Monday morning the latest copy of the "Magnificat" showed up on my desk, a sign from my husband that there was something of interest for me. I read the meditation and realized that it fit rather nicely with the topic of yesterday's post: trusting that God's way is the better way. The entry was written by St. John Baptist De La Salle, whose feast day was Monday. I would like to quote part of it because he says it all so much better than I ever could.
"Offering ourselves and all we have to God means to present ourselves to him and to dedicate to him all our thoughts, words, actions, and goods, whether spiritual or temporal - in a word, everything we possess in this world. We assure God that because we are wholly dependent on him, we also wish to consecrate ourselves to him and his service and to abandon ourselves entirely to what he may choose for us, not wishing to follow our own will. We beg him not to permit us to entertain a single thought, utter a single word, or accomplish the slightest action that is not in conformity with his holy will and with what he asks of us."
It is hard to open ourselves so completely to God in order to live what St. John Baptist describes here. What a catch-22: You need God's grace to open yourself up to His will but you also need to be open to God's will in order to more easily accept the grace! St. John Baptist finishes the entry with this:
"We should also remind God of all the graces we have received from Him and tell Him that far from abusing any of them, we wish to act in such a way that none of them may prove useless but that all may attain their full effect. Finally, we should offer to consecrate to God in particular all the natural advantages and temporal goods we may possess, declaring that just as we have received them all from God, we wish to make use of them only for His sake."
May we remember each and every day that, without God, we can do nothing but with God, we can do anything!
God Bless!
