My spiritual readings this morning began with the words “ The heavens proclaim the glory of God, and the firmament discloses the divine handiwork.” —psalm 19:1
This fills me with such joy as I marvel at His great design. How it all was meant to go, how it still continues to this day in some aspects, and how the great plan of redemption continues regardless of how far it has fallen in others.
We were supposed to be living in full union with Him, enjoying paradise on earth. Sin entered the world, it marred the plan for sure. But God didn’t simply crumple it all up and throw it in the waste basket… all that He had created was good… it had been declared so from the very beginning.
So what did sin manage to do? It doesn’t only mess with our souls, it first messes with our minds … most especially our memory of who we are and most importantly whose we are. We become susceptible to lies and manipulation. Way before Eve ever even took the first bite of that apple, her mind had already been swayed.
The Good News is that God’s plan persists. He loves us too much to leave us wrangling in the after effects of our own feeble minded choices. That is His merciful love in action.
That great plan for us to be fully united to Him, continues … the Father unites us to Himself through His Son. There was no other way, there is no other way. Our sinfulness and wandering spirit is too great.
In today’s Gospel we read “Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the Kingdom of heaven.
Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.”
What is it about children that qualifies them for such an honor? It’s their humility and docility. Their willingness to be lead and trust-fullness without reservation. Adulthood and painful life experiences rubs a lot of that out of us, we think we know better and therefore we have no need for a Savior.
Humility requires that we look at our selves… all those areas that we struggle with and try to hide or improve on in our own way. All those little broken pieces that we try desperately to glue back together. Whether they were a result of our own sinfulness, our temperament, our disorders or inordinate tendencies. God wants us to hand them all over to Him.
That’s what makes St. Therese’s Little Way so attractive. It teaches us to relish in our own worldly littleness, because those are the exact areas where Jesus comes in and redeems for us.
The saying, “God loves us the way we are, but too much to let us stay there”, holds true. His love for us is never diminished, regardless of what we do or don’t do, oh but what a mess we can create sometimes, and how it must hurt His heart.
In today’s reflection on ‘33 Days to Merciful Love’ , we read that “mercy involves two things: the heart and the arms. It’s God’s being moved to compassion at seeing our suffering (heart) and then taking action to help alleviate it (arms).
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