Sr.Anne Marie Walsh’s Zoom Meeting

Please join us Time: Oct 9, 2023 06:30 PM Mountain Time/7:30 Central Time

https://zoom.us/j/92645572023?pwd=S2Q2dHdHUytwVnRuSGROUnhza1A3UT09

Meeting ID: 926 4557 2023 Passcode: 084331

Opening Prayer: The Memorare

REMEMBER, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thy intercession was left unaided. Inspired with this confidence, I fly to thee, O Virgin of virgins, my Mother; to thee do I come; before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy mercy, hear and answer me. 

Amen

An Examination of Love

One of the benefits of regularly examining our conscience is to make us more sensitive to God and His ways so that we do not become lax in identifying areas of sin and weakness in our lives. Sin always affects our intimacy with God. It spiritually (and psychologically) distances us from God and inclines us to make light of what He requires or asks us to do. The examination of conscience, though, is not just about sin. It’s also about self-knowledge in the area of our relationship with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It allows us to look over the day and see where we were mindful of God and, at the same time, where we lost His presence amid our normal activities and experiences. We learn, often on a personal level, about what pleases God and what displeases Him.  This helps us progress in prayer and our striving for holiness. If you sincerely love God, you want to know what draws Him but also what pushes Him away.

Many of us earnestly desire to become more united and conformed to Christ, to love God more and more. But we don’t always know exactly what that means or what it looks like.  To love someone is often said to mean that we will the good for that person.  This means that regardless of feelings, we can love even our enemies or those who have hurt us deeply by willing their sanctification and salvation.  But obviously, this definition doesn’t help us when it comes to loving God because God is pure goodness in Himself.  We cannot will anything for Him that He does not already have.  So, our love for Him must be expressed differently. 

Jesus shows us two primary ways.  1. We can love what God loves. 2. We can seek to please Him in all things, just as people who love each other do.  Jesus expresses His love for the Father this way:  “I love the Father…I do just as the Father has commanded me, “ Jn 14:31  and, “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work.”  Jn 35:34. This is what feeds the soul of Jesus, and it is what should feed our own souls as well.

We can ask ourselves first:  What does God love?  What does the Father love most?  Because I want to love that too!

The answer is that the Father loves His Son the most.  St. John of the Cross says that God is offended when we ask for certain gifts (perhaps prophecy or healing or word of knowledge) as though there is anything He has held back from us.  He has given us the fullness of all He has to give in giving us His only begotten Son.  There is nothing more than that.

So then, to answer how we please God becomes easy. We please Him by loving Jesus, listening to Him, and becoming more and more like Jesus in our own unique way.  (Remember, the saints all manifest the holiness of God, but they are also very different from each other, simply one facet in the multi-faceted reflection of Christ, present and at work in the world in His Mystical Body.)  We can never plumb the depths of the riches of Christ!  Even after the 117 billion people who have lived on the face of the earth since time began and who each were called to live out some aspect of Christ in their lives (at least by potential), we have barely scratched the surface.

And so, what pleases the Father most?  Anything or anyone that resembles His Beloved Son; anyone that becomes like Him and united to Him.

Children often grasp this quite easily because their love is not yet cautious, suspicious, or calculating.  As one young child observed: “When you pray, God the Father looks into your heart to see if His Son is there.”  This is the starting point for real intimacy with God.  Look at your own interior life.  What does the Father see when He looks in your heart?  That will tell you where you are and where you need to go. 

Questions for silent reflection:

1.  What does doing the will of the Father look like in your life?

2.  Our relationship with God, with the three Divine Persons, is very personal and unique.  No two relationships are alike.  What have you found is pleasing to the Father in your everyday walk with Him?

3.  What are some of the aspects of Christ that attract you?

4.  What reality of Christ would you like to be able to live out more deeply?