ICWG Weekly Reflections

Christ asks his disciples to imitate him in this practice. Christians should foster and defend their well-earned professional, moral and social prestige, since it belongs to the essence of human dignity.

all of Revelation tends towards the formation of a people who are friends with God, bound to him by an intimate Covenant which is continually renewed. Through this revelation, therefore, the invisible God out of the abundance of his love speaks to men as friends and lives among them, so that He may invite and take them into fellowship with himself.

For too long a time there has been a mistaken insistence on the supposed incompatibility between secular work and the interior life. Nevertheless, it is there in the midst of daily work and by means of it, not in spite of it, that God wants to call most Christians to lives of holiness.

Every day we also meet the man who was left half dead, either because he has not been taught the elementary truths of the Faith, or because they have been stolen from him by the effects of others’ bad example, or by media-conditioning.

Love of God cannot be taken for granted. If we do not nurture and take care of it, it dies. Love of God is nourished in prayer and in the reception of the sacraments. The Eucharist above all must be the spring at which our love of God is perpetually refreshed and strengthened. In a way, to love thus is already to possess Heaven on earth.

Bearing fruit in the Christian life. Sound trees give good fruit. The tree is sound when the good sap flows through it. For the Christian, this is the life of Christ himself, personal holiness, and nothing else can take its place. We should never separate ourselves from him.

O Godhead hid, devoutly I adore thee ... Isaiah had already proclaimed the same: Truly thou art a God who hidest thyself. The Creator of the universe has left upon it the imprint of his work. It seems that He wanted to take second place.

The divine life in which we are called to participate is extraordinarily bounteous indeed. The Father eternally engenders the Son, and the Father and the Son together breathe forth the Holy Spirit.

If we want to grow in fidelity to the constant motions and inspirations of the Holy Spirit in our soul, we can fix our attention on three fundamental points : docility, life of prayer and union with the Cross.

The Ascension strengthens and nourishes our hope of attaining Heaven. It invites us always to lift up our heart, as the preface of the Mass says, and seek the things that are above.

God has given us days and nights so that we may order our lives. Each day echoes its secret to the next, each night passes on to the next its revelation of knowledge. As we leave behind the previous day, each new day reminds us that we must continue the work which night interrupted, and carry on with our projects and hopes.

For what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life? Jesus’ question forces us to take a radical look at the broad horizon of our life to which only God gives ultimate meaning.