…Forgive us, O Lord, we acknowledge ourselves as type of the common man, Of the men and women who shut the door and sit by the fire; Who fear the blessing of God, the loneliness of the night of God, the surrender required, the deprivation inflicted; Who fear the injustice of men less than the justice of God; Who fear the hand at the window, the fire in the thatch, the fist in the tavern, the push into the canal, Less than we fear the love of God.
I am living here and now. The blessing of my life is that I am totally concentrating on the present moment. And I want to be because there is nothing but the present moment.
A vocation makes us unthinking; that is its greatest blessing. For it is a bulwark behind which we are permitted to withdraw whencommonplace doubts and cares assail us.
No action, whether foul or fair, Is ever done, but it leaves somewhere A record, written by fingers ghostly, As a blessing or a curse, and mostly In the greater weakness or greater strength Of the acts which follow it.
Much though he recites the sacred texts, but acts not accordingly, that heedless man is like a cowherd who only counts the cows of others - he does not partake of the blessings of the holy life.
No matter how bad someone has it, there are others who have it worse. Remembering that makes life a lot easier and allows you to take pleasure in the blessings you have been given.
For the rest of his life, Oliver Twist remembers a single word of blessing spoken to him by another child because this word stood out so strikingly from the consistent discouragement around him.
I have found that, rather than dwelling on the negative, if we will take a step back and consider the blessings in our lives, including seemingly small, sometimes overlooked blessings, we can find greater happiness.
Solitude is used to teach us how to live with other people. Rage is used to show us the infinite value of peace. Boredom is used to underline the importance of adventure & spontaneity. Silence is used to teach us to use words responsibly. Tiredness is used so that we can understand the value of waking up. Illness is used to underline the blessing of good health. Fire is used to teach us about water. Earth is used so that we can understand the value of air. Death is used to show us the importance of life.
Perhaps there has never been a time when we had greater need to pray and to teach our family members to pray. Prayer is a defense against temptation. It is through earnest and heartfelt prayer that we can receive the needed blessings and the support required to make our way in this sometimes difficult and challenging journey we call mortality.