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With These Our Hells And Our Heavens

In a way, we're not all that different. The most wicked person you know and the best have nothing between them but this: the good man correctly apprehends his situation. He knows that he is but dust; he seeks God's mercy continually; he responds to the graces given him as he becomes aware. The wicked are not so.

They think their good name is written in the stars; they think they owe nothing to anyone; they think they have been put upon, that people owe them affection and accolades, respect and deference.

The just man sees the distance between himself and true holiness, and, by God's grace, strives to make tomorrow better than today.

Have you ever dreamed of your children, if you have yet to have any? I have. I know some truly great men; I have watched their children praise them at the city gates; the emotion of the thing will melt you into a puddle.

But you can't get there in a day. I learn each day that those fathers and mothers made a thousand little choices each day. They humbled themselves, they prayed, they asked for forgiveness; they gave it.

You can't take anything for granted, if you want to be a saint, if you want to be holy. There is no autopilot for justice, for goodness. I cannot make myself good, in my own power. But I can unmake myself. I can destroy what divine mercy and love has built. I can treat those gifts as rubbish to be discarded.

Please, O Lord, let me not think I deserve what you have given, from the smallest good, to eternal life. Don't let me go too far from You; may Your mercy be ever new. May you make me a blessing to others, as a praise to Your Name. Amen.
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