Tag: Good Living

Teach Us To Pray

Combating Busyness

Smitten With Goodness
Teach us to pray

As we start the new year, where does your relationship with God fall on your list?  As seekers, our spirituality needs to be more important than anything. When my day is divinely ordered, miracles occur and I do what needs to be done.  

Thank you Lord for blessing me with the gift of being responsible. People know they can count on me to take care of things. For better or worse, I’ve learned to be the epitome of responsibility when it comes to my job, children, appearance and social commitments. But when it comes to taking care of myself spiritually, I likely don’t rate so high. Yet you are showing me that nothing else should be so high on my list. It is from my spirituality that friendship and love spring up like flowers. This includes learning to love myself and meditating on how you see me. It is from the depth of my spirituality that I become more able to forgive. And it is the quality of my spirituality that determines how well I can accept reality and let go of what needs to be released.

Help me live a Spirituality that is not a luxury to be pursued only if I have time left after everything else is done. Make me prioritize quiet time, time with friends, time to read, pray, and walk in the woods – the things that are important in the proper care of my spiritual life. Help me resist the temptation of busyness that leads me to be separate from You. Today please slow me down and order my priorities according to Your plan for me. Amen

Teach Us To Pray

Doing My Part

Smitten With Goodness
Teach us to pray.

Matthew 6:14-18 from The Message, tells us how we are to act:

In prayer, there is a connection between what God does, and what you do. You can’t get forgiveness from God, for instance, without also forgiving others. If you refuse to do your part, you cut yourself off from God’s part.

When you practice some appetite – denying discipline to better concentrate on God, don’t make a production of it. It might turn you into a small- time celebrity, but it won’t make you a saint. If you ‘go into training’ inwardly, act normal outwardly. Shampoo and comb your hair, brush your teeth, wash your face. God doesn’t require attention getting devices. He won’t overlook what you are doing; he’ll reward you well.

Lord, let me listen to your voice and act accordingly for my part today. Amen

Inspiration

New Heart

Smitten With Goodness
Reflection for contemplative living

The saints understood the need for a singular focused heart. Not one formed by the world but one aligned with our creator.

St. Benedict of Nursia says, “You change your life by changing your heart.” St. Therese of Lisieux stated: Jesus, help me to simplify my life by learning what you want me to be, and becoming that person.

As scripture reminds us, we are to be new wine.

No one patches an old cloak with a piece of unshrunken cloth, for its fullness pulls away from the cloak and the tear gets worse. People do not put new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise the skins burst, the wine spills out, and the skins are ruined. Rather, they pour new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved.  Matthew 9:14-17

Thank you, Lord, for giving me a new heart to fill up with the things you deem worthy. 

Inspiration

Happy Thanksgiving

Smitten With Goodness
Reflections for contemplative living

Thanksgiving is the public acknowledgement or celebration of divine goodness. It is the act of giving thanks, a prayer expressing gratitude. It is easy to look beyond our circle of influence and be overwhelmed by the critical and inconsiderate world we see in the media and social media. With grace, we can open our eyes and hearts to the divine goodness in front of us when we slow down and be present in our life.

It is relatively easy to forget about all the good things God has done for us and to neglect giving thanks for our blessings.  Reading Psalm 103 can help foster a spirit of thanksgiving by keeping our eyes focused on the good God has done for us. 

He fills our days with good things. 

Psalm 103:5

Eucharist, from the Greek word “eucharista”, means thanksgiving.  The Catholic Church teaches that “the Eucharist is ‘the source and summit of the Christian life.’” Participation in Holy Communion during Mass, consumed with a humble heart, allows the Spirit to increase in me, decreasing my strong will and self-reliance.  This allows me to fill my heart with His goodness and surrender to Christ as King of my life. 

Sometimes we must jump with both feet into faith and trust.  Other times we need to slow down and appreciate what is in front of us. Expressing gratitude helps us cultivate a thankful heart.  Gratitude turns what we have into enough.

Happy Thanksgiving and for being Smitten With Goodness!

Inspiration

A Grateful Heart

Smitten With Goodness
Reflections for contemplative living

We are called to have a grateful heart.  Throughout scripture there are repeated calls to action to give thanks to God. Thanksgiving is to always be a part of our prayers. Some of the most remembered passages on the giving of thanks are the following:

“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18).

“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God” (Philippians 4:6).

“Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men” (1 Timothy 2:1).

