What Makes God Happy?

If Charity is to do something for the happiness of someone else, then what would please God, what would make Him happy? What matters most to God is the salvation of souls. This is what motivated Him to become one of us, suffer and die: God loves souls and wants to save them. If we want to do something for God, something for the love of Him, then we should do all we can to help Him save souls. And there are many simple things we can do for the love of God and for the salvation of souls. Each morning in the Morning Offering I shared with you yesterday, we can offer up and unite our prayer, work, joy and suffering to Jesus to help Him save souls. In this way we become God’s fellow workers, as Paul says in 1 Cor 3:9. Did you do your morning offering today or is all that stuff going to be wasted?

The second way you can do something for the love and good of God and to make him happy is the be an apostle of friendship and the Rosary. The world is rampant with loneliness and a loss of meaning and purpose. What the world needs is: 1) Families helping families, people helping people, you help your own family,  2) Live the virtue of hospitality, friendship and the art of good conversation, 3) Have a consistent but flexible spiritual schedule and Invite others to join you, and 4) Ask the Holy Spirit for Wisdom, courage and humility.

Have a consistent but flexible spiritual schedule and invite others to join you. In the mid 90’s when my kids were very small I would begin each day praying the Rosary by myself. One day the Lord said to me clearly, ”Michael, if you pray the Rosary by yourself everyday, how will your wife and kids pray the Rosary? Change your schedule and invite them to pray it with you.” I changed, and since 1995 we have prayed the Rosary as family every night, no matter where we are or what we are doing. Xavier now lives with 4 buddies at KU and every night at 9, they pray the Rosary together. I don’t care what you do for your spiritual practices, that is up to you, but do something that is consistent with some flexibility, and then invite your wife, your kids or friends into it. For your personal family, there is the opportunity every night, or a few days a week. Try something once a week like a Sunday brunch or on a Sunday evening invite people over. But make it a consistent time and place and build a habit.

Live the virtue of hospitality, friendship and the art of good conversation. Stop making the phone, computer or tv the focus of your attention. Make God and other people the focus of your attention. Set up your house so that you can have an atmosphere of hospitality, friendship and good conversation in your kitchen, living room, deck, garage, by the pool – wherever. Invite people into this space, offer them something to drink or eat. Then be interested in their life. Ask them what they think about this or that; Ask them what they are listening to on podcast; ask them what their favorite band is currently or the last good movie or book? Ask them to share what they liked about it. Our world is dying for friendship and meaningful conversation. Be apostles of friendship and good conversation. Give the world what it needs.

Ask God for the supernatural gifts of wisdom and courage. Then pay attention to whatever God inspires in your heart and then take action. If you ask, ask with the confidence God answers and when inspirations come, do not ignore them, act on them God planted a desire in my heart. Here we are, 13 months and about 3500 people a day praying the Rosary. Then I felt inspired to take it on the Road. I threw the idea out there and here I am at someone’s house 3-4 times a week. Have the courage and the humility to start. God can work with something. But if you are unwilling to start, to take action, then God has nothing to work with. If you do nothing, then God can do nothing through you.