DAILY MEDITATION (SUNDAY, JANUARY 24)
MEDITATION OF THE DAY
Fishers of Men
Inasmuch as I advance, sustained by God, in the way that he has indicated for me, my duty is increasingly clear to me. It is important not to lose myself in unrealizable plans and projects, not to live in the future, but patiently to turn thought into action, good will into determination. I have had much conversation and discussion with some dear friends who do not believe…. There is a veil between them and God, a veil that allows only a few rays of love and beauty through. Only God, with a divine gesture, may part this veil, and then the true life shall begin for them. And I, who am worth so little, believe in the power of prayers that I unceasingly offer for them. I believe in prayer because God exists, and because he is the Father. I believe in this mysterious reality that we call the communion of saints. I know that no cry, no desire, no yearning of our inmost depths is lost, but all go to God and through him to those who inspired us to pray. I know that only God effects our intimate transformation and that we can only point out to him those we love, saying, “God, make them live.”…
Christianity alone addresses the individual, that which is most interior; it alone penetrates to our depths and is able to renew us. All Christians are obliged to be concerned about this crisis through which we are passing. This will perhaps change us profoundly. New needs require new apostles. The people—the masses, the majority of the country, those workers, peasants, and humble laborers of every kind—need to be shown the true source of all freedom, justice, and real transformation. If we do not make God known to them, we shall have failed in our most important obligation. But this is a work that demands self-forgetfulness, disinterestedness, a steady determination for which we need God and for which we must completely transform ourselves.
Servant of God Elisabeth Leseur
Elisabeth Leseur († 1914) was a French married laywoman whose cause for canonization is underway. / From Elisabeth Leseur: Selected Writings, edited, translated, and introduced by Janet K. Ruffing, r.s.m. © 2005, Janet K. Ruffing, r.s.m., Paulist Press, Inc., New York/Mahwah, NJ. Used with permission.
