Tag: God

Being Loved

The Deepest Love

Smitten With Goodness

How often do we reflect on God’s deep love, shown in sending His Son to live, teach, and die for us? Isaiah understood something that we so often forget—God revels in us so fully that He wishes to envelop us completely in His light. He wants to cover us in His glory so that others may see the magnificence within His creation. He desires our hearts to overflow with His love and our love for Him.

It’s so easy to forget that amidst the darkness of this world, and in our pursuit of following God’s law and avoiding sin, the point of everything is love. God deserves all the glory, and only He is to be worshipped. But we forget, either because of past hurts or current struggles, that we come from God and belong to God, and that there is nothing God wants more than to unite us to Him and celebrate our existence. He pours out His riches to us in our daily blessings—the food we eat, the families and communities we build, the homes in which we live, the air we breathe, the innate goodness that marks us as His own, and so much more.

Rise up in splendor, Jeru­salem! Your light has come,/ the glory of the Lord shines upon you./ See, darkness covers the earth,/ and thick clouds cover the peoples;/ but upon you the Lordshines,/ and over you appears his glory./Nations shall walk by your light,/ and kings by your shining radiance./ Raise your eyes and look about;/ they all gather and come to you:/ your sons come from afar,/ and your daughters in the arms of their nurses. 

Then you shall be radiant at what you see,/ your heart shall throb and overflow,/for the riches of the sea shall be emptied out before you,/ the wealth of nations shall be brought to you./ Caravans of camels shall fill you,/ dromedaries from Midian and Ephah;/ all from Sheba shall come/bearing gold and frankincense,/ and proclaiming the praises of the Lord. Isaiah 60:1-6

May we remember that we are God’s cherished people, called to reflect His glory, now and always.

Inspiration

What Fruit Do You Sow?

Smitten With Goodness

As we reflect at the start of the new year, what is reflected through your life? Are you surrounded by friendship? Are you surrounded by love and God’s goodness?

Do you want more friendship and love? If so, are you planting those seeds through service or are you always looking at life through a lens of “what’s in it for me?” Or do we look with urgency how we can glorify God with our life. We are known by the fruit of our life.

“A tree is known by its fruit; a man by his deeds. A good deed is never lost; he who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love.”— St. Basil the Great

Inspiration

Open Hearts

Smitten With Goodness

With the new year, have you taken time to reflect about how you are doing mentally and spiritually? Is your mind resting in the space of thanksgiving and gratitude of what is placed before you. Or are you anxious about what is missing from your life? Is your spirit focused on growing in holiness and imitating Christ or do you spend more time focused on building your material world?

What if today were your last and you find yourself standing before our Lord giving an account of how well you loved him and others. How would you measure up compared to Christs love for you? Let’s seek an open heart of love with reckless abandon!

An Act of Love:

Lord God, I love you above all things 
and I love my neighbor for your sake 
because you are the highest, infinite and perfect
good, worthy of all my love. 
In this love I intend to live and die. 
Amen.

Inspiration

A New Perspective

Smitten With Goodness

With the start of another new year, we can use the calendar to help us with new resolve. So many times are attitudes affect our vision of how we see the world. We can believe the right things and do the right things, but we must have love at the foundation of everything.

Mary can be our role model for a new loving perspective. She achieved so much by her silent presence along with her son at many of the moments of his life, his birth, his first miracle at Cana and his death on the cross. She is for a model of silent contemplation as she ponders with great faith and devotion the mystery that unfolded before her in the life of her Son.

What perspective do you bring into this new year? Will you work tirelessly to seek God in everything? Will you strive for your faith to be visible through your actions? Do you plan to tell your family and friends you love them? How often will you tell God you love him? Will you give God thanks for your many blessings? Will you be bold in your faith? How do you plan to grow interiorly? Will you trust God’s plan and know you are exactly where you need to be? Will you endure the suffering you experience well? Will God come first in your life?

Ponder these things in your heart for a new loving perspective for 2025! Let’s be smitten with Gods goodness.

Inspiration

A New Year

Smitten With Goodness

What is it about new beginnings and a fresh start that makes us feel hopeful? Its like the feeling of blue skies and endless light. The turn of the clock to the new year provides this perspective.

Have you made an examination of your past year. What is God asking of you in this new year to give him glory? By growing in love, we give the greater glory. In this new year let’s stretch, grow in humility and learn to love as God does. Let’s commit in 2025 to open our eyes to return Gods relentless love.

