Letting Jesus Say 'Yes' Through Us
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Beginning to let Jesus live his Yes through us.
In the beginning the human soul was oriented toward God, toward saying “Yes” to his perfect plan of happiness for us.
With Original Sin the powers of the soul were wounded. Now we are inclined to dislike God’s plan for us, we don’t trust him and we are more likely to say “No” to him rather than “Yes.”
Yesterday we saw how Jesus united himself with every person in human history when he became man. In our place he said “Yes” to God on our behalf, even to the point of accepting death on a Cross. He burst our “no” open by means of a stronger and greater “yes.”
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Left to ourselves, in our fallen human nature, we will continue to say “No” to God.
We need Jesus to come and live within us and live through us so that he can empower us to say “Yes” to God’s will and perfect plan of happiness for us. Jesus comes to live in our soul first in Baptism. He wants to increase his life within us daily by means of the Eucharist. Each time we receive the Eucharist, and we open ourselves up to Jesus, his life grows stronger and stronger in us.
As the Battle of each day began, St. Faustina found renewed strength in the Eucharist.
I find myself so weak that were it not for Holy Communion I would fall continually. One thing alone sustains me, and that is Holy Communion. From it I draw my strength; in it is all my comfort. I fear life on days when I do not receive Holy Communion. I fear my own self. Jesus concealed in the Host is everything to me. From the tabernacle I draw strength, power, courage and light. Here, I seek consolation in time of anguish. I would not know how to give glory to God if I did not have the Eucharist in my heart. Diary 1037
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Jesus offers to come and live within us primarily through Baptism and the Eucharist.
The Eucharist is the Sacred Heart of Jesus which is the Fountain of Living Water. In fact, Jesus said, 'If any man is thirsty, let him come to me and drink; for out of my heart shall flow a fountain of living water.” But it is possible to come to the fountain, to receive the Eucharist and still not drink of the living water. How can this be? Because we don’t practice daily meditation.
Pope Benedict XVI said that prayer is the self-opening of the human spirit to God. (Jesus of Nazareth vol 2, p. 233)
By prayer we open our soul to drink in the Living Water, that is, God’s grace poured out in the sacraments. I cannot overemphasize this point, to receive the sacraments without a life of prayer is like coming to a well and not drinking.
Vocal prayer is a good start. By vocal prayer we speak to God in our own words or the words of others like the Our Father and Hail Mary. But you can’t talk and drink at the same time. Just try it and see. You will choke and spit out whatever you are drinking.
That is why we need to move on in our prayer from talking to listening and reflecting, from vocal prayer to meditation.
Meditation opens up the soul to drink in the Transforming Power God’s grace that comes through the Sacraments.
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God created us without us, but he can’t save us without us.
We have free will so we must do our part. Daily meditation and the practice of a resolution is where we begin to learn to cooperate with Jesus to say our “Yes” to God.
In meditation, say in the Rosary, we use our intellect to learn and think about all God has revealed in his Word. That is why we provide a teaching from the Word of God before each decade. So we have something to think about and not just let the mind wander in distraction because we are forming the intellect.
Then the more we see God’s plan for our lives, that his will is good, the more our feelings begin to desire and like it.
Then our feelings will do as they are supposed to do and prompt our will to choose God’s plan and will.
Finally, we put God’s will into practice that day with our daily resolution.
This is how we begin to learn to say yes to God by daily mediation and a resolution.
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So what have we learned today?
Left on our own, we are on a trajectory to say No to God. But the more we bring Jesus into our soul, the more He will turn us around and empower us to say Yes to God’s perfect plan of happiness. We let him in to live through us beginning with Baptism, and allow him to increase his life and power in us through the Eucharist. But we must cooperate by engaging the powers of our soul through daily meditation and a resolution.
So what is our resolution today? Think about your life or your day. Identify one thing that you’re pretty sure is God’s will for you but you don’t like it or don’t want to do it. Then ask Jesus for help, say “Yes” to God and just do it. You might be surprised at the results.