In the meantime you have discovered only how barren every other path is. You have turned from one thing to another, only to find that each one leads equally to nowhere. Do not despair - that is a good lesson to have learned.

You have also discovered that it is quite possible to live in the right way if only you set your mind to it and pick yourself up whenever you fall. The secret is a simple one - persistance. I have said that to you often before. Just as you write these words, so you can live your life - as it comes from my Spirit to you.

I have no other command to give you. Evertything else you will find by doing. He who does the Will of the Father shall know the Truth. You can theorise and theologise as much as you like, but it is only in the doing that you will learn the Truth. I am the Truth - follow me.

You are always wanting to do better. You want to stand out. You want to be special. All these wishes are delusions. They are all ways of puffing yourself up. Even in writing this you are thinking about how great it will look on your blog - how others will admire you. Truly there is nothing to admire about you. You cannot avoid sin even for a moment without my grace. And in what way have you merited my grace? In no way at all.

My word to you is only this - do as I have said to you, and worry about nothing else.

Raise up, O Lord, we pray thee, in thy Church the Spirit whereby blessed Josaphat thy Martyr and Bishop laid down his life for the sheep; that, by his intercession, we, being moved and strengthened by the same, may not fear to lay down our lives for our brethren.

His intercession is particularly necessary and timely in the context of Archbishop Hilarion’s remarks yesterday:

“Today it can be said that we are moving to a moment when it becomes possible to prepare a meeting between the Pope and the Patriarch of Moscow.”

Our Lady, Joy of All Who Sorrow, pray for us

Saint Josaphat of Polotsk, pray for us

It was an interesting contract with the other Lectio Divina group which I have quite often attended in our Church. The difference is that the latter group is open to Christians from other denominations, while the former isn’t.

Not for the first time I noticed that there is a very different dynamic between Catholic groups and ecumenical groups. In the ecumenical groups I very quickly get frustrated with the limited view of Christianity that seems to be the norm. I’ve characterised this before as “We’re all nice people, and God is a jolly nice person too”. In Catholic-only groups there seems to be a much greater willingness to engage with the full spectrum of Christianity.

However true or untrue my perception of this may be I usually come away from a Catholic group feeling satisfied and built-up, and from an ecumenical group feeling frustrated and unhappy.

One of the things I feel very strongly about, as a convert, is that Catholicism is not “just another denomination” - it is radically different from the other denominations. I don’t have enough experience of the Orthodox churches to know whether the same would apply to them - but I suspect that an ecumenical Catholic-Orthodox group might be challenging rather than frustrating!

Dr. Moynihan gives a quote from an interview which he conducted with the Archbishop four years ago:

I believe that it is in Europe that the most deadly battles between Christianity and relativism are going to take place in the nearest future. It is in Europe that the onslaught of militant secularism against religion takes the most aggressive forms. It is Europe that most obsessively denies its Christian heritage. It is in Europe that crucifixes are taken away from schools, religious symbols are banned from public places, and Christianity becomes an object of constant criticism, outrage and mockery. It is in Europe that a profound demographic crisis affected Christian population, threatening its very survival. Not that these processes do not take place in other parts of the world, but it is in Europe that they become so stunningly evident.

This quote stood out for me because it is just exactly what I believe about the situation in Europe. With the implementation of the Treaty of Lisbon the situation is likely to become much graver from a Christian point of view.

One of the causes dearest to my heart is Catholic-Orthodox unity, both formal unity and unity in action. May Our Lady, Joy of All Who Sorrow, pray for us.

For many years I was unable to make up my mind whether I believed in God or not. Sometimes I tried to live as an atheist and sometimes as a Christian, but without much success at either. As I grew older I found myself in a state of constant oscillation.

One thing did remain constant though. I was never in any doubt of the importance of the question. Some people seem to be able to live life completely indifferent to such things - but I have never been one of them.

Then one day I got completely fed up with the struggle and said to God: “I give up. I’m just going to trust you to get me there somehow”. Since that day I’ve never been tempted to go back to atheism. A few years later I was received into the Catholic Church.

But then an even worse struggle began - the struggle for holiness. It was only when I made a serious attempt to follow Christ, that I discovered the real power of sin. Like Paul, I cried out “Who will deliver me from this body of sin?”

And like Paul I found the answer to be “Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ Our Lord”. In fact the answer was exactly the same one that pulled me out of atheism into the Church of Christ - “I give up. I’m just going to trust you to get me there somehow”.

Isn’t this the meaning of “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”? Christ doesn’t condemn us, he saves us. My mistake was that I was struggling to be good instead of giving up and trusting the Lord to do the work.

1) I’ve been saying the Liturgy of the Hours rather than any of the older breviaries. I don’t much like the Liturgy of the Hours, so this is perhaps a sign that God wants me to conform to the Church as it is, rather than my imagined idea of what it ought to be.

2) I’ve got going again on learning German, Spanish and Portuguese, which are the languages of the countries which I will be going on pilgrimage to next year.

3) I’ve been studying photography - now why God would want me to do that is a mystery to me - but perhaps it is connected with next year’s travels.

4) I’ve been studying the Book of Revelation in the Orthodox Study Bible - looking up all the references.

5) I’ve started reading the Catholic Bible Dictionary (Scott Hahn) from cover to cover - again looking up all the references.

The last time I tried to follow “The Gift of Oneself” I found that my life had become much more spacious and that many of my backlogs of work were cleared up almost immediately. This doesn’t seem to be happening this time. But it’s not really concerning me - whatever God decides to send to me is fine by me.

“Realised that my difficulty with how to do God’s Will was lack of commitment. So swore an oath to God that I would use the Gift of Oneself for the rest of my life and no other method.”

Related posts:

The Gift of Oneself

The Will to Love

Serving God in Peace and Tranquility

What is it like to do God’s Will?

Children of God uphold truth, refuse to compromise with the ways of the world, and give themselves to no other. Like Jesus, these will be persecuted for righteousness’ sake.

The Course booklet defines it thus:

Being persecuted for righteousness’ sake means:

• being willing to stand out from the crowd even if this means being thought odd or subversive;
• speaking and standing up for what is true and right;
• being prepared to go against the flow.

Now there are a lot of resemblances between these two definitions. So why is it that the images conjured up by each of them are so different in my mind? If we take Jesus himself as the model for each of the Beatitudes which description fits him better?

Don’t worry. Do my will. What is it to you what that will is? If I wish to make you mighty, what is that to you? If I wish to humble you, what is that to you? I am everything you could desire. Put your ambitions into learning to know me.