Conversation Conversations

Conversation:

Abba: Child, life-style in the Spirit is always life to the full (Jn 10:10). Choose life. Something about your fallen nature is suicidal and violent. Something within you is fascinated with death. Reject this death wish. Choose life.
Child: Abba, how sad for You to see Your children toying with slow suicide through alcohol, cigarettes, and drugs! I'm sorry for lessening the intensity of Your life within me by compulsive TV, work, fear, and anxiety.

Response:

Respect yourself.

Conversation:

Abba: Child, there's something in you that wants to have a love affair with death. Don't pine for death or make a covenant with it (Wis 1:16; Is 28:15). My Son has given you a resurrection-life. Don't go back to the grave.
Child: Abba, I admit I have both a fascination with and a fear of death. Only Your Son Jesus can free me (Jn 8:36) and prevent me from being a slave my whole life long (Heb 2:15).

Response:

Respect the power of the devil.

Conversation:

Abba: Child, of all the centuries since I created planet Earth, this has been the most deadly. The only two world wars, the only two atom bombings, mass starvation, and the most heinous crimes of repression and injustice have been committed in this century. All these deaths have reached their ultimate expression in abortion.
Child: Abba, I have never been involved in an abortion, so it's not my fault.
Abba: Child, have you been involved in stopping an abortion?

Response:

Respect life from the moment of conception.

Conversation:

Abba: Child, I am not only life-giving but Life. If you don't know Me personally, you are existing in a condition of "living death" (1 Jn 3:14).
Child: Abba, I have come to realize there can be neither life after death nor life before death without You.

Response:

Respect the amazing grace that saved us in our wretched condition.

Conversation:

Abba: Child, everything your human nature tries to do leads to death. "It is the Spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words I spoke to you are Spirit and life" (Jn 6:63).
Child: Abba, I don't consciously choose death. I just choose to do my own thing, which turns out to be choosing death. I think I'm choosing life, but I'm actually choosing self and therefore death.

Response:

Respect the movement of the Spirit.

Conversation:

Abba: Child, you talk about respecting life and making peace, but when are you going to mention sin? Death is the wages due to sin. Choose life by repenting from sin.
Child: Abba, every once in a while I'm bothered by an inconsistency in my life. I pray for peace but pay taxes which may be used by others for war and abortion.

Response:

Respect the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

Conversation:

Abba: Child, you are called to be a life-giver. To give life constantly, you must abundantly receive it. Choose life by the way you spend you money and time. Choose life by the way you choose your priorities. Be careful. Because of apathy, the first world chooses death for the third and fourth worlds.
Child: Abba, I've never admitted it before. But now I see that I choose life one minute and death the next. I repent of the sin. Forgive me.

Response:

Respect the poor, the hungry, and the refugees.