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“Be Who You Are Meant to Be” Sub-Pages:
Quotes – Praying It – Basking In It – Digging Deeper – Making It Real
We Are Supposed to Be Different
One of the most beautiful and encouraging sources of reading for me as a mother has been the lives of the saints. Not only do the saints inspire me and show me how God works through people in every age of history, but they help me understand my children better. In the saints we find great diversity of background, personality and accomplishments. My child might drive me crazy at times, but St. Augustine and St. Maximilian Kolbe drove their mothers crazy too! Some saints were great scholars, like Dominic de Guzman and Ignatius of Loyola. Others lived simply to love God and others, and through God accomplished great things, such as Therese of Lisieux and Mother Teresa of Calcutta. When we love our children and teach them what is good – even t great sacrifice to ourselves (and parenting does require sacrifice!) we help prepare them to follow the great and unique plans that God has in mind for them.
Do not desire not to be what you are, but desire to be very well what you are. – St. Francis de Sales
Our world has brought a lot of confusion into people’s lives by encouraging them to beat themselves up in trying to be someone else!!!
We fall into this trap partly because we are looking at a paradox. We are both supposed to be ourselves and try to be better at the same time. What does that mean? Be who you are, but work on being a more virtuous version of yourself. God wants you to be a saint – and he will help you if you ask – but he’s not going to change your basic personality, gifts, strengths, weaknesses, etc. in that process. They are all important parts of who you are and he works with all of those aspects of you – yes, even your weaknesses!
You will evangelize, parent, celebrate, love, experience and serve God all AS YOU!!!
Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire. – St. Catherine of Siena
We are meant to serve God with the gifts He has given us. Sin is not so much doing something wrong; sin is not being true to who we are. – Mother Dolores Hart, The Ear of the Heart
Be yourself; everyone else is already taken. – Oscar Wilde
Our Gifts are from God:
You are the Body of Christ – 1 Corinthians 12
The gifts we have are gifts from God. We can’t take credit for them nor deny that we have them. We have a responsibility to develop and share them with others. God gave them to us in order to do our part to make the world a better place. Sr. Mary Ann Spaetti IHM, who was my eighth grade teacher, taught our class a beautiful and simple prayer that is perfect for praying every day (and that I have turned to many times over the years):
“Lord, tell me what you want me to do with my life and I will do it.”
When we approach a difficult situation, we can often find ourselves overwhelmed by it. It is easy to think that it is up to us to fix it. But it is not. Not only do we need God’s help, but we need to let him be in charge. If you have a sense of your own strengths and your gifts, you can look at the situation in a simpler way and in union with God’s plan. Bringing your gifts to that situation can help you understand what part God wants you to play in the solution.
Grace Builds Upon Nature
Each one can, when he has cleared out the rubble even for a day, look honestly at the material from which he is made, and ask the Holy Spirit to let it show him the way Christ wills to show Himself in his life. – Caryll Houselander, The Reed of God
Personality & Temperament:
No façades! It is very wrong for us to put others on the wrong track or give them an inflated concept of who we are and what we are doing (and thus an unreasonable sense of what they should expect of themselves).
Accept (and embrace) Your Limitations:
God works with your limitations, but it can be helpful to realize that those limitations themselves are gifts and, at the very least, the flip-side of a limitation tends to be a strength.
For example, some people are great and quite comfortable in social situations. Yet it might be the person who is more reserved socially that is a good listener and able to help someone who is feeling alone.
Help Your Children Become Who They are Supposed To Be Too!
*The quote from St. Francis de Sales at the top of this page was found in Sermon in a Sentence, Volume 2 (Ignatius Press)
Living Differently 