Offer God a Good Will!

Saint Albert today is saying to me to offer God my good will. St. Albert tells us
that there is nothing more valuable than to offer up our will to do good. Resisting
temptations and although we may fail at times to offer up our good intentions
to do what is pleasing to Him.....

Indeed we can offer God nothing more valuable than a good will, since a
good will in the soul is the source of all good things, and the mother
of all virtues. If any one is beginning to possess that good will, he
undoubtedly has what is necessary for leading a good life.

God bless,
Linda

On Cleaving to God: Part 11 of 16

How one should resist temptations and bear trials

Now there is no one who approaches God with a true and upright heart
who is not tested by hardships and temptations. So in all these
temptations see to it that even if you feel them, you do not consent to
them, but bear them patiently and calmly with humility and long
suffering. Even if they are blasphemies and sordid, hold firmly on to
this fact in everything, that you can do nothing better or more
effective against them than to consider all this sort of fantasy as a
nothing. Even if they are the most vile, sordid and horrible
blasphemies, simply take no notice of them, count them as nothing and
despise them. Don't look on them as yours or allow yourself to make
them a matter of conscience. The enemy will certainly take flight if
you treat him and his company with contempt in this way. He is very
proud and cannot bear to be despised and spurned. So the best remedy is
to completely ignore all such temptations, like flies flying around in
front of your eyes against your will. The servant of Jesus Christ must
see to it that he is not so easily forced to withdraw from the face of
the Lord and to be annoyed, murmur and complain over the nuisance of a
single fly, that is, a trivial temptation, suspicion, sadness,
distraction, need or any such adversity, when they can all be put to
flight with no more than the hand of a good will directed up to God.
After all, through a good will a man has God as his defender, and the
holy angels as his guardians and protectors. What is more, any
temptation can be overcome by a good will too, like a fly driven away
from a bald head by one's hand. So peace is for men of good will.
Indeed we can offer God nothing more valuable than a good will, since a
good will in the soul is the source of all good things, and the mother
of all virtues. If any one is beginning to possess that good will, he
undoubtedly has what is necessary for leading a good life. For if you
want what is good, but cannot do it, God will make good the deed. For
it is in accordance with this eternal law that God has established with
irrevocable firmness that deserts should be a matter of the will,
whether in bliss or torment, reward or punishment. Love itself is a
great will to serve God, a sweet desire to please God, and a fervent
wish to experience God. What is more, to be tempted is not a sin, but
the opportunity for exercising virtue, so that temptation can be
greatly to a man's benefit, since it is held that the whole of a man's
life on earth is a testing. (Job 7.1)

Link here to read more of this little book from St. Albert of Jerusalem

Message From A Mom To Her Child

Message From A Mom To Her Child

I gave you life, but cannot live it for you.
I can give you directions, but I cannot be there to lead you.
I can take you to Church, but I cannot make you believe.
I can buy you beautiful clothes, but I cannot make you beautiful inside.
I can give you love, but I cannot force it upon you.
I can teach you to share, but I cannot make you unselfish.
I can teach you respect, but I cannot force you to show honor.
I can advise you about friends, but cannot choose them for you.
I can advise you about sex, but I cannot keep you pure.
I can tell you about alcohol and drugs, but I cannot say "no" for you.
I can tell you about loft goals, but I cannot achieve them for you.
I can teach you about kindness, but I cannot force you to be gracious.
I can pray for you, but I cannot make you walk with God.
I can tell you how to live, but I cannot give you eternal life.
I can love you with unconditional love all of my life... and I will.

Author Unknown

Cleaving To God: Part 10 of 16

That one should not be concerned about feeling tangible devotion so much as
about cleaving to God with one's will

Furthermore you should not be much concerned about tangible devotion,
the experience of sweetness or tears, but rather that you should be
mentally united with God within yourself by a good will in your
intellect. For what pleases God above everything is a mind free from
imaginations, that is images, ideas and the representations of created
things. It befits a monk to be indifferent to everything created so
that he can turn easily and barely to God alone within himself, be
empty for him and cleave to him. For this reason deny yourself so that
you can follow Christ, the Lord your God, in nakedness, who was himself
poor, obedient, chaste, humble and suffering, and in whose life and
death many were scandalised, as is clear from the Gospel accounts.
After all, a soul which is separated from the body pays no attention to
what is done to its abandoned body - whether it is burned, hanged, or
reviled, and is in no way saddened by the afflictions imposed on the
body, but thinks only of the Now of eternity and the One Thing which
the Lord calls necessary in the Gospel. So you too should treat your
body as if you were no longer in the body, but think always of the
eternity of your soul in God, and direct your thoughts carefully to
that One Thing of which Christ said, For one thing is necessary. (Luke
10.42) You will experience because of it great grace, helping you
towards the acquisition of nakedness of mind and simplicity of heart.
Indeed this One Thing is very much present with you if you have made
yourself bare of imaginations and all other entanglements, and you will
soon experience that this is so - namely when you can be empty and
cleave to God with a naked and resolute mind. In this way you will
remain unconquered in whatever may be inflicted on you, like the holy
martyrs, fathers, the elect, and indeed all the saints who despised
everything and only thought of their souls' security and eternity in
God. Armed in this way within, and united to God through a good will,
they spurned everything of the world as if their souls were already
separated from their bodies. Consider from this how much a good will
united with God is capable of, when by means of its pressing towards
God the soul is effectively separated from the body in spirit and looks
on its outward man as it were from a distance, and as not belonging to
it. In this way it despises everything that is inflicted on itself or
on its flesh as if they were happening to someone else, or not to a
human being at all. For He that is united with the Lord is one Spirit,
(1 Corinthians 6.17) that is with him. So you should never dare to
think or imagine anything before the Lord your God that you would blush
to be heard or seen in before men, since your respect for God should be
even greater than for them. It is a matter of justice in fact that all
your thoughts and thinking should be raised to God alone, and the
highest point of your mind should only be directed to him as if nothing
existed but him, and holding to him may enjoy the perfect beginning of
the life to come.

