Insights into Spirituality
Dedicated to ongoing personal spiritual growth through prayer, sharing and lifestyle change.
Insights
Insights One
Consider prayer as a time of opportunity to receive His love and to be formed by His wisdom.
Do I find a desire for revenge welling up inside me without having to think about it?
I must challenge myself to reconsider my habitual patterns of thought and behavior that eat away at my peace of mind and generosity of heart.
To proclaim your love and faithfulness, O Lord, is itself my great reward.
The source of my most glorious triumph and the cause of my most devastating defeat is the fact that I have within my grasp the opportunity to form the very next moment of my existence through prayer.
The holiness of my life must show forth the wholeness (the perfection) of God. Without trust, God's mercy, love and presence cannot break through into my history
My ability to forgive is dependent upon my openness to receiving God's mercy in my life.
Help me, O Lord, to recognize moments when I can lead others to your healing love.
The God of Israel acts in unexpected ways that challenge my prejudices and shatter my preconceptions.
To listen to God’s voice may be difficult in the midst of my hectic daily routine: listening to God requires inner peace and freedom from the world’s distractions.
Insights Two
If I am to share the experience of being cleansed and refreshed by God, I must keep myself immersed in the river of His grace and healing power.
The Spirit of God within me is the life force that nourishes, heals and renews me .
I am being healed and made whole-mind, body and spirit.
The more I allow the Spirit to reveal divine truth and divine love to me, the more my thinking and reasoning can be lifted up to be transformed by the Lord.
Let Jesus' forgiveness release me from slavery so I can be free to choose God's will in every situation.
The foundation of prayer is humility before God.
When God chooses people for some special job he prepares them and endows them to be able to do it.
Obedience to God always brings about exaltation.
In order to imitate Jesus’ life of obedience, it will entail suffering at times, but it will also bring deeper intimacy with Jesus and greater freedom and joy.
Unless I let Jesus care for me and cleanse me, I will end up separated from him.
If I keep filling my mind with the truth of God’s love there will be no room left for resentment and revenge.
The Holy Spirit dwells within me, always ready to guide, strengthen, and encourage me.
I will not find peace until I turn trustfully to divine mercy.
Insights Three
I was called by God before I was even born, and through the waters of baptism I am marked as holy and set apart for him.
As I reach the end of my rope, the limitations of my natural gifts, I will see the power of God active in me.
Changing even the simplest of actions can demonstrate a desire to open my heart more fully to Jesus. Consequently, I will feel moved to change my life to the degree that I experience God’s mercy and power.
What possession has Jesus entrusted to me with the clear expectation that I will make it grow?
How can I overcome the forces within me and beyond me that destroy my peace, my joy and my hope?
If I can adopt Jesus’ philosophy of service, not only will I become secure in God’s love, I will also go out and do great things-that is, humble acts of service.
It’s in prayer that I come to experience Jesus as: The Way I should follow; The Truth that soothes my soul; The Life that satisfies my every desire.
The direct result of being in the presence of God in prayer is so that He can fill me and transform me.
Because the Holy Spirit is a fire that cleanses and a dove that brings peace, He wants to touch my heart as well as my mind.
In conversion, God touches my hearts and makes me aware of His love, my sinfulness, and my need for his mercy.
It is during Communion that Jesus is most able to share himself with me and to touch me with his healing, his wisdom and his love.
Insights Four
By grace, I can endure whatever hardships I meet. And even more importantly, I can become a true example of holiness to those around me.
The more fully I offer myself on the alter, the more fully I will experience God’s power and grace when I receive Communion.
I will let the Holy Spirit move in me and He will show me to become a pure vessel for the power of God.
By the power of his Spirit, Jesus can touch the deepest part of me and shine his light on the true desires of my heart-the desire to be united with God.
I must examine my conscience by the spirit’s counsel and be guided by divine mercy.
As I walk the road that God laid out for me, my life can be filled with purpose and meaning-if only because I am becoming an ever more powerful ambassador of Jesus and a vessel of the Holy Spirit.
Confession gives me an opportunity to experience God’s healing love and the total freedom that is my inheritance as a baptized Christian.
All my human relationships find their deepest meaning only in the light of my relationship with God.
Every time I come to receive His body and blood, I can receive healing from my sins and strength for my journey.
In my actions, words and attitudes, I am called to share the promise that Jesus wants to become a friend to everyone- as intimate with them as He is with me.
Only the Spirit can get me in touch with the love that casts out my fear and lightens my burdens.
