God created the world around us. God created us. God didn't build a toll booth to collect user fees for life. Instead, Life is free, and being in the created world is Free; it's a Gift.
We humans are the ones who attach fees to what's been freely given to us.
The biggest gift of all, however, isn't other people, and isn't nature, or the Universe.
The biggest gift in all of existence is that we are given the Giver - the same Greatest One who was Job's only satisfaction and Moses' only strength is now given to humankind.
God chooses not only to put up with us, but to Be with us.
That's what all this Jesus talk means - that's why Jesus matters. He is, in Christmas-talk, "God-with-us", Immanuel.
That is the gift of Jesus and through Him the divine Spirit by whom Christ is still in effect right here and now. This Spirit leads, shapes, empowers, and gives us Joy.
The gift a Christian lives in every day, most fundamentally, is the Holy Spirit.
Beside this meditation I'm praying this day Novena prayer :
O Holy Spirit,
You are the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity!
You are the Spirit of Truth,
Love, and Holiness,
proceeding from the Father and the Son,
and equal to Them in all things!
I adore You and love You with all my heart.
Teach me to know and to seek God,
by Whom and for Whom I was created.
Fill my heart with a holy fear
and a great love of Him.
Give me compunction and patience,
and do not let me fall into sin.
Increase Faith, Hope, and Charity in me
and bring forth in me all the Virtues
proper to my state of life.
Help me to grow in the four Cardinal Virtues,
Your seven Gifts,
and Your twelve Fruits.
Make me a faithful follower of Jesus,
an obedient child of the Church,
and a help to my neighbor.
Give me the grace to keep the commandments
and to receive the sacraments worthily.
Raise me to holiness in the state of life
to which You have called me,
and lead me through a happy death to everlasting life.
Through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Grant me also, O Holy Spirit,
Giver of all good gifts,
the special favor for which I ask...
(State your request here...)
if it be for Your honor
and glory and for my well-being.
Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son,
and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen.
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