Day 15 Total Consecration Preparation 2013

[Dawn Marie]

DAY 15

Today's Reading

Luke 13:1—5

Examples Inviting Repentance

And there were present, at that very time, some that told him of the Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answering, said to them: Think you that these Galileans were sinners above all the men of Galilee, because they suffered such things? No, I say to you: but unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish. Or those eighteen upon whom the tower fell in Siloe, and slew them: think you, that they also were debtors above all the men that dwelt in Jerusalem? No, I say to you; but except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish.

True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Nos. 81 and 82

We Need Mary in order to Die to Ourselves

Secondly, in order to empty ourselves of self, we must die daily to ourselves. This involves our renouncing what the powers of the soul and the senses of the body incline us to do. We must see as if we did not see, hear as if we did not hear and use the things of this world as if we did not use them. This is what St. Paul calls "dying daily". Unless the grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single grain and does not bear any good fruit. If we do not die to self and if our holiest devotions do not lead us to this necessary and fruitful death, we shall not bear fruit of any worth and our devotions will cease to be profitable. All our good works will be tainted by self-love and self-will so that our greatest sacrifices and our best actions will be unacceptable to God. Consequently when we come to die we shall find ourselves devoid of virtue and merit and discover that we do not possess even one spark of that pure love which God shares only with those who have died to themselves and whose life is hidden with Jesus Christ in him.

Thirdly, we must choose among all the devotions to the Blessed Virgin the one which will lead us more surely to this dying to self. This devotion will be the best and the most sanctifying for us.

Meditation:

Taken from The Glories of Mary

This Mother's Great Love for Us

Now, since Mary is our Mother, it might be well to see how great her love for us really is. The love of parents for their children is a natural and instinctive impulse. St. Thomas says that this is why God makes it one of His commandments for children to love their parents, but gives no express command for parents to love their children.

Nature itself has fixed this instinct in all creatures so strongly that, as St. Ambrose remarks, "a mother will expose herself to danger for her children --- and even the most savage beasts cannot help loving their young."

It is said that tigers, when their cubs are captured and they hear their cries, will plunge into the sea and swim out to the boat where they are. If the very tigers, says our loving Mother, cannot forget their young, will I forget to love you, my children?  And even if it were possible for a mother to forget to love her child, I can never neglect to love a soul that has become my child. Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you (Is 49:15).

Mary is our Mother --- not by the flesh, as we remarked before, but by love. "I am the mother of fair love" (Sir. 24:24 --- Vulgate). That is, she is our Mother by love alone. So someone observes that she glories in being the mother of love. She is all love for us, her adopted children.  The first reason for Mary's great love for human beings is that she loves God so much. Love for God and love for neighbor come under the same commandment, as St. John expresses it: "The commandment we have from Him is this: Whoever loves God must also love his brother" (1 Jn. 4:21). Hence, the one increases along with the other.  Think of what the Saints have done for their neighbor because they loved God. But what Saint's love for God can match Mary's? She loved Him more in the first moment of her existence than all the Saints and angels ever loved Him or will love Him.

Our Lady herself revealed to Sister Mary Crocifissa that the fire of her love was most extreme. If Heaven and earth were placed in it, they would be instantly consumed. And the ardors of the seraphim, compared with it, are like cool breezes. Just as there is not one among all the Blessed who loves God as Mary does, so there is no one, after God, who loves us as much as this most loving Mother does. Furthermore, if we heaped together all the love that mothers have for their children, all the love of husbands and wives, all the love of all the angels and Saints for their clients, it could never equal Mary's love for even a single soul.

Father Nieremberg says that the love all mothers have ever experienced for their children is but a shadow alongside the love Mary has for each one of us. She loves us more than all the angels and Saints together.

Our Mother's love for us is as great as it is for the simple reason that her beloved Jesus commended us to her when He said to her before He died: "Woman, there is your son" (Jn. 19:25). These were His last words to her; and we always treasure the last recommendations of loved ones at the point of death --- we never forget them.

