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The Habit of Self-reflection/Prayer
December 13—Holy Hour. . . . “Practice your faith. When you were learning to walk, you leaped forward at a venture, and little by little you became surefooted. Do the same in your inner life. Take a flying leap toward the Trinity, toward My mother, in upsoaring hither to unknown to you, more direct, more sincere, impelled from the very center of your being. This will become habit and it will exalt you.Do you grasp what I mean? You will exalt others too, since each one of your thoughts and feelings reverberates for good or evil. Didn’t you tell Me that you wanted to help Me in the work of redemption? Then do all that you do to this end. This was the motive for all My actions,and we should always be together, My little girl. Do Me the honor of believing that I yearn for this.”
Bossis, Gabrielle. He and I (p. 166). Pauline Books and Media. Kindle Edition.
Living the inner life is an art. It takes time to develop, and the deepening of our inner journey is always at the beginning. That is one aspect of eternity, always at the beginning, always fresh and filled with hope.
How do we live our faith? We cannot make much progress if we do not encourage the habit of self-reflection. The ability to face the truth about ourselves without becoming overcome with self-hatred and despair. This may seem dramatic, but it is rare to meet people who can take corrections well. It is always a shock to our egos when we are faced with our ability to do evil or act out of simple ignorance.
The seed of our problems does begin with our past, but the real culprit is how we decode it. Even if we understand what happens to us, we may not be able to see how it controls us in the present. Marriages, friendships, and our relationships with authority often feed from this deep abyss of pain from our long-forgotten past. Even if we do get deep insight, how do we grow in the freedom to be able to move towards growth, without simply being a victim?
We live what we believe, even if it is unconscious. That is why we can see others in ways that may be impossible for them to comprehend. We all know angry friends, but who are not aware of it, but is obvious by how they treat others. Of course, that goes for me as well. I do not doubt that my friends see aspects of my personality that I am not cognizant of, but it comes out on an unconscious level.
So if we consciously live out our faith, it can slowly lead us deeper into truth. Once we begin the journey, dive into our faith tradition and get to the heart of it there will be a deep realignment in our minds and souls. From this comes inner conflict as we grow towards the freedom that we are called to have. We become children of God (speaking as a Christian), and because of that we over time grow in the love of self. Jesus commanded that we love ourselves, others, and of course God. To allow the love of God into our hearts, and our being open to the process of self-knowledge, will over time, lead to the coming forth of compassion and empathy at a depth never before understood.
Why is that? Well, we know what we are capable of, we can understand why Jesus said, “Only God is good”, and most important of all, our need for mercy, which can bring healing. We then learn why we must forgive others because they are no different than us. The more people seem to reject the reality of sin, which is fed by our self-hatred, the more easily they are shocked by the downfall of others.
Prayer brings us face to face or draws us into the very heart of the Father that was shown to us by Jesus. In the parable of the Prodigal Son, we are shown a love that is way beyond the love of the most loving human being. That love is for each of us, hence, our need to forgive all who hurt us in our past, present, and yes one day in our future.
We seem to love the burden of hatred, anger, and the desire for revenge and do not know its weight until it is taken from us by the healing power of God’s love. Not forgiving takes away our inner freedom and we remain stuck in the past, and we allow that past to draw us, both as individuals and as a culture, into the meaningless cycle of suffering and pain.
We are used by the Infinite Mind, by Christ Jesus for healing and mercy if we seek to deepen our trust in the reality of God’s presence. Prayer is not a luxury but an absolute necessity. It can save us from taking on judgments that we are commanded not to make.
In the NDE, at the life review, this is brought out. Everyone we meet is important, how we treat them, judge them, or not judge them has repercussions that we cannot at this time understand. Much of the suffering of the world now has its roots in the deep past, kept alive by hatred, fear, and the inability to forgive.
It is God’s grace that touches the human heart at a deep level allows us to see deeply and refrain from going after others, and gives us the desire to see, listen, and seek to understand. This can be done in truth. Speak the truth in love, not in anger nor judgment.
So, dive in, leap forward, and lift your hearts in faith no matter what the storms of life bring you.-BrMD
