Follow Me

Scripture: Matthew 8:18-22
Grace: absolute surrender

Jesus said: Follow me. There is an urgency to responding to the call to follow Him. He didn't promise comfort and security, didn't allow for waiting until everything else was settled and in order, just come, follow me. To surrender completely to that call promises first trial, rejection and difficulties, but in the end -- Him.

"The purpose of the struggle against our passions, the practice of the virtues, recollection, prayer, the practice of the presence of God, and frequent reception of the Sacraments, is to foster union with God and the growth of charity. The interior life is a secret hearth where a soul in contact with God is inflamed with His love, and precisely because it is inflamed and forged by love, it becomes a docile instrument which God can use to diffuse love into the hearts of others. Therefore, it is very important to recall frequently this great principle: the interior life is the soul of the apostolate. A deep interior life will generate intense love and intimate union with God, and, therefore, from it will spring a fruitful apostolate, a true sharing in Christ's work of saving souls; on the other hand a mediocre interior life can produce only a feeble love and union with God; hence, the resultant apostolate cannot have an efficacious influence on souls. Where there is little or no interior life, charity and friendship with God are in danger of being extinguished; and if this interior flame be extinguished, then the apostolate will be emptied of its substance and reduced to mere external activity which may make a great noise, but will not bring forth any fruit." --from Divine Intimacy, #321 (p. 966 in the one volume)