August 2021
Reflections of God's Goodness
There is no going back! Today, as we live set free from lockdown, masks, and scarcity, we are experiencing a “new” new normal. We cannot go back to whatever we called normal before Pandemic 2020.
Every experience of our life changes us. Daily we live with the ups and downs of relationships, family life and work challenges. When we wake up the next day, we are not the same person we were yesterday! Our encounters change us.
Day after day, everything changes – except of course, God and His Word. Anchor your life there. Jesus’ primary message is clear and repeated throughout Scripture. His message is both invitation and command!
“ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength…You shall love your neighbor as yourself’’”.
More than ever, we can see the need for Jesus and His plan for saving the world. He wants His people, you and I, to participate in the healing of the world around us. He invites us to make life better by investing our time and energy in cultivating, growing, and deepening our relationships: with God, family, neighbors, colleagues, and strangers.
What are the qualities you bring to this challenge? What tools do we need to transform the world into one where love of God and neighbor is the purpose of life? The following is an often-quoted Scripture, but it does a good job of describing how we are being asked to live.
“Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, [love] is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.”
Imagine a world where love is lived. Minute by minute, individuals would find healing in the patience and kindness they experienced. Rudeness would disappear and we would cheer each other on in our endeavors. No one would experience being invisible because we would really see each other. This is what the Kingdom of God is like – Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven!
We need to remind ourselves that we did not initiate our relationship with God.
“It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you. This I command you: love one another.”
May each of us find the gifts, tools, and words we need to transform the world, one person at a time.
Blessings,
Sister Mary Ann Barnhorn, SNDdeN
“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."
