Regarding holiness
Dear Jesus, please reveal brilliantly to all, that You do not require that individuals need to be regarded as Saints, in order to be Your saints. Assure them that holiness is Your action, not ours!
Let them read the gospels and reflect on what they read, discovering that You were truly human, that you wept, felt pain, joy, and exasperation, “How long do I have to put up with this faithless generation!”) [Mark 9:19]
You became righteously angry [in the Temple]. You were sometimes disappointed, sometimes weary. You who spent so much time teaching and ministering to others, sometimes felt the need to be alone, and the desire to escape a dreadful ordeal (“let this cup pass from me”). [Luke 22:42]
Then in the depths of suffering, You found faith difficult, (“My God, why have You abandoned me?”) [Psalm 22:1] Yet humbly Your cried out “Not my will, Your will be done!” and “Into Your hands I commend my Spirit”.
Why did not the evangelists record Your laughter! How sober of them! However, they do record as Your lyrical delight over little children, (“Blessed are You, Father, Lord of Heaven and Earth! You have revealed to little ones, the mysteries of Your Kingdom!” [Matthew 11:25]
Jesus, ask Your people to observe that You lived the ordinary life for about thirty years. If You had not wanted to make such an issue about being vulnerably human, You could have come as a glorious, fully developed human Personage.
Jesus, truly human, truly God, help us to become fully human, fully whole, created as we are in the image of God. (Genesis 1:26)
Jesus and ordinary life
Jesus, God and man, for most of Your life You lived amongst us in unobtrusive labour. Through Your witness, we are encouraged to value the mundane tasks and events that dominate our lives, despite the discouragement that sometimes accompanies them.
Let us not overlook the value and message of the silent gospel of Your years of ‘ordinary’ service, overshadowed as they are by the drama of those last three years. It is surely a powerful silent witness that You, God incarnate, spent thirty years apparently ‘marking time’ in ordinary activity…as helpless infant…as refugee…as child of a poor family…as village tradesman. Thus is the ordinary, unrecognised and unrecorded routine of our daily lives elevated and sanctified while yet in obscurity, when it is lived in accordance with divine will.
In response to Your quiet example and Your inspired Word, we desire grace to live and work lovingly amongst others, obeying Your will as expressed in our vocations and our individual natures. The brief account of Your infancy and childhood emphasises this lesson. Although at twelve You revealed Your unique nature, You returned to humble daily activity.
We observe Your favoured human Mother, in her option to reject or cooperate with divine will for her life. Her acceptance carried with it some treasured secrets, but largely the ordinary life of human motherhood and home duties commonplace in the lives of multitudes of women throughout the centuries. Surely, her faith and hope were frequently tested in remembrance of divine promise in the face of ‘ordinary’ realities. Ultimately, however, her choice led to mental and emotional martyrdom.
Jesus, along with every human, in the desert You faced the choice to employ or misuse, the life, the gifts, and the trust reposed in You. You could embrace or refuse the alluring, deceptive temptations of the devil—gaudy and dramatic with ambition, sensuality and worldliness. Rejecting these temptations, You remained faithful to the God’s will, despite hardship, disappointment and sorrow.
Following almost thirty years of humble obscurity, You began public ministry, openly teaching and exemplifying the truths of the eternal Father, and fulfilling the covenant. Even as You took up Your divine ministry, You remained loving, obedient, wise and trusting. You accepted the realities of Your humanity, not vicariously, but fully, sacrificing this humanity in the culmination of every human deprivation and suffering. Your entire being became ‘a living wound’. [Isaiah] Following annihilation in Your humanity, You resurrected, to consummate Your defeat of sin and death for humankind.
You are witness that each person must accept divine will in the realities and actualities of our personal existences as we follow You our Way to life. Jesus, grant us to shoulder our daily cross lovingly, cheerfully and creatively, regardless of how arduous or ineffectual our lives may seem to ourselves.
Grant us to bear our cross , in ordinary times and in crises, with perseverance, hope and peace, so that You may use us to open heaven to others who live within our influence. Thank You, Jesus, key of our salvation and holiness!
David, don’t be complicated, and don’t get complicated with God or yourself. Listen to the words of Jesus in the bible about love and practical acts of kindness. And don’t keep yourself separated from God just because you’re human and you fail sometimes, and even again and again. The courage and the holiness is in keeping on trying, humbly accepting that you are human, and trusting in God’s mercy.
“Walk with simplicity in the way of the Lord and do not torment your spirit. Learn to hate your faults but to hate them calmly.” (Saint Padre Pio)
** “Heaven is filled with converted sinners of all kinds, and there is room for more”** (St. Joseph Cafaso)