But over and above that, we are exceedingly dear to Mary because we cost her such untold suffering. Normally a mother feels a very special love for a child whose life has been spared only at the price of great suffering and anguish on her part.

We are such children --- because Mary , to obtain the life of grace for us, had to endure a most bitter agony. She offered her beloved Jesus to an ignominious Death, and watched Him die before her eyes in cruel and unexampled torments. Thus, as it is written of the Eternal Father, that God so loved the world as to give His only-begotten Son (Jn. 3: 16), so also we can say of Mary , that she so loved the world as to give her only-begotten Son.   And when did she give Him? When she gave Him permission to deliver Himself to death. She gave Him to us when she might have pleaded with the judges for His life.

It is perfectly conceivable that the words of so wise and loving a Mother would have had great weight, at least with Pilate, who knew Jesus to be innocent anyhow, and had declared as much. But Mary forbore to say one word in favor of her Son, lest she prevent that Death on which our salvation depended.  Again, she gave Him to us over and over during the three hours of His agony. She stood at the foot of His Cross, unceasingly, and sorrowfully, and lovingly offering His life for our benefit.  She did this with such constancy that, if there had been no executioners, she herself would have crucified Him, to fulfill the wish of His Eternal Father. 

Surely, if Abraham had enough courage to be ready to sacrifice his son with his own hand, then Mary (far holier than Abraham, and more obedient) would have sacrificed her Son with even greater resolution. This suggests another motive for Mary's love for us. She sees in us something which was purchased by the Death of Jesus Christ.  Suppose a mother knew that her son had ransomed a servant at the cost of twenty years of hard labor and imprisonment. Imagine the regard she would have for that servant on this account alone.  Mary knows only too well that her Son came into the world simply to save poor sinners, as He Himself protested: "The Son of Man has come to search and to save what was lost" (Lk. 19: 10). And to save us He went the length of laying down His life.

If Mary loved us only a little, she would be showing small respect for the blood of her Son, which was the price of our salvation.

Mary is incredibly good to all, even to the ungrateful and indifferent who love her but little and rarely turn to her. Hence, think of the love she must have for those who love her generously and often call upon her!

She "is readily perceived by those who love her and found by those who seek her" (Wis. 6: 13). Though she loves all human beings as her children, she has a special love for those who love her with particular tenderness.

Blessed Raymond Jordano asserts that those who find the most Blessed Virgin Mary find all. She does more than merely love those who love her --- she serves those who serve her.  Sister Domenica del Paradiso, whose life was written by the Dominican Father Ignatius del Niente, was born of poor parents in a village near Florence. From early childhood she began to serve the Mother of God.  She fasted every day in her honor, and on Saturdays gave away her own food to the poor. Every Saturday she gathered all the flowers she could find in the garden and the fields round about, and brought them home to an image of our Lady with the Child in her arms.  How did this most gracious Lady respond to the devotion of her little servant? One day, when Domenica was ten years old, she was standing at the window and saw in the street a noble-looking lady, accompanied by a little child. They were holding out their hands and begging.  Domenica went to get some bread, but suddenly, though the door had not opened, they were standing by her side. She noticed wounds in the child's side and in his hands and feet. She asked the lady who had wounded him. The mother answered: "Love." Domenica, thrilled by the child's beauty and modesty, asked him if the wounds pained him. His only answer was a smile. They were standing by a statue of Jesus and Mary, and the lady said to Domenica: "Tell me, little one, what makes you bring flowers to those images?" She answered: "My love for Jesus and Mary." "How much do you love them?" "As much as I can." "How much is that?" " As much as they help me to love them." "Keep loving them," said the lady; "they will more than repay your love in Heaven."  The little girl then perceived a wonderful fragrance coming from the wounds and asked the mother what ointment she had used for them and where she could buy it. The lady replied: "You buy it with faith and good works."  Then Domenica offered them the bread. "Love is my son's food," said the mother . "Tell him you love Jesus and that will satisfy him." At the word "love" the child seemed filled with joy and asked the little girl how much she loved Jesus.  She loved him so much, she answered, that she was thinking of Him night and day and wanted nothing better than to give Him as much pleasure as she could. "Love Him," said the child, "and love will teach you what to do to please Him." The fragrance of the wounds had grown sweeter , and Domenica cried out: "O God, the sweetness makes me die of love . . ." Then came a sudden change: the Mother was standing there dressed like a Queen and the Child was shining with the beauty of the sun. He took the flowers and scattered them on the head of the little girl --- who was now lying prostrate in adoration, knowing she was in the presence of Jesus and Mary. Then the apparition vanished. The little girl later became a Dominican nun and died in the odor of sanctity in the year 1553.

