Tag: Holy Spirit

Inspiration

A Worthy Virtue

Smitten With Goodness
Reflections for contemplative living

Gratitude is a virtue most worthy of our cultivation. In all the Christian life, gratitude is to be planted, watered, dressed, and harvested. Gratitude gets at the very essence of what it means to be created, finite, fallen, redeemed, and sustained by the God of all grace.

Ingratitude was at the heart of the Fall, and at the heart of what’s fallen about us to this day. “Although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him” (Romans 1:21). Again and again throughout the Old Testament, especially in the Psalms, it is gratitude — giving God thanks — that is the fitting response to his gracious acts of deliverance for his people. 

It was gratitude to the Father that Jesus expressed at that first Maundy Thursday table as he held out the bread and cup to his disciples (Matthew 26:27; Mark 14:23; Luke 22:17–19; 1 Corinthians 11:24). It is profound and enduring gratitude, among other things, that his sacrificial death and triumphant resurrection summon in the born-again heart. In the daily Christian life, it is the genuine giving of thanks for God’s gifts that keeps us from idolatry and sinful asceticism (1 Corinthians 10:30–31; 1 Timothy 4:3–4).

Will you make an intentional effort to slow down, take stock, and express gratitude to the glory of God? Will you count your many blessings including God for his greatest gift — the gift of himself and his Son. 

Thank you, Lord, for your self-giving death for us, and in your resurrected life 

Inspiration

The Practice of Gratitude

Smitten With Goodness
Reflections for contemplative living

Research suggests that gratitude can’t simply be grouped with other emotions, like happiness or anger, because unlike other emotions, gratitude takes a conscious effort. To be grateful, we must first take the time to recognize that something has been done for our benefit.  Living a life of gratitude isn’t easy. Like any spiritual discipline, it requires time, effort, and faithful practice. 

Even when we can find reasons to be grateful to God, it is often more challenging to be appreciative of others. It’s natural to think that the opposite of gratitude is being ungrateful, but it’s actually selfishness or self-conceit.  When you believe you deserve the good things you receive, you don’t feel the need to be grateful to others.

Gratitude can be difficult because it requires a new way of thinking – a different attitude.   

And we may just have to accept life as it is and be grateful for what we have. Research suggests that the return on investment with the practice of gratitude is too abundant to ignore.  

Gratitude makes you a better person, not just in the sense of doing nice things for other people, but it also carries with it joy. When I’m more grateful, even though I’m acknowledging that I’m indebted to other people, life feels more like a gift. When life feels like a gift, I feel more engaged and rejoice in the little things around me. In this way, it can act as a helpful balance to irritation, anger, and frustration.  

Gratitude motivates us to perform our own acts of kindness for others. 

Inspiration

Holy Temptations

Smitten With Goodness

How do you use your good health?  

Reflections for contemplative living

We will never be free of trials and temptations in our earthly life. No one in this world is so perfect or holy as not to have temptations sometimes and we can never be entirely free from them. But if we resist them, they will be very useful to us; for by experiencing them we are humbled, cleansed, and instructed. There is no place so holy. 

Our eyes should see only for God, our feet walk only for Him, our hands labor for Him alone; in short, our entire body should serve God while we still have the time. Then, when He shall take our health and we shall near our last day, our conscience will not reproach us for having misused it.

–St. John Bosco

Thank you, Lord, for allowing me to understand that temptations can be used to draw me closer to Your Goodness. 

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

Intimacy with Christ

Smitten With Goodness
Reflections for contemplative living

Do you take the time to ponder the places in your heart that are wounded? You know the ones where you are most vulnerable to lies.  The areas that take you away from the truth that you are a beloved daughter of God and there is nothing you can do to earn or lose His love.

God wants to speak truth into those places in your heart where lies have taken hold. There is no one safer than Jesus to invite into the tender places of your heart.

Take a moment today to pray Jeremiah 30:17:

For I will restore your health; I will heal your injuries. 

Then journal about the following questions: Are there wounds—spiritual or physical—that you need Jesus to heal? What lies are you believing that you need Jesus to speak truth into? Have you ever seen God reveal His glory through your wounds?

Let’s get real today with the One who loved us first.

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.”

Inspiration

Angels Among Us 

Smitten With Goodness
Reflections for contemplative living

Do you see the angels before you?

The other morning, I was headed on a business trip after a rough night in the Emergency Room with my husband who was not feeling well. I reached out to Betty, a woman who has been in my life for 30+ years, to see if she could help me with something while I was away for a few days. In this instance she was busy, but she’s been there for me and my children, caring for us and our home like we were her own. I call her my angel.

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