In This Moment, I Can Choose

The 'awakening' I wrote of yesterday has been life changing. Not only has it led to moment-by-moment prayer, it is also nudging me toward greater virtue. I find that yielding to God's will is much more manageable on a moment by moment basis. 

I suppose I'm taking baby steps toward holiness. It's such a lofty goal, and the path to it seems an impossible climb for a little soul like me. 

It is not an impossible climb for God, however; not if I ask for His grace, and if I let Him lead me step by step.

In each moment I can choose to trust.

In each moment I can choose another's needs over my own. I can swallow words of irritation and speak words of caring. I can manage to sacrifice my own wants during this tiny chunk of time. 

In each moment I can thank God for something. My back may be in pain, but thank You, Lord, that I can move. If I'm suffering from flu: thank You, God, for a comfortable bed. When I am in absolute misery, thank God I can offer my sufferings for the salvation of souls. 

And thank God there's a change in my outlook as I look for and try to focus on the good.

I can praise God, I can smile, I can offer a prayer of intercession. I can hang on for just this one moment. I can take one simple step, asking God to show me how to serve and glorify Him in whatever has come my way. I can offer prayer of love, adoration, repentance - right here, right now.

In this moment, I can choose.


'The secret of happiness is to live moment by moment and to thank God for what He is sending us every day in His goodness.' (St. Gianna Beretta Molla) 

theCloisteredHeart.org


Painting: Édouard Manet

Now is the Time

I have written earlier of an 'awakening' I had several years ago. Feeling sad that I'd given too little time to God over the course of my life, too little time to prayer, too much time to trivialities, I experienced a different reaction than I'd had to such thoughts in the past.

Rather than my usual 'woe is me,' I felt a gentle whisper of hope.  If I could put it into a sentence, it was as if I sensed the words: 'but you have right now.'

I have right now.  I cannot turn back the clock and re-live minutes of years ago, last week, or even yesterday morning. However, I have this moment, this place, right now.

I can pray at this very instant, even in the middle of writing this sentence. And I do so.

I can choose anew to live for Christ, in this moment. And I do so.

I have forgotten to pray more often than I'd like to admit during the course of my life. Sometimes I find prayer a struggle.  But in each moment, I am given a new opportunity.  A fresh chance to at least speak to God when I think of Him.  A moment in which I can connect with Him, offer a word of thanks or praise - a moment in which I can start anew.

'I tell you, now is the time of God's favor. Now is the day of salvation.' (2 Corinthians 6:2)

'Every moment comes to us pregnant with a command from God, only to pass on and plunge into eternity, there to remain forever what we have made it.'  (St. Francis de Sales)

I have Right Now. 






This is a repost from our archives. It is linked to Reconciled to You and Theology is a Verb for 'It's Worth Revisiting Wednesday.'

theCloisteredHeart.org

Painting: William McGregor Paxton, Morning Light

Unsurprise

Am I Living in Denial?

Among my recently uncovered treasures from a friend, I found the following. It was written in 2000 and later edited a bit: 

I believe God is calling us to wake up and stop wasting any of the moments of His precious gift of life. We live in an anesthetized society, a society in deep denial of the fact that each of us was made to live according to the will of God.

All around us are people in a stupor, and we are affected by it - for how could we not be? Yet we are called to be like the saints gone before us: the ones who escaped from their societal denial and used their allotment of time for God.

As we enter a new millenium, we must walk in the footsteps of the saints. There is no more time to waste, no more time to walk with one foot in the world and one in the will of God. We must decide. 

A pretty serious call? You bet. If we're serious about following Christ, we are invited to follow in the footsteps of those who, in their own times, were not popular. Oh, the saints are admired now, when we read about them in books. They're well loved on days when we wear green and celebrate a bit of Irish blood in our veins. But the fact is, and we all know it, that the saints were never very popular in their own times. Why? Because they were those who worked to call their societies out of denial. 

As those who live in the world rather than in actual physical cloisters, we live in an atmosphere of denial. The great lie is that this earth and our time upon it is the only important thing, and that what we get out of life is all that really counts. 

How much of this have I bought into? 

What is the motivation behind the things I do with my minutes and hours?

Am I about loving God, serving others, working to increase the population of heaven?

Am I primarily pursuing my own comforts, interests, gains or status - perhaps telling myself that I'm not doing so even as I do so?

What is the focus of my life? 

If I knew that Our Lord was coming for me for me tomorrow, would this knowledge alter my activities today?

Perhaps it's time for me to talk with Christ about some of these things.

Any Given Moment

It has helped me (recently) to realize that one moment is all I have. This moment, right now... that's it.

I can no longer use yesterday's moments for God. I can repent of them, or perhaps be glad I used them as I did, or just forget about them - but I cannot change a single one.

And tomorrow's moments? I can pray now for them, offering them to God and asking Him to grace me in advance. But still: the actual arrival of each will place a choice before me.

The moment of right now is the one I truly have. The one in which I can now choose. Shall I give this moment to God .. or not?

I've been thinking about this for the last few days, making an effort to put this moment, and then this next one, to good use.

As I was writing this post, just as I finished that last sentence, the electricity in my house went out.  Finally taking time to string a few thoughts together (which has been particularly tough for me on this topic, for some unknown reason), I felt like my words were suddenly pulled out from under me. No blog screen, no Internet. Stolen moments, or so it seemed. But of course the moments were not stolen at all. Each was given to me, and I could choose whether or not to give it over to God.

I could use any given moment of this tiny trial for grumbling, panicking, fretting. Or I could grab any one and praise God in it, surrender to His will, choose to trust Him.  God is worthy of praise at any given moment, no matter what is happening to me. Even when my air conditioning isn't working and storms roll outside and the food in my freezer is thawing, God is good and is worthy of praise. I can choose to pray. I can smile instead of grumble, trust instead of fret, repent instead of delay and excuse.

Whether I remembered (or chose) to do so as recently as a minute ago, I can give this very moment of my life to God.

"Every moment of your life is like God saying 'look, I know you messed up in the last moment, but here's a new one'... you have a fresh start in this new moment. Every day, every moment of your life is brand new." (Mother Angelica)

What Remains

Full of Eternity

'Time is full of eternity.  
As we use it, 
so shall we be. 
Every day 
has its opportunities, 
every hour
its offer of grace.'

Cardinal Henry Manning, 1883







Painting: Jaroslav Spillar Familie aus dem Chodenland, 1900, detail

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