Sometimes God just blows our minds in ways completely unexpected. That happened today. I've been reflecting on the past year, of living in household, my second year in college, and the many ways I have grown. In this time, I have concluded that humility is the one thing that has consistently come up in my prayer, and that I feel I have learned the true meaning of this virtue. I don't know what I thought humility was, but I have a clear definition for it now. Humility is accepting your faults, and weaknesses, and also accepting that those around you are faulted too and being able to forgive them for the way you are hurt by those around you. Which leads us to greater love. If we can accept our sin, our failures, it is easier for us to accept others too - it is easier for us to receive God's love, and to spread that love to all that we encounter because we know that we are all in need of this love.
"Real humility is to accept ourselves as we are, to love ourselves as we are. And it attracts God's grace very powerfully." Jacques Philippe
That quote is from a book I'm reading on the way of St. Therese. And in this book, currently, the author discusses how St. Therese had a desire for all vocations - to be a priest and celebrate mass with love, to be a preacher, to be a missionary, to be a martyr, etc. Her greatest desire was to be a martyr. I started thinking about this - and a conversation I had with one of my friends - she said something that struck me: "I'm afraid to suffer, I'm afraid to be inconvenienced..." Which struck because it's true - and in reality, we are all called to martyrdom, to die to ourselves so that Christ may be glorified, in all that we do. So yeah, sometimes we might be afraid to be inconvenienced, to suffer, but that's our form of martyrdom. That is how we are called to die to ourselves, in order to more fully live for Christ.
So first, we must know that we are called to die to ourselves, so that the love of Christ may be proclaimed in all that we do. Because our true purpose is to love. All vocations can be wrapped up in one word - love.
1 Cor 13 says:" If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing"
Without love we are nothing, and we have nothing. I'm just going to quote what is written in the book to say the rest...
"Her conclusion is that in the mystical body of the Church, love lies at the basis of all vocations, the love that the Holy Spirit kindles in the hearts of Christians. If this burning love died out there would be no more missionaries, no more preachers, no more martyrs... There would be nothing at all left in the Church. Love alone is the life of the whole body of the Church, and if I myself make every effort to love in my poor carmelite convent in Lisieux, in the little corner of Normandy, if I do all I can to love, and do everything for love, I am, in a way, living out all vocations. Love contains all vocations...."
"I have found my vocation at last: in the heart of my mother the Church I will be Love... like that I will be everything...and so my dream will be fulfilled." -St. Therese
Our greatest purpose on this earth is love.
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