Spiritual Direction
Let JESUS live powerfully
in your soul
and do
His redemptive work
through you.
Some inspirational thoughts selected from the teaching and writings of the Servant of God; Mother Paula Sophia Tajber:
Spiritual enrichment
Amazing adventure with Jesus
Happiness
Holiness
Humility
Inner peace
Perfection
Inner life
2. GUIDE to
the Priesthood
Religious Life
Marriage Life
3. ROAD to
Spiritual union with Jesus living in your soul (Mother Paula’s mystical union with Jesus – in her own words)
Manifestation of the value of every human soul
Peaceful acceptance of suffering and afflictions
Fulfillment of God’s Will
Growth in love toward God and your neighbor
A more fruitful, living, active faith
1. PATHWAY
Spiritual enrichment:
- No one is in a position to uplift modern man only Jesus living in us.
- To live in Jesus Christ is to give to Him ourselves and to be one with Him in thought, imagination, will, memory, emotions and consciousness.
- The soul in whom God dwells, as a guest is always cheerful.
- Remember to follow your inner ways – and not the ways of the world. Truthfully, everything is necessary, but the most important lesson of all, which you must learn is to live with God. This is the greatest wisdom everyone must possess and share with the world.
Amazing adventure with Jesus:
- Learning to live with God is such an important quest for the soul that there is nothing more advantageous under the sun, which can bring joy and life everlasting to mankind.
- Is there anything more beautiful than a gleaming reflection of the soul free from sin, where God in the Blessed Trinity sees a reflection of Himself?
Happiness:
- It is enough for me to know that Jesus knows me, loves me and is my complete happiness!
- We should find happiness in the very fact that the Eternal God depends upon man to strive for his own eternal happiness.
- If the soul is spiritually happy, it is easier to become good.
- What happiness it is to give everything to Him, who is everything for everyone!
- If am happy with Christ’s presence within me, then I must radiate and share this happiness with others through love and work.
- Love is happiness.
Holiness:
- A holy soul is a happy soul, and only a person who is happy can sow that happiness which comes from God, for God lives and it is God in him who causes him to bring happiness to all.
- To be holy means nothing more that to be happy and spread that happiness around you.
- Oh, if only the most hardened sinner would understand and believe that God loves him; that God is gently and sweetly calling him; that God wants to clothe him in the beautiful robes of His only Son; if this sinner would illuminate his soul with God’s grace and love, then would instantly become a saint.
- Do not be sad that you sometimes fall. The sad part is when you do fall and do not pick yourself up immediately. That is worse than the fall.
Humility:
- Inner peace is a sign of true humility.
- If you are humble, you are quiet.
- From the moment of His conception as Son of Man, God’s life was shrouded in mystery. What do you learn from this? Can you see how deeply the reality of God’s majesty is hidden? This is a lesson for you: to be a bride of God Himself, you must have as admirable a humility as did God, quiet, hidden, yet exerting His influence from eternity. Therefore, learn to exhibit your greatness by quietly bearing all sufferings, injustice, illness and work, so that the Majesty of God hidden within you suffers no damage.
- The greater your own annihilation is before God, the greater God’s light will shine within you.
Inner peace:
- God desires to abide in immortal souls with His heavenly peace. He wants to bring heaven to all souls on this earth – the same heaven His Godly soul bears within.
- The mind is strengthened when peace and harmony reign in the spiritual aspects of our lives, regardless of all outward conditions. The virtues of faith, hope and charity become visible and draw strength from the fountain of the Eternal Being.
- Always be on guard to maintain a clear atmosphere, full of light, good disposition, happiness and faith, then the soul will be free from the soot of inert nature.
Perfection:
- God is everlasting perfection. Therefore, man was created and given life by perfection itself. To recognize this truth is joy to the spirit. I was created by Perfection – to perfect myself. Therefore, perfecting myself is an easy task. My responsibility: to know this Perfection, to love Him and become an imitation of Him.
- We must try to sanctify our souls to bring joy to Jesus, that He may find in us what He so carefully implanted – His own sanctification.
