rendering

If your life were a sculpture of the face of Christ and each act of kindness molded a more accurate depiction of Him...OR if you were a painter and each good deed done out of love for the Lord resulted in a smear of paint. What portrait would you create? What if each fruit of the Spirit was a color on your pallet to work with: love=crimson red, joy=yellow ochre, peace=cerulean blue, patience=viridian green, kindness= dioxazine purple, goodness=titanium white, faithfulness= burnt umber, gentleness=cobalt turquoise and self control=deepest charcoal. Would your painting be a masterpiece?

Would your Jesus have a furrowed, angry and disapproving scowl? A downcast face because you feel He is always disappointed? Maybe He is pointing a harsh finger in judgement? Or He might even be a vague ghostly figure because you hardly know Him?...

Or would His face be softly gazing, touched with tenderness as He quietly and approvingly watches over you going about the business of your day--carpool lines, the grocery store, folding laundry or tediously balancing a ledger sheet at work?... Would the edges of His mouth be turned up as He swells with delight at your appreciation for the fall colors he placed on the trees just for you?...Or would His stare be intensely locked onto yours as He hangs next to you on your cross of pain and suffering as you unite your sorrow or sickness to His own anguish?

Pope Francis recently stated this: "The Lord too has a weakness, an impotence even: his infinite love for human beings, his inability not to love them. God loves, he is unable not to, ‘like a mother hen with her brood’. For this reasons he never condemns.”

What if we really believed this? What difference would it make in our lives? Would we be freer to love Him back? To trust Him more? To embrace all He has to say because we would know He only has our best at heart? That He, like our own mother, longs to take us under His wing and hold us close to His beating heart. What changes would this effect in our life?

I once read this: “FAITH is knowing that God CAN do things. TRUST is believing that He WILL do them.”

Do you have faith and trust in Jesus?

Does your life paint this picture of Him?

I challenge you this week to imagine the face of Jesus and spend at least five minutes each day gazing at it in a quiet time of prayer. And as you gaze at Him and He at you, picture Him loving you intensely, all of you. Bring Him your entire self and ask Him to heal any brokenness or help you deal with unforgiveness or any other thing that, as you live out your life, may in some way paint an inaccurate portrait of Him to others. Because, if we are Christians, we are portraits of Christ to each other. Allow the love you receive from Him in this mystical time of adoration to shine beautifully through you to all you encounter. We become like that we most admire. May you be given the grace to render Him most beautifully in and through all of your life.

All of us, gazing with unveiled face on the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as from the Lord who is the Spirit. 2 Corinthians 3:18

Dear Lord, I want to be like You in all ways. I want to sculpt and paint a beautiful picture of You through my life, through my words, deeds, thoughts and expressions of love to others. Lord, make me more like You as I gaze at you in the tabernacle, Eucharistic Adoration, Your Word, and others! Let my mind constantly wander towards You like a magnet. Woo me Lord. Catch my eye, engage my mind, set my heart aflame for love of You. But not just for my own delight and goodness, but for your Kingdom’s sake and for Your great glory I pray. Let me be a living portrait of the love I receive from You.

I ask this in the Name of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.