When he keeps his eyes for me

Woman, if only you could experience your man keeping his eyes for only you, despite another’s immodest dress! What indescribable depths of love and trust and sense of your own worth resound in your heart!

Man, if only you knew, you would never again look at another woman with lust.

Work with God

If you are working on a project with a group of people, and then they, without consulting you, drop you from the project, complete it and publish it, how do you feel? How much more so is God affected by you dropping Him from your life?

Correct your faults

If you think that what you do is “just my personality,” consider: is this a trait that could have been found in Jesus? For He too was human and had a human personality.  If the answer is no, then it is not your personality but vice.  Ask Him to remove it. People do not see Christ in you through your faults!

Be identified with Christ

Peter denied Jesus three times, but note that he was identified as being with Christ! That in itself is a beautiful sign of his desire to follow Jesus.  He failed in love, in self-sacrifice, but at least he loved to the point where he would be called upon!  And Christ invokes love to redeem and reconcile him to Himself, teaching him that is is love that will give him the strength in the future to follow more faithfully. Be identified with Christ.  You will fail at following Christ in perfect love, but at least you will be called upon, and some day you, like Peter, will be crucified for love of Him.

Become Christlike that you may be one

Two human souls are incommunicable. Yet, Christ has set for man and woman the goal of perfect union with each other and God. In striving to bring each other toward perfect divine union with God, each becomes more and more like Christ.  The deeper husband and wife know Christ, and the better they fulfill their vocations to transform each other into another Christ, the more perfect their knowledge, understanding, and therefore union.

Married marvel

When the husband marvels at his wife and relishes her beauty, it is Jesus Himself who is delighting in His priceless treasure that He placed within her body-soul. 

You do not understand much

You have worries? Fears? Questions? You do not understand much.  This is normal.  Accept that you are not God.  Trust in Jesus.

Tainted gifts

God does not give tainted gifts.  Not in your job, not in your spouse, not in your friends, and not in you.  He will give you nothing less than beautiful.

Make up your mind

The problem is not that you cannot follow through with your decision.  The problem is that you are not willing to decide and take a stand.  You know that once you do, you will follow it, and you will not experience that momentary pleasure again. Make up your mind! Once and for all, with finality, decide to follow the Lord.  Choose to abandon your sins.  Choose Love!

Tell Jesus you love Him

"Lose that fear of calling the Lord by His name Jesus- and of of telling Him that you love Him.” –St Josemaria Escriva

Do not tire of telling your Jesus that you love Him. For He will never have heard it enough!

Do not fear your beauty

Woman, do not fear your beauty.  It is given to you that you may be the salvation of your husband and the world.  Out of love for your husband you must embrace your beauty and let it shine upon him.  Empty yourself and give yourself entirely to him.  Receive his love and his delight. Be not afraid.

Look into the eyes of the Lord

Jesus is standing in front of you.  Does this make you shrink? Avert your eyes? Cower? He lays His hands on you, healing you of whatever you give to Him.  Let Him wash it away with the Spirit.  Let Him draw you up to Himself, look into your eyes with all-knowing Love.  Surrender yourself to Him.

Believe that you have value

Do not reject the incredible gifts of God because you feel unworthy.  You have infinite value, and God wishes to lavish you with His love.  You have had trouble forgiving your spouse or your friend? Perhaps it is because you do not believe that you deserve to have such wonderful people in your life, and so you keep them tarnished with sin in order to feel that you may have them.  How selfish! Surrender to the Lord, look into His eyes and believe that you are worthy of His gifts.  He created you with infinite value.

Am I not more to you than sons?

"Her husband Elkanah used to ask her, ‘Hannah, why do you weep, and why do you refuse to eat? Why do you grieve? Am I not more to you than ten sons?” – 1 Samuel 1:1-8

Hannah has not been blessed with the gift of children from God, and so she mourns and weeps.  But her husband asks an important question, “Am I not more to you than ten sons?” Truly, she has been blessed with the love of her husband, her vocation, her path to sanctification.  Children are a beautiful blessing to be desired and prayed for, but not to the extent that all else is lost.  They are not objects to be gained and possessed, but rather beautiful, priceless gifts from the Lord.  Already she has been blessed with the most priceless gift of all: her husband, who is given to her for her sanctification.

The tree of life

"Then the Angel showed me the river of the life-giving water, sparkling like crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of its street.  On either side of the river grew the tree of life that produces fruit twelve times a year, once each month; the leaves of the tree serve as medicine for the nations.” –Revelations 22:1-2

So are man and wife: He, the life-giving river flowing from the altar of sacrifice, she the tree of life, each month fertile and bearing fruit.

Give your yes

It is not frequent that you know exactly what God is asking of you.  This does not matter.  What matters is that you give your unequivocal yes anyway, and leave it up to Him to decide whether or not to let you consciously know His plans to do His work through you.

Your hope deposit

You must fulfill the hope deposited in you by God.  Find out what it consists of, and bring it forth to the world.  Those around you are seeking that hope that is hidden within you!

Partnership to heaven

Marriage, at its most basic level, is a partnership, a pact, to attain heaven.

When God forgives

When God forgives, it is not that He forgets, for then that event would no longer exist, causing chaos in time and space.  A piece of us, our past, the world, would disappear.  Instead, He removes the action or event from us and no longer associates it with us, thereby giving us a new life and clean slate.  He removes our sins from us as far as the east is from the west.