Insights Five
Jesus exhorts me to stay awake, looking for opportunities to serve, living each day as if it were my last, not out of fear but out of love and a desire to spend eternity with him.
The “ eye of the needle” was a very small gate into the city of Jerusalem. In order for a camel to make it through that gate, they would have to lower themselves to their knees and crawl through. They would also have to rid themselves of any excess baggage. Am I willing to pass through the eye of the needle?
Life is a gift from the living God; a gift that no amount of material possessions can gain or guarantee.
Repentance is not just an uncomfortable obligation when I get caught doing something wrong. It’s an opportunity to be transformed.
Jesus wants to see me freed from the power of sin.
Jesus, I am truly not worthy of your great love. Still, I know you are worthy of my love. So, trusting in you, I humbly ask you to pour out your healing power into my life.
Only with a humble heart can I actually see and acknowledge my need.
The way to greatness is through humility.
In His presence my heart can be melted and transformed.
There is always more of God that I can experience.
I will never exhaust His goodness or His generosity.
I am challenged to examine my life in the light of the incarnation.
I am meant to become a channel of grace and healing.
As I stay close to Jesus and invite the Holy Spirit to burn in my heart, Jesus will minister his love and wisdom and healing to me.
I can strengthen my faith simply by living it in good times and bad.
I need to accept the fact that I am powerless to change some things and that I can only face the crisis by leaning on God for comfort and strength.
I will ask Jesus to remove everything that distracts me from his love.
Every anxiety and worry is erased by the presence of Jesus.
Insights Six
I have interior closets filled with doubts, resentments and other powerful temptations that would prefer to stay locked up rather than deal with Jesus and his calling.
Do I imitate Jesus by sowing love to those around me?
I know that no evil, no destruction, no calamity can separate me from the love of Jesus.
In the Sacrament of Reconciliation, Jesus wants to lead me out of guilt, alienation and shame and into joy and freedom.
I will allow Jesus to take command over those little annoying habits as well as my serious addictions which paralyze me.
Jesus wants me to approach him with confidence, humbly asking for mercy and grace. I will try not to do anything that will jeopardize my connection to the Father in heaven.
Tasks as mundane as sweeping the floor or keeping order in the workplace or waiting patiently when I need help can all become acts of faith.
I will take what is happening today and make it saintly for His glory.
When God reveals himself to me, darkness and doubt is replaced with light and truth, confusion gives way to clarity, and anxiety dissipates in the wake of peace.
Jesus wants me to embrace the salvation he has already given me.
He invites me to let Him become my righteousness, to let His grace rule my life.
The world is plagued by war, anxiety, suspicion and divisions. How deeply, then, does it need me to shine the light of Christ?
Jesus needs only a small opening to allow him to fill me with His love.
Every day, the Holy Spirit gives me opportunities to preach the gospel through my actions.
Being meek and lowly means having a true perspective of myself.
In order for me to be meek, I must have a gentle, disciplined spirit that allows me to truly enjoy life.
The essence of prayer is private communication with God.
Insights Seven
All that I have-even the things I consider I have earned- comes from a loving and generous God.
Prayer is a place of transformation. That’s where God takes my experiences and reveals the spiritual treasures they contain.
Revelation lifts my heart, fills me with joy and gives me confidence that I am a child of God.
Jesus’ relentless gaze exposes the deepest needs of my heart and stands ready to fill them.
At Mass, I will try to offer Jesus everything I have; my time, my talents, my possessions and my accomplishments.
There is no moment or experience in Jesus’ life that I can not relive and share in communion.
Intellectual and spiritual elitism will blind me to the full spectrum of God’s ways.
Love is the heart and foundation of my life as a disciple.
Jesus can enlarge my heart and his Spirit can help me to love beyond my limited capacity.
In prayer, I will seek out his wisdom and direction and then move in simple and trusting obedience.
Obstacles can be an invitation to let go of the reins of my life and ask the Spirit to take over.
I will take my eyes off myself and cast my failings and discouragements onto the Lover of my soul.
God’s law was not intended to be a burden but a source of freedom.
Carrying the death of Jesus is the precious treasure that I carry in the earthen vessels of my heart-the all-powerful life of Jesus at work in me daily, changing me and filling me with His character.
Prayer is a disposition of the heart, not just a matter of the right words. The Lord’s Prayer will then move from being just beautiful words to a life-giving model for my prayer life.
