St. Monica, the mother of St. Augustine, appears in his Confessions as grace personified. She is patient, yet persistent; loving, yet relentlessly pursuing him.
She is the patron of parents who pray for the conversion of their children, or I would say anyone who prays for someone to turn their lives around, and she is also the patron of anyone who prays patiently without seeing an answer to their prayers for a long time.
In my own prayer time in the mornings, I've been reading the autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux. She makes a very interesting observation - one of those that we kind of instinctively know, but often miss because we don't think about it. She says that in the Old Testament, the commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself (and Jesus does repeat that early in his ministry). But Jesus - as he often does - takes it to the next level. Not just to love your neighbor as you love yourself - but to love your neighbor as God loves your neighbor - even to the point of praying for blessings on your enemies, those who cause you to suffer. So, to summarize:
Moses: Love your neighbor like you love yourself
Jesus: Love your neighbor like I love your neighbor
That's another whole level of loving one's neighbor.
Dear friends - Please take 10 minutes to watch this personal update from me:
I mentioned in The Journey that I wrote a song based on Isaiah 2, which is one of my favorite OT passages:
In days to come, the mountain of the Lord’s house
shall be established as the highest mountain, and raised above the hills.
All nations shall stream toward it. Many peoples shall come and say:
“Come, let us go up to the Lord’s mountain, to the house of the God of Jacob, That he may instruct us in his ways, and we may walk in his paths.” For from Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between the nations, and set terms for many peoples.
They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; One nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again. House of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!
I hope you like the song!
I hope to have another installment of THE JOURNEY up this Saturday - here's the text for the rest of the chapter - I didn't bother with the colored text since this is all from the Gospel of John.
