God Is At Work In You!: Love One Another, As I Have Loved You (John 13:34)

"Love lives only by sacrifice." ~ Saint Therese of the Infant Jesus and the Holy Face

Don't try to do it on your own! God will help you. (smile)

Uncle Jeff, who has passed on to the eternal embrace of our most loving God, was an American serviceman during World War II. He had so many stories to tell, and I sure wish he could tell us more. Uncle Jeff survived the brutal Battle of the Bulge, and was for a time stationed in Germany. One day he and some other soldiers heard about a woman who bore the wounds of Christ; the young men went to go see her, and were blessed to have had an encounter with mystic and stigmatic Therese Neumann.

One day toward the end of the war, Uncle Jeff and his fellow soldiers were sent to liberate the prisoners at a concentration camp. I can’t remember which one, but he told me the story of his encounter with one particular prisoner during that liberation.

While sharing the details of that story, Uncle Jeff got up for a moment and went into another room to get something. He returned with the item, and gave me the very moving opportunity to hold it. The details of the story left quite an impression on both of us. He had kept this story with so many others, for so many years.

A prisoner of the camp approached the first soldier he saw, which happened to be Uncle Jeff, and in gratitude to his liberator (can you just imagine that moment) surrendered a very precious possession he had made and kept in secret. To be sure, this treasure provided the man with much needed love, strength, encouragement, and perhaps even reconciliation.

It was a cross.

It is through the Cross that we are to work with Jesus, the Sacrificial Lamb, to liberate the souls of sinners who are being held captive by the devil in a black abyss.

Let us ransom them with SACRIFICIAL LOVE, one by one by precious one.

“The true Christian lives by that love which accepts all the happenings that God sends – adapts himself to them and directs them all to Him. The worldling chooses and prepares events, hunts after and adapts them to himself according to his taste, to live by and revel in them according to his fancy, so as to make up his own life of these, and fritter it away.” ~ Dom Pius de Hemptinne, July 1902

The Lord is pleased to reveal many beautiful things to our souls as a reward for, as part of the process of, surrendering our selves and our wills to Him. This self denial, this self-mastery, this handing of one’s life over to God is another manifestation of what our Lord endured for us. Together, we make up the Mystical Body of Christ.

This complete offering, of the self and the self-will, is one facet of our Redemption, which was obtained, bought and paid for, by Christ's life of sacrifice, His Passion, and His Crucifixion.

Not nearly enough consideration is given to this physical, mental, and spiritual wounding Christ endured for us, nor to how we, too, can allow ourselves to be wounded in imitation of Him. In turn, God rewards us with the most sublime expressions of Divine intimacy!

Spend some time with Jesus contemplating His example, either in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, during Eucharistic Adoration, while making a Holy Hour, or during the time you spend with our Savior after receiving Him in the Blessed Sacrament during Holy Communion. Remain in the church while you are unified with His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity most intimately, even after the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass has ended.

Time alone with the Lord is very precious and very worth defending.

Oh, how the Lord wounds our hearts, so deeply if we like, with His inexpressible love when we expiate ourselves for love of God and neighbor.

There is always so much more of God's love to discover and to rediscover. His love can never be exhausted, nor can we ever fully complete our study of Him.

How important are you to God? How important is every single person?

Perhaps the following illustration will provide you with a wonderful starting point to contemplate the mystery of God's love for you and for us all.

Meditate on the Lord's wounds during His Passion and Crucifixion. These wounds atoned for the specific sins of every person ever created (except for Blessed Mother), and they represent each one of us. In fact, in a way, they are each one of us. This can be difficult to explain and to understand and we must ask the Holy Spirit to enlighten us.

Love is our victim, example, source, and teacher.

Our souls are represented in each wound on the Sacred Body of Jesus, and out of each wound flows unfathomable love, very personally, for every single person responsible for that wound.

There are so many other wounds Jesus bore that we cannot see.

Jesus reminds us of how much we are loved and valued on every crucifix in every Catholic Church, in every crucifix pin, pendant, and picture, and in all the victim souls through all time that mirror His likeness.

We earned through our disobedience the wounds He accepted in our place, yet Jesus reminds us of His beaten, bloody, scourged, ripped, pulled apart, and impaled Flesh without anger, resentment, or bitterness.

Instead, He reminds us of how much we are loved and valued.

"Accept my love, compassion, and limitless mercy," He says to us all. "I love you this much."

Think of it this way: Many people have their body tattooed with images of loved ones, enduring the pain and consenting to the altering of their bodies because of their great love for each person "immortalized" on their flesh.

In the PROFOUNDLY Catholic world, the metaphor of tattooing is expressed by living, loving, suffering, and serving in imitation of Christ and Blessed Mother.

We are, every single person is, immortalized on the Sacred Body of Jesus. We are present in His wounds, and in Him we, as members, make up the Mystical Body of Christ.

Mankind has been redeemed by Christ, and it is important for us to accept not only His offer of salvation but His offer of sanctification as well.

That means we must work at growing in holiness each and every single day.

Many people leave out the latter because it involves sacrifice, and sacrifice that is asked of us at the expense of our own desires is very difficult. In its fullest expression, it must cost us completely.

We are called to take up our Crosses and follow Christ. In fact, we are called to be unified with Him along the Way of Sacrificial Love all the way to the Cross.

We are to give to God, who gave us everything, everything of ours, which is really His, so that He may in return once again give us everything.

Jesus will help us do it. +

Ask the Lord, "Whose soul(s) will I be held accountable for on judgment day?"

Don't view that as a threat, view it as your apostolate.

Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen said that God's love knows no bounds.

May our love also know no bounds, in imitation of Jesus and Blessed Mother.

God is so in love with us all.

“Suffering is to a holy soul like burning liquid poured over a wound. It spreads all over it, slowly it soaks into the living flesh, causing acute pain: but the grievousness of the remedy is often the promise of a cure.

"Then – oh, courageous soul! Let suffering sink into the inmost depths of thy heart; drink this life-giving liquid; do not waste a single drop! And, if suffering sometimes quite overfloods thy soul and thou hast been able to assimilate it with the generous patience that keeps the heart in calmness and peace, - thou wilt have learned how sweet it is to suffer. For the bitterness of suffering changes into mysterious delight only at the precise moment when the soul has drained it to the dregs." ~ Dom Pius de Hemptinne, 1902

If We Could See Inside the Hearts of Other People