BEGIN AGAIN...

Coming to the close of a year of many adventures and challenges, one can wonder about the future? What steps can be taken to help this wonderful World of ours become a better place, one that will be an encouragement and protection, especially for the new generation of people / children who will only have our guidelines to help them.

What can I do to create a better place / a better World ?

My answer is simple, yet also complex, because I believe in God, the Creator of the Universe and all that pertains to who we are and where we are.  Will my belief be good enough to make a difference?

Reading the life of St. Therese, I came across a quote from her... 'One person, striving for sanctity, is more pleasing to God than many others living a good, yet complacent life.'  

Does that effect me and my life?  I wonder, because I would relate myself to the complacent person. I know about saints whose lives show us what sanctity is all about, yet I cannot imitate them.  I must be the original person that God has created me to be.

Perhaps the answer to saving the World and being the best that we can be lies in our honesty about who we are, truly, and follow up with a life that values and lives a life of loving and caring, responding to the inner voice that prompts us to love, always.

LOVE HEALS

 Christ has given us a strong command, 'Love one another as I have loved you'.  This is not an easy example to follow, especially when we might even doubt God's love for us.

Perhaps that is where the difficulty lies, in becoming aware of the truth that God loves each one of us, regardless of how good or bad we might be.  This is hard  for us because by nature we measure love according to how we are loved etc. And, also when we are not good, we can feel ashamed and wish to hide, believing that we are not worthy of love.

God is Love, and so does not measure love according to feelings and responses, as we so often do.  When love is genuine, then it does not judge the actions of others, it simply focuses on the Presence of God which is noble and pure.

One example that might make this clear for us, is seen in the love of a mother for a child.  The 'child' who might well be an adult, can be far from good or holy, yet still, the mother's love will not fail. Love is love, regardless.

When we are able to believe in God's love for us, we will have the power to love, and experience how love heals!

 

BEAUTY

 'Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder...' so we are told, and how true that is. When our hearts are captured with delight at the sight of another person, or something of artistic value, we immediately respond with love.

You could say, this is the way God has formed us. We are made in His likeness and therefore we cannot but rejoice at the sight of beauty.  An innocent child will display the wonder of the soul and God's love for each one of us.

I visited Fatima, in Portugal, awhile ago and was touched by the knowledge of who was chosen by the Blessed Virgin, three little children, to carry the message of love to the whole World.  Through their innocence and obedience to Our Lady, we have confirmation of just how much God loves each on of us.

Of course, we have this wonderful World of ours, sending out messages of beauty as seen on Earth and the Universe at large. We just have to open our eyes and hearts to the beauty that surrounds us.