4:50 am. I lie awake, tired and questioning.<\/p>\n
Is this headache enough for me to just go back to sleep?<\/em><\/p>\n 5 drowsy minutes slip by.<\/p>\n Lord, is it Your will that I get up anyway?<\/em><\/p>\n Silence. Though I do get the ever-so-slight feeling that I should just get up and go, I question if it’s His Will. After a struggle, I tell myself I can take a nap later, and I’m up.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In a few minutes I’m before the Tabernacle for my Holy Hour. There are no emotional consolations today, I just push through a low-grade suffering of sorts. Questioning. Trusting.<\/p>\n The reflection in the Magnificat is from Fr. Donald Haggerty: “God shows His infinite love in the crucifixion of Jesus, the hours of that dark day at Calvary, and once again in His concealed sacramental presence in the Eucharist. Drawing closer to God will always demand the search for Him…on our knees before the tabernacle. His gaze is upon us from a tabernacle.”<\/p>\n This morning, we suffer together. He is alone, again, His divinity cloaked and ignored in the silence of the Eucharist..but now I am with Him, and He with me.<\/p>\n Though we are together, I struggle to pray. To listen. I push myself to love like He loves, by being with<\/em> Him.\u00a0St. Isidore of Seville said “when we pray, we talk to God; when we read, God talks to us.” So I read. And God speaks.<\/p>\n “Those who trust in Him will never be forsaken. Don\u2019t turn in on yourself. In the midst of trials, just place your confidence in our Supreme Good, in the knowledge that He takes more care of us than a mother takes of her child…Take courage, then, I repeat, and have courage at all times. Remember, the lot of chosen souls is to suffer. God has decreed that glory will be ours on condition that<\/em> we endure suffering with a Christian spirit. So, let us lift up our hearts full of confidence in God alone…Pray, hope and don\u2019t worry. Worry is useless. God is merciful and He will hear your prayer.”\u00a0 – Saint Padre Pio<\/p>\n Father, since suffering is what you offer, I accept it. And I offer it back to You, as a gift.<\/em><\/p>\n Just last night I had read about St. John Masias. His prayers were followed by literal miracles, from healings to people raised from the dead. But it wasn’t the miraculous which caught my attention – it was his humble offering of penances. He offered them for his spiritually-blind brothers and sisters who were too lost, lazy or thoughtless to offer them for their own sins. In his charity, he did for them what they desperately needed.<\/p>\n It’s still dark as I drive away from the church. That still, silent voice encourages me to listen to Lauren Daigle\u2019s song Rescue<\/em>. There is something about her voice that pierces my soul. It bypasses my intellect and goes straight to my heart. Notice how she dresses in black and in white, for God works both in darkness and in light:<\/p>\n