“You can entrust everything to me and always pour out your heart to me” (Inner Word).
How much it would help people to respond to this invitation of our Heavenly Father! Isn’t that what we are longing for? Aren’t we looking for someone we can trust without reservation, someone who will listen to us and understand us?
“How can we ever thank You enough, O Beloved Father, for Your love and Your infinite mercy” (Hymn of Praise to the Most Holy Trinity). Read More
“Abide in my love” (Jn 15:9).
The love of our heavenly Father surrounds us, dwells in us and forms us into the image of Christ. Once we have come to know and accept it through faith, this love will always want to remain in us and will never leave us. It is divine love and therefore unchanging. It is a gift that we receive freely, but our task and our joy is to remain in it. And this is not difficult because God, for His part, never withdraws His love from us. Only we can turn away from it if we neglect to cultivate it and turn our love in a disorderly way towards the created, thus turning away from God.
“Whoever wants God to listen to him, let him first listen to God” (St. Augustine).
No matter how much God speaks to us, we will not understand Him unless we learn to recognise His voice, unless we assimilate His word and put it into practice. It is the Holy Spirit who reminds us of all that Jesus said and did (Jn 14:26), but He can only do this if we are willing to listen and pay attention to the Lord. That is to say, the right disposition on our part is necessary.
“It is better to limp along the straight path than to stray from it with a firm step” (St. Augustine).
On the path of following the Lord, we are not always carried on “eagle’s wings”. There are stages where we progress with difficulty and which require a lot of patience, especially when it comes to carrying a cross. Our Father allows this so that we never forget that all grace comes from Him. If we were always moving forward in leaps and bounds, with great agility, we might be tempted to put our own merits first and forget that it is the Lord who sustains us.
“Be sure of my love. It is indestructible” (Inner Word).
The certainty of God’s love is the foundation on which we can build our whole life, both in time and in eternity. In every situation we find ourselves in, His love is present to strengthen us, comfort us and lift us up.
“Keep your heart anchored in me” (Inner Word)
Once we have surrendered our hearts to the Heavenly Father in response to His love for us, this act of surrender must be renewed and deepened again and again.
“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (Lk 23:34).
In these few words, the love of God shines forth in an incomparable way. In the midst of His suffering, Jesus looks up to His Father and utters this prayer for the salvation of mankind. He knew that the Father would listen to Him and accept the sacrifice He was about to make. Jesus knows that His Father’s gaze rests on Him with infinite complacency. Where is there a son who fulfils his father’s will so perfectly? Where is there a son who, in his most difficult hour, intercedes for the whole of humanity, thus completing his Father’s work?
‘It is preferable for scandal to arise than for truth to be abandoned’ (St. Bernard of Clairvaux).