Wanting of the Sufferings of Christ

Colossians 1:24.
Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you and fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh, for his body, which is the church:


Ver. 24. And fill up those things....in my flesh for his body, which is the church.[5]
Nothing was wanting in the sufferings or merits of Christ, for a sufficient and
superabundant redemption of mankind, and therefore he adds, for his body, which is the
church, that his sufferings were wanting, and are to be endured by the example of Christ
by the faithful, who are members of a crucified head. See St. John Chrysostom and St.
Augustine. (Witham) --- Wanting. There is no want in the sufferings of Christ himself as
head; but many sufferings are still wanting, or are still to come in his body, the Church,
and his members, the faithful. (Challoner) --- St. John Chrysostom here observes that
Jesus Christ loves us so much, that he is not content merely to suffer in his own person,
but he wishes also to suffer in his members; and thus we fill up what is wanting of the sufferings of Christ. (St. John Chrysostom) --- The wisdom, the will, the justice of Jesus
Christ, requires and ordains that his body and members should be companions of
his sufferings, as they expect to be companions of his glory; that so suffering with him,
and after his example, they may apply to their own wants and to the necessities of others
the merits and satisfaction of Jesus Christ, which application is what is wanting, and
what we are permitted to supply by the sacraments and sacrifice of the new law.

Contemplation of God is to be preferred

On Cleaving to God
Part 9
Saint Albert of Jerusalem
How much the contemplation of God is to be preferred to all other exercises

Now since all things other than God are the effect and work of the Creator himself, their having ability and being is a limited power and existence, and being as they are created out of nothing, they are circumscribed by the effects of their nothingness, while their tendency of themselves towards nothingness means that we receive our existence,
preservation and activity moment by moment from the Creator himself, along with whatever other qualities created things may have, just as we receive their insufficiency to any action of themselves, both with regard to themselves and to others, in relation to him whose operation they are, they remain as a nothing before something which exists, and as something finite before what is infinite. For this reason let all our actual contemplation, life and activity take place in him alone, about him, for him and towards him who is able and capable to produce with a single nod of his will things infinitely more perfect than any that exist now. No contemplation and fruition of love, whether
intellectual or affective, is more useful, more perfect and more satisfying than that which is of God himself, the Creator, our supreme and true Good, from whom, through whom and to whom are all things. He is infinitely satisfying both to himself and to all others, who contains within himself in absolute simplicity and from all eternity
the perfection of all things, in whom there is nothing which is not himself, before whom and through whom remain the causes of all things impermanent, and in whom dwell the unchanging origins of all changing things, while even the eternal reasons of all temporal things, rational and irrational, abide in him. He brings everything to completion, and fills all things, in general and in particular, completely and essentially with himself. He is more intimately and more really present to everything by his being than each thing is to itself, for in him all things are united together, and live in him eternally. What is more, if someone, out of weakness or from lack of intellectual practice, is
detained longer in the contemplation of created things, this supreme, true and fruitful contemplation may still be seen as possible for mortal man, so that there may take place an upward leap in all his contemplations and meditations, whether about created things or the Creator, and the appreciation of God the Creator himself, the One and Three, may surge up within so that he come to burn with the fire of divine love and the true life in himself and in others, in such a way as to make him deserving of the joy of eternal life. Even in this one should bear in mind the difference between the contemplation of faithful Catholics and that of pagan philosophers, for the contemplation of the philosophers is for the perfection of the contemplator himself, and consequently it is confined to the intellect
and their aim in it is intellectual knowledge. But the contemplation of the Saints, and of Catholics, is for the love of him, that is of the God they are contemplating. As a result it is not confined in the final analysis to the intellect in knowledge, but crosses over into the will through love. That is why the Saints in their contemplation have the
love of God as their principal aim, since it is more satisfying to know and possess even the Lord Jesus Christ spiritually through grace than physically or even really but without grace. Furthermore, while the
soul is withdrawn from everything and is turned within, the eye of contemplation is opened and sets itself up a ladder by which it can pass to the contemplation of God. By this contemplation the soul is set on fire for eternal things by the heavenly and divine good things it experiences, and views all the things of time from a distance and as if they were nothing. Hence when we approach God by the way of negation, we first deny him everything that can be experienced by the body, the senses and the imagination, secondly even things experience able by the intellect, and finally even being itself in so far as it is found in created things. This, so far as the nature of the way is concerned, is the best means of union with God, according to Dionysius. And this is the cloud in which God is said to dwell, which Moses entered, and through this came to the inaccessible light. Certainly, it is not the spiritual which comes first, but the natural, (1 Corinthians 15.46) so one must proceed by the usual order of things, from active work to the quiet of contemplation, and from moral virtues to spiritual and contemplative realities. Finally, my soul, why are you uselessly
preoccupied with so many things, and always busy with them? Seek out and love the one supreme good, in which is all that is worth seeking, and that will be enough for you. Unhappy therefore is he who knows and possesses everything other than this, and does not know this. While if he knows everything as well as this, it is not from knowing them that he is better off but because of This. That is why John says, This is eternal life, to know Thee, etc. (John 17.3) and the prophet says, I will be satisfied when your glory becomes manifest. (Psalm 17.15)

