Journeying With The Saints

Another ten days down! Good job, Catholic Pilgrims!

Today's readings are from Notebook 2, numbers 782-786.

As we know, Sister Faustina talks a lot about suffering for God and how it is a way to show love. This was an emotional reading today because it caused me to reflect on the suffering I've had being kept from Mass through lockdowns. But, recently, I found out daily Mass is available and I got to go. It's been glorious.

Today's readings are from Notebook 2, numbers 777-781.

Heaven is about worship of the Almighty for eternity. It is the full union with God and basking in all happiness and glory. There is a tendency, though, of thinking of Heaven as only a place where we will be reunited with our loved ones. While this will be wonderful, too often, we forget that the point of Heaven is to be united with God.

Today's readings are from Notebook 2, numbers 771-776.

What if you could gain a greater capacity for happiness and knowledge in Heaven? What if that meant you needed to do the hard work to have a relationship with God here on Earth? Would you do all that you could to be rewarded with a greater capacity for happiness? God gives us graces and we must respond to it and allow those graces to help us grow closer to God. The closer we grow to God here on Earth; the closer we will be in Heaven.

Today's readings are from Notebook 2, numbers 768-770.

Have you found a kindred spirit in Christ? Sister Faustina talks today about how God gives grace to kindred spirits that are united to God. They easily recognize each other. I talk about how connected I felt to other Catholics when I was at the World Meeting of Families.

Warning: Today's reflection is not appropriate for young ears.

Today's readings are from Notebook 2, numbers 764-767.

Christ tells Sister Faustina to "defend children from evil." As you know, I go with what falls on my heart for my reflections. Today, Christ's comment placed on my heart to discuss my experiences of working with children that have sexually abused and those that have been abused. We are failing to defend children from evil because we are afraid of standing against the culture.

Today's readings are from Notebook 2, numbers 760-763.

We will focus on one line from today's readings. A priest tells Sister Faustina not to worry about human opinion when it comes to doing God's Will. This is so hard for all of us. It is hard to deal with people's forceful and negative comments about our Catholic Faith. But, we must remember, Christ's truth always takes precedence over human opinion.

Today's readings are from Notebook 2, numbers 756-759.

Sister Faustina has a vision today of the Upper Room and she sees the institution of the Blessed Sacrament. I describe my experience of being in the Upper Room when I was on pilgrimage in the Holy Land. The Upper Room was utterly different than what I had imagined it to be.

This week we are reading the 24th number from "Way to Inner Peace." Insincerity is our topic and as I was going through the readings there were parts where I literally laughed out loud. He's so spot on. It's funny when he talks about the "lighter" times when we are being insincere. I think married couples will relate. On a more serious note, I feel like we are living in very insincere times. There is a push to encourage people to be insincere to feed egos.

Three key points: Duplicity, flattery, agreeable.

Today's readings are from Notebook 2, numbers 750-755.

We have to work with God's grace. If God asks us to do something we must do it and realize that God will do His part to help us fulfill our mission. He will give us graces to help us. Sometimes we will have to be patient and wait as things work themselves out, but if God wills something, He will help it to happen.

Today's readings are from Notebook 2, numbers 745-749.

Are we willing to accept ridicule, persecutions, and hatred for Christ? Or, do we try to make Christianity fit the popular culture so as to make it easy for us to live it out, not angering enemies of the Catholic Church. If the popular culture applauds your brand of Christianity, you can be sure it misses the mark. We cannot conform Christianity around the secular culture--to do so makes Christianity ineffectual and bland.