5TODAY!!!

By Oli in superduper

Wahoo! Five years today since I made my first steps in joining Opus Dei : )

Thank you God for opening up such a marvellous panorama to me, and allowing me to deepen in my faith.

Thank you for all of the formation that I have been given!

Thank you for opening my eyes to the beauty of your Truth.

Thank you for lifting my spirits and warming my heart.

Thank you for all the times that you have given me the grace to start again when I have strayed- I ask you for the grace to continue to struggle to love you.

All things are possible to you, Lord! Everything that I have you have given to me, and whenever I forget that, help me to remember that I am nothing, just your imperfect instrument!

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I am not celebrating, although I ask you to remember me and my intentions in your prayers and when you go to Mass : )

I have a friend's bday tomorrow, and am going to a WYA dignity party in the evening with friends, after my study circle.

Deo Omnis Gloria

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I would like to end this post with something that St Josemaria wrote in "Christ is Passing By", Number 123.

I have been describing to you, not my own idea, but Christ's doctrine on the Christian's ideal. You can see that it is demanding, sublime, attractive. Still some might ask: "Is it possible to live this way in today's society?" (...)

If I were to describe the present situation of the world as a priest, all I need is to think again about one of our Lord's parables, that of the wheat and the weeds.

"The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men were asleep, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away." The situation is clear — the field is fertile and the seed is good (...) If, afterwards, there are weeds among the wheat, it is because men have failed to respond, because they — and Christians in particular — have fallen asleep and allowed the enemy to approach.

When the careless servants ask the Lord why weeds have grown in his field, the explanation is obvious: "an enemy has done this." We Christians should have been on guard to make sure that the good things placed in this world by the creator were developed in the service of truth and good. But we have fallen asleep — a sad thing, that sluggishness of our heart! — while the enemy and all those who serve him acted without stopping. You can see how the weeds have grown abundantly everywhere.

My vocation is not that of a prophet of misfortune. With these words I do not wish to make you see a desolate and hopeless picture of reality. I do not want to complain about this time in which the Lord's providence has placed us. We love this time of ours because it is in this time when we are called to achieve our personal sanctification. (...)

Still, it cannot be denied that evil seems to have prospered. Weeds have grown in this whole field of God, which is the earth, the inheritance of Christ. Not only have they grown, they are abundant. (...)

Our Lord, I insist, has given us the world for our inheritance. It is up to us to keep our souls and our minds wide awake. We have to be realistic, without being defeatist. Only a person with a callous conscience, made insensitive by routine or dulled by a frivolous attitude, can allow himself to think that evil — offence to God and harm, at times irreparable harm, to souls — does not exist in the world he sees.

We have to be optimistic, but our optimism should come from our faith in the power of God who does not lose battles, and not from any human sense of satisfaction, from a stupid and presumptuous complacency.