GrowHoly.com

“You wish to set fire to the whole world by the love which the Gospel preaches; you wish to conquer the five continents. Your every moment should be a flash of fire, the fire of your duty, of your obedience, of your patience. Such a flame will burn brightly to illuminate the whole world.”

What love does the Gospel preach? The love of Europeans who killed American Indians a few years ago? The love of Christians setting for war to protect their ‘holy city’? The love with which we really ‘conquered’ the five continents so that they are now poor and hungry?

No, this is not the true Love of Gospel. The Love Jesus speaks about, is His Love. The unconditional, understanding and listening Love. The Love that breaks hearts from inside – you don’t need to say a word. The Love that understands all your weaknesses so that you don’t need to say sorry any more. The Love that shines inside of you and which you sometimes are not even aware of. The Love with which the Great Spirit created the world. The Love that puts us all together. The Love you can feel now.

The Love that makes you die on the cross, the Love that makes you smile when something hurts. The Love that is so deep that you cannot talk about it with anyone. The Love that is God.

“In our everyday lives Our Lord bestows on us the happiness of participating in the mystery of the redemption. For each person the road of the Cross lies in the road of duty.”

It is great to see that God lets us play a role in His plan. It’s great to know that He simply counts on us. And yet still I need to say: “Lord, I am nothing, I am just a servant and this is Your masterpiece, this is Your plan.”

And it’s great to feel the happiness which then flows into my body, into my mind and spirit – the happiness I cannot express – but it is simply there.

Then it might be much easier to carry on with any duty, to take on any responsibility or to take the cross on my shoulders – as I know why this is happening, I know that whatever happens, it is also part of His plan and what He wants, is always good.

God, please, let me understand the meaning of my role in Your plan, my mission in life and how important it is for me to cooperate with Your will. Please, never let me slip away from Your road, be it even a road of cross, because it always leads to my greatest happiness.

“If you are not attached to the will of God, moment by moment, you will fall by the wayside on this Road of Hope. This is because you think of your duty as being too uneventful, too unnoticed and hidden and having too much daily monotony.”

Yes, without the “juice”, even the best fruit can become tasteless and boring.

So how to make sure I am always attached to the will of God? It’s so easy - just keep praying. I don’t know why, but for some reason, I always stop at certain stage and don’t pray for one day. Then this goes on and sometimes can develop into a crisis of several weeks. I don’t know what God wants any more, and I get completely lost.

So to make sure I follow His will, I want to pray every day and read Bible. No miracles, nothing big, no heroism. Just pure duty, carried out day by day, with love. And still, even when praying regularly, I know that sometimes the prayer itself can get “boring” as sometimes God simply stays quiet and I cannot feel Him any more.

I need to focus on Him anyway, even when I don’t see Him – above the heavy clouds, there always is the Sun there.

“It is only necessary for you to fulfill your duty of the present moment in order to become a saint. The discovery and revelation of this fact will bring peace and encouragement to your soul.”

This morning I went for a confession. And I was told that I’m not a superwoman yet and that it’s ok to fail and sin sometimes… And that I should enjoy life.

Well, I do enjoy life, I just feel that sometimes I overdo it and that takes me away from God and from my friends. That’s why I would like to focus more on the present moment and to fulfill my duty in that moment. Now. To stop at the right time, to take just what belongs to me, what I need, not too much. There’s not a big science to this.

So just step back and focus on what I’m doing right Now.

“Your death, in fact, will be your last duty and you must accept it willingly and in a manner filled with love.”

Ok, I am still quite young and don’t particularly want to die – but hey, shouldn’t we be prepared at any time?

Jesus said in one of his parables that we should keep enough oil in our lamps – what did He mean by this? Was it the conscious presence as Eckhart Tolle explained in The Power of Now?

Or is it the prayer, as someone else once told me?

So I am not dying yet, but I would like to stay present in the constant prayer.

20. If all were faithful to their duty in life, growth in personal holiness would renew their hearts and bring a like renewal to families and the whole world.

21. Despite a superficial appearance of holiness, a person who neglects his duties in life is a counterfeit. Should he work “miracles” they would be out of time and out of place and a cause of confusion. Moreover, such a person would be a burden for others to live with.

22. Some lay people mistakenly think holiness consists in fervent prayer, preaching or withdrawal from the world; they draw this inspiration from the image of priests and religious in a former time. On the other hands, there are priest and religious who conceive they would compete with lay people. This hints of confusion of roles.

23. The world is not renewed because people often conceive of holiness as being something outside the fulfillment of the duties of their state in life.

24. The workman will become a saint in the workplace, the soldier will become a saint in the hospital, the student will become a saint through his studies, the farmer will become a saint on the farm, the priest will become a saint by his ministry as priest, the public servant will become a saint in the government office. Every step of progress along the road to sanctity is a step of sacrifice in the performance of one’s duty.

