Jesus has forewarned us that anyone who exalts himself will be humbled and anyone who humbles himself will be exalted. To climb this ladder of humility to Heaven takes discipline. We must be patient and persevere quietly through all afflictions.
In our dying breath Jesus won’t ask our rationale for any of our poor choices. He will ask:
“Why were you willing to risk losing Me for eternity?
Each year around this time I start planning for Lent. What shall I give up? What shall I take on? Continually grasping to worldly things to console emotions and appease passions is self-punishing: we punish ourselves by stepping away from His grace. Jesus is the remedy.
Reflecting upon my new year’s resolutions, I realized one is missing: giving up the ‘baggage’ from my past.
Jesus is perspective-bending. People ‘don’t know what they don’t know”; since no other perspective but our own makes sense to us, we have difficulty even acknowledging that another way of seeing exists.
On the Feast of the Transfiguration, we are reminded to listen to Him. The daily Ignatian Examen prayer gives us an opportunity to learn His voice and recognize it in the small stuff of our life.