Tag: Good Living

If we let it, suffering can transform us into who God created us to be. Taking us out of our comfort zone, usually striking fear in us and calling us to strength we usually have not relied on before.

One thing Thomas Keating advises about Centering Prayer is to spend twenty minutes a day in silence. When you are busy, spend another twenty. I used to think this was crazy but I realize this is pretty profound advice. 

Kevin Vost, PSY.D in The Gifts of the Holy Spirit says “Virtues allow us to become excellent – more fully and perfectly human – by disposing us to perform good acts, to perfect ourselves, and to give the best of ourselves. When we possess the virtues, it becomes easier and more natural and enjoyable for us to do the right things. We’re able to maximize our human powers. Virtues make us and our actions good.”

We can do more with the grace of God than we think.

Oftentimes I think I need to raise myself up to God, meeting him on His level and sometimes I do. But, more often than not, what I need to do is to bring myself down in humility.  I can pull heaven down and bring the goodness of God back into the world. 

We are living in curious times where everyone seems to have their own truth based on their lens of life and personal perspective. Layered on the powerful tool of AI, which generates information based on the information it receives, critical thinking is becoming more important to discern what is truth.

On the spiritual journey, we begin to understand the gifts we’ve been given.  As we discover our true desires and with the grace of God, they become oriented towards the good.  I’m discovering I want to be filthy rich:

One of the greatest dangers in spiritual life is to fall into the trap of auto-salvation, the conviction that we can be saved through our own heroic moral effort. The principal problem with such a strategy is that it results in the strengthening of the very egotism that we hope to overcome.