Daily Thought For October 14, 2021

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 Prayer & The Grace of Surrender

“It can happen that the opportunity for a great offering to our Lord coincides with a time of great personal pain. ...Unique to each life, that day may come with no preparation, not at all anticipated.  ...And yet this juncture in time, in God’s vision and plan, is not for sadness and pain, but rather invites a different understanding of God, and perhaps a contemplative turn in life. ...A sacrificial act of offering must take place, more serious than any other renunciation we have made in our lives.  It is a profound offering to God of what he has taken from us, holding back nothing, uniting ourselves now to his choice, even as this act may cost much in tears.  ‘Yes, Lord, this, too, indeed everything you have asked, I offer to you.’  This act repeated possibly for many days subsequently may be decisive for all subsequent relations with God.  The essential truth of sacrifice as an outpouring - a bloodletting of the heart, an immolation of soul - will reveal itself, and it must be recognized for what it truly is: an entry into the heart of God.  All prayer, all sense of God’s immediate presence in one’s life, changes as a result.  It can be why some souls discover a deeper intimacy with God only later in life, but when they do so it is a profound shift in their awareness of the soul’s relations with God in prayer.” 

(Fr. Donald Haggerty, October 2021 Magnificat for 10-10-21, p. 155-156.)


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