Daily Reflections on Divine Mercy

Reflection 193: Do Not Hesitate If you won a million dollars you probably wouldn’t say, “No, just give me $100, that’s all I want.”  And yet that is what we often do with the Mercy of God.  God offers an abundance of wealth and we choose to take only a small portion.  Why is that?  His Mercy is limitless.  It is infinite.  If we understood all that God wants to do in our souls, and then cooperated...

Reflection 192: Loving God in Good Times and Bad It’s easy to “love” God when all is well.  But when all is well, our love is not tested.  The testing that comes from human suffering clarifies our love of God.  This can be very fruitful for our spiritual lives.  It’s easy to believe that difficulties in life are nothing other than sad and unfortunate burdens and should be avoided at all costs.  Th...

Reflection 191: The Talkative Soul A true danger to the interior life of communion with God is an excessive need to talk.  No, talking is not a sin and many times is an act of Mercy toward another.  But there are times when being too talkative is a hindrance to the Mercy of God.  Talking, in and of itself, is neither good nor evil.  The goal is to form our words in accord with the Mind and Will of...

Reflection 190: All Creation Gives Glory to God All things are made for one ultimate purpose: to give praise and glory to the Most Holy Trinity.  We are made for nothing more, nothing less and nothing other than this purpose.  As people, we are called to give the unique praise and glory of our adoration to God through lives fully committed and surrendered to Him.  This surrender and total submissi...

Reflection 189: Overcoming Fear Fear results from various causes.  The perception of some immediate threat causes sudden fear as a sort of defense mechanism.  In fact, this could save your life if, for example, the immediate threat is a car swerving into your lane.  Sudden fear compels you to take action and avoid a collision.  However, fear can also result from other more remote factors that we e...

Reflection 188: The Demands of the Lord If the Lord asks you to do something, do you have an option?  You do insofar as you can say “No.”  And this is a sin.  But if you have chosen to follow Christ and your goal is Heaven, then it’s proper to say that we are obliged to do whatever the Lord asks of us.  His requests are certain and immovable commands of Love.  He will not budge.  He will not chang...

Reflection 187: A Rainbow after the Storm It’s fascinating how Creation itself proclaims the glory of God and teaches us about matters of faith.  Take a rainbow.  It is bright and beautiful, colorful and awe-inspiring.  Everyone rejoices on seeing a rainbow.  But there would be no such thing as a rainbow without rain, or storms.  Such is life.  We will have good days followed by bad and bad days f...

Reflection 186: Transpierced by God Has your soul been “transpierced” by God?  Does He “pervade” you?  Do you allow yourself to “dissolve” into His divinity and become “enveloped” by His Mercy?  There are so many words we can use to describe our relationship with God.  Though they all add to an articulation of who God is and what sort of relationship we should have with Him, none of them will ever...

Reflection 185:  Generosity with Unlimited Resources If you were aware of great famine in a far away land, and were also blessed with unlimited resources to address that famine, why would you withhold this gift from those in need?  Hopefully you wouldn’t.  Hopefully you would see your responsibility and do what was necessary to satiate the thirst and satisfy the hunger of those in dire need.  But...

Reflection 184: The Mercy of the Ministry of Priests No, priests are not perfect.  They sin day in and day out.  They are in constant need of repentance and conversion in their daily lives just like all the rest of humanity.  But they are priests.  And because of their sacred ordination, the Lord speaks through them in a clear yet mysterious way.  Some speak with the authority of Christ only when...

Reflection 183: Attentiveness to the Value of Suffering When we suffer, we look for a way out.  We seek relief.  But from Heaven, we will be able to look back and see the immense power of freely chosen and embraced suffering.  It’s not that suffering is good in and of itself; rather, it’s that suffering has been redeemed and endowed with a spiritual power by God as a result of the sufferings of Ch...

 Reflection 182: Wisdom to Penetrate the Secrets of Pride Pride can consume us.  When it does, all we think about is ourselves and our own pain.  Perhaps you can relate to this.  Maybe you’ve encountered a wound and you sit and sulk over that wound.  It creates bitterness in your heart and you seek to heal that wound.  But when this happens, it is often our pride that leads us to remedy hurt throu...

