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

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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, august twelfth, eighteen ninety nine, volume two. Let us begin in the will and name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Lord Jesus, quiet everything within me that competes with your voice. Draw my thoughts towards what is true, my desires towards what is holy, and my heart toward what pleases you. Give me the humility to receive your grace and the courage to let it change me. May everything I think, choose, and say today belong to you. Amen. A reading from the letter of Saint James chapter three verses seven through twelve. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species. But no human being can tame the tongue. It's a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. This need not be so, my brothers. Does a spring gush forth from the same opening both pure and brackish water? Can a fig tree, my brothers, produce olives, or a grapevine figs? Neither can salt water yield fresh. The catechism of the Catholic Church teaches in paragraph eighteen twenty nine. The fruits of charity are joy, peace and mercy. Charity demands beneficence and fraternal correction. It is benevolence. It fosters reciprocity and remains disinterested and generous. It is friendship and communion. Love is itself the fulfillment of all our works. There is the goal. That is why we run. We run toward it, and once we reach it in it we shall find rest. Louisa writes. I want you to think with my own mind, look with my own eyes, listen with my own ears, speak with my own tongue, operate with my own hands, walk with my own feet, and love with my own heart. After this Jesus united his senses mentioned above to mine, and I saw that he was giving me his own shape. Not only this, but he gave me the grace to make use of it as he himself did. Then he continued Great graces am I pouring in you. Make sure you keep them well. And I fear very much, O beloved Jesus, in knowing myself all full of misery, that instead of doing good I may make bad use of your graces. But what I fear the most is my tongue that oftentimes makes me slip in charity toward my neighbor. And Jesus do not fear. I myself will teach you the way you must keep in speaking with your neighbor. First, when you are told something about your neighbor, cast a gaze upon yourself and observe whether you are guilty of that same defect, for in that case wanting to correct is wanting to make me indignant and to scandalize your neighbor. Second, if you see yourself free of that defect, rise then and try to speak as I would have. In this way you will speak with my own tongue. By doing so, you will never fail in charity with your neighbor. On the contrary, with your words, you will do good to yourself and to your neighbor, and to me you will give honor and glory. There is a particular kind of holiness that rarely attracts attention. It happens in conversation. We often imagine the spiritual life in its more recognizable moments prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, receiving holy communion, reading scripture, making a sacrifice, enduring suffering with faith. But some of our most revealing encounters with Jesus happen while we are simply talking. Someone tells us something about another person. A criticism is made. A weakness is exposed. Perhaps what is being said is even true. And suddenly we stand before a choice. Not merely should I say this, but something deeper. Jesus, what would love do with this? Saint James understood the extraordinary power of human speech. The tongue is small, yet through it we can bless God and wound someone made in his image. Words can remain in another person's memory long after we have forgotten saying them. That makes Christian speech something sacred. The church gives us a beautiful discipline in the catechism, paragraph twenty four seventy eight. Christian charity disposes us to interpret our neighbors' thoughts, words, and actions favorably whenever possible. That does not mean pretending evil is good or refusing necessary correction. It means refusing to make ourselves judges of another person's heart. And perhaps there is an even more demanding place to begin. Before examining another person, stand before Christ yourself. The saints understood this. The closer they came to God, the less interested they became in cataloging the faults of others. Divine light did not make them naive about sin, it made them humble about themselves. This can transform an ordinary conversation. When someone's weakness becomes the topic, there can be a hidden moment of grace. Instead of immediately joining the judgment, we can silently turn toward Jesus. Lord, show me my own heart. That small interior movement changes everything. We are now no longer standing above our neighbor, we are standing beside our neighbor, both of us needing mercy. And from that place our words become different. Living in the divine will must eventually reach our speech. We cannot offer God our prayers while reserving our conversations for ourselves. Jesus desires access to all of us, even the sentences no one else will remember tomorrow. Imagine what could happen if before speaking about another person, we gave Christ one second of silence, one second for grace, one second for humility, one second for Jesus to reign. Perhaps some words would never be spoken, and perhaps those unspoken words would become an offering of love known only to God. Let us pray. Jesus, make my heart attentive to your presence. Place your mercy between my first reaction and my next word. When I notice the weakness of another, give me humility. When correction is necessary, give me charity. When silence is wiser, give me restraint. When encouragement is needed, make me generous. Purify my speech from pride, impatience, gossip, exaggeration, and judgment. And Lord, heal the wounds that my careless words may have caused. I surrender to you the way I speak, the way I listen, and even the thoughts from which my words are born. May your divine will reign within me so completely that those who encounter me experience something of your patience, your gentleness, and your mercy. Jesus, let my words belong to you, and when love requires silence, teach me to love you there as well. Amen. Thank you for joining your faith anew today. Until tomorrow, stay in his will, and your faith will be made anew.