Note to God

The most essential thing in family life is unity among family  if there is division, the family falls apart.  Families for the Lord, not for ourselves. C.f. Hannah and the child, offered back to Eli. The child is for the Lord. 

1. Working with the mind of the father To think about the family business It is about unity  About total commitment  Magnanimity in the small things, for small things are often neglected. Collegiality  - May have differences in opinions but ultimately after discussion, unity  The idea of trying not to be essential  - not like the cook who refuses to let the recipe be known  - we need to share knowledge  To be able to write experiences  - to take notes and document so that other can take over The work as a little creature, it's small and there's a need follow up. Many good ideas fall short because it isn't followed up.  And like a kid, if the kid fall, it gets up immediately, without over complicating things, without over thinking. 

This cross, Christ's cross, the holy cross, we should take up — so we can walk carrying it — 'daily'. The day we do not feel on our back the weight of the cross, the day our mind fails to recognize its value: that is the day when we do not live as disciples of Christ. You should look at the cross with faith and carry it with love. Never feel, not even for a minute, a 'victim'. The cross does not make victims; it makes saints. It does not cause sad faces but happy smiles. A person who lives in this way understands that there is only one victim — Jesus Christ, who suffered and died for all of us, who suffered and died abandoned.

If the human heart has been created for happiness — a happiness which begins here below, on earth, and which is to be found only in God — you have to admit that the path to it can be none other than 'the guard of the heart'. The science of custody of the heart consists in order and struggle, defense and attack, knowledge and decision, renunciation and suffering; but all this aims at happiness and its possession. Guarding the heart means keeping it for God, living in such a way that our heart become where he reigns, that it contain all the loves which are compatible with our state in life, but that all be based harmoniously on the love of God and be ordained to it. Guarding the heart also means loving purely and passionately those whom we ought to love, while excluding the jealousy, envy and restlessness which are sure sources of disorder in love. Guarding the heart means, always, maintaining an order in our love.  The science of guarding the heart teaches the Christian to go de...

It is also a new life which is sacrificing and overflowing with love; it sanctifies the spouses and makes holy all those who form part of the family.

There are 2 persons. U cannot run away from; God and yourself. - Peter Kreeft

Many men don’t realize that tender love through a gentle touch and listening ear is all a woman needs at times — just a comforting hug, a loving statement like, “I understand. You’re hurting, aren’t you? You’re feeling under a lot of pressure, aren’t you?” Listening to her talk without making critical comments or offering quick solutions is important.

The for of entry into the castle is prayer and meditation. Regardless of mental prayer or vocal, if it is prayer at all, it has to have meditation. If a person does not think whom he's addressing, and what he is asking for, and who it is that is asking, and is whom he is asking it, I do not consider that as praying even though he be constantly moving his lips. St Teresa of Avila Interior castle

My prayer is that your love for each other may increase more and more and never stop improving your knowledge and deepening your perception so that you can always recognise what is best. This will help you to become pure and blameless, and prepare you for the Day of Christ, when you will reach the perfect goodness which Jesus Christ produces in us for the glory and praise of God.

Instead of blaming others and projecting negativity into another, what Jesus all for is to turn to a soul-enlarging task of self-criticism and metanoia (going beyond the mins you have). Rooted in magnanimity and the love of God, have the courage to face your inner darkness and be liberated from the hopeless pattern of casting blame to others.

What must come first is our radical trust in God, in doing his will. Yes, we need to be concerned about material goods, but spiritual sickness comes when we invert the relationship. 

Seek out the emotional nuggets that lie beneath the words. One man I know finds it almost impossible to do this. When his wife uses phrases like “You never do this,” or “You always do that,” he will inevitably say, “Now, dear, I don’t always do that,” or “Did I do it yesterday?” Or he begins to analyze her statement to prove its fallacy. In ten minutes, they’re off on another hot discussion. It is essential in communication to look past the surface words to the real meaning behind the words. There is no meaning in a word. Meaning is in people .