Reflection 181: Holy Indifference Does it matter what the Will of God is for you?  That may sound like a strange question at first.  But think about it.  Does it matter what God wills of you?  What if He were to call you to constant work?  Or what if He were to call you to a restful repose?  Or what if He were to fill you with delight?  Or remove all delight from your soul?  Or call you to be exto...

Reflection 180: The Passion of Jesus We who are familiar with the Gospels may suffer, at times, from a certain indifference to the sufferings of Christ.  We hear the story read each year, have seen many images of the Passion, and as a result of this familiarity, we can fail to allow it to have the proper effect on our lives.  But the Passion is real, it happened, and we should give it our full att...

Reflection 179: Dealing with Interior Desolation “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away…” (Job 1:21).  How true this is.  There are times in life when we experience the abundant consolation of God.  It may be at moments of great family joy, or when we experience the unconditional love of another.  At times we sense the powerful presence of God in our life of prayer and are filled with joy.  But...

Reflection 178: Sanctity is Never Achieved on Our Own Do you aspire to holiness of life?  If so, you cannot do this on your own.  You need the help of another, and even many others.  The Lord has given us numerous ways to be directed by the loving hand of others.  Some are blessed to have a spiritual director of many years who directs them in accord with the Mind and Heart of Christ.  But most are...

Reflection 177:  Holy Obedience One of the greatest safeguards against doing our own will rather than God’s is holy obedience.  Those in religious life are blessed to live this in a literal and external way, allowing the external practice to be interiorized so as to become certain that they are living the Will of God.  But obedience must be lived in every life, not only religious.  Obedience is ac...

Reflection 176:  Combating the Sin of the World When God looks at the world, what does He see?  Most certainly He sees the beauty of His creation, the perfect order of His design and the presence of His sons and daughters.  But He also sees the horror of the multitude of sins.  Even the slightest sin or imperfection cannot escape His sight.  Imagine trying to take in the sins of the world with one...

Reflection 175:  Love is Found in the Details of Life How nice it is when you have a friend that you trust with every detail of your life.  We long to know others and we long to be known by others.  When you find someone in whom you can confide even the smallest struggle or express the smallest joy, you have found a true friend.  The Lord desires to be your closest friend.  You must work to foster...

Reflection 174: The Timing of God is Perfect When we desire to accomplish the Will of God in this world and do wonderful things for Him, we can sometimes seek to do things our way according to our timing.  But to truly accomplish the Will of God you must pray hard, surrender yourself to His holy Will, and then even surrender the fulfillment of His Will.  It’s not a matter of just doing what you th...

Reflection 173: Unity with One is Unity with Three The Blessed Trinity is described as having one Divine nature, yet remaining three distinct Persons.  As a result, the three distinct Persons share in a perfect unity.  In fact, they could not be “united” if they were not distinct from each other.  So it’s necessary to speak of God as the One in Three.  Each one of us is called to share in this sam...

Reflection 172: Patient Submission Are you patient?  Both patience and impatience are born from a struggle within your will.  There are many times in life when your will is drawn by something other than God, wanting something that God is not leading you to.  Patience is a virtue that enables you to step back, take a deep breath and redirect your will to that which God alone has chosen for you.  Pa...

Reflection 171: Comparing Earth to Heaven Try to imagine what you will think about this time on Earth when you get to Heaven.  Will you miss this life?  Will you want to return?  Will you wish you made more money while here or had more worldly success?  Most likely not.  Compared to Heaven, this world is pitiful.  That doesn’t mean that our lives cannot be glorious here, it just means that Heaven...

Reflection 170: Fidelity on Good Days and Bad It’s easy to love God when we feel like it and when life is going well and is quite easy.  But when life is challenging, we are immediately tempted to turn in on ourselves and, in so doing, turn from our love for God.  But a true sign of holiness is that we love God no matter what we feel or experience throughout our day.  Come rain or shine we must no...

Reflection 169: Calm in the Presence of the King Meeting someone of great power can be cause for excitement.  For example, meeting with the president of a company you wish to work at, or meeting someone famous for the first time, or meeting with the bishop or the Holy Father may all cause a certain excitement.  But it could also cause a certain fear and anxiety.  Of course the most important and “...