The Best that I can do

Lovely passage from St Bernard (his feast day is today) in the Office of Readings.  First he says that of course the creature’s love for God is less than God’s love for the creature.  But then he observes that ‘if she [the creature] loves with her whole being, nothing is lacking where everything is given.’  So if my efforts to love and serve the Lord sometimes seem pitifully inadequate to me, that does not matter at all, if those efforts represent the best that I can do.  What the Good Lord asks of me is for me to offer my whole heart to Him, warts and all.  One thing I have learned in Carmel however is that the offering is not a one-off deal but a continual process in which I gradually give more and more as, day by day, I learn to detach myself from all that keeps me away from Him.

Intercessions:

Cancer: Brian Davis, Marie, Bernard (and wife Angela caring for him), Jacqui, Sue B, Theresa K, Fr Jon

Siena, Elara – sick children

Wojtek – massive heart attack leaving him incapacitated

David OCDS - housebound

Sophia – blind infant

Joy Smith OCDS – seriously ill

Grace – troubling ailments, job difficulties, family (deceased mother and health of father)