Posted: June 12 2005 at 3:21pm | IP Logged

Bridget wrote: but I can't. Life has been very busy, houseguests, baseball, family crisis, etc. I feel like all I do is cook, clean, react to problems and try to keep everything on schedule. I'm on a merry-go-round and just hanging on by my fingernails. Has anyone found a book that helped you to live in the moment? Really be present to your husband, children, friends? I need to recollect myself spiritually as well. And my mind is just chaotic. I've always been a workhorse but I have no balance right now. It could be pregnancy hormones. Any book recommendations, thoughts advice...?

p. 35 Jesus, I know that you make reparation in me, that you supply for me, I know that you will draw the good from the bad that I do, and even, as St. Augustine said, a greater good than if there had been no evil in it.

Jesus, repair what I have done badly, supply for what I have left undone.

p. 47 Confidence is the heart of the doctrine of St. Therese of the Child Jesus since "it is confidence and nothing but confidence which will lead us to Love,: and love is everything.

Engrave this in your souls and hearts in letters of gold and fire: immense confidence, unshakeable confidence in this King of Love who is called Jesus-Savior.

The Summary of the Little Way: p. 55 "It is to be disturbed by nothing. Do not consent consciously to anxiety or a troubled mind. The moment your realize you are worrying, make very quickly an act of confidence:

"No, Jesus, you are there: nothing, nothing happens, not a hair falls from our heads, without your permission. I have no right to worry."

pp. 58-59 "I promise You, Jesus, to worry about nothing consciously, voluntarily, deliberately. As soon as I notice myself worrying, I shall listen to Your gentle voice saying to me, 'Let me do it. Am I not here with you, in you?' and I shall say unconditionally 'O Jesus, I thank You for everything!' for You always expect that of me."

p. 145 "Jesus, I have much to give you, I have everything to give you, I have something infinite to give you: your own love, your heart and the heart of your Mother which is also mine."

You are a victim of love, and give Christ carte blanche. Offer reparation with the Heart of Jesus. Substitute Jesus for ourselves. This is the perfect reparation.

p. 167 In the current of your daily life, in the course of your days, you must also say, "It is the Lord!" Comes a contradiction or thorn, comes a joy, a pleasure: "It is the Lord!"

"It is He, I recognize Him everywhere! I see nothing any more buy Him: Dominus est! Jesus, You may hide yourself behind secondary causes, behind creatures: You will not fool me. I shall always recognize You."

The only thing that really matters in life is doing the will of God. Once you are doing the will of God, then everything matters. But apart from the accepted will of God, nothing has any lasting reality....

If you once really appreciate this truth, and act according to its implications, you save yourself a lot of unnecessary heart-searching and resentment. The whole business of serving God becomes simply a matter of adjusting yourself to the pressure of existing conditions. This is the particular sanctity for you.

You will be tempted to say that it is impossible to serve God while worrying about the upkeep of a house, you will tell me that you get so irritable that you cannot see this principle of substituting the present duty for the envied prayer-time, you will point out your inability to direct your intention towards God when you are so exhausted that you cannot think, you will quote your repeated failures, your bitterness, your manifest falling off from what you were before you came to be overwhelmed with household cares, your dependence upon all sorts of help which are denied to you. You will say you are unsuited temperamentally, physically, spiritually, by training...

But none of these things disqualified. It can only be repeated that your whole business is still to look for God in the midst of all this. You will not find Him anywhere else. If you leave your dishes, your housekeeping books, your telephone calls, your government forms, your children's everlasting questions, your iron and your invitations to take care of themselves while you go off and search for Our Lord's presence in prayer you will discover nothing but self.

This is the first lesson for the Christian wife and mother today: to let go of what may once have been -- and under other circumstances might now be -- a recollected self, and take on, with both hands, the plan of God. Indeed it is the lesson for every Christian in every age: it is the Gospel principle of dying on one plane in order to live on another.

Let nothing disturb you.
Let nothing frighten you.
All things are passing;
GOD only is changeless.
Patience gains all things.
Who has GOD wants nothing.
GOD along suffices.

"Hear and let it penetrate into your heart, my dear little son: let nothing discourage you, nothing depress you. Let nothing alter your heart or your countenance. Also, do not fear any illness or vexation, anxiety or pain. Am I not here who am your mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Am I not your fountain of life? Are you not in the folds of my mantle, in the crossing of my arms? Is there anything else that you need?"