My purpose in these posts is to bring a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.
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Hello dear Reader. I hope that his reflection finds you well, you and your family, or that whatever was ill may now be recovering.
When coming out of prayer, often my spirit wanders in wondrous regions of our life on Earth.... That which rarely elevates my spirit in the heat of the action during the day, now, admits the light.... Life often complicates our existence, but it is good to remember that we are always in the awesome presence of the Most Holy Trinity.
Our God is ever present and dwelling within us, with the only exception of when we commit grievous sin, in which case we cannot force God to remain with us and become our accomplice in evil. At such times our God is saying to us "Are you done already? Can we go home now?"
Our every breath comes into us from our Creator God... who breathed into Adam his own breath of life (Genesis 2:7)... we are only able to breathe at all because we have within us the breath of life from God, and when our earthly existence comes to an end, God will take back his breath, and our soul will immediately find itself in the awesome and wondrous presence of the most Holy Trinity....
This meeting with God face to face will be more than impressive, or awesome.... The light will be so brilliant that in an instant we will see ourselves in all our truth - even that which at the moment we neither want to see or admit, for good or for ill - and at the same time we will see God in all his splendour of goodness, truth, and beauty....
Only the saints - who let themselves be purified by the trials of life and who finally chose to resist their evil impulses in order to surrender themselves completely to love of neighbor, even love of the enemy - only the saints therefore will be able to endure the intense beauty of God and they will already be entering into Heaven and eternal happiness.
The saints will be able to endure the look of Jesus who, to reveal to humanity the true love of God for us allowed himself to be misunderstood, falsely accused, unjustly condemned, tortured, and put to death. He loves us so much that He allowed himself to be taken like a lamb to demonstrate the behaviour of a love that is pure and true.
As for the rest of us, the contrast between all that God truly is in reality, on the one hand, and our own reality, on the other hand, this contrast will cause us to be unable to endure the full intensity of the love of God... the Father, the Son Jesus, and the Holy Spirit will have pity on us and they will allow us to withdraw from this intense light of love to go and finish being purified for loving. This time and space will allow us to detach ourselves from all that is imperfect or undeserving of our attachment for all eternity.... This reflection helps us to understand why it is good and desirable for us to live life as fully as we can and for as long as we can, until our final breath....
Useless it is to seek a premature ending to our distress; for each trouble is an opportunity for us to experience more deeply this purification which we all need in order to become better able to love purely and truly. Tragic is that scenario of those poor folks who, sick or disturbed within themselves, seek a premature ending of their life in an artificially caused death, a death which in truth brings no solution to the enigma of who they are and who they were in the process of becoming; a death which merely makes their existence all the heavier. We trust in the infinite mercy of God revealed to us in Jesus, but still, why short circuit our existence here and now? Let us pray for those poor folks who have given themselves a premature death....
We discover more of the wonder of who our Creator God is when we explore the wonders of the universe or when we explore within ourselves the microscopic universe of life itself. Only in recent decades has it been possible for humanity to look into the complex workings within the life of each living cell. The little machines accomplishing complex tasks there are more ingenious and complex than the most complicated factory built by human beings.
The very fibre of our being is kept in existence by the sheer steadiness of the will of God who wants us to exist, who at the beginning said "Let there be light!"
Peace to you and your family.
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My purpose in these posts is to help spread the contributions of a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.
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© 2004-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal QC
© 2004-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC
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Great blog post Father Gilles
ReplyDeleteThank you for this enlightening Word of Wisdom "we are never far from God" from you Fr. Gilles. As usual, your choice of subject and your comments are strong motivations
ReplyDeleteto widen ones horizon of intellectual capability. God Bless You.
Almario (from St-Luke)