Devotion for today: Charity is walking in the Truth

I can tell you with complete honesty that I did not have an inside ear in the Vatican to tell me to feature Pope Benedict XVI on my blog this week! What a shock his “stepping down” is to all of us! We must believe that he is so finely tuned into God living in him that when he hears His voice, he knows it and listens to it. That is how we all want to be. If you live in faith, Christ lives in you. If He lives in you, He gently guides you in the ways of righteous and charity. If you have become accustomed to His voice, you know when to act, when to step out in faith, and when to give yourself up for the good of others. Isn't that what Christ did for us? In part two of his message for Lent, Pope Benedict XVI reminds us that our entire life is nothing but a response to God’s love, and it is not enough to just say, “Thank you for loving us.” We must share that charity with others. I have a pet peeve that fits here. When I am in a desperate situation, I do not like it when people say to me, “Well, please, let me know if there is anything I can do for you.” To me, that is not charity. That is putting me in the position of having to ask for help. Charity to me is saying, “I have looked at your situation, and I can see three ways that I can help you. Which one do you want me to do?” Or, just do it. God never asks what He can do for us. He does it. We must do the same. True charity is fruitful; if Christ lives in us, then our very existence, our very being must shout out the love we have for Him, and for His people. The world is desperate for that kind of love. We must be the ones to act in charity, always act in charity, and stop asking, “But what impact will this have on me?” I just don’t think that was the pressing question on Jesus’ mind as He entered into His passion.

Galatians 2:20: and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

1 John 4-12: No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.

Galatians 5:22: By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness,

Part 2: Charity as life in faith

The entire Christian life is a response to God’s love. The first response is precisely faith as the acceptance, filled with wonder and gratitude, of the unprecedented divine initiative that precedes us and summons us. And the “yes” of faith marks the beginning of a radiant story of friendship with the Lord, which fills and gives full meaning to our whole life. But it is not enough for God that we simply accept his gratuitous love. Not only does he love us, but he wants to draw us to himself, to transform us in such a profound way as to bring us to say with Saint Paul: “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (cf. Gal 2:20).

When we make room for the love of God, then we become like him, sharing in his own charity. If we open ourselves to his love, we allow him to live in us and to bring us to love with him, in him and like him; only then does our faith become truly “active through love” (Gal 5:6); only then does he abide in us (cf. 1 Jn 4:12).
Faith is knowing the truth and adhering to it (cf. 1 Tim 2:4); charity is “walking” in the truth (cf. Eph 4:15). 

Through faith we enter into friendship with the Lord, through charity this friendship is lived and cultivated (cf. Jn 15:14ff). Faith causes us to embrace the commandment of our Lord and Master; charity gives us the happiness of putting it into practice (cf. Jn 13:13-17). In faith we are begotten as children of God (cf. Jn 1:12ff); charity causes us to persevere concretely in our divine sonship, bearing the fruit of the Holy Spirit (cf. Gal 5:22). Faith enables us to recognize the gifts that the good and generous God has entrusted to us; charity makes them fruitful (cf. Mt 25:14-30).

  

Thought for the day: 

LET us Dare to Encounter JESUS with Love and Conviction in our hearts.

LET us want TO LIVE ... a fulfilling, loving, peaceful, Christian life align with the Gospel values.

LET us want to CONTEMPLATE ... to meditate and discern

LET us want to SERVE ... CHRIST and mankind.

"LET YOUR LIGHT SHINE BEFORE MEN THAT THEY MAY SEE YOUR GOOD WORKS AND GIVE GLORY TO OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN"

Matthew 5:16 (http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=123823)

Devotion for today: “Believing in charity calls forth charity”

Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, when the Church begins the season of Lent. We will spend a few days this week looking at Pope Benedict XVI’s Message for Lent, 2013. In part one of the message, the Holy Father asks us to consider the link between faith (believing in God) and love, which leads us to become devoted to others. His first teaching is very simple: being a Christian is our response to the calling God gave us, to the gift of love He shared with us first. He goes on to tell us that having faith requires us to use not only our hearts, but our intellects as well, freely choosing to acknowledge that God is the perfect path toward love, freely choosing to unite our will to His perfect will, and freely letting the love which results from our encounter with the loving God to flow out onto others. He teaches us that our love for our neighbor arises naturally from the total understanding that we are loved, forgiven and even served by the great God almighty. Why wouldn’t we want to do the same for others?  He reminds us that faith tells us that God really did give His Son for our sakes, and that is the supreme act of love which can illumine a world grown dim. He concludes part one by reminding us that “that the principal distinguishing mark of Christians is precisely ‘love grounded in and shaped by faith’”.

Message of Pope Benedict XVI for Lent 2013

“We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us” (1 Jn 4:16)

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

The celebration of Lent, in the context of the Year of Faith, offers us a valuable opportunity to meditate on the relationship between faith and charity: between believing in God – the God of Jesus Christ – and love, which is the fruit of the Holy Spirit and which guides us on the path of devotion to God and others.

1. Faith as a response to the love of God

In my first Encyclical, I offered some thoughts on the close relationship between the theological virtues of faith and charity. Setting out from Saint John’s fundamental assertion: “We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us” (1 Jn 4:16), I observed that “being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction … Since God has first loved us (cf. 1 Jn 4:10), love is now no longer a mere ‘command’; it is the response to the gift of love with which God draws near to us” (Deus Caritas Est, 1).

Faith is this personal adherence – which involves all our faculties – to the revelation of God’s gratuitous and “passionate” love for us, fully revealed in Jesus Christ. The encounter with God who is Love engages not only the heart but also the intellect: “Acknowledgement of the living God is one path towards love, and the ‘yes’ of our will to his will unites our intellect, will and sentiments in the all-embracing act of love. But this process is always open-ended; love is never ‘finished’ and complete” (ibid., 17). Hence, for all Christians, and especially for “charity workers”, there is a need for faith, for “that encounter with God in Christ which awakens their love and opens their spirits to others. As a result, love of neighbour will no longer be for them a commandment imposed, so to speak, from without, but a consequence deriving from their faith, a faith which becomes active through love” (ibid., 31a).

 Christians are people who have been conquered by Christ’s love and accordingly, under the influence of that love – “Caritas Christi urget nos” (2 Cor 5:14) – they are profoundly open to loving their neighbour in concrete ways (cf. ibid., 33). This attitude arises primarily from the consciousness of being loved, forgiven, and even served by the Lord, who bends down to wash the feet of the Apostles and offers himself on the Cross to draw humanity into God’s love.

“Faith tells us that God has given his Son for our sakes and gives us the victorious certainty that it is really true: God is love! … Faith, which sees the love of God revealed in the pierced heart of Jesus on the Cross, gives rise to love. Love is the light – and in the end, the only light – that can always illuminate a world grown dim and give us the courage needed to keep living and working” (ibid., 39). All this helps us to understand that the principal distinguishing mark of Christians is precisely “love grounded in and shaped by faith” (ibid., 7). (http://kottayamad.org/message-of-pope-benedict-xvi-for-lent-2013/)

Act of Faith

O my God, I firmly believe that you are one God in three divine persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I believe that your divine Son became man and died for our sins, and that he will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe these and all the truths which the holy Catholic Church teaches, because in revealing them you can neither deceive nor be deceived. Amen
(http://www.catholic.org/prayers/prayer.php?p=426)

 

 

Devotion for today: Make a joyful noise unto the Lord!!! (Psalm 100)

How Great Is Our God

How great is our God
How great is His name
How great is our God
Forever the same
He rolled back the waters
Of the mighty Red Sea
And He said, "I'll never leave you,
Put your trust in Me"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD5wHAobQyc