Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.
O, Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love; For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; it is in dying that we are born again to eternal life.
Saint Francis
There is so much that I would like to write about this humble monk. If you would like a little more background–please see my post from March 14 “Sinners, Saints and Popes” where I do touch on a bit of Francis’s past and how the choice of the name for the new pope from Argentina is so very timely and appropriate.
I feel we can all identify a bit with Francis as his life before his conversion was much like many of our lives today—fast and furious, filled with tremendous idle amusement and waste that left him feeling so very empty and even alone.
Not many of us however often take God at His literal word as Francis did….”Francis, re-build my church” which Francis took as a literal command and immediately started repairing the ruined building he was praying in….but as is usually the case, God’s command is much greater than we initially understand and Francis was tasked with taking on and remaking a portion of the then all powerful Catholic Church—a much more daunting task then simply re-building a dilapidated building.
Franics was not deterred, even when in his own lifetime, his “re-building” was almost destroyed”. God commanded it and Francis got busy. I don’t know about you but I’m pretty bad to always run my gamut of excuses—“Lord, I can’t do that,not now— you know I’ve got this to do first, or I need to go there first, or I need to talk to so and so first…it raining, it’s too cold, it’s too hot, I don’t know anybody, I’m too weak, I’m too ignorant, I’m too slow…the list goes on and on.
Not only am I putting off God and what He is asking of me, I’m putting off His desire to bless me.
Not only is God asking something from us, from each of us… He actually wants to give us something in return, in addition to…. He wants to bless us and our lives deeply and richly. Yet if we keep putting Him off, making excuses… well, we actually put off our own opportunity of receiving abundant Grace.
Let’s not put it off any longer—let’s get busy shall we—time is “a wasting!”
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