Saturday, April 22, 2017

Morning offering

WHAT a difference a small act can do! I am referring to
that practice of making a morning offering as soon as we get up from
bed in the morning. It’s what saints and many other people have been
doing to set the proper human and supernatural tone to their daily
affairs, giving them a sense of direction and purpose for the day.
  
            It’s usually done by greeting God as soon as one wakes up.
The effort to give the first thought of the day to God is all
worthwhile since it corresponds to the fundamental reality that our
life is always, from beginning to end, a shared life with God, our
Father, Creator, Savior, Sanctifier, yes, our everything.

             Our life, of course, can be described in many, endless
ways. It's a shared life with God. It's a life in the Spirit, a life
of grace. It's a participation in the intimate Trinitarian life of
God. But we have to remember that we have been created in love and for
love, and that love should be the basic governing principle of our
life.
  
            In other words, our life has to mirror the life of God
himself, whose image and likeness we are. Since God is love, is
self-giving, then we too have to live in love and in self-giving.

             That means giving ourselves to God and to others. That's
what an offering is, what a gift is. It has to be given away freely,
because as our Christian faith tells us, it's when we give that we
receive, when we lose that we win, when we suffer that we gain in
glory.

             It's a mysterious law, spiritual and supernatural, that
goes way beyond our natural understanding of things, or our common
sense. But that's how it is. We need to live by that law, because
outside of it, we expose ourselves to danger, to harm and to our own
destruction.
  
            In fact, given the temper of the times when we are almost
systematically subjected to pressures and challenges, to moments of
thrill and sadness, we need to have a very clear grasp of this basic
law, otherwise we would just be lost. We have a greater need now to
develop and maintain a supernatural outlook in life.
  
            After greeting God, which we can do by saying ‘Serviam’ (I
will serve), for example, we can start going through the expected
different events of the day that we are going to have.
  
            We can start figuring out how we can offer each event,
each concern, project, etc., to God. We can start figuring out how we
can sanctify them and how they can produce apostolic fruits, since all
these things are not meant to be tackled technically only. They are
actually occasions to develop our love for God and for others.

             In this way, we can start the day on the right foot. We
would be less prone to getting distracted, and much less, confused and
lost, and in the words of St. Paul, “tossed to and fro, and carried
about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning
craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive.” (Eph 4,14)

             We have to devise plans and strategies to keep our
supernatural bearing all throughout the day. Thus, the initial
offering we make as we wake up in the morning ought to be renewed
frequently as the day progresses. We have need for different acts of
piety, spread in the different parts of the day, to keep ourselves
going spiritually and supernaturally.
  
            It would be great if we can encourage everyone to develop
this habit of making morning offerings.


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