I want….

“Do your little bit of good where you are;
it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.”
Bishop Desmond Tutu

(small hands reach out to oneanother /Julie Cook / 2020)

In a world gone mad…
writhing in the throes of the pain, anger, and hate…
I want kindness.

I want kindness over the mob’s desire for retribution.
I want kindness over the mob’s desire for retaliation.
I want kindness over the mob’s desire for contrition.
I want kindness over the mob’s desire for revenge.
I want kindness over the mob’s demands for lawlessness.
I want kindness over the mob’s desire for destruction.

I want life and not the taking of life.

Kindness is the first step to healing.
Kindness is the first step toward change.

Kindness is not weak.
Kindness is not passive.

Kindness requires courage.
Kindness requires action.
Kindness is not reactive.
Kindness is proactive.
Kindness takes more effort than anger or hate—
Anger and hate are reactionary…kindness is control and thought-filled.

Kindness is the path less traveled
but it is the only path that will lead to both healing and eventual resolution.

But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return,
and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High,
for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.
Luke 6:35

living in the middle with a need for contrition

“There are in truth three states of the converted: the beginning, the middle, and the perfection.
In the beginning, they experience the charms of sweetness; in the middle the contests of temptation;
and in the end the fullness of perfection.”
Pope St. Gregory the Great

(butterflys eating at the butterfly house at Callaway Gardens / Julie Cook)

“For want of contrition, innumerable Confessions are either sacrilegious or invalid;
the penitent so often breaks his promises to God,
and falls again so easily into the same faults,
and many souls are eternally lost.

Contrition is that true and lively sorrow which the soul has for all the sins it has committed,
with a firm determination never to commit them any more…

Many Christians spend a long time in examining their consciences,
and in making long and often unnecessary narrations to the confessor,
and then bestow little or no time upon considering the malice of their sins,
and upon bewailing and detesting them.
Christians such as these, says St. Gregory, act like a wounded man who shows his wounds to the doctor
with the utmost anxiety and care, and then will not make use of the remedies prescribed.
It is not so much thinking, nor so much speaking of your sins that will procure their pardon,
but heartfelt sorrow and detestation of them.”
Fr. Ignatius of the Side of Jesus, p. 289
An Excerpt From
The School of Jesus Crucified

Said the sinner to the saint

“You must not be discouraged or let yourself become dejected if your actions have not succeeded as perfectly as you intended. What do you expect? We are made of clay and not every soil
yields the fruits expected by the one who tills it. But let us always humble ourselves and acknowledge that we are nothing if we lack the Divine assistance.”
Padre Pio (Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina)

The only difference between saints and sinners is that every saint has a past while every sinner has a future. ”
Oscar Wilde

(a photograph of Padre Pio on the wall of a small cottage in Glencolmcille, County Donegal / Julie Cook / 2015)

Said the sinner to the saint, bending low in humble contrition…
“You must pass first sir, for I am unworthy to be seen in your presence…”
Said the saint to the sinner, bending deeper in overwhelming compunction
“Sir it is you who has offered me the glimpse of Light which has been hidden within my own shadow”

To all who are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Romans 1:7

For all of us sinners are indeed called to be saints…..