What's Wrong with the World?

What's wrong with the world?

G. K. Chesterton famously responded to that question with two words.

I AM!

He could have been echoing today's saint, Peter of Alcantra, a contemporary and friend of St. Teresa of Avila. Much of what we know about St. Peter comes from St. Teresa's autobiography. He was a reformer who practiced an incredible degree of mortification. My acts of penance equal a grain of sand to a beach compared to the heroic sacrifices of this great saint.

Reading about him in Butler's Lives of the Saints this morning I was struck by this excerpt:

Among the supporters of this "reform" was a friend of St Peter to whom, when he one day bewailed the wickedness of the world, the saint replied, "The rememdy is simple. You and I must first be what we ought to be: then we shall have cured what concerns ourselves. Let each one do the same , and all will be well. The trouble is that we all talk of reforming others without ever reforming ourselves."

Ouch! Does that pinch? Today I want to offer my rosary to know myself better, to seek reformation where it is most needed. May God give each of us the grace to examine ourselves and see ourselves as He sees us and then ask for Him to instill in us a desire to reform and a plan to bring it about.

I'm what's wrong with the world! May God work on me like the potter who shapes and forms the vessel on the wheel. 

May Jesus Christ be praised!