Don't you just love it when God knocks you upside the head? Sadly, sometimes that's what it takes. This morning when I did my morning prayers, I heard him loud and clear. It's a good thing -- I needed it.
Besides today's gospel (Mt 20:1-16) and the Magnificat meditation by St. Bernard on the topic of generosity, I read these words by St. Therese in Divine Intimacy:
"O Lord, how little we do for You! Indeed we cannot consider as signs of great virtue and mortification, these little acts which are of no weight or bulk, like grains of salt which a bird might carry in its beak. Sometimes we attribute importance to trifling things we do for You which, however numerous they may be, cannot be considered of much value. I am like that myself and I forget Your favors at every moment. I do not say that in Your great mercy, You do not value these little acts of virtue; but I have no wish to set store by them myself, or even to notice when I do them, since they are nothing."
And so today, I will repeat (over and over, if necessary) the prayer that I always keep at the top of my sidebar, from St. Ignatius:
Lord, teach me to be generous
Teach me to serve you as you deserve;
to give and not to count the cost,
to fight and not to heed the wounds,
to toil and not to seek for rest,
to labor and not to ask for reward,
save that of knowing that I do your will.
I ask my prayer in Jesus' name. Amen.
.Teach me to serve you as you deserve;
to give and not to count the cost,
to fight and not to heed the wounds,
to toil and not to seek for rest,
to labor and not to ask for reward,
save that of knowing that I do your will.
I ask my prayer in Jesus' name. Amen.
Amen, sister!
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