Tag: Jesus

Being Loved

Imperfect Path

Smitten With Goodness


If we were perfect and whole, we wouldn’t need God. When we let them, our failures, imperfections, and limitations can open our hearts of stone and move our rigid mind space toward understanding and patience. 

When we enter the spiritual search for truth and for ourselves through the so-called negative and deal squarely with what is—in ourselves, in others, or in the world around us—it takes all elitism out of spirituality. We are humble and walk the imperfect path.

There is no more counterintuitive spiritual idea than the possibility that God might actually use and find necessary what we fear, avoid, deny, and deem unworthy. This is the clay the master potter uses to shape our hearts to His kind of love because we can’t love like this on our own.

There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.  
—Martin Luther King Jr.

We are called to love imperfect people imperfectly

“Truly, I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.” —Matthew 25:40 

Being Loved

Facing Any Storms?

Smitten With Goodness

In Houston, we just made it through an arctic storm last week that brought snow ❄️, ice, and shut our city down. It certainly brought back some trauma from storm Eurie when the grid failed and we lost power and water for a week right after my husband’s transplant. Despite my inclination, I kept turning my heart and mind towards God. He steered me, my thoughts and fears, through the storm. This is a good Father, caring for his child.

How is your heart today? Are you facing any storms that need to be calmed?

“We shall steer safely through every storm, so long as our heart is right, our intention fervent, our courage steadfast, and our trust fixed on God.”— St. Francis de Sales

Being Loved

Trust or Worry

Smitten With Goodness

I don’t know about you, but I needed this reminder today!

Worry is the cause of many of the world’s problems, and it can be a warning sign that God is not first in my life at this point in time.

A day of worrying can be more exhausting than a day of hard work.

Nothing wastes more energy than worrying. It’s a total waste of time and it’s useless. Worry can damage your health. It can raise your blood pres-sure, cause depression, increase your stress levels and give you sleepless nights. It can be a slow killer.

There is no pill you can take to stop you from worrying; no seminar, book or CD will stop you from worrying. The answer is to put God in control of your life. Trust him. Leave tomorrow to God. Don’t cross bridges until you reach them. Don’t open your umbrella until it starts raining.

Hand over everything to God: yourself, your problems, plans and health, everything. Surrender and abandon yourself to him. Your future is in God’s hands and in God’s hands you are in safe hands. Trust him and all will be well. Easier said than done. It may take time. But it works.

Terence Harrington OFMCap, The Sacred Heart Messenger, December 2023

Being Loved

Just Say No

Smitten With Goodness

Do you have a hard time with boundaries, keeping the right order in your life? Once something is allowed to creep past its appropriate place in your life and you are unable to say no to it, it becomes idolatry. And our hearts are idol making factories.

When God created the first couple (Adam and Eve), He instructed them, “You are free to eat from any tree of the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die” (Gen. 2:16-17).

Inherent in this command was the recognition of their ability to say “no.” God had instilled in His highest creation the strength they needed to honor what He commanded.

They could resist and choose to honor God.

They could say “no” to the serpent’s temptation.

How well do you say no to things in your life that distract you for God. Have you fallen asleep to His voice and nudging? Start saying no and live in freedom, let’s not act as slaves!

Being Loved

Paying Attention

Smitten With Goodness

How often do you think of things eternal? Do you go about your day pondering the goodness of God, the love Jesus has for you, the life of a Saint, or a passage from sacred scripture? Likely you are running around with the day to day and focused on the tasks at hand. But paying attention and inviting the Spirit into these things is what we are called to do satisfying our desires.

“Much that is true of human relationships is also true of our relationship with God. Human relationships of friendship or marriage need time, attention, and care for them to continue and to grow. The same is true of our relationship with God. We have been called to union but we need to respond. As we turn to God in conversion or in a deeper awakening, besides turning away from deliberate sin—which deforms the soul, blocks the relationship and offends the Person who has sacrificed His life for us—we need to positively build the relationship by paying attention to the One who loves us. Prayer is at root simply paying attention to God.” —Ralph Martin, The Fulfillment of All Desire

Being Loved

Taste and See

Smitten With Goodness

O Lord, you are the Word of life. As a new day dawns, we pray:

Jesus, light our way.

O Lord, your Word gives wisdom to the simple: 
– make us simple of heart. 

O Lord, your Word is sweet to the taste:
– grant us the discernment to prefer its taste to any empty words we may hear this evening. 

O Lord, your Word is steadfast, abiding for ever:
– keep our feet firmly on the path to everlasting life. 

May the word of Christ dwell in us richly, and bring us to life everlasting! (Col 3:16)

Amen

Being Loved

THE JUBILEE PRAYER

Smitten With Goodness

Father in heaven,

may the faith You have given us in Your son, Jesus Christ, our brother, and the flame of charity enkindled in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, reawaken in us the blessed hope for the coming of Your Kingdom.

May Your grace transform us

into tireless cultivators of the seeds of the Gospel.

May those seeds transform from within both humanity and the whole cosmos in the sure expectation

of a new heaven and a new earth, when, with the powers of evil vanquished, Your glory will shine eternally.

May the grace of the Jubilee reawaken in us, Pilgrims of Hope, a yearning for the treasures of heaven.

May that same grace spread the joy and peace of our Redeemer throughout the earth.

To You our God, eternally blessed, be glory and praise forever.

Amen.

Being Loved, Uncategorized

Pulling Us Forward

Smitten With Goodness

God gives us highly evolved people to pull us all forward. The Christian word for them was simply “saint.” We cannot imagine something until we see it through a living model or archetypal figure. 
—Richard Rohr

Today we celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. a man who pulled us forward as a society. A man who fought for justice and peace. A man who allowed Gods grace to flow through him to affect change and make a difference for the lives of others.

He was given the Nobel Peace Prize at 35.

He lived his values and beliefs. He made people uncomfortable. He was assassinated.

He had a dream…the same dream God has for us…to treat every human being with dignity and respect bringing love and light to the journey.

How are you pulling your marriage, family, friends, community forward?