517th Meditation
Even though our Father knows in advance what we need, He wants us to ask Him for it. It is precisely this prayer of petition that leads us into the right relationship with God: on the one hand, because we become aware of Who it is that we are addressing; and, on the other hand, because we take the right attitude towards Him, that is, a trusting attitude, knowing that we are dependent on God and firmly believing that He will listen to us.
516th Meditation
“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe” (Jn 20:29).
It is not so easy for us human beings to embark on the path of pure faith, because we usually want to grasp reality through the senses. A materially inclined world tends to accept only what it is capable of understanding.
515th Meditation
Our Father loves it when, in secret, we speak with Him and take time to be with Him (cf. Mt 6:6). In these moments, intimacy, friendship, trust, sensitivity to perceive his presence grow… There, in secret, he can easily speak to our hearts and build his holy temple in us.
514th Meditation
When we have come to know a little of God’s love and have come to understand His goodness more and more, the desire to reciprocate His love increases in us. The Father wants us to know Him, to honour Him and to love Him. And how are we to do this?
Let us listen to God the Father’s answer to Mother Eugenia:
“With regard to the means of honouring Me as I desire, all I ask of you is great confidence. Do not think I want austerities or mortifications; I do not want you to walk barefoot or to lay your faces in the dust, or to cover your-selves with ashes. No, no! My dearest wish is that you behave as My children, simply and trusting in Me!”
So, what the Lord expects of us is not, in the first instance, external ascetic practices, however important and necessary these may be in certain circumstances. It is something much deeper: our trust.
In asking for our trust, the Father is asking for our heart, our genuine and simple surrender to Him. Indeed, we honour Him when we simply trust Him, for then we believe in His love and give Him the right response.
This trust binds us even more to God than all the good works we can do for Him! If we give the Father our unconditional trust, we also detach ourselves from all forms of disordered self-determination and our tendency to want to take our life into our own hands.
Trusting in God means receiving life from His hands: every day, every hour… And this path leads us to freedom and gratitude.
Let us ask Him, for example, in the mornings: “What is your plan for today, beloved Father? I trust in You!”
Then, this attitude of trust will permeate our whole existence, and the foundation on which we build our life will become more and more secure. Moreover, we honour our Father when we accept life in this way and fulfil the mission He has entrusted to us as His children.
We lost so much when the gates of Paradise were closed to us! Even if we have become accustomed to it and no longer perceive it with great pain, it is a deep misery into which man plunged when he fell into sin. But in the depths of our souls there is still a longing for Paradise, which can become an incentive for us to seek God. Read More
A beautiful flower in our Father’s heart is His mercy. With it, and not with inflexible severity, He wants to judge the world. Mercy is His unsurpassable motivation to be ever vigilant and to go out again and again in search of men, so that they may open themselves to His love. Read More
511st Meditation
Indeed, one would think that in all those parts of the world that have been blessed with the announcement of the Christian faith, as well as the regions marked by Judaism and those where there is knowledge of the Old Testament scriptures, God should be recognised as loving Father.
510th Meditation
“Time is in my hands, but with your zeal and love you can influence it” (Interior Word).
We can take this as an invitation from God that we can even collaborate in the history of salvation, because the times of His salvific action are not static and immovable.
509th Meditation
When we accept and internalise the love of our Heavenly Father, when God Himself dwells in us and His Holy Spirit transforms us, then we come to know our Father’s heart more and more. Very soon we will notice that He has an urgent desire to make His love known to all people.
508th Meditation
“Taste the sweetness of this health-giving water, and when you have felt all its delicious power in your souls satisfying all your needs, come and cast yourselves into the ocean of My charity, so as to live only in Me, to die to yourselves and to live eternally in Me” (Father’s message to Sister Eugenia Ravasio). Read More
