Favorite Daughter
A diary entry from November 7, 2022
After blogging about my experience of added time in the post “Time Warp,” I get an email from one of my local super-fans and fellow parishioners saying, “Your latest blog was so interesting. You are definitely His favorite daughter.”
For a moment, I feel flattered, but the next second my alarm bells ring. No, that is not the message here. That should not be the message. The Holy Spirit worked with me on launching this blog—not to inflate my own ego and to make me feel special, but to help other people get closer to VatiGod* and Jesus. To help them see that it’s possible, that God didn’t stop talking 2,000 years ago, that He talks to each and every one of us all the time… if we bother to pay attention.
The blog is supposed to say, “Listen to that small inner voice that is the Holy Spirit trying to get your attention. Watch for the little signs and miracles that VatiGod oh-so-patiently produces and waves in front of our eyes, in the hope we may notice.”
It’s not supposed to say, “Look at me; I’m this amazing person. God loves me more than most people. I have all those extraordinary gifts and graces.” If it’s that, if it becomes that, I will have to shut it down.
Those graces are there and available to everyone. All you need is the faith to believe this, to let VatiGod shower you with them, which is what He wants to do so badly.
I think people get this Bible verse wrong where Jesus says that all you need is the faith of a mustard seed and you could tell a mountain to move or a tree to pick up its roots and replant itself in the sea.
Maybe you’re thinking, “Then why don’t I see any of those miracles? I do have faith! I do believe in Him! I do love Him with all my heart!”
But you see, that’s not what the metaphor of the mustard seed means, in my opinion. People think, “Well, a mustard seed is a tiny little seed that grows into a large tree, so it must mean if I only have a tiny little bit of faith, that will suffice to see or even work miracles. But I’m not seeing miracles, so that must mean my faith isn’t strong enough.”
That’s the wrong conclusion, though. I believe that the “faith” of a mustard seed that Jesus talks about lies in its rudimentary yet unshakable awareness what it is and what it’s supposed to be.
Some very wise person (whose name I forgot) said once that a tiny acorn already contains in itself the full blueprint of the huge oak tree it will become if allowed to grow unimpeded. Like the birds in the sky and the lilies in the field that God feeds and nourishes, the mustard seed has no doubt, no fear, no resistance to God’s will. It just knows on a very basic level that it’s part of His creation and, if allowed to do so, it grows into what He has intended it to be.
It doesn’t ask, “But am I worthy? What do I have to do, how can I earn my way into becoming this big, beautiful tree?”
It also doesn’t say, “I see, my destiny is to become this big, beautiful tree, so that must mean I am a special creature.”
It also doesn’t say, “Well, I’d much rather be a pine tree than an oak tree. I’ll put all my effort into growing needles now.”
It just does what it’s supposed to do, unquestioningly. It fully submits to the will of God, naturally following His lead and guidance.
In other words, I believe that our brains and our skepticism and our science-focused education get in the way of achieving a childlike relationship with God. We feel it’s all fairytale stuff that might happen to other people but not to us.
To make it completely plain, many of the signal graces and little miracles I’ve been describing in my blog posts could easily be explained away as coincidence, optical illusions, figments of an overactive imagination, or even part of a mental disorder. You need the courage and trust to accept them at face value if you want this kind of intimate child/Daddy relationship with God.
But let me add another disclaimer: Even if you never saw even one miracle in your entire life, you could still be the holiest person in town. Supernatural events are not a measure of holiness… and they shouldn’t be construed as such. Just look at the Saints: There were always the more mystical oriented ones—like St. Faustina or Padre Pio—and the more cerebral ones, like St. Thomas Aquinas. The cerebral ones weren’t one ounce less holy than the ones who had direct encounters with Jesus and the Holy Mother.
Ask the Holy Spirit—and Our Lady, because she is amazing at this—to guide you to your own intimate relationship with Jesus and VatiGod. All you have to do is ask for it. If you think your mental resistance and doubt will get in the way, ask them to remove them. All is possible in Christ.
ADD-ON: After I’m done writing this, I habitually check my Daily Bible Verse app. It says, “See the birds of the sky, that they don’t sow, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns. Your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you of much more value than they?”
I rest my case. Amen.