Look at the birds

Our Lord tells us to look at the birds.(Mt. 6, 26).

Here they are, so sweet, flying carelessly through the vastness, singing, always happy, glorifying the name of the Lord. The storm comes and destroys their nests. They build new nests on other branches and always sing when the dawn smiles. The hand of a wicked man robs them of their young. The next day, at dawn, they sing again, forgetting the grief that made them chirp the night before, nostalgic, from branch to branch, looking for the puppies.

The cold arrives. They flee to distant lands. And they sing in exile too. Our brothers, the birds, are masters of abandonment and trust in Divine Providence. That is why Our Lord said: "Look at the birds". The Servant of God Mother Maria Teresa dos Anjos, Carmelite, died in the odor of holiness, in the Carmel of Christ the King of "Nogent sur Marne", in France, in 1931, was one of those souls of heroic abandonment to Divine Providence. She was several times exiled by religious persecutions and met harsh trials with her community, wandering and persecuted by Belgium, Switzerland and France. "I received a lesson from Heaven," she wrote, "and a lesson that did me good. I expelled a swallow from my cell, which had made its nest there, and that I also destroyed. For it returned, sang merrily, and flew away to the blue sky. Jesus destroyed all the nests I tried to build. He took away all human support. And what shall I do? I will sing Thy praises. It is my mission to sing. Providence nourishes the birds in the sun and by the blue skies".

My Jesus, may I be like the birds! May I never complain of Your Providence and know how to sing in trials!