St Clare of Assisi « cookiecrumbstoliveby

“Totally love Him, Who gave Himself totally for your love.”
St. Clare of Assisi

(winter shells cast across the surf / Julie Cook/ Rosemary Beach, Fl / 2019)

“Consider not only that God your benefactor is present but also that He acts continuously
in all His creatures.
And for whom is this continual action, this work of God in nature?
For you.
Thus, He lights you by the light of day;
He nourishes you with the productions of the earth;
in a word, He serves you by each one of the creatures that you use;
so that it is true to say that at every moment the bounty,
the wisdom and the power of God are at your service and are exercised in the world for
your wants or pleasures.

This conduct of God toward man should be the model of your conduct toward God.

You see that the presence of God in His creatures is never idle;
it acts incessantly, it preserves, it governs.
Beware, then, of stopping at a sterile contemplation of God present in yourself.
Add action to contemplation; to the sight of the Divine presence add the faithful
accomplishment of the Divine will.”
St. Ignatius, p. 182
The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius

“Accustom yourself continually to make many acts of love,
for they enkindle and melt the soul.”
St. Teresa of Avila

(a garden spider perches in the woods and waits patiently for a meal / Julie Cook / 2018)

Think of the spider…
he sits for hours upon end waiting…
He spins, toils and then waits.

Think of God.
He created, toiled and now He waits…patiently He waits on both you and me…

“We become what we love and who we love shapes what we become.
If we love things, we become a thing.
If we love nothing, we become nothing.
Imitation is not a literal mimicking of Christ,
rather it means becoming the image of the beloved, an image disclosed through transformation.
This means we are to become vessels of God´s compassionate love for others.”
St. Clare of Assisi

“Real love is demanding.
I would fail in my mission if I did not tell you so.
Love demands a personal commitment to the will of God.”
Pope John Paul II

As for what concerns our relations with our fellow men,
the anguish in our neighbor’s soul must break all precept.
All that we do is a means to an end, but love is an end in itself,
because God is love.
Edith Stein

(Edith Stein was born a German Jew, yet due to her precocious ways,
came to a point early in life that she rejected, God.

Eventually Edith earned her degree in Philosophy, becoming one of German’s intellectual
elites as well as a professor.
Yet her heart yearned for more.

After much study and contemplation, Edith converted to Catholicism, being baptized in 1922,
eventually entering into a vocation of a Carmelite nun.
By the time the Nazis came to power, Edith was living in Holland, where being both Jew
and now Catholic but her at grave risk. She was arrested and sent to Auschwitz
where she was put to death in the gas chambers in 1942.

She was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1987 and later canonized by John Paul in 1998.

It is always amazing to me to be reminded of those who suffered so grievously under the evils
of the Nazis yet who continued to proclaim God’s love until the very end.

Edith’s life is a strong lesson for those of us of this 21st century who need to be reminded of what it is we must cling to…that being the Love of God demonstrated to us through His Son, Jesus Christ)

https://www.franciscanmedia.org/the-life-and-legacy-of-edith-stein/ )