Insights Eight
Like Jesus and St. Paul who stayed faithful to their mission to the end, I must look beyond the trials to the goal of advancing God’s kingdom.
When the Spirit whispers to me, the truths he speaks actually bring about in me the realities they describe.
I can count on the Holy Spirit to tell me the truth an to give me all I need to announce it to others.
Who is my neighbor? Everyone, especially the helpless and the vulnerable.
By your Spirit, Jesus, make me your instrument in bringing people to restoration and wholeness.
Great Physician, use me to stretch out your hand to heal the brokenhearted.
Jesus uses parables, stories of people and situations that I can easily relate to, as he seeks to win my hearts as well as form my mind.
I go to confession to be reconciled to God for the very purpose of deepening my intimacy with Him.
I am a sinner redeemed by the undeserved and unconditional mercy of God.
I am a child of the Father, chosen and empowered to bear his love to the world.
In prayer I seek God’s wisdom and his revelation.
Jesus wants to help me understand the things of God so that I can take hold of his kingdom more fully each day and bear fruit in this world.
Day after day He calls me his child and gives me the power to follow Him.
Each day Jesus wants to give himself to me so that I may give myself to Him.
Jesus came to earth as a human being to transform me so that I could live a fully human existence on earth.
The challenge is to cultivate my God-given talents and answer the cry of the poor and the needy even as I develop my interior life.
God will persistently pursue me in order to work his will.
In the course of a single day, God might speak to me through music, through my imagination, in my prayer, through casual conversation, through new experience or even through the old, familiar routine of my life.
Insights Nine
Weakened moral and catechetical walls leave me vulnerable to raids of secular thinking and doctrinal relativism.
Jesus, I expect to encounter you today. When I do, help me to recognize you right away and respond in faith.
Where do I see the hand of God? How do I respond? How can I forward this work today?
I can get entangled in hair splitting decisions instead of embracing Jesus and the life-giving mysteries of his gospel.
I will ask the Holy Spirit to bring me into a deeper, more intimate relationship with the heavenly Father.
By holding onto God’s wisdom, remaining flexible and humble, and doing my best to stay faithful to the Lord, I will find the strength I need to continue on day after day.
I will ask for a deeper, greater revelation of his truth in my life.
In his love God has remembered me and in his mercy he has redeemed me.
When I choose to put others first, I bring Jesus joy.
I want to be a dwelling place for Jesus-a place where he can “lay his head” in a world troubled by sin.
Communion is a very powerful moment of intimacy and spiritual nourishment when I come to the altar with a heart that is firm in faith and burning with love for Jesus.
The Holy Spirit is the one who fills me with hope, lifts my heart with joy and refreshes me in God’s love and grace.
God is faithful even when I am unfaithful.
The love required of me is not a feeling of the heart but a determination of the mind and will. It is a decision to love those I do not like and who maybe do not like me.
I will take up the inner battle of saying “no” to fallen ways of thinking and acting so that I can be lifted up into the life of God.
I will ask the Spirit to write the truths of my redemption on my heart every day.
I will fix my eyes on Jesus, the crucified Messiah, in prayer.
Insights Ten
When the Father looks down from heaven, He does not see sins.
He sees the blood of His Son washing me clean.
He does not see weakness and failures.
He sees me clothed in the strength and dignity of Christ.
As he looks down from heaven, He sees me spotlessly pure and filled with His Spirit.
The Father sees me in the light of His perfect plan and intentions for my life.
He looks upon me as His precious child, whom He created in love.
He sees His plan to bless me unfolding in my family, my church and my neighborhood.
He sees me who can be filled with His presence.
He sees me as a child without shame, clamoring to sit close to him.
He sees me fall asleep in His peace, even in the midst of the difficult circumstances of life.
He sees my excitement when His words in Scriptures suddenly come alive.
I belong to Him.
The Cross
I venerate the cross as a safeguard of faith, as the strengthening of hope and a throne of love.
It is the sign of mercy, the proof of forgiveness, the vehicle of grace and the banner of peace.
I venerate the cross because it has broken down my pride, shattered my envy, redeemed my sin and atoned for my punishment.
The cross of Christ is the door to heaven, the key to paradise, the downfall of the devil, the uplifting of mankind and the prize for freedom.
The cross draws everything to God.
It is the kingdom of the Father, the scepter of the Son, the seal of the Holy Spirit and the witness to the total Trinity.
Whatever I accomplish for God, whatever I succeed or hope for, is the fruit of my veneration of the cross.
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