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Posts Tagged ‘Obedience’

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“Serve Our Lord and your fellow men”

In 01 Daily Meditations on 2015/08/21 at 12:00 AM
Every activity – be it of great human importance or not – must become for you a means to serve Our Lord and your fellow men. That is the true measure of its importance. (The Forge, 684)

I am not at all stretching the truth when I tell you that Jesus is still looking for a resting‑place in our heart. We have to ask him to forgive our personal blindness and ingratitude. We must ask him to give us the grace never to close the door of our soul on him again.

Our Lord does not disguise the fact that his wholehearted obedience to God’s will calls for renunciation and self‑sacrifice. Love does not claim rights, it seeks to serve. Jesus has led the way. How did he obey? “Unto death, death on a cross.” You have to get out of yourself; you have to complicate your life, losing it for love of God and souls. “So you wanted to live a quiet life. But God wanted otherwise. Two wills exist: your will should be corrected to become identified with God’s will: you must not bend God’s will to suit yours.”

It has made me very happy to see so many souls spend their lives — like you, Lord, “even unto death” — fulfilling what God was asking of them. They have dedicated all their yearnings and their professional work to the service of the Church, for the good of all men.

Let us learn to obey, let us learn to serve. There is no better leadership than wanting to give yourself freely, to be useful to others. When we feel pride swell up within us, making us think we are supermen, the time has come to say “no”. Our only triumph will be the triumph of humility. In this way we will identify ourselves with Christ on the cross — not unwillingly or restlessly or sullenly, but joyfully. For the joy which comes from forgetting ourselves is the best proof of love. (Christ is passing by, 19)

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“We need humility if we are to obey”

In 01 Daily Meditations on 2014/06/13 at 12:00 AM
When you have to give orders, do not humiliate anyone. Go gently. Respect the intelligence and the will of the one who is obeying. (The Forge, 727)

He often speaks to us through other people. But when we see their defects or doubt whether they are well informed — whether they have grasped all the aspects of the problem — we feel inclined to disobey.

All this may have a divine meaning, for God does not impose a blind obedience on us. He wants us to obey intelligently, and we have to feel responsible for helping others with the intelligence we do have. But let’s be sincere with ourselves: let’s examine, in every case, whether it is love for the truth which moves us or selfishness and attachment to our own judgment. When our ideas separate us from other people, when they weaken our communion, our unity with our brothers, it is a sure sign that we are not doing what God wants.

Let’s not forget: we need humility if we are to obey. Look again at the example Christ gives us: he obeys Joseph and Mary. God has come to the world to obey, and to obey creatures. Admittedly they are two very perfect creatures: Holy Mary, our mother, greater than whom God alone; and that most chaste man Joseph. But they are only creatures, and yet Jesus, who is God, obeyed them. We have to love God so as to love his will and desire to respond to his calls. They come to us through the duties of our ordinary life: duties of state, profession, work, family, social life, our own and other people’s difficulties, friendship, eagerness to do what is right and just.(Christ is passing by, 17) [

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“Do whatever he tells you”

In 01 Daily Meditations on 2014/02/28 at 12:00 AM
In the middle of the rejoicing at the feast in Cana, only Mary notices that they are short of wine. A soul will notice even the smallest details of service if, like her, it is alive with a passion for helping its neighbour, for God. (Furrow, 631)

Our Lady was a guest at one of those noisy country weddings attended by people from many different villages. Mary was the only one who noticed the wine was running out. Don’t these scenes from Christ’s life seem familiar to us? The greatness of God lives at the level of ordinary things. It is natural for a woman, a homemaker, to notice an oversight, to look after the little things that make life pleasant. And this is how Mary acted.

—Do whatever he tells you.

Implete hydrias (John 2:7), fill the jars. And the miracle takes place. Everything is so simple and ordinary. The servants carry out their job. The water is easy to find. And this is the first manifestation of our Lord’s divinity. What is commonplace becomes something extraordinary, something supernatural, when we have the good will to heed what God is asking of us.

Lord, I want to abandon all my concerns into your generous hands. Our Mother—your Mother—will by now have said to you, as at Cana: “They have no wine!…”

If our faith is weak, we should turn to Mary. Because of the miracle at the marriage feast at Cana, which Christ performed at his Mother’s request, his disciples learned to believe in him (John 2:11). Our Mother is always interceding with her Son so that he may attend to our needs and show himself to us, so that we can cry out, “You are the Son of God.”

