Christina Semmens
Say Yes to Holiness!
Christina Semmens
Say Yes to Holiness!
holiness

Say Yes to Holiness Newsletter #21

by |Published

For your inspiration and encouragement on the journey towards holiness…

Say Yes to Holiness Newsletter #21

Greetings, my Fellow Pilgrims on the Way!

Food for the Head

“Young people need the light of watchful guides to lead them on the path of salvation.” — St. John Baptist de la Salle

How well are you serving as a “watchful guide” leading the young people in your life? Are you actively engaging and conversing with them BY NAME as you accompany them on the path of salvation? Do you know what their current struggles are? Is it with faith, or addiction, or purpose? 

This week, make a commitment to reach out and contact one of the young people that God has entrusted to you and come to know what their particular struggles are at this moment.

Food for the Heart

“Everybody today seems to be in such a terrible rush, anxious for greater developments and greater riches and so on, so that children have very little time for their parents. Parents have very little time for each other, and in the home begins the disruption of peace in the world.” — St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta
As summer is ending and the new academic year is beginning, are you in such a rush that you are failing to spend time with your children, your spouse, your parents your siblings or your friends? What about God? Has your prayer time with Him grown smaller, or gone away entirely, because of the busyness of this time of year? 
This week, resolve to prioritize your time with God, and then to make yourself be present to your children, spouse, parents, siblings and friends so as to bring about peace in the midst of the world.
Food for the Hands

“I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.” And now we begin to understand the laws, commands, and demands of the Church. All are designed to make us more adept at giving ourselves away. Don’t steal; don’t kill; don’t covet your neighbor’s goods or wife; honor your mother and father; worship God. All of these commands—positive and negative—are meant to awaken and make possible love.”—Bishop Robert Barron

This week, make a resolution to give something of yourself away to another. Maybe it’s your time by going and spending the day with a friend or a person in need. Perhaps it’s your generosity by opening your home to a college student who needs a place to stay, or by having another family over for dinner. Or perhaps it’s your gentleness in the form of a smile, or your kindness by allowing someone to go first in the checkout line, or your humility by refraining from having the last word in a discussion or argument. In whatever way you give of yourself, do it to “love one another.”
Food for the Feet
“Consider that the love of divine charity is so closely joined in the soul with perfect patience, that neither can leave the soul without the other. For this reason (if the soul elect to love Me) she should elect to endure pains for Me in whatever mode or circumstance I may send them to her. Patience cannot be proved in any other way than by suffering, and patience is united with love as has been said.” —St Catherine of Siena

This week, instead of complaining, rather, resolve to grow in patience by choosing to endure whatever pain or suffering you may encounter–mental, physical or emotional–with joy knowing that you are being given an opportunity to grow in love. 

Did You Know?

The day that you realize that anything is possible for God is the day you realize just how unstoppable you are.”—Justin Fatica 

Exhortation

My recent time at the Voice and Vision Summit reemphasized to me how IMPORTANT one person is in the life of another. I have shared about this idea previously in talking about Cura Personalis–the care of the one–and how when we care for an individual we are actually caring for everyone. This is SO counterintuitive in our world today that is all about the metrics of how many people you are engaging with–the number of likes, # of followers on Facebook, Instagram or any other media platform, or how to go about building and increasing your “tribe” or “presence,” but if we truly understand how interconnected we are as the Body of Christ, then it’s almost a DUH realization that of course caring for one person is really caring for everybody. 

Because the fact is that God didn’t design us to talk to millions, He designed us to talk to ONE. 

Himself first, and then one-on-one with others. 

And as we care for each person that crosses our path, we are actually helping to care for EVERYONE that crosses our path.

Jesus’ own methodology for sharing the Good News of God’s love for us demonstrates this. He encountered people one by one, called them into discipleship, and then transformed them as He accompanied them in love so that eventually, they were able to do the same for others. 

In the end, Jesus has changed the world by changing the lives of individuals. And those individuals changed the lives of all those who encountered them, and it’s being going on like that for the last two millennia. 

So do whatever it takes to encounter and engage and accompany the one person before you. Because then you can tell the Master of Death, NOT TODAY.

God bless each one of you, and I look forward to seeing you on the Way soon!

All the best,

Christina

www.sayyestoholiness.com

@SayYestoHoliness

PS–If you are finding this newsletter to be of help to you, PLEASE share it with a friend! (Nothing better than helping a friend make a small change to help them grow in holiness!), and if this has been shared with you and you want to sign up to receive it directly to your own inbox, just go to the www.sayyestoholiness.comwebsite, or click on the Newsletter signup link here

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