Our Response to God's Love

        In view of God's great love for us, we don't need to struggle for it anymore.  All we need to do is be passive and let the Lord love us freely. 

Love Most Astounding

        Julian further revealed how the Lord loves us.  In another vision, Christ said to her, "It is a joy and a bliss and an endless delight to me that ever I suffered my Passion for you, for it I could suffer more, I would."  She added that Jesus has great joy in all the deeds which he has done for salvation, and that we are his bliss, his reward, his honour, and his crown.  We'll never be able to fathom the love he has for us!  You'll have to be made of stone or absolutely dead to not be moved by the Lord's great love for us.       

Sorrows, Sweet or Bitter

        I have started reading Julian of Norwich ~ Showings.  Julian was an anchoress living in England in the late 14th century.  She received 16 revelations of God's love in a series of experienced visions.  I posted "Sweet Sorrows" yesterday.  Let me share something I just read from one of Julian's revelations.  She said: "When Christ was in pain we were in pain, and all creatures able to suffer pain suffered with him.  And for those who do not know him, their pain was that all creation, sun and moon, ceased to serve men, and so they were all abandoned in sorrow at that time.  So those who loved him suffered pain for their love, and those who did not love him suffered pain because the comfort of all creation failed them." 

        All this really made sense to me because we who love Christ share the same sorrows with him and get consoled by him, whereas those who do not know or love the Lord feel sorrow when things don't turn out to serve them ~ it's a big difference.  Sorrow is sweet or bitter, depending upon whether you love Christ or not.     

Union Through the Holy Eucharist

        When I receive Christ in the Holy Eucharist, I am making a pact with him to let him enter my life, occupying my whole being, so that we dwell in each other.  Physically, the bread and wine are totally absorbed by my body and they run through all my veins.  Yes, the Lord becomes part of me, literally making my body the temple of the Holy Spirit.

Sweet Sorrows

        There are many things going on in the world and among people I personally know or love that make me sorrowful.  Then I go to the Lord and share all my feelings and he turns all my sorrows sweet.  It happens because now we are feeling the exact, same sorrows.  When Jesus went through his passion, he knew he was doing the Father's will.  Even though his sufferings were horrific, the sorrows were sweet because he did all out of love.  Anyway, the Christian life is a sweet life.

Look Up to God Please

        I have talked about living the Christian life, that is, following Jesus, as an exciting ongoing journey.  Now I sense even more excitement as I see that up ahead along the way, I'll be discovering or finding more and more of God's beauty, magnificence, mercy, riches, and wonders ~ there's just no limit to the breadth, height, and depth of the Lord!  How I wish that all would turn away from their fascination of the things and affairs of this passing, mundane (and ultimately boring) world and look up to God for a moment to realize the exciting journey they could take that will lead them to eternal happiness! 

On Receiving the Holy Eucharist

        St. Paul made it clear that whatever we do, without love, means nothing.  And the Lord said that not everyone who calls to him, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of God.  Likewise, one can go to Mass, participate in church activities... but has no personal relationship with Christ, then he is only nominally Christian, one who has not built his house on rock. 

        Yesterday was the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ.  Anyone who does receive the Holy Eucharist must realize that in receiving it, the Lord becomes even closer than one's own flesh and Blood.  Here is the opportunity to establish this intimate relationship.  Receiving the Lord in vain is worse than not receiving him at all.              

Peace to Exclude Anxiety

        This morning I had the zeal to do God's work and felt some anxiety coming on, then the Lord made me see that he has his own timetable and wants me to always wait in peace and not be anxious about anything, including doing good works.

How Am I Doing?

        I thought this would be a good question to ask the Lord anytime you are doing his will.

It's the Lord!

        There is excitement and joy when you recognize that it's the Lord.  I am thinking about the time when the disciples recognized that the "ghost" walking upon water toward them was really the Lord.  Later they realized that the one standing on the shore directing them to cast their net to catch fish was the resurrected Lord.  And then the eyes of the two disciples on the way to Emmaus were opened at the breaking of the bread. 

        I also feel that any time you recognize that a thought, a word, a desire, an urge, or a voice is coming from or prompted by the Holy Spirit, get excited and be joyful that it is the Lord within you.