We've been on vacation and are now back. I'll be attempting to blog every Tuesday and Friday once again. It's amazing how I thought that my sharing the lessons I have learned in this blog was to help others, only to see how God is using this blog to help me to grow closer to Him. So, I continue with His grace.
The month of June is dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Jesus' heart is totally consumed with the fire of Love. His heart burns with the love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for us. All that Jesus does flows from the love in His sacred heart. The three persons in one God are always together and united as one, as Jesus said to His disciples, if they have seen Jesus, they have seen the Father. Trying to understand the mystery of the Holy Trinity made me more aware of what it means to be a Holy Human.
Holy is the root word of whole. To be wholly human, the mind, body, and spirit must work together and be united as one. We are whole/holy when all that we do flows from a heart of love. Being well in mind, body, and spirit means having a heart on fire with love for God. When our heart is totally consumed with love for God, we can love our family and everyone else like Jesus. Our actions reflect what is in our heart. Is it consumed with the love of God, the love of ourself, or the love of the world or ...?
There are many times when I say one thing, and do another. In addition, my spirit does not always reflect a spirit of love. But there was a time that God gave me an experience of a burning in my heart and I learned what it means to be fully human as Jesus was fully human.
While in parish ministry, a parishioner approached me about praying for their children as the mom and dad were getting a divorce. After sharing many resources with her, I told her that I would be praying for them, especially on the Friday that the divorce was to be final. That Friday morning, I remembered the family and spoke to God about their situation. In my mind, I had been given a thought of why the marriage fell apart. It seemed to me that it was a problem that could be easily reconciled and I vowed to call the mom the following Monday to discuss this further. Due to the fact that on that Friday I had planned a shopping outing with friends, I did not want to take care of it right then.
To make a long story short, I ended up cancelling my plans with friends in order to meet with the mom that day, because the Holy Spirit would not let me stop thinking about it. I sacrificed my first day off in weeks to help someone I really did not know for the love of God. My mind, body, and spirit united in doing a loving thing. On my drive home after spending several hours with the mom, I felt a burning in my heart that brought tears to my eyes, and I experienced a feeling of pleasing God and of wholeness. There was nothing that I could have done with my friends on that day that could come close to the feeling of God's love on fire in my heart. Again, I thought I was helping someone else, and God was using that situation to help me know His love more deeply. It is all God's grace. Our God is amazing! Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and enkindle in us the fire of your love!
"Philip said to him, 'Lord, show us the Father, and we shall be satisfied.' Jesus said to him, 'Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father; how can you say, 'Show us the Father'?" John 14:8-9
"I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate." Romans 7:15
"I came to cast fire upon the earth; and would that it were already kindled!" Luke 12:49
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