Giving My Day to God
I am reading a book called Immigrant Saint: The Life of Mother Cabrini. Born Francesca Cabrini in Italy, she founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. She was the first US citizen to be canonized as a saint.
The heart of this woman was simply amazing. From a very young age, even though quite sickly, she wanted to be a Missionary. Her Uncle inspired her with his stories of China and the people there who did not know God. She fell in love with Jesus and everything was done for Him.
When there were many setbacks of even joining a nunnery, rejected by many due to her health, she forged on still caring for the poor and orphaned in Lombardy, Italy, where she lived.
If anyone asked for help, if at all possible, she was there. She was asked to help for a week to be a replacement schoolteacher and ended up being at the school for 2 years – loving and instructing the children in the ways of God.
Then the Bishop asked her to help at an orphanage called The House of Providence, where the orphans were being treated very badly. The neglect there brought tears to her eyes and a determination to change things.
Tondini was the lady who owned the orphanage. She berated Francesca for coming to work there. One of the bolder orphans asked Francesca, “Has Tondini frightened you away from us?” Francesca’s reply was, “Children, this shall be my home with you.”
The orphans came bashfully around her. Their undernourished faces were all eager with friendly eyes. They were new rays of His love that instantly lighted her heart and she smiled. “I, Francesca, tell you, you are not abandoned of parents. God’s Son is now your Father, and you shall be as daughters of mine in Spirit.” The eldest orphan impulsively threw her arms around her. (Di Donato, Pietro and Joseph Pizzardo, Immigrant Saint: The Life of Mother Cabrini, Literary Licensing, 2011, 29.)
Francesca saw everything in life in relation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Slowly but surely, Francesca acquired soap and balm for the children so as to bring His mercy and remove the torments of their bodies, wash their feet, anoint their heads with fragrant ointments and lead them sparklingly clean into the temple. (Immigrant Saint, 31.)
Tondini berated Cabrini unmercifully.
Francesca would bow her head. In those ugly moments the orphans would turn their heads and weep for her. Her reward came at night in the bedroom with the girls. She told them, “Remember always in your work and study and play and dreams that you are His beloved children. You are the flowers He gave to me.”
Big Salesia could not help letting loose the store of her wrath against Tondini. “I am keeping score of the beatings. Before I leave this place, I will repay beating for beating and with interest.”
Francesca set the example of pacification. “Salesia not their way but HIS Way. We must return darkness with light, epithets with forgiveness and prayer. His gifts were not meant to be cast away by strife. Love is time, love is space, love is forever and He is love.”
For Francesca who could never find enough time to devote to undistracted adoration, constructive action became itself a form of prayer. She conveyed to the girls in her care her conviction that work, undertaken in love of Him, was a kind of worship. (Immigrant Saint, 32.)
St Cabrini has inspired me to give my whole day more to the Lord. To work for the Lord. Of course, if at all possible, to take time to sit and adore Him, to spend time with Him, devoted just to Him. If it’s not possible due to caring 24/7 for the ill, the elderly, the disabled, or working nonstop (except when sleeping) for the family or whatever the reason to then give my work to Him and “acknowledge Him in all my ways and pray that they become His ways.”
So often Francesca would stop momentarily caring for a sick child and send a prayer up to the Lord offering her heart more to His and also ask Him “What is your heart saying to me in this situation?
So, I asked myself, “Do I acknowledge Him in all my ways? Do I recognize God’s authority in every area of my life – work, relationships, decisions I make, money I spend? And do I not rely on personal understanding but give Him myself and trust in Him guiding my life’s direction?”
In all your ways acknowledge him,
Proverbs 3:6 NRSV
and he will make straight your paths.
This scripture comes up so often in my life. I’m sure that’s because I want to give God all of me but so often I take areas back into my control.
Are you like me?
We definitely all still need Our Saviour!
As the Lenten season comes to the culmination of the Death and Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ I’m asking for God’s grace to fall upon me more so I can truly give my life over to Him in all areas.
May these jottings from my journal inspire you to believe in and fall in love with Christ- the hope of the world, as stated in Jeremiah 17:7, ‘Blessed is the man who believes and trusts in and relies on the Lord and whose hope and confident expectation is the Lord!’
Love
Rosemary
Every week groups of ladies meet together to chat about the things I raise in my weekly blog post and to chat about life in general. We call these ‘Heart Connect’ groups.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Do you give God every area of your life? Or do you take some areas back?
What area of your life do you most need to give over to God?
How do you think you can do this?