Mental Prayer Meditation Helps
Presence of God
Grace I Ask: Lord, help me see what sin does to this new life of sanctifying grace.
The Idea: Picture a tree with a dead branch. Or a rose bush with a withered flower. The tree and the rose bush are alive; the branch and the flower are dead. They are not cut off; they still hang there. But they are dead, and the whole tree and the whole bush are disfigured because those dead parts are still there.
Now suppose that before my eyes the branch sprouts green leaves, and the rose becomes soft and red. What has happened? They have come to life again. The life of the tree and the rose bush is once again in touch with them and is making them alive and beautiful... Christ told us that He is the vine and we are the branches. We can be dead branches? How? By mortal sin, which breaks our Contact with the source of our supernatural life, our life of sanctifying grace, Christ. Sin kills Christ's life in us and we become dead branches. Sin puts a block between Christ and us.
My Personal Application: On the surface sin can seem so ordinary, so commonplace. We can't always see that deep down in our souls mortal sin kills the supernatural life that Christ lived and died to bring to us. Have I been letting the surface appearance deceive me about the real nature of sin? Am I forgetting that in being separated from Christ by sin I am no longer presenting the image of Christ to the world?
I Speak to God: Lord, never, never let me forget what sin does to my life and the life of my fellowmen by cutting off the source of all supernatural life - you.
Thought for Today: I am Christ to the men of my times.
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Adapted from Mental Prayer, Challenge to the Lay Apostle
by The Queen's Work,(© 1958)
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