—Grant me, dear Jesus, the faith I truly desire. My Mother, sweet Lady, Mary most holy, make me really believe! (Holy Rosary, Second Luminous Mystery)

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“Jesus is still looking for shelter”

In 01 Daily Meditations on 2012/12/28 at 9:11 AM
Jesus was born in a cave in Bethlehem because, Sacred Scripture tells us, “there was no room for them in the inn.” I am not departing from theological truth when I say that Jesus is still looking for shelter in your heart. (The Forge, 274)

I am not at all stretching the truth when I tell you that Jesus is still looking for a resting‑place in our heart. We have to ask him to forgive our personal blindness and ingratitude. We must ask him to give us the grace never to close the door of our soul on him again.

Our Lord does not disguise the fact that his wholehearted obedience to God’s will calls for renunciation and self‑sacrifice. Love does not claim rights, it seeks to serve. Jesus has led the way. How did he obey? “Unto death, death on a cross” [1]. You have to get out of yourself; you have to complicate your life, losing it for love of God and souls. “So you wanted to live a quiet life. But God wanted otherwise. Two wills exist: your will should be corrected to become identified with God’s will: you must not bend God’s will to suit yours” [2].

It has made me very happy to see so many souls spend their lives — like you, Lord, “even unto death” — fulfilling what God was asking of them. They have dedicated all their yearnings and their professional work to the service of the Church, for the good of all men.

Let us learn to obey, let us learn to serve. There is no better leadership than wanting to give yourself freely, to be useful to others. When we feel pride swell up within us, making us think we are supermen, the time has come to say “no”. Our only triumph will be the triumph of humility. In this way we will identify ourselves with Christ on the cross — not unwillingly or restlessly or sullenly, but joyfully. For the joy which comes from forgetting ourselves is the best proof of love. (Christ is passing by, 19)
[1] Phil 2:8
[2] St Augustine, On Psalms, Ps 31:2, 26

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Thought Provoking Excerpts From Bishop Sheen

In 14 Book Corner on 2012/10/06 at 9:11 AM

I would highly recommend your reading THE WORLD’S FIRST LOVE by Bishop Fulton Sheen.  Hopefully, some of the excerpts below will encourage you to read it.

“The egotist magnifies himself, but Mary magnifies the Lord….As our ego inflated, the need for God seems to be less; as our ego deflates, the need of God appears in its true hunger.”  P. 41

“Obedience to the law of nature produces physical maturity; obedience to the law of parents produces mental maturity; obedience to the will of the Heavenly Father produces spiritual maturity.”  P.104

“Mary’s sorrow was not what she suffered but what He had to suffer.  That was the tragedy.  Love never thinks of itself.” P. 244

“Eden reversed: Three things cooperated in our fall: a disobedient Man, Adam; a proud woman, Eve; and a tree.  God takes the three elements that led to the defeat of man and uses them as instruments of victory: the obedient new Adam, Christ; the humble new Eve, Mary and the tree of the cross.”  P. 256

“Mary’ Fiat was one of the great Fiats of the universe: one made light, another accepted the Father’s will in the Garden, and hers accepted a life of selfless fellowship with the Cross….Our will is the only thing that is absolutely our own; hence it is the perfect offering we can make to God….There is only one thing in the world that can prevent finding each (God and one) and that is the human will.  We must will to find God; otherwise He will always seem to be the hidden God.”  P. 258

“It is not that God has abandoned the world but that the world has abandoned God and cast its lot with nature divorced from nature’s God….The new name for nature is science.  Science rightly understood means reading he wisdom of God in nature.  Science wrongly understood means reading the proofs of the book of nature while denying the book ever had an Author.”  P. 270

“The child, by making himself wiser than his mother, discovers his stupidity.  Man, by making himself a god, discovers the painful agony that he is not God.  When the first man made this discover, Scripture describes him as “naked”.  Naked, because the man who neglects or rejects God has nothing.  He may cover himself for a while with the fig leaves of “success,” “art,” “science,” and “progress” or by rationalizing his conduct, saying that there is not truth.  But he knows that these are but inadequate shred and cannot cover all his wants.  This is modern nudity – to be without God.”

Sheen, Fulton THE WORLD’S FIRST LOVE.  Ignatius Press.  http://www.ignatius.com/Products/CategoryCenter.aspx?SearchTerm=The+world’s+first+love