WEDNESDAY OF THE TWENTY-FIRST WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

-From Christ Is Alive! by Pope Francis

For God, you have worth; you are not insignificant. You are important to him for you are the work of his hands. That is why he is concerned about you and looks to you with affection. Trust in the memory of God: his memory is not a hard disk that saves and archives all our data. His memory is a heart filled with tender compassion, one that finds joy in deleting from us every trace of evil. He does not keep track of your failings and he always helps you learn something even from your mistakes. Because God loves you. Try to keep still for a moment and let yourself feel his love. Try to silence all that the noise within, and rest for a second in his loving embrace. His is a love that does not overwhelm or oppress, cast aside or reduce to silence, humiliate or domineer. It is the love of the Lord, a daily, discreet and respectful love; a love that is free and freeing, a love that heals and raises up. The love of the Lord has to do more with raising up than knocking down, with reconciling than forbidding, with offering new changes than condemning, with the future than the past.

Father Bill +