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The support of friends, especially in times of crisis, is vital to helping us through the emotions that flood and fuel our hearts. They will help us see clearly enough to move through mourning, provide lighter moments, too, especially if we might seem to teeter on the edge of truly losing hope. They will be the personification of God’s unconditional love and help us find even greater spiritual depth.
In the beginning, God made a garden, rich with compost and humus, a black loam that smelled of dawn. Seeds began sprouting in this soil; trees’ roots wound deep within it as their branches reached toward the sun; grass, clover, and forbs of every kind spread over the earth in a green and golden carpet. God took some of this dirt, made muddy with dew, and formed a creature from it—a body of soil. Bending down, God breathed spirit, animus, into the earth so that it became an animal—a living thing.
There are so many needy people who hunger—but not for bread, they have plenty of bread—but for God! Go there, to tell this truth: Jesus Christ is the Lord and he saves you. But always go and touch the flesh of Christ! The Gospel cannot be preached purely intellectually: the Gospel is truth but it is also love and it is also beauty! And this is truly the joy of the Gospel!
Importantly, the cross does not have the last word. His resurrection does. Without the resurrection, the cross would be a seal of failure. Instead the cross is a sign of victory.
– from Meeting God in the Upper Room: Three Moments to Change Your Life
Suffering gives you the opportunity to grow. Your trials give you a gift: the opportunity to become the person you always wanted to become. A holier person. A more patient person. A person who endures. A person who is kinder. A person who is more merciful.
– from When You Suffer
The resurrection of Jesus is not simply a pledge of a new life in the future, but rather an affirmation that the new life Jesus has promised has already begun. St. Paul once urged the new Christians in Corinth to allow God to be “everything in all of you.” The resurrection of Jesus shows the type of life toward which God’s grace and mercy will always lead each of us—if we allow that.
As the darkness of Good Friday gives way to the jubilant “Alleluia” of Easter, we profess our faith with all the joy of St. Thomas in seeing the Risen Lord. “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28).
– from Meeting God in the Upper Room: Three Moments to Change Your Life