Website Link on Saint Albert of Jerusalem

Commentary on The Cleansing of the Leper

8:2. And behold a leper came and adored him, saying: Lord,
if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.

8:3. And Jesus stretching forth his hand, touched him,
saying: I will, be thou made clean. And forthwith his
leprosy was cleansed.

8:4. And Jesus saith to him: See thou tell no man: but go,
shew thyself to the priest, and offer the gift which Moses
commanded, for a testimony unto them.

Ver. 2. As the three evangelists relate the cure of the leper in nearly the same
words, and with the same circumstances, we may conclude they speak of the same
miracles. St. Matthew alone seems to have observed the time and order of this
transaction, viz. after the sermon of the mount; the other two anticipate it. The Bible
de Vence seems to infer, from the connection St. Matthew makes between the
sermon of the mount and the cure of the leper, that it was not the same leper as that
mentioned, Mark i. 40. Luke v. 12. (Bible de Vence) --- Adored him. In St. Mark it is
said, kneeling down, chap. i. 40. In St. Luke, prostrating on his face. It is true, none
of these expressions do always signify the adoration or worship which is due to God
alone, as may appear by several examples in the Old and New Testament; yet this
man, by divine inspiration, might know our blessed Saviour to be both God and man.
(Witham) --- "Make me clean;" literally, "purify me;" the law treated lepers as impure.
(Bible de Vence) --- The leper, by thus addressing our Saviour acknowledges his
supreme power and authority, and shews his great faith and earnestness, falling on
his knees, as St. Luke relates it. (St. John Chrysostom, hom. xxvi.) Our prayer
should be such with great faith and confidence, qualified with profound humility, and
entire diffidence of self.

Ver. 3. Jesus, stretching forth his hand, touched him. By the law of Moses,
whosoever touched a leper, contracted a legal uncleanness: but not by touching in
order to heal him, says Theophylactus. Besides, Christ would teach them that he
was not subject to this law. (Witham) --- "Touched him." To shew, says St. Cyprian,
that his body being united to the Divinity, had the power of healing and giving life.
Also to shew that the old law, which forbad the touching of lepers, had no power over
him; and that so far from being defiled by touching him, he even cleansed him who
was defiled with it. (St. Ambrose) --- When the apostles healed the lame man, they
did not attribute it to their own power, but said to the Jews: Why do you wonder at
this? But when our Saviour heals the leper, stretching out his hand, to shew he was
going to act of his own power, and independently of the law, he said: "I will. Be thou
clean;" to evince that the cure was effected by the operation of his own divine will.
(St. John Chrysostom, hom. xxvi.)

Ver. 4. For a testimony to them. That is, when the priest finds thee truly cured, make
that offering which is ordained in the law. (Witham) --- He did this to give us an
example of humility, and that the priests, by approving of his miracle, and being
made witnesses to it, might be inexcusable, if they can still call him a transgressor
of the law, and prevaricator. He moreover gives this public testimony to them of his
divine origin. (St. John Chrysostom, hom. xxvi.) St. John Chrysostom, in his third
book on the priesthood, says: "the priests of the old law had authority and privilege
only to discern who were healed of leprosy, and to denounce the same to the people;
but the priests of the new law have power to purify, in very deed, the filth of the soul.
Therefore, whoever despiseth them, is more worthy to be punished than the rebel
Dathan and his accomplices." Our Saviour willeth him to go and offer his gift or
sacrifice, according as Moses prescribed in that case, because the other sacrifice,
being the holiest of all holies, viz. his body, was not yet begun. (St. Augustine, lib. ii. &
Evang. ii. 3. & cont. adver. leg. & Proph. lib. i. chap. 19, 20.)

May we pray for the Great Faith and confidence in Our Lord as the Leper shows us in today's Gospel Reading From Matthew. Jesus is the supreme and Divine Healer of Our Souls if only we step out and ask him.
Lord, if thou wilt you thou can make me clean. And Jesus does will it for each of us. So be bold and courageous in Faith.