This is how it is when you forgive another.  It is not that you will completely forget what they have done, nor that forgiving them means they did not do it.  However it will no longer be a part of them.  They will be your spouse, your friend, your sister, but they are no longer the person who performed that action. You experience them as new people, separate from their sins of the past.

Transparency

Transparency in your relationship allows you to help each other avoid occaisions of sin.  You can provide encouragement, advice and unconditional love for each other if you fall, that each of you may follow God and believe in His infinite mercy and love.  Transparency builds a foundation of total trust in the other, upon which the deepest of loves can stand.

Forgiveness

Forgiveness is a process.  Do not be discouraged when an old hurt comes to mind and you struggle with it again.  See it as an opportunity to choose again to forgive the person, and offer it all to God.  Gradually as you forgive again and again, each time it is is a different piece, a different part.  Take it one bite at a time.

Covenant of the heart

In the Old Testament, we see God making covenants with increasingly large groups.  First a couple, then a family, then a tribe, then a nation.  With Jesus, we see the covenant offered to all humanity.  This means that the covenant is with each and every individual, and it comes full circle in being so expansive and total that it becomes the most personal.  Jesus came to change hearts.  To heal us. This can only be done on an individual basis, and this is what we see in the New Testament, a God who comes to each person for a personal encounter in which they are changed and brought into His covenant.

This was the change with Christ’s incarnation: that God would have an individual relationship with each person.

Wisdom of the Trinity

God has revealed Himself to you in the Trinity, that you may relate to Him in all of His persons.  He is to be our provider, protector, counselor, lover, friend, father… But in our experience, these cannot all be one person.  These loves and relationships are different.

In God the Father, you may find your Father.  Your faithful protector and teacher.

In God the Son you find your lover, your bridegroom, your friend.

In God the Holy Spirit you find your advisor, your counselor, your motivation.

Look at your relationship with God.  Which pieces are you missing? You must have all of these relationships in order to know and love God fully.

Healing

Look upon Jesus in the Passion.  See your sins—each wound, each lash, each pebble under His foot.  This is what sin has done to your soul.  Your soul cries out in pain.  Let Him heal you.  Let him take your sins from you.

Pain intensifies joy

Remember that your pain intensifies your joy, for only through pain may you grow strong enough to bear the joy that God plans for you in marriage!

If only I were a goose…

An old lady looked out her window at the geese outside in the blizzard. If only I could get them into the barn, they could be warm and safe! she thought.  So she bundled up and went outside to try to herd them.  They scattered and flew a few paces away, a few took flight over the trees.  If only I were a goose! Then I could tell them that the barn is warm and a safe haven from the storm!  Suddenly she understood the Incarnation.  Our God tried to bring us to His shelter in the storm of the world, but we would not listen because we did not understand.  He became man, that He could be one of us, that we would understand and come into His protection.

Doubt

Zaccariah heard the good news and doubted.  Mary heard the good news and believed, even though she did not understand. 

Pray that you may be like Mary! That you may believe with all your heart and soul and mind and body that His promises are true! Then you will conceive divine life within you.

A husband needs a wife

A husband needs a wife.  Not just a mother for his children, but a wife, a spouse who will bring him to heaven, who will be his resting place, who will attend to him and love him. 

Likewise, a wife needs a husband.  Not just a provider, but a husband, her path to heaven, to be her fortress and rock and protector, who will attend her and love her.

All day you are giving giving giving—make sure that at the end of the day you have reserved a part of yourself to be a gift to your spouse.  You must have something left! Your vocation should be your top priority in the world, because it is your path to God, who is Alpha and Omega.

Trust each other

If you cannot trust your spouse, then you are heading for a cliff.  You must choose to trust him/her.  You must trust God to guide each of you and trust in His ability to heal anything.  You cannot control the other, because they have been given free will by God, and given that free will so that they can choose to love.  To love them means to allow them the freedom to choose to love you. 

Your vocation is your spouse

Your vocation is your spouse.  It is your spouse who is your path to heaven.  Your priorities should be 1. God  2. Spouse  3. Children.  God created lovers, not baby-producers.  A part of being lovers, and of imaging God through our sexuality, is of course celebrating the fruitful creativity of your love.  You are called to love your children and raise them to be men and women of God, but the purpose is that they may find their own vocation, their own path to God.  Loving your children more than your spouse, or sacrificing your spouse’s needs for those of your children is wrong.  Your vocation is to get your spouse to heaven, and to allow them to bring you to heaven. 

You can see, in today’s career woman, the end result of this.  Women of the past have put their children above their spouse, but then find themselves lacking meaning and purpose and true fulfillment, especially apparent when the children leave the home.  Over time women realized this, but rather than correcting themselves and putting their focus and attention back on their vocation, they chose to pursue careers.  Now they have placed themselves over all three things which are meant to be top priorities, and are emptier than ever.  They have found themselves in the situation of ambitious men who have failed to keep God, their wives and the fruits of that love the center of their attention.

If you love God, you will love your spouse. 

If you love your spouse, you will love your children. 

If you love your children, you will love your neighbors.

This cannot be inverted.

Growing desire

"The more God wishes to bestow on us, the more does He make us desire.” –St John of the Cross

So you have a deep desire for virtue and God? Good! Do not let this sensitivity to sin cause you to despair of your goodness.  God would not put such deep desires in your heart if He was not calling you to sainthood!