Points to ponder from the booklet “A Thought a Day” curated by a Father of the Society of St. Paul.
One in Body and Soul
We are one body in Christ. If we love Christ, we must love Him whole, with all the members incorporated with Him and in Him under the pain of not loving Him at all. How then can we hate any member of His Body? Hate is a snare of satan from which we often pray to be delivered. Revenge! “Let’s get even” is a phrase that must have been coined by the devil. How it serves to justify today many a deed of revenge: personal, national and even international. If one member of Christ suffers anything, all the members suffer with him. Thus, being compassionate should be as natural to the members of Christ’s Mystical Body as it is natural for the members of the human body to share all pains and all comforts.
Love is characteristic of Christianity. Why do we not draw from the pagans of today the exclamation, “See how these Christians love one another!” Christ emphasized strongly the need for love, that bond of unity, among his followers. “This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” That unity of mind and heart was to be indicative of the harmony so vital to true Christian living.
From such a Holy Spirit of Christ-like single-mindedness would naturally follow a loving spirit of cooperation and mutual respect.
Thinking with God
God has planned with perfect Wisdom, the plan of my life to its tiniest detail — and according to His intention, it is a perfect plan. My life will be perfect and happy if I follow the plan of God in my regard. A child naturally thinks as its father. I am a child of God, and so I must think like God, my Father. As much as it is possible, I must “think with God” regarding the planning of my life. I cannot — for my life plan is already designed — improve on God’s plan. I must see “eye to eye” with God to make a complete success of my life.
To follow God’s plan, I realize that I must know it; to know it I must ask God through prayer to reveal it to me. He will — for he has promised it: “Ask, and you shall receive. Seek — and you shall find.” He who follows a plan of life of his devising has a fool for a leader and a fool-follower. To acquire solid virtue means to be devoted to God in most ardent attachment, in most absolute dependence, in continual and unconditional surrender to God’s Holy Will, in utter and habitual self-sacrifice and self-forgetfulness.
Thoughts
Love will bring us peace within ourselves when we love God with our whole hearts so that we see all things in relation to him; for then all our desires will be part of one single desire. And love will bring us peace with one another when we love our fellow men as ourselves, for this makes us want to fulfill their heart’s desire as though it were our own. God did not create the universe in an attack of ill will; he created it out of pure joy because of the beauty he beheld in himself. Joy is not, of course, the same as virtue, but it is the atmosphere in which virtue thrives, the light by which it sees. Joy is also one of the strongest motives to invite the faith of those who are without; when others note the joy of a true Christian they will see that here is the source of life; they will say, “The Lord is nigh.”