A Quote for the Day

When people start looking for excuses, they also begin missing the solutions. Because each time we find an excuse, we also miss an option. And an excuse is never a solution.

Perhaps the greatest pain in love is losing the person loved to death or to the memory of that love. People we love may die or their love for us dies. Either way this imparts a sort of death that wounds the heart that loves. The wounds can bleed and fester through life. Only a love that loves without expecting to be loved in return can heal its own wounds. Selfless love survives loss because it heals itself. The reason it exists is only to love, nothing more, and death has no power over it.

What the rich have difficulty of doing, but the poor are forced by life circumstances to do, is this--surrendering one's future into the hands of God, and not on one's own personal power and resources. This is something the rich finds very difficult to understand; but the poor understands very well. This is the gift of poverty, the reason why it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of the needle than for the rich to enter the Kingdom. Still God provides the needed graces to both, enough to bring them salvation should they respond with love to God and surrender to His Will.

Because of the inherent need for every person to work for his own keep, we tend to think that the effort we give for the return we make constitutes rewards for our labors. We forget that everything we receive even through our own labor is a mere giftss, a blessing from God who provided for everything we need. All things that contribute to the receipt of that gift take specific roles in ensuring that the gift is received. Such efficiency of divine grace is wonderful to reflect upon, and thank God for.

Love is more beautiful when given to imperfect people. [Photo by Jeff Kolker; courtesty of Fine Art America ]

If God can put up with you, you have no excuse not to put up with other people, even with your enemies. If you have so much against your enemies, God has infinitely more against you.

Our life reflects the mystery in God. Adam and Eve started messing it up. And Jesus called Judas "friend." Jesus called Peter "Satan." And Peter ran away from the Lord, The Apostles too, except for John. Jesus appointed a thief to meet Him in paradise. Stephen died, his blood in the hands of Saul. And Saul, the persecutor, became the Gentile peoples' Apostle. So the Christians died in the claws of beasts, in blades of Roman swords as well. And you think that this life we live will be a picnic. [ Life Is No Picnic , by Zosimo Literatus]