The Accuser

Upon St Michael casting the demons from heaven, a loud voice proclaims:

"Now have salvation and power come, and the Kingdom of our God and the authority of His Anointed. For the accuser of our brothers is cast out, who accuses them before our God day and night." Revelations 12:10

How can we be certain the the Lord will forgive our sins and unite us with Him if we accept His invitation to love? Because the devil and his minions have been cast from the skies, and there is no one left to accuse us. If we have come before the Lord with contrite hearts, and He has wiped us clean, then there is no one in heaven who will accuse us. Love reigns.

When you hear a voice in your head which accuses you, call upon the name of your savior Jesus Christ. For the Accuser is trying to separate you from His love and mercy. Our Lord will speak as Truth, not accusation. He is justice as well as mercy; He does not accuse, but correct.

The beauty of the masculine

Men, your strong sexual desires may seem like a thorn in your side, but remember that you were created in His wisdom. How beautiful and essential is your contribution to healing in marriage. For God has granted that even after a fight, even after exhausting days or struggles, that you can look at your beautiful wife and feel the call to union. This drive is essential for you to woo her back, for you to sing to her the Song of songs, that she may come back to you with all her heart and soul and you may experience the healing union of the marital act.

If you were not given this innate knowledge of love, this drive for total union with your wife, how could you initiate the self-giving love which welds the two iron persons into one? It is a drive which ordered properly guides the man to give up himself, to lay down his pride in a disagreement, and to serve his wife. In turn as she is wooed, she too will lay down herself and see past the petty issues to the thing worth fighting for: Love.

The beauty of submission

Women, do not listen to the world which whispers into your ear that submission makes you vulnerable. Christ Himself was obedient unto death, even death on a cross. If obedience is a virtue which led to the salvation of the world, to the bridging of the infinite gap between Creator and created, then who are we to choose another path?

Submission means "under the mission." Woman, be under the mission of man. God commanded him to keep and till the garden; God has deemed that he be your protector. The serpent in the garden went to the woman and bypassed God's family structure. To what end? The fall of humanity. By all means, be sure that the man to whom you submit is under God's mission. Then, submit to him out of reverence to Christ, as to the Lord. Submit to love.

Sanctification in Marriage

It is not through pointing out the faults of your spouse yourself that you bring him to sainthood. What good does nagging do? You cannot give him the grace he needs to overcome his faults. Such prideful thinking will only win you the same faults, as the Lord reminds you that it is only by His grace that you had avoided them.

You must bear with the faults of your spouse and offer up any pain or agitation to God to win him grace. The greater the love with which you bear his faults, the greater the grace you will win for him; in this you become God's tool to sanctify him. And is that not the deepest longing of your heart? For him to be united with God in heaven?

To think that you can better anyone yourself, through your own instruction, is pride beyond pride. Who are you to think that you can, of your own power, give him what he needs to grow in virtue? All you can do is nag and drag him down into despair or harden his heart. Sometimes after much love and winning of grace, God may whisper something in your ear which is for him to hear; God may give you the key to unlock the door of his heart that he may receive the graces God so desires to give him. But usually He will knock and gain entrance without you, in perfection, as only a true lover can. Your role is to invite Him when your spouse has lost his voice.

Know your God

How much we pray to be able to trust in our God, for in this trust is our peace, our hope, our faith. But to trust means that there is an unknown, an uncertainty. How much better then to pray for knowledge of God. To know our God is to know Love, Truth, Goodness, Justice, Mercy... The list goes on. This is the beauty of scripture: it is His word, it is His love story to His bride. How endless is His patience! How creative is His love! Over and over He has sung the Song of songs to us, despite our adultery. Never has He forsaken us.

Know the Lord your God. Know that He suffered death that He may give you life. Be at peace.

Charism

Seek your own charism that has been purposed for you by God. Openness is the essential foundation of spiritual life, but what this means depends upon our charism.

If your charism is fire, then you must be open to consuming all the oxygen He puts before you and around you and allow Him to blow your sparks where He will.

If your charism is flower, then you must be open to blooming and allowing your fragrance to waft wherever His winds choose to take it. You must be open to the bees that will come for your pollen and fertilize you.

If your charism is rock, then you must be open to exposure. You must be barefaced to the wind and weather and sun that come upon you, and allow Him to build whatever He should choose upon you.

You must, through prayer, discover your charism(s), and allow Him to fashion your spiritual life accordingly. If a rock were to try to bloom, it would shatter to dust.

Meant for eternity

"A man feels wet when he falls into water, because man is not a water animal: a fish would not feel wet." --C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

"We feel uncomfortable with the passage of time ('Look how you've grown!') because we are eternal beings experiencing a temporal life." --Charmaine Yoest

Remember that you are meant for eternity. Things of this world cannot satisfy you or fulfill you because you are meant for something infinitely greater and richer. In those moments where the passage of time takes you by surprise, or the tin qualities of life tarnish your hope, remember that every breath, every action, affects the cosmos in some way that we can never understand. You are uncomfortable because you were not made for the finite, but for the infinite! Give over your breaths and actions, your very life, to the One who does understand, who orchestrates all of creation and her salvation. Take refuge in Him, eternity, Who you were created for.

Pearls of Grace

"As the oyster grows in size, its shell must also grow. The mantle is an organ that produces the oyster's shell, using minerals from the oyster's food. The material created by the mantle is called nacre. Nacre lines the inside of the shell.

The formation of a natural pearl begins when a foreign substance slips into the oyster between the mantle and the shell, which irritates the mantle... The oyster's natural reaction is to cover up that irritant to protect itself. The man­tle covers the irritant with layers of the same nacre substance that is used to create the shell. This eventually forms a pearl." (http://animals.howstuffworks.com/marine-life/question630.htm)

As our souls grow, so does the grace which shelters us. Mary's mantle channels God's grace, enlarging our shell in line with our growth. This grace is only as good as the minerals in the food we feed it. Prayer, the sacraments, good reading: all these things provide the minerals for Mary to win us grace. There are times when we find irritating events or people in our lives which try to separate us from our shell of grace. Let us take the example of the oyster and place our irritations, pains and aggravations under Mary's mantle, that she may coat them in grace. It is God's will that these irritants become pearls of great price.

Never forget that for a pearl to be made, the oyster must be open and vulnerable to the irritants. If we are closed to all inconveniences and sufferings, we cannot have pearls of grace.