October 05, 2008

Zaccheus and I could be friends.

One my favorite people in the Bible. Okay, Jesus, Mary and Joseph are pretty good too, but Zaccheus is my friend. A short tax collector who after eating with Jesus converts.

Okay, so here is a man who was in the crowds with thousands of others to see this man called Jesus who is the Savior of the world. She is the chief tax collector which means he is the mob leader. This man is short and a man well respected and feared by many, is climbing up a tree to see someone. Can you imagine the man in charge of the mob climbing a tree. I think not. He does so because I know is looking for greatness. That is where the story changes. As Jesus is passing by, he says, "Zaccheus, come down from that tree and I am going to your house for dinner." Jesus was searching for HIM!!

Zaccheus is the only other person other than the apostles that Jesus calls out by name in the Bible. Which means you know he was being called out. As good Christians we are constantly wanting God to desire us. But guess what. He does desire us and wants he us to desire him.

So I pray for you as you pray for me to start desiring to love Jesus as he is always desiring you.
Luke 9:1-10

October 03, 2008

How to Accompany Jesus

When you do not think of yourself, my grace visits you, and I provide what is necessary for you. When you try to do it yourself, I leave you to your own care...

In the same way, the more simple you are, the more you will avoid great temptations, which are used to destroy in you that which is an obstacle between you and me. I am simple and near you. To come to me, your work is to remove obstacles; to eliminate, to choose, to remove all that you accumulate in your mind and in your heart apart from me. If you become simple as a child, where are the obstacles? You say that little children having no great struggles, have no great merits: the purpose of your life does not lie in the personal merit due to your generosity; your merit will lie in using all your generosity to allow me to live in you...

Remember this: the value of your existence is not in what you have done or said, or suffered: it is the part of your being that you have given to your Savior, in what you have allowed me to do with you. Give me your heart - and your heart is your whole life! See: what you wish to take by your own power you cannot grasp - what you give to me, I give back to you ....

It is my love which prevents you from understanding my passion - you understood how much I suffered you would be crushed...

Do no tire of asking for love: it transforms everything. Even time: thus when one loves much, one has plenty of time, time in which to do many things.
- Sister Mary of the Holy Trinity [Sister Mary of the Holy Trinity (1942) was a Poor Clare of Jerusalem.]