Mother Angelica's Little Book of Life Lessons And Everyday Spirituality

1 ETERNAL PERSPECTIVES THE BEGNINNING OF THE END Mother Angelica fervently believed in maintaining an eternal perspective for everyday living; a constant awareness that we must account for our actions in this life, and that a final judgment awaits each of us. Of course she put it more succinctly: Everyone drags his own carcass to market. So be careful. GOD LOVES YOU I didn't know God loved me for a long time. Many feel that way. Because we are so aware of our faults, our weaknesses, our sins, we have an impression that God couldn't love us. Well that's not true. God is infinite. There is no end to His love. He doesn't love you for anything you possess. He loves you because He is love. We're all imperfect. We're all sinners, and many of us would be much worse than we are given the opportunity. SEEING GOD It is easier to see God in the sinner because I must make an effort to do so. It is one of the paradoxes of life that I run the risk of losing sight of God in those who are easy to love, because I begin to seek my own good in them. LITTLE THINGS God chooses little things to do big things. GOD CHOSE YOU God knew you, loved you, and chose you before there was an angel, before there was a world, a universe or a star. THIS LIFE You have to enjoy life without resting in it. You have to have zest for life but a desire for heaven. And you must see God in all things, realizing that He transcends them all. HUMILITY Ask yourselves: How little am I before God? Am I poor in spirit? Do I accept my weaknesses, my past, my sins, my idiosyncrasies, my eccentricities, and my failures? Do I accept them cheerfully? To accept one's miserable self, cheerfully, is humility. THE WAY TO HEAVEN You must laugh your way to heaven, because tears won't get you there. CRACKED POTS The Scripture says, "We are only earthenware jars" (2 Cor. 4:7). Cracked pots! That's what you are, a cracked pot that holds this great treasure. We are, all of us, imperfect, but we must remember that God is inside each of us. MYSTERY AND FAITH St. Augustine, one of our greatest minds in the Church, was walking on the seashore and he saw a little child. While he was walking, he tried to comprehend the Trinity: how there could possibly be three persons in one God. Further down the shore, this little child kept scooping a bucket of water and pouring it into a little hole on the beach. St. Augustine watched the child run back and forth, trying to fill the hole with water. Finally he said, "Son, what are you doing?" The boy just looked at Augustine and said, "I'm trying to put the ocean in this hole." "You can't. That's impossible," Augustine said. "Neither can you understand the Trinity," the child responded. Then he disappeared. So remember when you come upon a mystery--either in your life, or in Scripture, or in the life of Jesus--your mind can't accommodate all that is contained in the infinite, Holy God. Kinda like trying to put the entire ocean in a small hole, isn't it? SUNKEN TREASURE The riches of heaven are the things we should be desirous of--not the things of the world. The only treasures we know are the sunken variety. We've all seen those movies where the pirates open the trunks filled with diamonds and rubies, and we know there is tons of stuff buried at sea. It shows you what God thinks of them--they're down at the bottom! God's concept of treasure is a soul that deeply loves Him and deeply loves its neighbor. That invisible reality is far more valuable than the passing trinkets of this world. GOD'S CHOICE God is not hindered if He wants to use you, whether you are holy, perfect, imperfect, good or bad. He can speak through an ass if He wants to. And He did. Remember, that's how He spoke to Balaam theMother Angelica is the author of 'Mother Angelica's Little Book of Life Lessons And Everyday Spirituality ', published 2007 under ISBN 9780385519854 and ISBN 0385519850.