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If you want your dream to be, build it slow and surely. Small beginning, greater and heartfelt work grows pure.

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Welcome. This is David Russell and Your Faith Anew. Daily Reflections Guiding You to Live in the Divine Will. Today's reflection is from the Book of Heaven by the servant of God Louisa Picaretta, April 20th, 1900, volume three. Let us begin in the will and name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Heavenly Father, in your infinite love, you have given us the cross as the path to transformation. Grant us the grace to see suffering not as loss, but as a divine mirror in which we behold your likeness. Teach us to embrace every trial with love, to unite it with Jesus, and to allow it to purify and transform us into His image. May we come to glory in what you have chosen as the means of our sanctification. Amen. Saint Paul writes in the letter to the Galatians, chapter six, verse fourteen. Far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches in Paragraph fourteen thirty five. Conversion is accomplished in daily life by gestures of reconciliation, concern for the poor, the exercise in defense of justice and right, by the admission of faults to one's brethren, fraternal correction, revision of life, examination of conscience, spiritual direction, acceptance of suffering, endurance of persecution for the sake of righteousness. Taking up one's cross each day and following Jesus is the surest way of penance. This teaching prepares us to enter into today's reading where the cross is revealed not only as sacrifice, but as transformation, where the soul begins to reflect God Himself. Louisa writes My adorable Jesus continues to come for just a little and like a shadow, and even when he comes, he does not say anything. This morning, after he renewed in me the pains of the cross as many as two times, looking at me with tenderness while I was suffering the spasm of the piercings of the nails, he told me The Cross is a mirror in which the soul admires the divinity, and by reflecting herself in it, she acquires the features and the likeness which most resembles God. The cross must not only be loved and desired, but one must consider it an honor and a glory. This is to operate as God, and to become like God by participation, because I alone gloried in the cross and considered suffering an honor, and I loved it so much that in my whole life I did not want to be one moment without the cross. Who can say what I understood about the cross from this speaking of blessed Jesus? But I feel mute in expressing it with words. Ah Lord, I pray you to keep me always nailed to the cross, so that having this divine mirror ever before me, I may clean all my stains and embellish myself evermore in your likeness. This passage brings us into a deeply felt and almost hidden truth. The cross is not merely something to endure, it is something that reveals. Jesus calls the cross a mirror. This is significant. A mirror does not create, it reflects. And what does the cross reflect? The divinity. When a soul embraces suffering in union with Jesus, something mysterious happens. The soul begins to reflect God Himself, not by its own power, but by participation. The more one accepts, loves, and offers the cross, the more the distortions of the human will are cleansed. What remains is a clearer image, an imprint of divine likeness. In the divine will, this takes on even greater depth. Suffering is no longer isolated or merely personal. It becomes united with the eternal act of Christ. Each cross, accepted in his will, become a point of contact between earth and heaven, a place where transformation occurs not only within the soul, but mystically for all. Jesus does not say the cross is simply necessary. He says it's an honor and a glory. This overturns our natural way of thinking. The world avoids suffering, hides it, resents it. But Jesus embraced it so completely that he did not want to be without it. Not because of pain itself, but because of what it accomplishes. Union, likeness, transformation. To live this teaching is not to seek suffering for its own sake, but to recognize it when it comes and respond differently. Instead of resistance, there is surrender. Instead of fear, there is trust. Instead of seeing loss, we begin to see divine artistry at work, shaping the soul into the image of Christ. And so the question becomes when the cross appears in our day in inconvenience, misunderstanding, physical discomfort, or deeper trials, do we turn away from the mirror or do we look into it? Because in that moment, we are invited not just to suffer, but to become like Him. Let us pray. Lord Jesus, you who embrace the cross with love, teach me to see what you see. When I encounter suffering, don't let me turn away in fear or resistance. Instead, draw me into your will, where every cross becomes light, every pain becomes purpose, and every trial becomes transformation. Place before me this divine mirror. Let me see not my weakness, but your reflection being formed within me. Cleanse my soul through every difficulty. Strip away what is not of you, shape me, refine me, until your likeness shines clearly in me. Give me the grace to love what you loved, to honor what you honored, and to glory in what the world rejects. Keep me united to your cross, not in sorrow alone, but in the joy of becoming one with you. Amen. Thank you for joining your faith anew today. The cross is not the end of the journey. It's the place where transformation begins today. Whatever comes your way, try to see it through this new light. Let each moment become an opportunity to reflect Christ more clearly, to live more deeply in his will, and to allow his divine likeness to be formed within you. Until tomorrow, stay in his will, and your faith will be made anew.

SPEAKER_00 10:22

If you want your dream to be, build it slow and surely. Small beginning, greater end. Heartfelt work grows pure.