A book of prayers to the Holy Face of Jesus
Turning Back
Stop. Look. Listen. Turn Around!
Turning Back
It is not the wrongs that we do that define our destiny, it is our response to the wrongs we do that define us!
We all fall or stumble at times, but If there is no remorse, if there remains a present persistence in that wrong, then there can be no healing or repair!
And if God is absent, Satan takes his place, and he will do his best to keep you bound in that wrongdoing, trying his best to keep you in despair!
We must “turn back” to God out of Love and out of remorse, with a willingness to reconcile ourselves and to change for the better, and exercise the discipline to change those wrongful tendencies.
In doing so, we will find the joy, love, and peace and the welcome and open arms of God!
We have to “turn back” and let go of the chains that hold us back and keep us down!
“Let us throw off the chains that prevent us from following him,” says St. Augustine!
Penance, reconciliation, mortifications, and deep prayers of repentance are all means of “pruning the vine” to grow stronger in our connection to God, and to flower and to bear more fruit!
“The gardener cuts the green shoots from the root of the bush, not to kill the rose, but to make it bloom more beautifully.” The Venerable Fulton Sheen.
“Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me!I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing!”
John 15:4-5