Inner life:
- The inner life may seem difficult to you. But remember, everything is difficult for anyone who does not know how to love or does not want to love God.
- The wonders of the inner life are so great, so limitless and deep, that the human mind cannot comprehend them. With the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit, man will understand his own greatness in God and God in him.
- Only the soul that never stops perfecting its inner life is truly useful. It lends a spiritual inner-life character to all outward and physical duties.
2. GUIDE
The Priesthood:
- Priests were put on this earth as representatives of God, to live by God in God. Not only are they to give God, under the species of Bread to others, but also, more importantly, to show others that God lives in them.
- Everyone must see that the priests do not carry God only in an elaborate monstrance, or in a pix to be distributed to the sick. Priests must live God, become one with Him and give example of how to live with and in God.
- Where there is dedication to God, there is also honor and glory to God.
Religious Life:
- Everyone in religious life has a holy obligation to care not only for their own sanctification and salvation, but to help Christ sanctify others and make them useful to the Church.
- Whoever wears a religious habit must have a heart of gold and a soul like the sun that enlightens, warms, and motivates life.
- Always be happy that you possess God. Always be grateful that you are able to receive Him daily under the species of bread. Be grateful for your Community and for the privilege of being there.
- Love your vocation. It was given to you by God the Father. God gives Himself to you. To live for Him, according to His spirit, that he may conquer you for Himself; you become His faithful bride in thought and deed, offering yourself to Him and neighbor in the likeness of Jesus, your Brother.
- It is a great day when God grants a vocation to the soul, but an even greater day when He claims the soul as His own possession. It is the most glorious moment of God’s triumph in the soul.
- The Blessed Virgin Mary cares for us maternally. We should ask Her to help us to foster Jesus in our souls. Who could help us more than the “Immaculate Mother” out of love for Her Beloved Son, to clothe our souls in the beautiful raiment of purity, woven from love and thanksgiving to our Beloved Bridegroom and Savior?
- In spiritual life, when the soul imitates the virginity of Jesus, its fruitfulness becomes richer and improved.
- Whoever learns to obey according to the Spirit of God and accepts the greatest grace of God’s Will, will perfect himself in aspiring to reach God. Unexpectedly, day by day he will grow stronger in God’s grace, which will gain for him control over his human nature.
- Obedience to the Will of God is the foundation of holiness.
- Poverty makes the soul satiated and overflowing with the Everlasting God.
Marriage Life:
- Parents should realize that marriage, according to the concept and Will of God, is an admirable, mysterious and generous grace and gift of God. Although it places a great responsibility upon them toward their children, this holy institution enriches a couple with many privileges of God. They become securely bound to God and join Him in performing His beloved, miraculous, eternal work.. “creating of the Mystical Body of Christ in the holiness of its members.” Marriage is most worthy of life’s dedication in order to become co-creation of a human being.
- The human race would completely renew itself if each and every family accepted the infallible truth: to co-work with God in the conscious effort of building the Mystical Body of the God- Man and perfecting its members.
- Parents, who neglect to manifest the greatness and holiness of God through themselves to their children, are not good and creative members of the Mystical Body of Christ.
3. ROAD
Spiritual union with Jesus living in your soul:
- Look deep inside yourself and see how God in Three Divine Persons lives in you, lives for you, in order to become one with you.
- Arise and gaze upon the beauty implanted in your soul by the hand of God. This beauty is your image and likeness to God.
- Often adore God, hidden in the form of bread and living in your soul.
- To live in God is to desire to be with Him at all times and that in the end one might acquire Him.
- To live with Jesus is to love, think and act in union with Him, so that our actions may become not only our own, but Jesus’ living within us.
- It is difficult to live with God and in God if you do not seek God.
- Only in love is the most perfect union with God begotten.
(Mother Paula’s mystical union with Jesus – in her own words)
The discernment of the Soul of Christ by Sofia took place not only through ordinary meditation but through the path of supernatural contemplation and mystical experience to which such persons have access who are purified, on fire with love and the sacrificial offering of themselves to God, and distinguished by their fidelity to the demands of God’s will. In the “Notebook” compiled 10 years later after the preceding account, she relates:
“Yesterday – this was a day in February of the year 1931 – I experienced union with Jesus my God of a more personal nature. Jesus desired from me for Himself as God my exclusive love, at the same time granting His most sacred Love in return, so as to strengthen and enrich my soul.
