Just patiently endure heat, sickness, trouble, people, happenings and so forth.”
And I have been thinking about that today, because I am not a brave soul. I am not a wise one or a brilliant one. In God’s garden, I am merely a little weed. A pretty weed, but a worthless one. My soul will not shine brightly as the others do. My heart will not beat loudly as the hearts of the Saints beat with love for God. Instead, I will always be a little thing. The sacrifices that I will make will never be big sacrifices. The suffering that I will endure will never be significant suffering.
I live a charmed life and a life of such little suffering that it shames me to say that I shall never be able to say that I experienced the Cross.
The Saints suffered terrible things. Saint Faustina experienced tuberculosis of the intestines and was never diagnosed with the illness until she was so ill that she had only months to live. During the period of her illness, the other sisters in the convent considered her a faker and a time-waster who was seeking attention. She did not experience courtesy or understanding or comfort.
And she suffered terribly. At one point, close to her death, she spoke to Christ, when He appeared to her, and told Him that she was so sad that He was tormenting her so badly by leaving her to suffer and to remain so close to death and yet not to die. And Christ replied that she would wish that her suffering had been greater and that she had endured for longer, once she saw the glories that her suffering would being in Heaven…
And I have been thinking about that today. For it occurs to me that I do not have the suffering required to make myself even close to worthy of redemption. And now, it seems that I must endure. For that is all that God is calling me to do… Endure with anything that He allows me to experience…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.
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