Humbly submit your will to God (Thy Will be done) and consecrate yourself to the Sacred Heart of Jesus through Mary and Joseph.
Jesus said to his disciples:
“What is your opinion?
If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray,
will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills
and go in search of the stray?
And if he finds it, amen, I say to you, he rejoices more over it
than over the ninety-nine that did not stray.
In just the same way, it is not the will of your heavenly Father
that one of these little ones be lost.” MT 18:12-14
Sin is part of the human condition, due to the Fall of Adam and Eve. We have inherited Original Sin and after Baptism have to deal with personal sin. We wake each day with an inclination to sin (concupiscence). So what has Jesus revealed to us about how to deal with sin. Surrender, trust, invite Him into your temptations, and respond to the One who is crazy in love with you and is chasing after you, even if you are the one lost sheep. Desire to be holy by allowing Christ to take over your life. Develop a personal relationship with Him, so you do not want to hurt Him with your sin. Give your sin, brokenness, pain, and suffering to Jesus, it is what He died for. Allow God’s grace to transform you.
The opposite way of thinking is the one who thinks they never sin or tries to rationalize their sin and does not reconcile themselves with God. The saints recognized their faults, weaknesses, and sin. Every saint I have read about went to Mass every day, adoration for an hour every day, and confession often. Why? They recognized they were sinners. Catholic Culture.org defines repentance as “Voluntary sorrow because it offends God, for having done something wrong, together with the resolve to amend one’s conduct by taking the necessary means to avoid the occasions of sin. To repent is to be sorry for sin with self-condemnation.” More importantly, repentance means to change the way you think (God’s grace, faith) In the act of contrition, we pray to “avoid the near occasion of sin”.
Often times we forget this once we get back into the routine of life. Habits are important to pay attention to. We may need to change a routine we are in, a place we go, people we hang out with, or today an electronic device we use too much. God gave us life as a gift out of love, our identity is in Him. As we celebrated all saint’s day and all soul’s day, we learned that we are made to see God face to face at the end of our journey through the death and resurrection of Christ in baptism. We have a high calling. We are called to battle and “avoid the near occasion of sin” by developing a personal relationship with Jesus, giving our sin to Him in prayer, the Eucharist and reconciliation. We can also form daily habits that lead us to God not away from Him. He gave us the spiritual power of intellect to know Him in prayer, divine revelation found in the Bible, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Our souls, our being, is a precious gift from God and He wills for us to come back to Him. The most beautiful part of this parable is that God unreasonably leaves 99 to go get 1. This is shocking! This is not logical. It is poor economics (Bishop Barron). God can do what He wants with His grace and it cannot be earned. Some think this is not fair. God is love and unconditional love keeps on loving even if it is not fair or earned. I’ve got a lot of work to do to imitate Christ. We must make our will His Will to return His love. Pope Francis says, “God never tires of giving mercy, we tire of asking for it.” Repent, you have an entire heaven full of angels and saints waiting to rejoice!
Today’s challenge: Repent. Baby steps start one day at a time and come to God’s grace in the Eucharist and confession daily if needed. The saints often came to these two sacraments daily. God’s grace transforms, He just needs us to cooperate with His grace so that we may glorify Him! The Giver of all Good Things!
Be a servant, become a saint!
#Christian YOLO
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