 "O most dear Mary!" St. John Berchmans exclaimed, "blessed is the person who loves you! If I love Mary I am certain of perseverance, and will obtain from God whatever I want."

 

I wish that all who call themselves Children of Mary would consider St. Stanislaus Kostka. So tenderly did he love this dear Mother that all his words about her inflamed others to something like his own love.

He made up new words and titles to honor her. He never did anything without first turning to her image to ask her blessing.  When he said her Office, or the Rosary , or other prayers in her honor, he said them with the same affection he would have shown if he were speaking to her face to face. When the "Hail, Holy Queen" was sung his whole soul and his whole face were lit up with love.

One day one of his Jesuit confreres, going with him to a certain shrine of our Lady, asked him how much he loved Mary. "Father," he answered, "she is my Mother. What more can I say ?"  We ought to love Mary as Blessed Herman did. He called her his heart's spouse --- because Mary herself had called him by the same title. We should love her as St. Philip Neri did. Just to think of her filled him with joy, and so he called her his Delight.

St. Bonaventure called Mary his Lady and Mother --- but added more: "My Lady, my Mother --- or rather, my heart and my soul!" And St. Bernard, that giant among lovers of our Lady, hailed her with the daring words, "Ravisher of hearts!"  Or think of the love of St. Francis of Solano. His love was like a holy madness. He would sing before her picture, and accompany himself on a musical instrument, saying, that like worldly lovers, he serenaded his most sweet Queen . . .

The Blessed Alphonsus Rodriguez, of the Society of Jesus, once prostrate before an image of Mary, felt his heart inflamed with love towards this most Holy Virgin, and burst forth into the following exclamation: "My most beloved Mother, I know that thou lovest me, but thou dost not love me as much as I love thee." Mary, as it were, offended on the point of love, immediately replied from the image: What dost thou say, Alphonsus --- what dost thou say? O, how much greater is the love that I bear thee, than any love that thou canst have for me! Know that the distance between Heaven and earth is not so great as the distance between thy love and mine."

St. Bonaventure, then, was right in exclaiming: Blessed are they who have the good fortune to be faithful servants and lovers of this most loving Mother. "Blessed are the hearts of those who love Mary; blessed are they who are tenderly devoted to her."

Prayers

Litany of the Holy Ghost

Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary

[bernadette szczepkowski]

"Blessed are the hearts of those who love Mary; blessed are they who are tenderly devoted to her"

My Mother, My Love!

[Alley]

WOW! D and Alan, Her love for us is immeasurable!

With love!  

[Dawn Marie]

The Blessed Alphonsus Rodriguez, of the Society of Jesus, once prostrate before an image of Mary, felt his heart inflamed with love towards this most Holy Virgin, and burst forth into the following exclamation: "My most beloved Mother, I know that thou lovest me, but thou dost not love me as much as I love thee." Mary, as it were, offended on the point of love, immediately replied from the image: What dost thou say, Alphonsus --- what dost thou say? O, how much greater is the love that I bear thee, than any love that thou canst have for me! Know that the distance between Heaven and earth is not so great as the distance between thy love and mine."

Yikes!

[Alan]

Mary is incredibly good to all, even to the ungrateful and indifferent who love her but little and rarely turn to her. Hence, think of the love she must have for those who love her generously and often call upon her!

She "is readily perceived by those who love her and found by those who seek her" (Wis. 6: 13). Though she loves all human beings as her children, she has a special love for those who love her with particular tenderness.