Thought for the Day – 20 July – The Memorial of Bl Gregory Lopez (1542-1596)

Thought for the Day – 20 July – The Memorial of Bl Gregory Lopez (1542-1596)

There are no patterns for sainthood and the Saints break all moulds.
God is interested in us, right where we are.   He has placed us there and our own particular circumstances are as good a place as any other to become a saint  . Holiness is within our reach!   Only He knows where our pathways will lead.   As Blessed Gregory and all our Saints show, it is about abandoning ourselves to Him and living our lives, where we are, in and for Him alone, keeping our eyes ever fixed on Christ  . Over the course of time, our prayer evolves from acceptance of God’s will to a conscious act of love of God, to a devotion to and imitation of the person of Jesus, the Logos.

His Biographer, Fr Francisco de Losa said:
“His soul appeared to be disengaged from all things else by a pure union with God.”

And as López said to him:  “It is much better to treat with God than with man….The eyes of the true man are always fixed on Christ, who is his head and the soul that is touched with love of God is like a needle that is touched with the lodestone always pointing to the North.”…Blessed Gregory

An old print of this servant of God states in a few lines:

“The miser runs o’er sea and land
His riches to increase,
But Lopez, on the other hand,
For poverty and peace.”

Many miracles were ascribed to him in life and after death.   In February, 1620, the King of Spain ordered his Treatise on the Apocalypse published, adding, “I do not wish to lose a single moment in procuring the canonisation of this holy man, who,” as he says elsewhere, “passed thirty-three years in solitude in a marvellous penance, humility and love of God and his neighbour and had an admirable gift of prayer and understanding of the Holy Scriptures and the supernatural and human sciences, with the general approbation of the prelates and people of Mexico.”   In fact, in the examinations that took place, bishops and theologians of all the religious orders, bore unanimous testimony to his extraordinary virtue and progress in the science of the saints.

Blessed Gregory Lopez, please pray for us!