From two till three o’clock in the afternoon – and especially just before three – for tens of seconds I had the impression that I was completely filled with Him. My spirit is no longer mine but that of Jesus, my soul is no longer the same but completely penetrated by His Soul, and is in Its complete possession, such that my intellect is completely absorbed by His, and my entire will taken up in possession by His Will. It gave me the impression that I was only a person visible to the eye, but in that moment, as I received a most wonderful awareness, enraptured by the presence of Jesus in me, it was Jesus who was the main Person – and I had only receded into the background.”
So often as Sofia focused on Christ and strove to enter more deeply into the mysterious designs, feelings, wishes and desires of His Soul, she stated that they became for her the basic spiritual nourishment, as she once wrote:
“I felt such a love for the thoughts of Jesus, such a strange bond with them and such an attraction to them, that they became a living substance for my intellect, its most basic food, the atmosphere nourishing my soul, and the aromatic fragrance of my own mind. O how the very thought of my Jesus became so dear to me! And what a flame of happiness it awakened in my whole being, I find it hard to express.”
Manifestation of the value of every human soul:
- Beautiful is the soul, which repays all acts with kindness. God loves such soul without measure because there is an echo of Himself in it.
- The human soul is the palace of Christ, where He desires to dwell almighty, for it is the Image of God and God desires to mold His image within.
- Look within yourself and you will see the great beauty the Hand of God put into your soul. This beauty is your own reflection of God.
- When the soul begins to sanctify itself, it not only saves itself, but also becomes valuable to all society because living in harmony with God brings harmony to the world.
- We must remember that God created us in His love for an eternal reward; God created us for Himself – for God is love and happiness.
- A person who lives only to nourish his physical life and neglects to nurture his spiritual life to achieve his everlasting reward is a foolish person and unworthy of his reward. He is a creature who differs only slightly from the animals that roam the earth. Man must work hard to achieve what God has promised him. A person who carries the Image of God within himself must become one with God.
- Learn to recognize your worth and respect it in yourself.
- God dwells in the soul, so that the soul may radiate Him.
- I wish to die, to die to the senses and to all faculties that are a hindrance to the soul that lives exclusively for God and in God.
Peaceful acceptance of suffering and afflictions:
- Whoever suffers grief, pain, trials and sorrows for the Glory of God, the good of their own souls, and all mankind, lives an honorable life.
- Those who suffer and do not offer their sufferings for the Glory of God and their own good, suffer in vain.
- Remember, if we do not accept God’s painful trials in complete resignation to His Holy Will, they become warped and all merit, causing Christ much pain. If willingly accepted, however, every cross has the spirit to lead us to Everlasting Glory. Only then, through His grace and our imitation of the Crucified One, will the spirit bring abundant joy to Jesus.
- I want to suffer until the end of my life because I am a part of the suffering Christ.
- I firmly believe in the justice of God. God sends trials to all who truly love Him, but He never abandons them.
- Christ’s cruel passion continues today in His Mystical Body. He is continually rejected, scourged, beaten, spit upon and crowned with thorns. If I willingly accept sufferings, it is my greatest acquisition; and yet not mine, but Jesus’ living within me.
- We must not suffer only for ourselves, but also for our families; not only for our own nation, but for all the nations in the world.
Fulfillment of God’s Will:
- Possessing the ability to submit one’s own will to the Will of God is the most important act of man. When done consciously and full of love, man becomes free from satan’s powers, and subordinate to the grace of God’s work. Then, man is directed by the purest will of the Eternal God.
- He, who submits his will to the Will of God, is holy.
- Want only what God wants and you will have everything.
- Only he, who loves God with all his heart and will, truly loves God.
- I would go to the ends of the earth to fulfill the Most Holy Will of my Lord and God, to endear myself to the Soul of my Jesus and give Him the opportunity to work and reveal His desired plans and aspirations through me.
