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Often when we pray or meditate on the Gospel, we will be inspired by the kindness and gentleness of Jesus Christ.
We will leave our time of prayer consoled and ready to embrace the day ahead.
However, sometimes there is a disconnect between our prayer and our everyday lives.
We may have enjoyed reading about Jesus' kindness and mercy towards others, but are then mean and hurtful toward our coworkers or family members.
What we need to do is conclude our meditation with a resolution to move everything from head to heart to hands.
Practical application
St. Francis de Sales encourages this practice in his Introduction to the Devout Life. He explains how it is good that meditation lifts up our hearts to God:
Meditation excites good desires in the will, or sensitive part of the soul,—such as love of God and of our neighbor, a craving for the glory of Paradise, zeal for the salvation of others, imitation of our Lord’s Example, compassion, thanksgiving, fear of God’s wrath and of judgment, hatred of sin, trust in God’s Goodness and Mercy.
He then goes one step further to say that these good desires need to be followed-up by good resolutions:
But, my daughter, you must not stop short in general affections, without turning them into special resolutions for your own correction and amendment. For instance, meditating on Our Dear Lord’s First Word from the Cross, you will no doubt be roused to the desire of imitating Him in forgiving and loving your enemies. But that is not enough, unless you bring it to some practical resolution, such as, “I will not be angered any more by the annoying things said of me by such or such a neighbor, nor by the slights offered me by such an one; but rather I will do such and such things in order to soften and conciliate them.”
Jesus did not come to earth for us to have warm and fuzzy feelings. He came to give us an example to follow.
This means that we must become a Christian not only in thought, but also in deed.
