Ave Maria Meditations
“Do not let your hearts be troubled”
We must live fully each day, accepting joyously and thankfully the thousand blessings that the good Lord showers on each of us. We must gain strength through joy and not the joy that dissipates or that intoxicates or that takes us out of ourselves. I mean the joy which is love, with which we recognize unmistakably the echo, the trace of God in everything that happens.
Try to get into the habit of always giving thanks to God; and you will see what strength and vitality this habit will give your soul. Instead of being buried under the mountains of our difficulties, let us try to find the small window toward the Infinite and then nobody, nothing, will ever be able to imprison us.
What is more beneficial, at a time when suffering is great, than to repose in the contemplation of something beautiful, even if it is merely a ray of sunshine setting a nasturtium aflame. Let us learn to be less superficial, less prone to complain and to see the bad side of things; and we shall discover unsuspected treasures. And little by little, this splendid thing will happen: we will be able to say, like Saint Paul, “Nothing can separate me from the love of Christ neither hunger nor prison nor death…”
But to achieve this state we must begin by wanting it a little, by emerging from personal preoccupations, in order to discover that there is someone else continually concerned with us, who will save us in spite of everything.
+ Mother Marie Des Douleurs
