Living by the Cross

This weekend I attended a Women's Cornerstone retreat at St. Monica's parish in Santa Monica.  The retreat was open to women of all ages (18 to 118) and after hearing numerous witness talks, engaging in small group discussions and going to confession and mass with 80 other "Beautiful Spirits" (the appropriate theme of the retreat), I was completely renewed.

A couple of extremely important lessons that I took from the retreat to my heart:

1. Don't give up.  Never give up living, loving, and aiming to prosper.  

2. God will demonstrate His glory through our weaknesses.  

From 2 Corinthians 12:9: "'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.'  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weakness, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me." 

The Msgr. who said the mass at our retreat implored us to grasp our weakness, and hold it up high to God.    In our weaknesses, we find the cross.  In our weaknesses we experience most painful struggle despair and confusion.

We may rejoice in that it is through the Cross that we will gain new life.  Our God and Savior Jesus took the cross, carried it in intense pain and surrendered his life on it so that we may all have Eternal life!  By the cross, Jesus opened the gates of Heaven for us.

We all have weaknesses, and we all have our crosses but let our crosses be causes of joy, and great beacons of opportunity to grow closer to Christ, strive to trust more in Our Father and God, and open ourselves to God's strength and power so that through our weakness, God may show clearly His great love and glory.

Our God is infinitely powerful and entirely and absolutely love! Yes, our God is love itself, and NOTHING is impossible with God.

Another great quote that a lady from the retreat told the group:

 "Our adversities are God's universities."  We will learn the most through our struggles.

We are not asked to throw our weaknesses by the wayside so that we don't have to deal with the hurt.  Our God is asking us to let Him heal, love, and restore us to new life--- through trusting that God will heal us, we open ourselves to allowing our weaknesses to be transformed with God's power and love.

Let us not waste time!  We have this beautiful opportunity this Lenten season to grow closer to Christ, and how better can we grow closer to Christ than through embracing our cross as He did?

While our crosses now may seem like the source of our greatest pain, we have every opportunity to allow God to help us carry them.   Through the knowledge and courage that God will offer us, we will have strength to live our lives to greater fulfillment.  Our crosses will become the sources of our greatest joy and our key to eternal life.

We will indeed fall on our journey with the cross (Jesus did 3 times).  The most important thing is that we use God' grace, which will always be sufficient, to get back up again. Don't ever give up!