March 22: Preparing to Celebrate Sunday’s Mass

Do we appreciate the fact that every single experience we have is a sign of God’s love? If we are showered with blessings – spiritual, emotional or material – they are given so that we may share them with others, so that we may become channels of God’s love to others. If we are struck down with disaster, disease, pain or failure, it is again a message for us to seek and find in those moments the presence of a loving God. Paradoxically, it is often through difficult experiences that we can grow better and come closer to God and others. For example, injury or serious illness can draw out of us or our relatives and friends extraordinary depths of compassion and care.
So, on the one hand, we need to realize that God always and everywhere loves us. But His love is only fully completed in us when we become genuinely loving and caring people, those who love both God and others in word and action.
There is no need for us ever to be afraid of God. He will never directly punish us or the world around us. But we do have the choice to be drawn closer to Him, to experience the love with which He is reaching out to us, and to open ourselves to that love – or to go our own way, separate ourselves from Him, and wallow in the hardships and pains of life. The choice is up to us. God’s love is there for the taking. What are we waiting for?