Of all of God’s gifts, the greatest one He has given is the gift of His Son, Jesus Christ. On the cross of Calvary, Jesus paid our sin debt, so a holy and just Judge could forgive us our sins and give us eternal life as a free gift. This gift is available to those who will call on Christ to save them from their sin in simple but sincere faith (John 3:16; Romans 3:19-26; Romans 6:23; Romans 10:13; Ephesians 2:8-10). For this gift of His Son, the gift which meets our greatest need, the Apostle Paul says, “Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!” (2 Corinthians 9:15).

We have a choice. In life there will always be those things that we can complain about but there will also be much to be thankful for. 

May God grant that He may find us grateful every day for all of His gifts, spiritual and material. God is good, and every good gift comes from Him (James 1:17). For those who know Christ, God also works everything together for good, even events we would not necessarily consider good (Romans 8:28-30). 

May He find us with a grateful heart.

Uncategorized

Key to Happiness

Smitten With Goodness
Reflections for contemplative living

Meaningful connections are a key to a happy life. We may feel like friendships should come naturally, but they can require real effort. 

Whether your aim is to make new friends or strengthen existing friendships, these tips and tools can help you find new ways to connect:

Tell someone how much you appreciate them

Be fully present to the person in front of you

Text a friend you haven’t been in contact recently

Email or text a former coworker to see how they are doing

Send a handwritten note to someone who is on your mind

Identify three people you would like to have a deeper relationship with

Search today’s date in your phone a share a memory with a friend

Choose an activity to do with a friend – take up a hobby, share a book

Give someone a compliment

As we enter the season of Thanksgiving, let’s be ever mindful of the gifts we have been given.  Thank you Lord Jesus!

Inspiration

Greatest Love

Smitten With Goodness
Reflections for contemplative living

Since love (caritas) is what God is, it is also that virtue that conforms us most dramatically to God. Thomas Aquinas says that caritas is friendship with God. In his great farewell discourse, the night before his death, Jesus says to his disciples that he no longer calls them servants, but friends—and in this he opens up a new world.


In any other religion, a human being could be called, vis-à-vis God, a creature, a penitent, or an eager supplicant, but only in Christianity could she be called an intimate of God. This is true because in Christ, God has become one of us, thereby establishing a parity beyond our capacity even to imagine.

The participation in what God is is what Aquinas means by caritas, friendship with God. The moral challenge, of course, is to live out the implications of that friendship, listening and speaking to God, obeying the promptings of his voice, opening our heart to him, and, above all, loving what he loves—which is to say, everyone and everything.

Thank you, Lord, for giving us the greatest love of all. 

Inspiration

Holy Simplicity

Smitten With Goodness
Reflections for contemplative living

Many individuals throughout time have chosen to live a life of poverty, simplicity, and service.  I’m seeing how this strategy is a good one to keep a singular focus, to love God with all our heart.  

Father Richard Rohr of the Center for Action and Contemplation recently pointed out how we might embrace a life of “poverty,” even in times of sufficiency and abundance:

Letting go of our own small vantage point is the core of what we mean by conversion, but also what we mean by Franciscan “poverty.” Poverty is not just a life of simplicity, humility, restraint, or even lack. Poverty is when we recognize that myself—by itself—is largely powerless and ineffective. John’s Gospel puts it quite strongly when it says that a branch that does not abide in Jesus “is withered and useless” (see John 15:6). The transformed self, living in union, no longer lives in shame or denial of its weakness, but even rejoices because it does not need to pretend that it is any more than it actually is—which is now more than enough!

Center for Action and Contemplation Daily Meditations

Thank you, Lord, for a simple love, opening me up to great things.

Inspiration

Christ’s Glory

Smitten With Goodness
Reflections for contemplative living

Entertaining the wrong questions in our mind can be destructive.  It may seem harmless when we start playing the “what if” game.  What if I had a different job? What if I had more money? What if I did not have this situation in my life?  Would life be better?  

First, this kind of thinking steals our joy and robs us of the inner peace we have around the blessings in our life.  Second, asking what if plants seeds of doubt in our mind about God’s goodness.  It is easy to start running down the rabbit trail of questioning, does He really want what is best for me?  Does He understand?  Evil is subtle and wants us to rebel against God and doubt His unconditional love for us.  It is usually a gradual process and over time, if left unchecked, can lead us far away from the truth and how we were meant to live.  It takes us into the future versus seeing what is in front of us today where we can bring love and compassion to those in front of us. The love and compassion we can bring to the person in front of us, each moment, is being the hands and feet of Jesus in this world. 

When we entertain the wrong questions in our mind, we shift our gaze off God’s goodness.  This is a symptom of our human condition and free will.  

“But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.” (2 Corinthians 11:3)

Let’s lead our thoughts to become actions for Christ’s glory today!

I think Abraham Lincoln has it right in saying that “Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.”