Confident in God's Direction

Saturday, August 4, 2012

Today's reading from Jeremiah is a continuation from yesterdays in which Jeremiah's opponents want to put him to death.  A defender challenges his accusers, reminding them that Jeremiah is speaking on behalf of the Lord.   Jeremiah is so confident that he was carrying out God's command that he feared no evil, not even death.  He could say to those who wanted him dead: "I am in your hands; do with me what you think good or right."  In faith, I asked the Lord to speak to me. The heard the following message within my spirit self:

Dorothy Ann, Jeremiah was given that courage by Me. I gave that same power to you in your baptism and confirmation and in every Eucharist and in the reading of the Word. I perfect it in you through the events of your life and in your sharing those events with me.  You are growing strong in the faith. Your trust in Me is  deepeneing and your love is being set ablaze.

My response was: Thank you!  Mother/Father God, Christ Jesus, and Holy Spirit, have mercy on me.  Transform my disbelief, my doubts, my weakness into even deeper faith, stronger trust, and an even  more ablazing love. Open my eyes to see You at work in me and in others, my ears to hear your Word, my will to follow You and my heart to love you.

My prayer is the same for you who read this.  As you reflect on Jeremiah's courage, what is your response, your wish?

Who are mother, sister, brother to Jesus?

Today is the feast of St. Francis De Sales, a very timid man by nature.  He states that he was the youngest in his family, had very little self-confidence, wanted to live unnoticed and follow his natural inclinations to withdraw into shyness.  All of these aspirations, he cautions, are not from the spirit but are natural, human weaknesses. We were baptized and given a spirit of power, of courage, not the dispositions of a coward.  Every day we are faced with following the spirit, doing and thinking as God does rather than  following our natural inclinations and/or our ego self.  My natural self wants to retaliate when  wronged, so do dogs and cats and other animals. The spiritual self is invited to respond to evil with good, to egocentric behaviors  with  altruism, to pompous deeds with humility.  My natural self wants to attack others when I am confronted with what has been perceived as a wrongdoing or an inappropriate behavior. The spiritual self is encouraged to respond out of humility and listen to how the other perceives my actions, even when I believe that what I have said or done is being misinterpreted. When another makes a selfish choice that grates on my nerves, my natural self wants to treat him/her with like behaviors, responding sarcastically and/or acting as unkindly  as has this person has. Jesus says to us in today’s Gospel, Mk 3: 31-35, that “whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”   I have the choice of continuing to act with kindness and unselfishness, acting as Christ would versus being unchristian, that is,  doing the will of my Father and measuring up to being Jesus’ sister/brother.  Doing so is difficult but not impossible because we are armed with the power of the Spirit, the love that binds the three persons of the Blessed Trinity into one God. I have a spirit self and an ego self; the two become one when I am doing the will of my God.