When considering our resolutions for a new year, I pray many of us leave room on our list for upgrading our spiritual health. As we begin to think about what we would like to work toward in these next twelve months, I encourage you with the words of a Franciscan monk:
If you feel the call of the Spirit, then be holy with all your soul, with all your heart, and with all your strength.
If, however, because of human weakness you cannot be holy, then be perfect with all your soul, with all your heart, and with all your strength.
But, if you cannot be perfect because of vanity in your life, then be good with all your soul, with all your heart, and with all your strength.
Yet, if you cannot be good because of the trickery of the Evil One, then be wise with all your soul, with all your heart, and with all your strength.
If, in the end, you can be neither holy, nor perfect, nor good, nor wise because of the weight of your sins, then carry this weight before God and surrender your life to His divine mercy.
If you do this, without bitterness, with all humility, and with a joyous spirit due to the tenderness of a God who loves the sinful and ungrateful, then you will begin to feel what it is to be wise, you will learn what it is to be good, you will slowly aspire to be perfect, and finally you will long to be holy.
If you do all this, with all your soul, with all your heart, and with all your strength, then I assure you, my brother, you will be on the path of Saint Francis, you will not be far from the Kingdom of God.
~ A Franciscan Monk
A Blessed New Year to you and yours!
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