april 2019 faithposting

[prismaticbleed]

 

“Love transforms one into what one loves.”

— St. Catherine of Siena

“…Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you are in Me, and I am in you. Whoever has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me. The one who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and reveal Myself to him.” (John 14: 20-21)

This truth, I strongly believe, is also at the very profound heart of the Eucharist. Through Love, we receive the living body of Christ, and are so transformed into Him, body and soul… and equally so, through Love, Christ transforms into us, who He loves, uniting Himself with us body and soul.

It’s so staggeringly beautiful it makes me tremble. What incomprehensible depths of love!

“You are rewarded not according to your work or your time but according to the measure of your love.”

— St. Catherine of Siena

Love alone is worthy of reward. Work and time can both be given with a cold heart, or for pride, or even for fear… but such motives are not of God. For “if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.”

Let all that we so be done with love, in love, and for Love, because God is Love, and Love is worth living and dying for.
 

“Obedience shows whether you are grateful.”

— St. Catherine of Siena

This is a true measure of our faith. May our hearts be so struck with the understanding of Christ’s love for us, that they overflow with grateful obedience to that Love!
 

"It is mercy that moves us toward God, while justice frightens us before Him. In my view, this makes clear that, under a veneer of self-assuredness and self-righteousness, the man of today hides a deep knowledge of his wounds and his unworthiness before God. He is waiting for mercy."
-Pope Benedict XVI

 

Today is the day to open our hearts to it, and let the Light of Christ into every dark and hidden corner.

We are indeed sinners, unworthy and wounded, but Jesus loves us still. Jesus died for us while we were still ignorant and lost enough to reject and betray and kill Him, because He wants us to be reconciled to Him– He wants us to repent and return home. Today, on Divine Mercy Sunday, He has thrown those heavenly doors open wide.

This is the wondrous beauty of His Divine Mercy– if we are humble enough to stop hiding and pretending, if we are humble enough to admit our lowliness and need of His gift of salvation, He will lift us into His arms with deepest compassion.

 

“Have courage and do not fear the assaults of the Devil. Remember this forever; it is a healthy sign if the devil shouts and roars around your conscience, since this shows that he is not inside your will.”

— Padre Pio

I’ve been struggling with the devil’s screaming rage and torments more than ever lately, and it’s honestly terrifying. I’m so weak and it’s all so loud. Alone I’d be lost, dead for sure, but Christ has won the fight for all time! And so I must cling to Him and seek His will no matter how difficult things get.

Thank you God for this strengthening consolation. The devil only seeks to destroy what God has created, what God claims rightly as His own. I am included in this. What a humbling honor; what an empowering truth! God, by your Grace, help me stay true to You.

“Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, even then I will be confident.”

 

"But one day, our blood-bought innocence, our holy purity, will cease to be primarily a forensic reality we embrace by faith. On that day we will fully experience what it’s like to be righteous in every atom of our resurrected bodies and every dimension of our eternal, immaterial souls. We will have no more sin. No more tainted motives, no more illicit desires, no more damned selfish ambition. We will know in every part of our being what it’s like to fully obey the Great Commandment as if it’s the most natural thing in the world — for it will be! And we will worship the Lamb who was slain for us with unclouded minds and hearts bursting with joy."
-Jon Bloom

my–darling–dear: If anyone wants to know what keeps me going it’s this.

Amen to both the quote and comment.
God has promised; we wait with faithful hope.

 

“What the Bible puts before us is not a record of a God who is always triumphantly getting his way by doing miracles…but a God who gets his way by patiently struggling to make himself clear to human beings, to make his love real to them, especially when they seem not to want to know, or to want to avoid him and retreat into their own fantasies about him.”

— Rowan Williams, Tokens of Trust: An Introduction to Christian Belief, 16-17.

God is staggeringly patient with us, His sinful children, and has been for time immemorial. The absolute depth of Love evident in that truth is enough to melt even the hardest heart.

 

“The devil does not eat, he does not drink, and he does not marry, and this great ascetic in form is no less a devil…Let us always relate the non-essentials - fasting, vigil, solitude - to the principal end, the purity of heart that is love.”

— Abba Moses

This is truly a game changer for Lent.

May God grant us such true humility and sincerity of heart.

 

“A lot of people think that Christianity is you doing all the righteous things you hate and avoiding all the wicked things you love in order to go to Heaven. No, that’s a lost man with religion. A Christian is a person whose heart has been changed; they have new affections.”

-Paul Washer

amore-more-ore-re: Jesus asks us to carry our cross, so we must act.
Jesus asks us to love our neighbor, so we must act.
Believing to be saved without doing anything is a satanic scam.
Satan has an interest in us not taking our cross and not loving our neighbor.

A Christian cannot help but love virtue and hate sin; it’s an inevitable and blessed consequence of loving God. Jesus has indeed given us new hearts, illuminated with His Grace and aflame with His love. Truly, once we know Him, nothing else can capture our affections, for in Him we have found and fulfilled our soul’s deepest desire.

We must also remember that Jesus calls us to Him. He calls us to love Him so, because He loves us so infinitely, beautifully more, and love cannot help but want to share everything with its Beloved… everything it has, and everything it is. And God is Love Himself! So when we answer His call, when His love allows us to respond with love, then any and every sin– all acts of distrust and rebellion and fear– become incomprehensible. We’re too deeply in love.

This, so simple and yet so profound, is at the very heart of Christanity.

 

Jesus took up His cross, and endured His entire Passion, out of love for us; indeed, we cannot ever hope to follow Him with our own crosses– so much lighter than His!– unless we too are willing to do so with unconditional love for our fellow man. Similarly, we cannot love our fellow man without also taking up the cross of Christ, for His love and His sacrifice are forever intertwined. It is indeed a work of love; it is active, it is constant, it is devoted to God, and it is the call of every Christian.

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To my followers, and to fellow Christian Tumblrs:

I’ve been having a very rough Lent in terms of mental health; I’m haunted by flashbacks and nightmares about sexual trauma and I am having a hard time coping. I’m losing a ton of weight and cannot stop crying. I know God is with me but I feel so dirty and wrong it’s blinding me to His comfort. I’m very afraid and ashamed and guilty. I feel broken and filthy and am having a hard time accepting that God can forgive me. I know that’s horrible but I must be honest.

If anyone can recommend Bible verses for this issue specifically I would be deeply grateful. All prayers are also profoundly appreciated. God bless you all.