Tag: Love

Being Loved

What Do You Adore?

Smitten With Goodness

Each year, I pick a Saint to learn more about that person’s faith journey over the year. I can’t seem to move away from our spiritual mother, Mary. I’m currently reading the daily devotionals on A Year With Mary (Paul Thigpen), as there is much richness revealed through the way Mary lived her life, fully united with God. She is the “new Eve,” and by grace, her relationship was never fractured by doubt or mistrust. 

Mary’s love brought her into perfect conformity of thought and life with her Son. Her whole life can be summed up in this one word- adoration; for adoration is the perfect service of God, and it embraces the duties of the creature towards the Creator.

This year I plan to spend more time before the Blessed Sacrament.  Last year I was being called to spend more time sitting at the feet of our Lord in the way but I rarely made the time. It was easier to do my holy hour in the comfort of my home. After making the effort and sitting before the Lord, a transformation of heart occurred. I’m learning that this is where the magic happens when I get out of the way and let God love me. Like Mary, when I adore Christ I can’t help but fall deeper in love with the one who came to save me and letting myself be loved. 

Let’s ask Mary to teach us the life of adoration. Mother Mary, Teach us to see, as you did, all the mysteries and all the graces in the Eucharist, the graces of love. Amen 

Being Loved

Freedom of Love

Smitten With Goodness

Is there anything you are struggling with? Can you use some freedom in your life? Pope Francis opened the Holy Door of Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome on Christmas Eve to inaugurate the 2025 Jubilee of Hope. We celebrate a jubilee holy year in the biblical tradition setting aside a year acceptable to the Lord which is marked by cancellation of debt, release from labor and forgiveness of enemies.   

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Being Loved

Love or Obligation

Smitten With Goodness

How earnestly do you seek to find God in your daily living? If we claim to be Christians, followers of Christ, this is a curious question to ponder…do we follow him out of love or obligation? 

Like the wise man who went on a long journey to find the one who was born king of the Jews, do we seek diligently to know God and to strive for relationship?

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Being Loved

Embracing Divine Presence

Smitten With Goodness

Do you have a yearning for divine presence? Does your heart long to love the Lord as you are loved, letting nothing come between you.  Do you regularly pray for the grace to shed the excesses of this life keeping you free from distractions and the lure of wealth. Letting your heart and mind to be solely devoted to loving and serving Christ.  This is a life well-lived.

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Being Loved

Receiving God’s Love

Smitten With Goodness

I recently read an article that reminded me of a profound truth: God is the one who causes the growth of grace in our souls. Yet, we freely participate in this divine process. Last year, Smitten With Goodness focused on the seasons of prayer: Blessings and Adoration, Petition, Intercession, and Thanksgiving. Prayer creates the sacred space for a relationship with God. One of the most vital ways we engage in our spiritual growth and the growth of grace is through petitionary prayer.

Petitionary prayer holds a unique and often overlooked place in the spiritual life. Essentially, you and I can ask God to cause His grace to flourish within us. It is a simple yet profound petition: “Lord Jesus, have mercy on me, and please increase Your grace in my soul.” Few people think to ask for such a thing, and some might even consider it selfish. However, it is not selfish; it is an act of humility. To ask for the growth of grace is to acknowledge God’s power at work in our spiritual life and our need for Him in everything, including the growth of grace. It pleases God to grant this request.

“Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone?… If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!” (Matthew 7:9, 11)

The Lord is not referring simply to temporal blessings but even more to spiritual blessings. What greater spiritual blessing is there than an increase of sanctifying grace and union with God? Let’s ask for what we need: the grace to see how much God loves us and for God to open our hearts to receive this love.

Why not make space in your life today and rest in the reality that you are loved by the eternal God?

Being Loved

Where is Your Star

Smitten With Goodness

There’s a reason we are to aim for the stars. Perhaps not in the way our culture expresses this aspiration. But like the wise man (magi or kings), who traveled a great distance, following a star, to find baby Jesus after he was born, what distance will you travel this year to know your belovedness?  

We plan time for daily prayer, reading scripture, slowing down enough to catch our breath to notice God but the daily stress and chaos of life always suck us into the vortex. When you find yourself in this mess, do you go it alone like our culture ingrains in us or like the wisemen do you stop and look to the stars and seek Him? 

We have a choice and this is the spiritual battle. We can be distracted by things of this world, even the good things. 

What star do look for? Am I focused on God’s will for my life, or am I  distracted by lesser “stars” of media, status, and material goods? In what ways can I better acknowledge Jesus as my King, our God, and our Savior in the coming year?

If we follow our North Star of Christ, we can rest in the chaos knowing we are loved. When we seek Him, we find Him. We find God, truth and the beauty of our faith.

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