30. Macrina Wiederkehr, O.S.B.: Real presence
Everything can bless us, but we've got to be there for the blessing to occur. Being present with quality is a decision we are invited to make each day. It is another way to become like God.
29. St. Thérèse of Lisieux: The vocation of love
Yes, my beloved, this is how my life will be consumed. I have no other means of proving my love for you other than that of strewing flowers, that is, not allowing one little sacrifice to escape, not one look, one work, profiting by all the smallest things and doing them through love.
28. Ronald Rolheiser, O.M.I.: Mourning our losses
Perhaps the greatest spiritual and psychological challenge for us once we reach mid-life is to mourn our deaths and losses. Unless we mourn properly our hurts, our losses, life's unfairness, our shattered dreams, our radical inconsummation, and the life that we once had but that has now passed us by, we will live either in an unhealthy fantasy or an ever-intensifying bitterness.
27. St. Vincent de Paul: God's mercy
26. Megan McKenna: The fast I want
25. St. Francis of Assisi: Peace prayer
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is sadness, joy.
Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled,
as to console;
To be understood, as to understand;
24. Cardinal Joseph Bernardin: The value of suffering
It is a normal, instinctive response to run from suffering. We try to avoid it for ourselves, and we make every effort to protect our loved ones from it. Suffering is perceived as a dire threat to our life and happiness.
23. Meister Eckhart: True conversion
Many people think that to show their sorrow for sin they must do extraordinary things such as fasting, walking barefoot, and the like. The best penitence, however, is to turn away completely from all that is not God and not divine, whether it be in yourself or some other person, place, or thing.
22. M. Basil Pennington, O.C.S.O.: A clash of wills
How often have we prayed: "Our Father, who art in heaven . . . thy will be done. . . . " We have watched the ultimate expression of our Lord's own struggle as he sweat blood in Gethsemane's garden and in his anguish cried out: "Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me, but not my will but yours be done."
21. Joan Chittister, O.S.B.: A growing season
Lent is not an event. It is not something that happens to us. It is at most a microcosm of what turns out to be a lifelong journey to the center of the self.
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