An Offering

While I was Honduras, my Aunt Rita used to send me care packages with old cards the missions sent her. We would cut the front off the cards and make birthday cards for our neighbor or create craft projects with the kids. Once we made fans by gluing two card to a jumbo popsicle stick and cutting the edges out with funky scissors. What a hit!

She would always include holy cards in the packages too, and as often the prayers were in English, I used to keep many of them for myself.

One in particular really spoke to me, and still turn to it most mornings.

An Offering of Self

Oh Lord,

May my soul be flooded with your light

And know you more and more profoundly!

Lord,

Give me so much love,

Love forever, serene and generous,

That I will be united with you always!

Lord,

Let me serve you

And serve you will,

On the pathways that you wish

To open to my existence here below.

~Pope John Paul II

I love this prayer. Pope John Paul seems to identify not only our need for God’s graces, but more importantly our roll in living our own lives….to know, love, and serve. The temptation for me, and many, is to wonder WHY God isn’t “holding up to his end of the bargain,” if you will. “He’s all powerful….why can’t he find me a job, help me not to sin, fix these problems in my friends lives, make it easier- doesn’t he know I’m trying???, yada, yada, yada.” It is as if we want God to be a cool babysitter who will make everything ok. But God is a loving parent, who sometimes needs to shower us with tough love to help us learn. He gives us the grace we need, the skills to be successful, the example to follow both from His life on earth and from those around us, then sends us out into the word to “get ‘er done!”

Sometimes I look at my life and get frustrated by how much good still needs done. But if I focus on each day, each can be a masterpiece, and my life will be what I want it to be. And what God needs it to be.

Happy World Day of Prayer. What are you praying about today?