Growth in love toward God and your neighbor:
- Christ desires a love that is holy, fervent, living, and bright like the sun.
- Love of God and thanksgiving to Him can truly restore mankind and make it happy.
- It is a good thing to consider what you do, how you do it, why and for whom you do it. But the best thing is to consider whether you love, how you love, whom you love, and why you love.
- To love God is to sacrifice everything for Him.
- The spirit of love brings forth happiness of life.
- The spirit of love is the spirit of life.
- To love God is to love all mankind. Loving mankind is to desire and help it achieve salvation. To desire salvation is to honor God.
-One must live in the pure love of God, and thus the will of love of neighbor and oneself become Divine.
- I want to love Jesus with the love of God Himself. I want to serve Him faithfully with the eternity of heaven.
- God living in your neighbor awaits your act of charity.
- Remember that refinement of spirit and a gentle manner with your neighbor is a mark of God’s spirit.
- You must serve your neighbor as you would Jesus.
- You must love and respect everyone, not because they are dear to you, but because is the Will of God, that we see each other in Him, Whom we desire to serve.
- Remember, wherever you are, at home, in school, at the office, in the store, on the farm or wherever, you must implant the goodness of the Soul of Christ in others.
- Whatever you sow in the souls of others, you shall reap. If you sow good deeds, love, patience, understanding, and goodness, these virtues will grow and nurture in others, and others will love.
- Your word must be pure and free of all elements, which may cause harm to your neighbor. God gave speech to men to be used for the benefits of His glory, the edification, and the spiritual nourishment of our own soul.
- When you gossip you look for self-glory.
- If we have selfish thoughts or desires of being rewarded for loving God and dedicating our lives to Him, we become mercenaries and unfriendly to God.
A more fruitful, living, active faith:
- The greatness of God’s actions depends on the strength of faith of the human being. Because of this strength, God performs undreamed of miracles.
- If you imitate the virtues of Christ living within you, you will never do any wrong. Faith is a virtue that is nurtured by loyalty, hope, charity and patience.
- Faith in the work of God inspires deeds performed for the Glory of God.
- Faith in God is learning to live for God, in God, with God, and through God, that He may become the Almighty God reigning in the hearts of the faithful.
- Loneliness is hypocrisy. Feeling the absence of the Most Holy Being is a lie, darkness of mind, a lazy spirit and a terrible insult against One who exists from eternity. Prove the faith of Jesus’ presence with a peaceful soul, happy spirit, gratitude, and reciprocate His love with your own.
4. POWER OF PRAYER
- A spirit of prayer and the life of prayer are to lift us in the course of our whole life, during all the activities of each day and night.
- If I am unable to pray and my thoughts do not reach directly to Jesus, I am still confident that Jesus lives in me and permeates my entire being with His love. This truth fills my soul with a grateful and blissful spirit.
Prayer written by Mother Paula Tajber:
An Act of Adoration and Communion with Jesus Christ Present in us
O Jesus living in me, I bless Your presence in me! Take me into Your supreme, divine and saving possession, and rule over me at each moment of the day, so that I may faithfully fulfill Your Most Holy Will. I live only for You, Lord, and wish to carry out everything You have determined to accomplish through me. Therefore, Jesus, may you please work in me and through me, so I might be able to follow Your path to achieve what is destined for me.
You know, my Jesus, that the moments of life flow by very quickly without fruit, but I wish to make use of all of them for Your glory. Therefore, draw me by Your Most Holy Will to Yourself dwelling within me, so that I may not depart from You even for a moment, but always live in You, with You, and for You dwelling within me.
I wish to live in You, my Dear Savior, so that I may become like You, so You may obtain me forever as one living in You, so that I may become Your faithful reflection.
O Jesus, take me into Your complete possession, so I may live in You and with You, for the glory of the Heavenly Father, and that You may reign over my whole intellect and will, so that I may already think, desire, and feel only through You, in You, and with the help of Your grace, together with You.
May Your love be manifested through me; may Your intellect raise my whole being up to You; and may Your Most Holy Will unite and make me one with You forever. Amen.
Written by:
Mother Paula Sophia Tajber
