Dear God

Decades ago I came to this realization: All that I am, all that I have been, all that I hope to be, and all that I shall become I owe to you, dear God.

Child’s daily offering

For love of me you came to earth; you gave your life for me.  So every day you give me now I give back happily.

Take all my laughter, all my tears, each thought, each word, each deed; and let them be my all-day prayer to help all those in need.

October 18, 2010

Reading Saturday’s meditation after Communion yesterday, I immediately linked to my little prayer above.

God of our Lord Jesus Christ, Father of glory, all I am and all I have comes from you.  Having come into this place, I yield myself to you.  With a deep breath, I will welcome your Spirit and release the anxieties that weigh me down.  I give back to you the mind you have given me.  Empty it of useless information, Father, and fill it with the only knowledge that matters: personal acquaintance with you (the Word among us, October 2010, p. 40).

April 1, 2013

“You, Lord, are all I have, and you give me all I need; my future is in your hands” (Ps. 16:5).

March 16, 2014

Father, thank you for the life you have called me to.  Give me grace to trust you with the details as I say “yes” to you (the Word among us, Lent 2014, p. 38).

April 24, 2014

Father, you loved me long before I came to know you.  Open my eyes to see how you are at work in every human heart (the Word among us, April 20 – May 31, 2014, p. 27).

“It is because of faith that we exchange the present for the future” (St. Fidelis).

July 21, 2014

“God is love, and all his operations proceed from love” (St. Lawrence of Brindisi).

November 19, 2014

Nothing but self-will can separate us from God.  Neither all the men upon earth, nor all the devils in hell can deprive us of his grace (St. Alphonsus Ligouri).

March 30, 2015

“Grant me a humble spirit, O God, that I may be graced with a deepening knowledge that you love me not because of my worthiness, but because you are love and reach out to me in love” (Sr. Maria Tasto, OSB, 1938-2014).

May 16, 2015

“My past, O Lord, to your mercy; my present, to your love; my future, to your providence! (St. Padre Pio).

June 26, 2015

“You must be careful: don’t let your professional success or failure— which will certainly come— make you forget, even for a moment, [that] the true aim of your work is the glory of God!” (St. Josemaría Escrivá).

August 1, 2015

God wills only our good; God loves us more than anybody else can or does love us.  His will is that no one should lose his soul, that everyone should save and sanctify his soul….  God has made the attainment of our happiness, his glory.  Even chastisements come to us not to crush us, but to make us mend our ways and save our souls (St. Alphonsus Liguori).

August 6, 2015

“When it comes to obeying the commandments or enduring adversity, the words uttered by the Father should always echo in our ears: This is my Son, the beloved, in whom I am well pleased; listen to him” (St. Leo the Great).

August 25, 2015

The needle of a compass points north; if you turn it aside, it weighs against your finger, showing its natural tendency and, from the moment all pressure ceases, returns to its original direction.  And so the person who has become truly simple turns continually to God, impelled by an instinctive need (Emmanuel de Gibergues in Strength in Simplicity).

September 9, 2015

“We shall never thank God enough for the love with which he has loved us” (Fr. Raoul Plus, SJ, in How to Pray Well).

September 14, 2015

I want to live at the level to which in the mind of God I belong; I accept the state in which I find myself, and whatever the degree of my love, I mean it to be the highest of which I am capable (Dom Hubert Van Zeller in How to Find God).

November 2, 2015

“What we do for ourselves during life is more certain than all the good we expect others to do for us after death” (St. Gregory the Great).

November 13, 2015

Lord, you are the one who acts.  I am not even an instrument in your hands, as others say.  You alone are the one who does all, and I am nothing more than a spectator of the great and wonderful works that you know how to accomplish (St. Frances Xavier Cabrini).

November 23, 2015

My sacrifice, my holy Mass, begins in daily life.  From the altar of the Lord, I go to the altar of my work.  I must be able to continue the sacrifice of the altar in every situation….  It is Christ whom we must proclaim through our lives; to him we offer the sacrifice of our own will (Blessed Zdenka).

January 8, 2016

Nothing created has ever been able to fill the heart of man.  God alone can fill it infinitely (St. Thomas Aquinas).

February 4, 2017

Deep down, we all have a sense that we were put on earth for something.  We have a mission and our hearts yearn to discern what that mission is.  Often we come close, but we sense what we’ve found isn’t quite the whole thing or the real thing.  Not to fret because, if our hearts are pure, we’ll be led to it (Heather King in Loaded: Money and the Spirituality of Enough).

February 28, 2017

“We must begin with a strong resolution to give ourselves wholly to God, professing to him, in a tender, loving manner, from the bottom of our hearts, that we intend to be his without any reserve; and then we must often go back and renew this same resolution” (St. Francis de Sales).

May 11, 2017

The desire for happiness is, at its core, the desire for God.  The fulfillment of true happiness can be found only in him.  We were made for relationship with him. How mind-blowing is that?  The God of the universe created you for him (Bear Woznick in Deep Adventure: The Way of Heroic Virtue).

May 26, 2017

I haven’t a clue how my story will end, but that’s all right.  When you set out on a journey and night covers the road, that’s when you discover the stars (Nancy Willard).

June 16, 2017

In Christ, even our failures become a source of grace when we accept them in imitation of his humility and courage; even our anxieties become a path to holiness when we ally them with his sufferings.  All that we do and say, if it is done and said in Christ, is done and said well, for true wellness is life in Christ (Clayton C. Barbeau in The Father of the Family).

July 7, 2017

“Be what you are and do it well” (St. Francis de Sales).

