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26 October 2012
Why do you always think that everything they say has a hidden meaning? By being so touchy you are limiting the action of grace comes to you by means of those who fight to match their deeds to Christ’s ideal. - Saint Josemaria Escriva
For as long as you are convinced that others should always live as if they depended on you, and for as long as you delay the decision to serve (to hide yourself and disappear from view), your dealings with your brothers, colleagues, and friends will be a constant source of disappointment, ill-humor, and pride. - Saint Josemaria Escriva
The proud, poor creature, have to suffer a thousand silly things which their self-love makes out to be enormous but are unnoticed by others. - Saint Josemaria Escriva
You comment and criticize. Without you, it seems, nothing is done properly. Don’t be angry if I tell you that you are behaving like an arrogant despot. - Saint Josemaria Escriva
Through presumption or simply through vanity, many people run a black market to raise their own personal worth artificially. - Saint Josemaria Escriva
Pride sooner or later ends up humiliating a man in front of others, however much of “a man” he is, for he will have been acting like a vain and brainless puppet, moved by satan’s string. - Saint Josemaria Escriva
How can you pretend to follow Christ, if you only revolve around yourself? - Saint Josemaria Escriva
Those who enjoy privilege thanks to money, ancestry, rank, position or intelligence and abuse it by humiliating those who are less fortunate, show that they are fatuous and proud. - Saint Josemaria Escriva
Pull self-love out by the roots and plant in its place love for Jesus Christ. That is the secret of effectiveness and happiness. - Saint Josemaria Escriva
Although you say you follow Him, in one way or another you always make sure it is you who do things, according to your plans, relying on your strength alone. But the Lord said: Without Me you can do nothing. - Saint Josemaria Escriva
All the time it is you, you, you. And you will never be effective until it is Him, Him Him, so that you act – in the name and with the strength of God. - Saint Josemaria Escriva
An impatient and disordered anxiousness to climb up the professional ladder can mask self-love under the appearances of “serving souls”. It is a lie – and I really mean that – when we seek to justify our actions by saying that we must not miss certain opportunities, certain favourable chances.
Turn your eyes back to Jesus; He is “the Way”. During His hidden years, there were also “very favourable” chances to advance His public life – when He was 12 years old, for instance, and the doctors of the law were in amazement at His questions and at the answers He gave. But Jesus Christ fulfilled the Will of His Father, and He waited. He obeyed.
Do not lose that holy ambition of yours to lead the whole world to God, but when certain possibilities present themselves (they might show perhaps a desire to desert) remember that you too have to be obedient and work away at that obscure job, which does not seem at all brilliant, for as long as God asks nothing else of you. He has His own times and paths. - Saint Josemaria Escriva
Positions. Who’s in, who’s out? What does it matter to you? You have come, you tell me, to be useful, to serve, with complete availability. Behave accordingly. - Saint Josemaria Escriva
“We are no use” , is a pessimistic and false statement. If we want to, with the help of God, which is the 1st and fundamental requirement, we can become useful, as a good instrument for many enterprises. - Saint Josemaria Escriva
It made me think when I heard that hard but true saying from a man of God, when he observed the haughtiness of a miserable creature: “He wears the same skin as the devil – pride.”
And there came to my mind, in contrast, a sincere desire to wrap myself in virtue taught by Jesus Christ when He said, ‘I am meek and humble of heart’. It was the virtue which attracted the gaze of the Most Holy Trinity to His Mother and our Mother: the humility of knowing and being aware of our nothingness. - Saint Josemaria Escriva
Acknowledgment: We thank the Publisher for allowing us to publish the words of Saint Josemaria Escriva, so that it could be accessed by more people all over the world; as a source of God’s encouragements to all of us. 26 October 2012 |
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29 October 2012
Extracted from the sermon- the Hebrews 5:1-6
Every high priest has been taken out of mankind and is appointed to act for men in their relations with God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins; and so he can sympathise with those who are ignorant or uncertain because he too lives in the limitations of weakness.
That is why he has to make sin offerings for himself as well as for the people.
No one takes this honour on himself, but each one is called by God, as Aaron was.
Nor did Christ give himself the glory of becoming high priest, but he had it from the one who said to him: You are my son, today I have become your father, and in another text: You are a priest of the order of Melchizedek, and for ever.
Extracted from the holy Gospel according to Mark 10:46-52
As Jesus left Jericho with his disciples and a large crowd, Bartimaeus (that is, the son of Timaeus), a blind beggar, was sitting at the side of the road.
When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout and to say, ‘Son of David, Jesus, have pity on me.’
And many of them scolded him and told him to keep quiet, but he only shouted all the louder, ‘Son of David, have pity on me.’
Jesus stopped and said, ‘Call him here.’
So they called the blind man. ‘Courage,’ they said ‘get up; he is calling you.’
So throwing off his cloak, he jumped up and went to Jesus.
Then Jesus spoke, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’
‘Rabbuni,’ the blind man said to him ‘Master, let me see again.’
Jesus said to him, ‘Go; your faith has saved you.’
And immediately his sight returned and he followed him along the road. 29 October 2012 |
