Gratitude (Today's Pilgrim Challenge)

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Today we journey to St. Paul's outside the walls and his body, then head to St. Peter's to the Scavi tour to see his body and the Great Basilica of St. Peter's.  Our daily pilgrim challenge this day is to make no complaints, internally or externally.  Not the tiniest one.  I challenge the pilgrims today to think of what God has done for us, his salvation offered and the Church created for us to receive that gift of redemption and the grace to live courageous holy lives in this world, accepting his grace and living as Paul wrote, "yet I live no longer I, but Christ lives in me".  -Gal 2:20  

We have so much to be grateful for.  The life he has given us. The calling of love and union with him he has destined for us, and the gift of grace he offers though we have rejected him so often.  He loves us as the Father, unconditionally, like that Father of the prodigal son, forever waiting for us to just return to him from our sins and offer us all he has and is.  He offers us the Spirit. He has died on the cross so that we may have life, and he chose these ambassadors to bring that grace to the world.  Two men, one a simple fisherman who denied Christ, and another who persecuted Christ's followers, yet they received that Love, that Spirit, and accepted the gift offered.  They were men of gratitude, and lived that gratitude until their death.

So our challenge is to have nothing but gratitude today.  To remove all complaining from our minds and hearts, and try to only look at the gifts and the good.  Complaining is really just a window into the lack of gratitude in our hearts.

I invite all of you back home to unite your prayers and hearts with ours and to live today with only gratitude and to try to remove all complaining, from the smallest to the largest from your hearts!

Praise Him!

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