Tag: kingdom living

Duty of the Moment

At every moment you must be just as I would have you be; at every moment you must do just what I would have you do.

Blue Book #1

I like to use Lectio Divina when doing spiritual reading of any kind. It helps me to pick out what is for me at this moment, and with the Holy Spirit’s guidance through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I’m enlightened and guided gently and step by step. The message then is not a general message to the world out there, but becomes a very intimate request for me specifically at this moment. Then together with other readings, encounters with others, random life occurrences, and prayer… it all starts to come together.

I’m currently doing the Catechism in a year with Fr. Mike, and encountered the word pedagogy… perhaps not for the first time… but it made enough of an impact now for me to get inquisitive. It means a teaching plan. God has a divine pedagogy in guiding us, and materials such as the Blue Book can be part of it.

Another book that has come to my attention as I was preparing to restart this journey was Catherine Doherty’s ‘Grace in Every Season’. The spirit of the Madonna House, seems very much in line with the messages of the Blue Book. She emphasizes the ‘duty of the moment’ … which is something very near and dear to my heart, so I’m going to be reading it also. It’s set up in daily bits, and perfect for this type of study and reflection.

The kitchen routine of preparing food in its ordinariness is feeding the hungry in the reality of everyday life.
I hope and pray that you, now and in the coming tomorrows, will remember the holiness of little things done well over and over again for the love of God. Every task, routine or not, is of redeeming, supernatural value because we are united with Christ. We must be recollected and stay aware of this truth.

Grace in Every Season

So what does Our Blessed Mother ask of us… well, first and foremost she tells us to do whatever Jesus tells us… and in the kernel of that command is our obligation to the duty of the moment.

In todays Second Reading we hear “He went about doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.”

I too seek to “go about” my own life doing good… because God is with me, and I have a lot of heavenly helps at my disposal.

Hope

1818 The virtue of hope responds to the aspiration to happiness which God has placed in the heart of every man; it takes up the hopes that inspire men’s activities and purifies them so as to order them to the Kingdom of heaven; it keeps man from discouragement; it sustains him during times of abandonment; it opens up his heart in expectation of eternal beatitude. Buoyed up by hope, he is preserved from selfishness and led to the happiness that flows from charity.–Catechism of the Catholic Church

We often place our hope on so many undeserving people and things only to get let down time and time again. We think, this new book, this new diet plan, or this new relationship will finally do it. That the key to our complete happiness lays somewhere outside of ourselves.

Although material things can certainly satisfy us for a little while, and that keeps us in the game where intense addictions of varying degrees can set in. That’s not what we were created for. We were created for Him. Like St. Augustine said, “our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” And it’s not merely the ‘unchurched’ who hunger, we all do to some extent and need to be reminded often of what we have in Him.

There’s a better way. In Matthew 6:33 Jesus tells us to

“seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.”


He wants it all for us, but He wants us to come to Him first. He knows our needs, and He knows what is best for us. So we are to ‘pray and obey’…to walk closely in relationship with Him, not merely tell Him what He needs to do for us, He’s not a genie granting wishes. We lay all of our burdens on Him, but then we allow Him to speak to us. To guide us in our steps. The world has an answer for every problem. But often times they are very different than the Lord’s way.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your way, and my thoughts than your thoughts. –Isaiah 55:9