As with many, this past election took an emotional toll on me. A trusted priest directed my soul to the following words of St. Faustina:
“My goal is God…and my happiness is in accomplishing His will, and nothing in the world can disturb this happiness for me: no power, no force of any kind.”[1]
These words were a balm for the turmoil in my soul, and almost immediately, hope began to resurface. Instead of being irrationally angry at the election results or frustrated with people who did not vote the same way I did, I saw the need to return to self, and see how God was speaking to me. The focus became, once again, the need to look at my own conversion. How faithfully am I seeking the will of God in my daily life? How faithful am I to my prayer life, to serving Him within my vocation?
During prayer, I was reminded of the attitude of St. Francis, as I had read about previously within The Gift of Faith by Fr. Tadeusz Dajczer:
"Francis never criticized anyone. He believed that if evil was all around, it was he, and not others, who must first be converted. …The more rot and scandal that St. Francis saw around him, the more he desired to conform to the image of Christ in purity, humility, and poverty. It was he, Francis, whose fault it was that the world was so evil; therefore, it was he, Francis, who had to be radically converted – and history proved that he was right. For when Francis was converted, when he became so “transparent” to the Lord that the image of Christ could be reflected in him, Europe then began to heave itself up from the fall….
…The world was enriched by his sanctity, not so much in the way of learning about a man who actualized the spirit of the Gospel in an extraordinary and heroic way, but in the way of the system of connected vessels, since his sanctity affected people that he never came into contact with. The light of faith lets you see that, through Baptism, you belong to the Body of Christ, that you are incorporated into the system of connected vessels of this Body. This Body so greatly needs the converted and the saints. It is in great need of your conversion and your sanctity…reformation of others should always begin with yourself….”
Yikes! I guess I have a lot of converting to do. So, thank you, God, for the gift of our Blessed Mother. She is indeed an extraordinary connected vessel. Her happiness was and continues to be in accomplishing His will. May WE hunger together for this very happiness, one moment at a time.
[1] St. Maria Faustina Kowalska, Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska, 3rd. ed. (Stockbridge, MA: Marian Press, 2007) 310 (paragraph 775).
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