from Pope St. John Paul II - Message for World Youth Day XVI, 2001, par. 4
Reflection:
Lately, I've been dealing with a lot of anxiety because I have either lost a sense of trusting in God or have forgotten what that trusting in God feels like. I have this tendency to establish a plan for my life, and whenever these plans are not accomplished, it causes me to be anxious. To further compound the anxiety is my pride and inward-looking self.
Trusting in God. That's difficult. Especially in trusting Him enough that He will, in fact, take care of me. Jesus tells the disciples
Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat, nor about your body, what you shall put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have a neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds!A big part of trusting in God is to let His will be done. Whatever His will is...infinitely better than anything I can come up with. In fact, I need to deny myself and be open to His plan. As St. John Paul II says
To deny oneself is to give up one's own plans that are often small and petty in order to accept God's plan.
Jesus does not ask us to give up living, but to accept a newness and a fullness of life that only He can give. The human being has a deep-rooted tendency to 'think only of self,' to regard one's own person as the center of interest and to see oneself as the standard against which to gauge everything.I'm not the standard. Who cares what I desire to happen? What matters is that His will be done and not mine. There is peace in that because by living out His will, I am being who He created me to be.
Response:
I cannot think of anyone more trusting of God than Mary. She went through a lot in raising Jesus and being present during His Passion and death.
Because I know she is so trusting, I entrust to her my anxieties.
Totus tuus,
- JD
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