| Dear Apostles of the Living Rosary,The man behind the scenes of this beautiful website and your weekly newsflashes is Richard Fox, our webmaster. What a tireless and dedicated job he does for us! Richard has been diagnosed with a calcified aortic heart valve and he is facing open-heart surgery in the near future. His first thought is not the surgery but to keep our weekly newsflashes going out to you. He is going to try.
Please keep Richard in your fervent prayers. We will let you know when the surgery is scheduled and how he progresses. We all realize that any surgery is major and one must not only prepare for the surgery, but for death. Please pray for Richard that the surgeon’s hands will be guided by Our Lady and he will recover without complication. God bless you, Richard! We love you! |
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| SHELTERING THE DIVINE OUTCAST (continued)IV. TRUTH
Truth is the Spirit of God in possession of our souls. This seems strange counsel for us to offer to ourselves. We feel that it is something of an insult to urge ourselves to the practice of truth. We are willing to hear about suffering, humiliation, detachment and penance, but truth is a delicate matter. Each one of us believes that we possess it. And, we do possess fragments of it, but not one of us is perfectly true. Truth must be nourished and cherished, because it is upon truth that our spiritual and moral life is built. If truth be our goal, there is much in life that must be ignored and must be sacrificed. If truth is to reign in all of the avenues of our activities, then there are many things which must not be sought, which must not be fostered and which must not be done. Our sense of self-preservation is an endowment from God. It is a great gift but, when over-cultivated, it can easily betray us into falsehood. Fear, prejudice and favoritism are influences that tend to distort the truth. As human beings, we fear humiliation. We are prejudiced against those who deprive us of glory. We favor those who cater to our pride. We cannot fail in charity to the slightest degree without failing against truth. Even if what we say is true and we fail against charity, we are being untrue to the person of whom we speak. Even if what we do is an indifferent act, but by doing it, we deprive another of a fraction of his/her rights, we are not being true. We should be able to look everyone in the face, while acknowledging to all that we have been fair and true to all. We are seeking to weave for ourselves the garment of light, and this is none other than the Spirit of Truth, the Divine Guest of our soul. Do we feel discouraged at the sight of so gigantic a task? We need not be cast down. Fear must not enter the lives of those who are sincere with God. He is with us always – all we must do is turn to Him, for He abides within us. Our lives are spent with Him and, thus, in close companionship with Truth, we grow sensitive to discord and to all that rings false. Our lives become true. Our thoughts become true. Our words and our actions have a directness and a singleness that inspire confidence and trust. It is not always easy to be true. Truth is infinite, entailing sacrifice. The Spirit of Truth, abiding within us, will teach us the art of being true. It is our desire to be worthy of God’s trust, and our prayer to be souls of fidelity, upon whom He can always rely. It is our aim to be among those who, with singleness of purpose, seek God and His Holy Will. It is a great happiness to be worthy of trust. To live in such a manner as to merit trust is all that God asks of us. Only He can reveal the truth to us in its vastness, its depth, its breadth and its height. Only He can teach us and give us the courage to live a life of honor, sincerity, and faithfulness. |
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