#Day14of21 Daniel Fast

Seven days left of the 2020 Daniel Fast...

I'm checking in - cheering you on for your fantastic obedience. Fasting and prayer, while feels sacrificial, is a true act of obedience.

I was praying this morning and read a few passages that spoke to me. While we Fast, it's important to remember God's ultimate message of mercy...the mercy He has shown to us, and the mercy we are expected to share with others. I hope in some way these words of God's Mercy speaks to you in some way specific to your life right now.

'Mercy is love that seeks to relieve the misery of others. It is an active love, poured out upon others to heal, to comfort, to console, to forgive, to remove pain. It is the love that God offers us, and it is the love He demands from us for each other:

"I give you a new commandment. ...As I have loved you, so you must love one another" (Jn 13:34). "Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful" (Lk 6:36).

Every day we can choose to respond to the people and events we encounter by immersing them in the ocean of God's mercy. Instead of "cursing the darkness" and despairing over the condition of the world, for example, we bless the world with God's mercy, thus allowing HIM to heal it. (*This is true for broken relationships as well).

What is the essence of the message of mercy? Trust in Jesus. But there is more to trust than just believing that God is trustworthy. We have to act upon that belief. Trust involves a turning back to God, a real conversion of our whole lives to God, repenting of our sins and forgiving others. Trust is a living Faith.

Trust means that we agree to let God be God, instead of trying to be God ourselves. It means that we agree that God can write the script of our lives, instead of insisting on our own script. It means that we agree with the great pledge we make in the Our Father: "Your will [not mine] be done on earth as it is in Heaven." It means that even in our moments of agony we agree with the cry of Jesus in the Garden: "Not my will, but Yours be done" (Lk 22:42).

God is Mercy itself, and we are called to practice mercy. As we do, our trust in Jesus is the vital ingredient. We don't simply ask for mercy, nor do we simply try to be good to other people. We ask with complete trust, and Our Lord fills us with grace so that we can be merciful as our Heavenly Father is merciful with us.'

From a page of Sister Faustina's Diary on what God spoke to her, "I am Love and Mercy itself. When a soul approaches Me with trust, I fill it with such an abundance of graces that it cannot contain them within itself, but radiates them to other souls."

For those of you Fasting this year, God bless you as we round out the last day before our last week of the Fast. For those of you not fasting, I hope you'll join us next year!

God loves all of you so much, and so do I.

Trust Him completely. Surrender ALL to Him...and just watch what He will do.

God bless you.

~M