I read this in the Liturgy of the Hours that I pray every morning and came across this last week. I wanted to share it for several reasons:

1. If I blog about it, that means I can easily refer back to it. It certainly beats writing this on post-it notes
2. It’s a long “checklist” that I’m pretty sure I’m not doing 100% but would like to.
3. I’ve been wanting to write about something for a few weeks that would strike the heart of everyone, not just a select few and this appears to be something we can all strive for.

So here goes!

The following is from a treatise on the Lord’s Prayer by Saint Cyprian, bishop and martyr.

All Christ did, all he taught, was the will of God. 

• Humility in our daily lives
• an unwavering faith
• a moral sense of modesty in conversation
• justice in acts
• mercy in deed
• discipline
• refusal to harm others
• a readiness to suffer harm
• peaceableness with our brothers
• a whole-hearted love of the Lord
• loving in him what is of the Father
• fearing him because he is God
• preferring nothing to him who preferred nothing to us
• clinging tenaciously to his love
• standing by his cross with loyalty and courage whenever there is any conflict involving his honor and his name
• manifesting in our speech the constancy of our profession and under torture confidence for the fight
• and in dying the endurance for which we will be crowned

This is what it means to wish to be a coheir with Christ, to keep God’s command; this is what it means to do the will of the Father.”

St. Cyprian, pray for us!