Note to God

The guys in villa tevere were teasing one another. Which is our father's favourite oratory? One guy, walked towards the window, drawed back the curtains , and he said, here - here's our father's favourite oratory. The streets. 

Happiness should not be the guiding principle towards living life. Truth should be the principle towards living life.  Happiness can be living untruth, can be deceitful, self seeking, and damaging if we solely live for pleasure, taking shortcuts, bring dishonest.  Love can also be misguided if it's disordered.  But truth. Truth cannot be disordered. Live for truth. It will set you free. 

God made covenant with Abraham, Noah, Moses, Jacob. But we always fail. God always steer the wheel. Like a driver, he will drive for you and for him, not for him himself. And he is that, driving for us. He is always faithful Jesus carries the covenant by carrying the cross for us. 

Saint Francis de Sales, in an early letter to the woman who would one day be Saint Jane Frances de Chantal, described the true freedom of a daughter of God that she should strive for: “If a soul has become attached to the exercise of meditation and you interrupt this practice, that person will be upset and anxious. But a soul with true freedom of spirit will react with a cheerful face and a kind heart to this annoyance, because everything is the same: either serving God by meditating, or serving Him by putting up with our neighbor. Both are God’s will, but putting up with our neighbor is necessary then.”

When we focus on outcomes, we tend to be safe, we want to be lucky, we try to take short cuts. But we limit ourselves from failure which is essential in obtaining mastery.  Our focus should be on mastery, then we want to know everything - even if we get it correct or fail. Because we don't aim to get lucky. We expose ourselves to learn more, know more, maybe get fail more and then get right more.  The outcomes are steps towards mastery, and growth in mastery. Not the end of mastery. Mastery is a process.  After you've achieved mastery, then how do we set quantifiable goals.  Process goal is greater than outcome goal.  The higher you go, you will always be improving the service you give to do better.  We should be learning from our outcomes always.  How do we improve in our work? In our skills, in our bonds?  What's the next right step for me? - process goals is always growth oriented, a continuum, of growth.  - outcome goal is a Y/N.

And we, with our unveiled faces reflecting like mirrors the brightness of the Lord, all grow brighter and brighter as we are turned into the image that we reflect; this is the work of the Lord who is Spirit. Corinthians 

I know you love each other. But are you IN LOVE with each other?

- our Father will give us Gold coins, gems. Not what others can give. From the intimate letters. - we are first born sons of the father. First born. Favoured. Directly intimate. That closeness. What you have is mine. Ask for what u want. 

Persevere in your life of piety, willingly and with love, even if you feel arid. Don't worry if you find yourself counting the minutes or days still to go before you finish that act of piety or that job of work, with the turbid delight of the lazy schoolboy who in a similar situation is looking forward to the end of term; or of the petty criminal who can't wait to get back to his tricks once he is out of jail again. Persevere, I insist, with a real and effective determination. Don't cease, even for a moment, to want to fulfil and benefit from those means of piety.

It would be a pity if we were to do things simply because we liked them. We have to do them because it is our duty, and Love leads us on

We are nothing. If we are stripped of all God grace within us, we are nothing. We know not what joy and love is. We won't be the best versions of ourselves. We won't know how to do good. Let us not presume too highly of ourselves, for we are nothing without his grace

Love yourself not for your own sake, but for God! she constantly repeats. To the same effect, Bernard describes at length the progress of the soul till it reaches the highest stage, in which self-love is so lost that even gratitude is left behind, and man loves himself and God for the sake of God alone. In the Name of Jesus Christ crucified

Yet God demands of us, that as He has loved us without any second thoughts, so He should be loved by us. In what way can we do this, then, since He demands it of us and we cannot give it to Him? I tell you: through a means which He has established by which we can love Him freely, and without the least regard to any profit of ours: we can be useful, not to Him, which is impossible, but to our neighbour…. To show the love we have to Him, we ought to serve and love every rational creature…. Every virtue receives life from love, and love is gained in love, that is, by raising the eye of our mind to behold how much we are beloved of God. Seeing ourselves loved, we cannot do otherwise than love…. So thou seest that we conceive virtues through God and bring them to the birth for our neighbour."