Gleaming Gold of Easter

                Dear Risen Lord, You fill my heart and soul with great joy. The weight of the Cross and the sadness of the Passion has melted away and the joy and love of the Resurrection gleams now in its place. This joy was there all along but it was temporarily clothed in the events of the Passion. Only You saw the beauty underneath it all. Only You could endure it so that Your great love and mercy could be revealed like gleaming gold and offered to us all. Your love and mercy are more than my feeble mind can fathom. Oh my dear Risen Lord, my heart leaps and my breath quickens as I think of You standing there transformed in holy glory with open arms waiting for us all. My soul longs to be with You forever. Thank You for the Mass which allows me to be intimately joined with You here on earth and provides a chance to glimpse heaven and our future together.

                Oh dear Risen Lord, soften the hearts of Your people that they might be able to recognize You in this world that turns away from You. May all people seek You earnestly and transform their lives to prepare for eternity with You. Oh dear Risen Lord, please restore the hearts and souls of all Your people and please uncover all the good in this world You created. Help me to be a good and faithful witness, sharing Your joy and love for all people. Help me to trust in You and Your great mercy and love, not just for me, but for the whole world. I know You created it with love for good and I know that ultimately, Your will will be done and good will triumph. Help me, therefore, to live each day with this faith and hope and to embrace the path to salvation with enthusiasm, love and joy, no matter how difficult the journey may be. Help me to see the gleaming gold underneath everything and everyone in this world and help me polish that gold in preparation for eternal life with You.

Sparkling Sand

My dear loving Creator, today I sit in my smallness and ponder Your greatness. You are so much more than my mind can comprehend but what awes me the most is that You, in all Your greatness, love me in all my meekness. I am nothing but a speck of sand in Your creation and yet, You love me and long for me to be with You just as I long for You.

I remember sitting on the beach and staring at the sand in the sunshine. It made me think of You sending Your loving warmth to all the specks of sand. There were a few sparkling specks here and there, reflecting Your light and the sand was warm on the surface, reflecting Your warmth. It made me think how when we place ourselves before You and stay still in Your loving warm light, we absorb that and then radiate that warmth to everything around us. The sand buried underneath was colder and darker, no longer reflecting or radiating Your light and warmth, but if left out in Your light, it too could heat up, dry and reflect light and warmth again.

I also noticed little gusts of wind that would blow over the surface of the sand. The sparkling specks would disappear but then new ones would appear and shine in different spots. It made me think of the wind being like the challenges we receive in our lives or even what the world experiences through disasters, wars, persecutions, etc., and I realized that the winds don’t destroy everything because Your light always shines. The sand may move, but if it stays in the light, it will dry and reflect Your love and light. New specks appear and begin to shine which hadn’t shone before or which weren’t noticed before. I began to wait for the next gust of wind to see where the specks would sparkle next and I appreciated the wind, even though it chilled me temporarily and even irritated my skin. I thought of being a sparling speck and I realized there were times when I have buried myself in the sand, unable to absorb Your warmth and light. If I build walls to protect me from the wind, then I just remain hidden and unable to shine. So I welcome the winds, though maybe with a little hesitation, wondering how intense they may be and if they will develop into storms or even tornadoes. But I know Your light remains forever and no matter what the wind does to the sand, when it ends, Your light remains and those specks on the surface will sparkle once more.

Oh dear loving Creator, thank You for making me a speck of sand on the vast beaches of Your world. May I always remain on the surface, ready to blow in the wind and sparkle wherever You send me.

The Soul Grows Through Suffering

                My Lord, My God, my sovereign Lord, I humbly bow my head knowing that my mind cannot truly comprehend You and Your divine plan for the world. The one thing I cling to is Your Blessed Sacred Heart, knowing that Your immense love connects us all through that heart and for that, I am eternally grateful and awed. I recognize how precious that love is and it pains me to think of Your heart being injured by our failures to return your love through our actions. The question that burns in my heart today is why does love, such an amazing wonderful gift, have to be manifested through suffering, especially in Your intense suffering on the Cross? I know we grow through suffering but why do some people suffer so much and why such violent suffering for You as Jesus?

                “Oh my dear loving child, you ask Me such questions with the big wondering eyes and open heart of a child. My suffering was just a blink in eternity. Remember, I gave My people the gift of time to process all I send. For Me, there is no time so that day on Calvary was a blink in the whole picture. Trust Me My child, the whole picture will be revealed to all, just not now. In that blink of My suffering, I was giving all of Me to the love for My Father’s will, to My will, and to My beloved people. Love consumes a soul and infuses an entire being. That is how I created it. My suffering on the Cross released My divinity and overcame the power of death, revealing the immense love I contain. I gave everything, all my humanity as Jesus, to save My people from the encasement of sin that shrouds all individuals. Everyone has a spiritual soul inside of them, the soul I placed there as part of Me when each person was conceived. That soul longs to return to Me but first must grow and develop inside the body, like a baby in the womb. Through suffering, the soul emerges stronger, just as a baby passes through the birth canal to enter the world. Suffering may seem to break down the body but it builds the soul. My day on Calvary was for everyone so it had to be extreme and it opened the doors to heaven for all My people. In light of that, the spiritual blindness and apathy that runs rampant today makes Me sad, but have faith My child, the doors to heaven remain open for those who seek Me. For some people, they will experience great suffering because that is what they need to keep their humanity pliable so their souls can grow inside. Do not fret about suffering My child, it is a blink in My divine plan, a necessary but temporary blink. Join Me in this suffering, in My walk to Calvary, and grow your soul and help others to grow as well. Keep your heart open and let Me fill it with My grace for then your soul will grow.”