25. It is not because of acts of prophecy nor the performance of miracles that saints become saints. They do not do anything extraordinary, but simply carry out their ordinary duties.

26. However, the duty of the present moment is not a passive thing. It is an unceasing renewal of yourself, it is a decision to choose or reject Our Lord, it is a search for the kingdom of God, it is a belief in the infinite love of God, it is acting with all the ardor of your heart, it is reflecting that love of God by means of your love for others, right at this present moment.

27. Duty is your passport to heaven: “The person who does the will of my father in heaven, he will enter the kingdom of heaven” (MT 7:21).

I just got the more recent version of The Road of Hope and was quite surprised how this translation is different from the older issue I had before. The newer version speaks about “responsibilities” instead of “duties”. I haven’t studied Vietnamese, so I cannot tell which one is correct, but definitely I want to carry on with this Road of Hope and finish it – every day taking one thought and not only pondering it, but actually living it, putting it into practice and learning how to keep applying it from now on.

Duties and responsibilities – they clash with laziness and a sort of escapeism – and I have done this so many times. Now I need to stand firm and take responsibility for every of my decisions and actions (or inactions). I want to live a conscious life which will bring fruits – and I want to offer these fruits to people around me and to God.

From now on, I will not hesitate or wait unnecessarily with doing any task and I will think twice before I do or say something. I feel it’s about performing well in every given second, and if I fulfill my duties at work, at home, at my marriage, at church or with my friends, I will be richer and more Successful (see God’s Success).

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“Make your duties holy. Help others to holiness by your duties. Grow in holiness by the way you carry out your duty.”

Forget about my goals. Forget about everything that “I am” – for I am nothing, really. Stop doing something just for the sake that maybe one day somebody will notice… Remove my ego. Stop being egoistic. Disappear.

Is it just the nature of some people who are like this? Was I born egoistic? I am living with friends who wouldn’t speak about themselves, people who would do anything for others, I know those who can sit in the corner and who wouldn’t mind not being noticed.

How can I become egoless?

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“There are some people who, while not carrying their own cross or anybody else’s, still imagine their own cross is too heavy. Some are eager to take upon their own shoulder everyone else’s cross, but refuse to carry their own.”

Many times have I heard of people suffering terribly – diseases, bad accidents, relationships, hunger – there are so many ways. And I have been “lucky” – no problems like this so far. But still – I sometimes complain.

And I was thinking what if something serious happened to me – would I still be able to smile and be happy? There were days when I thought I would bear anything – and yet when there was just a small accident – when I once fell of my bike, I was shocked – and I felt it as total unfairness.

And I was putting myself in shoes of my friends who had some problems – and I thought I would handle their issues better than they did. But I also have some little things – especially all those temptations I still cannot resist.

And these are my problems – I feel I haven’t been worth any bigger suffering as I am not able to bear these little things. I need to do my best in small things, that nobody actually sees – and then I can grow.

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“Duty points out the will of God for you during the present moment.”

Now is the time to do what I have. And the funniest thing is that I know what I should be doing right now. I always know. I just don’t do it.

There’s time for everything and I know when I should sleep and when I should be awake, when I should feast and when to fast.

So how to open myself for the will of God? How to do what I should do?

If at any given minute I do what I should be doing, I will end up doing right things all the time. And that’s what I want.

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The itinerary for this Road of Hope has three stages:

1. Departure: ‘Renounce yourself‘.
2. Duty: ‘Take up your cross daily‘.
3. Perseverance: ‘Follow me‘.

This are the stages I should be following from now on. Deny myself, take up my cross and follow Jesus.

Was thinking, that maybe it’s like those three things nuns and monks are aiming for:

1. Obedience
2. Poverty
3. Chastity

In the same order. As obedience is when you deny, or renounce yourself, so that you follow what others are asking you for? Maybe I wouldn’t go so far that I would sacrifice my own way of doing things – like wearing casual jeans when everybody is wearing a nice dress for a party.

Jesus was obedient to the death on the cross… Should I really push myself so much more? Should I not put my feet on the seat in the train, should I be quieter, nicer to people, should I always smile and say, thanks… Should I be that ‘good girl’ who does everything as it should be?

Poverty - the daily cross. Well, I am rich, I have relatively high life standard, I have my friends, my food, clothes, house – so how should I carry on with this ‘take up your cross daily’ – sorry, but which cross?

Chastity - follow Jesus in the way He was. Well, again, such a huge gap between us. My thoughts, my deeds – when I am solely focused on myself instead of opening myself for others – I just want my pleasure, I want to indulge myself, forgetting my neighbours – I really need to do something here – and I think fast is a great way to quieten the body.

So three things, while today I would like to concentrate on obedience and be able to give up my opinion for the sake of supporting others.

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