July 17, 2017

Unless I am connected to God, who invented the happiness I’m seeking, I come up frustrated, angry, and disappointed by life— empty instead of full.  When I feel disconnected from God, I feel restless— not at peace with myself, with my God, or with others (Melissa Overmyer in Born to Soar: Unleashing God’s Word in Your Life).

August 30, 2017

“The past must be abandoned to God’s mercy, the present to our fidelity, the future to divine providence” (St. Francis de Sales).

August 31, 2017

“He who desires nothing but God is rich and happy” (St. Alphonsus Liguori).

September 5, 2017

All we do— our prayer, our work, our suffering— is for Jesus.  Our life has no other reason or motivation.  This is a point many people do not understand.  I serve Jesus twenty-four hours a day.  Whatever I do is for him.  And he gives me strength.  I love him in the poor and the poor in him, but always the Lord comes first (Kerry Walters in St. Teresa of Calcutta: Missionary, Mother, Mystic).

October 16, 2017

Charity works.  It gets good jobs done.  It gives form and life to all of the virtues.  Infused by God, it reigns supreme in loving goodness over the talents of learning and the talents of living (Kevin Vost in Unearthing Your Ten Talents).

November 29, 2017

Since every thing, every person, every situation comes from the God, the whole world is Word by which we can live.  We need only “taste and see how good God is.”  We do this with all our senses.  Through whatever we taste or touch, smell, hear, or see, God’s love can nourish us.  For the one creating and redeeming Word is spelled out to us in ever new ways.

God, who is love, has nothing else to say in all eternity but “I love you” (Brother David Steindl-Rast in The Way of Silence: Engaging the Sacred in Daily Life).

December 4, 2017

“Lord, do not let my heart lean either to the right or to the left, but let your good Spirit guide me along the straight path” (St. John Damascene).

December 13, 2017

“I am the Lord’s poor servant; to him alone, the living God, I have offered all in sacrifice; I have nothing else to give; I offer him myself” (Antiphon, Liturgy of the Hours, memorial of St. Lucy).

July 3, 2018

Let us believe our Lord Jesus Christ who calls this rest his peace, a divine peace which the world can neither give nor take away— a peace that we can never obtain by our own efforts because it is the gift of God and is his reward for the absolute and irrevocable gift of ourselves that we have made to him (Fr. Jean Nicolas Grou in The Spiritual Life).

July 29, 2018

You, I, and everyone baptized into Christ takes God everywhere we go.  We communicate the presence of God even if we do not mention him.  Imagine intentionally living this truth of the faith.  Imagine the lives that will be touched by our willingness to be what we have become.  Imagine knowing that you bring God into your meetings, the supermarket, your athletic competitions, the classroom, etc.  We are never alone, we have with us at all times all that we need, if only we believe (Fr. Gary Caster in Prayer Everywhere: The Spiritual Life Made Simple).

September 24, 2018

The needle of a compass points north; if you turn it aside, it weighs against your finger, showing its natural tendency and, from the moment all pressure ceases, returns to its original direction.  And so the person who has become truly simple turns continually to God, impelled by an instinctive need (Emmanuel de Gibergues in Strength in Simplicity).

October 29, 2018

If we spent time each day thanking God, we would hardly be able to get angry at him.  Instead we tend to take for granted the gifts we have.  For these, we should thank God unceasingly (Fr. T. G. Morrow, STD, in Overcoming Sinful Anger).

March 2, 2020

There is one aim only: to please God.  Anything else will be a diversion….  There must be one motive-force only: love (Raoul Plus, SJ, in Holy Simplicity).

April 8, 2020

“All our striving in this life consists in healing the eye of the heart in order to see God” (St. Augustine in St Augustine Answers 101 Questions on Prayer).

April 27, 2020

What comes from God touches gently; comes quietly; does not disturb freedom; and leads to quiet, profound, peaceful resolve within the heart.  And those are called blessed who make the effort to remain open-hearted (Romano Guardini in Meditations on the Christ: Model of All Holiness).

May 8, 2020

Man is called to more than mere admiration of God.  God has called us to cooperation.  “Away with you to the vineyard like the rest” (Mt. 20:4).  The world and everything that happens in it is God’s vineyard.  We must take a share in the Creator’s work (Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski in Sanctify Your Daily Life).

June 8, 2020

“The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer; my God is my saving strength” (Ps. 18 [17]: 3).

“God is love, and whomever abides in love abides in God and God in him” (1 Jn. 4:16).

June 19, 2020

God knows us, and he loves us as we are.  More than that: He gives us the grace to be transformed (Mother Angelica in What is Heaven?)

January 6, 2021

When you know who you are, when your mission is clear and you burn with the inner fire of unbreakable will, no cold can touch your heart, no deluge can dampen your purpose.  You know that you are alive (Chief Seattle).

National Shrine of St. Maximilian Kolbe – Marytown, IL

Links of interest…  Apostleship of Prayer…  Be willing to simply love God…  Desire for God is written in the human heart…  Discovering the true self in God with Merton’s guidance…  Expecting the unexpected…  Holy simplicity…  I can’t get the institutional church out of my system…  Journalism as a vocation…  Knowing ourselves in Jesus…  Love & freedom / of God / that always satisfies…  Memoir…  Prayer is a relationship with God…  See life through God’s eyes…  Sisters of St. Benedict: dome blog / facebook / website…  St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen: about / biography / Capuchin / feast (4.24) / lessons / Mark Roy / martyr / memorial / prayer (more – readings)…  Why middle age is prime time for creativity…  the Word among us…

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