Tuesday, November 13, 2012

St Frances Xavier Cabrini

[Jesus Christ] sacrificed himself for us in order to set us free from all wickedness and to purify a people so that it could be his very own and would have no ambition except to do good.
                                                         Titus 2: 14

If you trust in the Lord and do good,
 then you will live in the land and be secure.
If you find your delight in the Lord,
 he will grant your heart's desire.
                                                        Psalm 37 [36]: 3-4

.           .          .

'...no ambition except to do good.'

I suppose it is no accident that this passage from Titus is set for today, when we remember St Frances Xavier Cabrini: her only ambition seems to have been precisely that. And her life shows the fruitfulness of that ambition. Refused admittance to two different convents, she persevered and ended by founding her own order. The desire to do good is born in a heart that delights in God, and it is just the sort of desire that the Lord grants.

My ambitions, I fear, are multiple and varied. Not that I am a particularly ambitious person, really. It's just that my to-do list (a bucket list, you might call it) consists of the things I'd like to accomplish, rather than being a catalogue of the ways I hope 'to do good.' Maybe I have it backwards. Maybe I ought to set my heart on doing good, of seeking the good works the Lord has prepared, that I might walk in them, rather than allowing my interests to lead and hoping that some good comes of what I choose to do.

To do that, I think, will require more grace. Fortunately the supply of that is endless.

Deo gratias.

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