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The Greatest Gift You Could Give
The manifestations of ego have produced the bitter fruit of immorality and the confusion of conscience in our time. All manifestations of pride prevent fulfillment by the Holy Spirit, Who is everywhere but for those whose own spirit predominates.
The ego is like the moon in front of the sun during an eclipse. It turns one lunar -- morally, lunatic. It obscures. It darkens. It is pocked. There are craters -- injuries, voids. Mainly, it reflects slim light. Ego consumes without producing and its seeds are sterile. Bitter is the fruit of a boast, rotten is the seed that finds no anchor in the soil. In the wind drifts its particles of allergy, with stagnation does it return to the earth.
The famine of our time is what is amiss inside -- the sanctity of unselfishness, which we attempt to fill with things of this world.
When we lack what is real we presume and consume and fall into the blackness of a Friday.
And so we have an example in Blessed Solanus Casey.
As the well-known Capuchin author Father Benedict Groeschel once said, "I still think that Father Solanus was the saintliest person I ever knew. What struck me about him was not simply his miracles or the tremendous esteem people had for him, but his absolute, pure giving of self."
This Christmas season, realize that as the greatest gift you could give: yourself.
[resources: Father Solanus Casey]
