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I have a new book "Living Happily Jesus' Hidden Life - The spirituality of Charles de Foucauld in Light of the Beatitudes" The book is about the extraordinary spiritual journey of Blessed Charles de Foucauld, who found Joy and Happiness in the hidden life of Jesus as a way to holiness. The book is available from Amazon
Dear friends,Thank you for stopping on this page and to spend some times in reading these words I have written. A few years ago, I had the chance to marry a young man and a young woman who were fully in love with another. Like any couple, they had a lot of expectations for their new family, their life together as husband and wife, and their future.Socially speaking, they had a decent life thanks to the wonderful jobs they both had because of the studies done in the past. If I could use the terminology in vogue, I would say that they were successful.However, in spite, of their relative success, they were not in peace with themselves, because something was missing in their life. In fact, after a couple of years spent together, they did not conceive any a child. They desperately wanted to have one, but unfortunately, the chance was not on their side.This unsatisfied desire arose in them fear and doubt about their faith in Jesus Christ. They started wondering whether the promises God made in the Bible to cover his people with many blessings were limited only to that epoch or they transcended time and space in order to be the patrimony of all the nations and all the peoples of the believers throughout the world. ….I do not want to pursue indefinitely the story of this couple as though my intention in writing was just to tell you what happened to them in their quest and need. What I want to say is just that may be, like that couple, you, too, have problems to which you want to find an immediate solution, but without success.Like that couple, you certainly feel sometimes disappointed as your plan and projects of life remain unfulfilled as though the wind was against you.To you I write these words in order to bring you hope and peace. There is no doubt that we are the people who await the fulfillment of God’s promise of blessing upon us (Numbers 6: 22-27). But we do not know when, how and in which particular circumstance it will be fulfilled.As human beings, we face the uncertainty of tomorrow, but it is an uncertainty that is full of hope that God cares for our welfare (Jeremiah 29: 11). To know that God cares for our welfare gives us peace at the knowledge that even though our plans are not fulfilled today, God knows what lies before us and he can turn everything for our good (Romans 8: 28).Moreover, spiritual experience teaches that if God does not open us a door, he might open us a window. Opening a door or a window might be destined to the same goal, namely the fulfillment of God’s plan upon us.Of course, there is a difference between a door and a window, because if one or another is open, the amount of air that enters is proportionate to the space that is given to it. But, who would be unhappy to have even a small air entering a room where people suffocate? After all, does not God know what is best for us?This time of ours on earth is a time of waiting the fulfillment of God’s blessings upon us. What we need in the awaiting is patience, perseverance and prayer. We need patience, because God’s ways are not our ways nor are his thoughts our thoughts (Isaiah 58: 8-9). We may want everything to be resolved right away, but God might have a better plan than what we have conceived.We need perseverance, because only those who persevere can come to the fulfillment of their enterprise (Romans 12: 12). We need prayer, because this silent action is more sufficient than all the constraints we can impose on ourselves in order to succeed without God’s help. After all, to have faith in God is to put all the events of our life, past, present and future, into God’s hands and to hope for his consolation in due time.
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