What does God think?

Dearest Ones,

Our hearts are heavy as we hear of our suffering brothers and sisters in Japan. Some of their homes were simply washed away, along with family members - some have nothing left, except Jesus. This is hard to imagine. In keeping with Lent, a time for alms-giving, (which means to give from the heart) we can offer our prayers and sacrifices for them so they don't lose hope. God can use our sufferings to help the unfortunate. An unpleasant job, a piece of candy, a dessert skipped, may help them to know that God loves them no matter what.

I wonder what God thinks when He sees all of us in church on Sunday. I wonder how many He sees are bored or how many don't want to be there? God sees what is in our minds and hearts. This can be scary. What motivates us to go to church on Sunday? Is it something we learned as a child and we do it in robot fashion?

Now would be a good time to examine why we are bored, if we are. It may be because we are so used to being entertained, which is an American obsession, that we don't put any effort into our worship. It has to come from within us - we can't depend on the priest or minister to stir us up. We need to motivate ourselves. We need to ask God to stir us up with the grace of the Holy Spirit. Ask God.."What do you want me to get out of this service today? What do I need most?" Just going to church on Sunday doesn't make us a good Christian. We need to do more than that.

Lent is a good time to go to confession. What a great privilege God gives us in the Sacrament of Confession. Some find it so hard to go to confession because they worry about what the priest will think of them. Priests go to confession, too. They have their own sins. You won't shock the them. Priests hear so many sins, they can't remember who said what. Don't let the devil use that to stop you. The devil knows what a glorious gift confession is, so he will try every way possible to stop you from going. I have difficulty when I go to my monthly confession because I find myself confessing the same things again and again. But a priest told me every time I confess sins, I receive more grace to overcome them. Every time we confess our sins we receive God's precious grace, which helps us be aware of how we hurt Him. Do we really hurt God when we sin? Yes, because Jesus said, "What you do to the least of my brothers, you do to me." Every sin hurts others and it hurts God. I only have to look at a crucifix to know how much sin hurts God. My sins put Him there.

I must remember that it is God who forgives, not the priest. The priest is only the spokesman for God, but he is given that power by the farewell words of Jesus: "Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven; whose sins you shall retain, they are retained." Some people don't go to confession because they have lost a sense of sin...they don't think they have any sins - just mistakes.

Most of us have deep within our hearts some resentment, self-pity or unforgiveness. That's what Lent is for - digging deep. When we have heart trouble, we go to a doctor in order to discover some hidden problem within our heart. To ignore it, may be deadly. Just as a doctor needs to diagnose serious problems, so we need to look at our buried hurts, and then ask God to help overcome them. With some, this deep-seated trouble may have been there for years. We need to admit these hurts are holding us back from Jesus and then give them all to Him in confession. You'll be so glad you did.

Prayer: "Jesus, you showed us by your life that we can all become great because all of us can serve. You became a servant to free us from sinful pride. Lord Jesus, our hearts are cold; warm them up with your love. Our hearts are indifferent; stir them up with your mighty grace. Our hearts are weak; strengthen them with your joyous Spirit. Our hearts are empty; fill them with your heavenly presence."

Love and prayers,
Sister Francelle