Teach Us To Pray

Eternal Word 

Smitten With Goodness
Season of thanksgiving in prayer

Seventh Day in the Octave of Christmas

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be.  What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.  John 1:1–5

On this, the seventh day of the Octave of Christmas, we are given a mystery.  The mystery of the “Word.”  It’s a language that is veiled and yet revealing at the same time.  It presents Jesus to us as the “Word.”  He is the Word who takes on flesh and is eternal, from “the beginning with God.”  The passage goes on to say that the Word was God and that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

Lord, Jesus, Eternal Word of the Father, I thank You for coming among us and for making Your eternal dwelling present to us.  Thank You for the great mystery of Christmas.  Help me to always celebrate this season with great joy and gratitude, and also with a sense of mystery.  May I always realize that the mystery of Christmas will never be fully understood.  May this mystery draw me closer each and every day so that I may fall more deeply in love with You, my eternal God.  Jesus, I trust in You.

Teach Us To Pray

The Prophetess Anna

Smitten With Goodness
Season of thanksgiving in prayer

Sixth Day in the Octave of Christmas

There was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher.  She was advanced in years, having lived seven years with her husband after her marriage, and then as a widow until she was eighty-four.  She never left the temple, but worshiped night and day with fasting and prayer.  And coming forward at that very time, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were awaiting the redemption of Jerusalem.  Luke 2:36–38

Today, the sixth day of the Octave of Christmas, we honor the prophetess Anna.  She, like Simeon whom we honored yesterday, spent her days in the temple worshipping God day and night.  She anticipated the coming Messiah and, by a personal and special revelation from God, recognized His presence as He was presented by Mary and Joseph.

Reflect, today, upon Anna the prophetess.  Try to imagine the joy in her heart as she spoke of this newborn King.  And pray that her joy and prophetic example will inspire you to continually proclaim the Lord to all whom God puts in your path.

Lord, may I always remember the reason for Christmas.  May I always keep the joy of Your coming among us at the center of my celebration.  You, dear Lord, are the greatest Gift ever given.  I thank You for Your life and I pray that You will help me to share the Gift of Yourself with others.  Jesus, I trust in You.

Teach Us To Pray

Simeon’s Prophecy 

Smitten With Goodness
Season of thanksgiving in prayer

Fifth Day in the Octave of Christmas

“Lord, now let your servant go in peace; your word has been fulfilled: my own eyes have seen the salvation which you prepared in the sight of every people, a light to reveal you to the nations and the glory of your people Israel.” Luke 2:29–32

On this, the fifth day of the Octave of Christmas, we are given the witness of the prophet Simeon.  This holy man was promised by God by a personal revelation that he would actually see, with his own eyes, the Savior of the World.  Throughout his life he would have anticipated this moment.  He would have longed for it and hoped for it.  And then, one day the moment came.  Simeon would have woken up that day, going about his normal routine like any other day.  However, the moment that Mary and Joseph brought their newborn Child into the temple, Simeon knew in his heart that this Child was the promised Savior.

Lord, I thank You for the great witness of Simeon the Prophet.  Thank You for Your fidelity to Simeon in letting him see You as a little Child.  May I always imitate his great faith and seek You all my life, waiting for You to come to me in veiled ways so that my heart may rejoice in Your presence.  Jesus, I trust in You.

Teach Us To Pray

From Tragedy to Glory

Smitten With Goodness
Season of thanksgiving in prayer

Feast of the Holy Innocents, Martyrs
Fourth Day of the Octave of Christmas

When Herod realized that he had been deceived by the magi, he became furious.  He ordered the massacre of all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had ascertained from the magi.  Matthew 2:16

Today on the fourth day of the Octave of Christmas, we are given a similar witness to the one we received on December 26, the Feast of the Martyrdom of St. Stephen.  But today’s feast presents the same evil in a different and even more tragic light.  Here, out of envy and hatred, Herod had countless innocent children killed in an attempt to eliminate Jesus, the newborn King.  

Reflect, today, upon that which is most painful for you this Christmas season.  Whatever it may be, you are invited to unite your hurt and pain today with the sorrow of the families who lost these little ones.  Let God do for you what He ultimately did for all of them.  Let His Incarnation, death and Resurrection transform your hurt into a crown of martyrdom.  In the end, the Lord will be victorious in your life if you let Him.

Lord, I surrender all hurt, pain and confusion to You.  I unite myself, this day, with the sorrow of those who lost these little children and I trust that their lives, as they reign now in Heaven with You, are a sign for me of things to come.  Your birth into our world was the greatest sign that You are our Savior and that You can turn all things into good.  Jesus, I entrust my life to You and know that You will right every wrong.  Jesus, I trust in You.