DAY 7 TOTAL CONSECRATION PREPARATION 2013

[Dawn Marie]

DAY 7

Purpose: Emptying Yourself of the Spirit of the World

Temporal Miseries Are to be Borne With Patience After the Example of Jesus Christ

 

C H R I S T-My son, I came down from Heaven for your salvation. (John 3:17) I took upon Myself your sorrows, not because I must, but out of pure love, that you might learn patience, and bear without complaint all the troubles of this world. From the hour of My Birth until My Death on the Cross, I had always to endure sorrow. (Isa. 53:3) I suffered great lack of worldly goods; many accusations were leveled against Me. I bore all disgrace and insults with meekness. In return for blessings I received ingratitude; for miracles, blasphemies; for My teaching, reproofs.

 

THE DISCIPLE-Lord, because You were patient in Your life, in this respect especially fulfilling the command of Your Father, it is fitting that I, a wretched sinner, should bear myself patiently in accordance with Your will, and that, for the salvation of my soul, I should bear the burden of this corruptible life so long as You shall will. For though this present life is hard, yet by Your grace it is made full of merit; and by Your example and the lives of Your Saints it is rendered easier and happier for the weak. Its consolations are richer than under the old Law, when the gates of Heaven were shut, and the way thither dark, so that few cared to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. And even those who in former days were righteous and to be saved could not enter the Kingdom of Heaven until Your Passion and the Atonement of Your sacred Death.

 

What boundless gratitude is Your due, for revealing to me and to all faithful people the true and holy way to Your eternal Kingdom! Your life is our Way, and by holy patience we will journey onwards to You, who are our crown and consummation. If You, Lord, had not gone before us and showed the way, who could follow? How many would have stayed behind and far distant had they not Your glorious example for their guide? Even now we are cold and careless, although we have heard Your teaching and mighty acts. What would happen to us had we not Your light as our guide? (John 8:12; 12:46)

Today's Reading

Imitation of Christ: Book 1, Chapter 18 (continued)

Outwardly they suffered want, but within they were refreshed with grace and Divine consolation. They were aliens to the world; they seemed as nothing and the world despised them; but they were precious and beloved in the sight of God. They persevered in true humility, they lived in simple obedience, they walked in charity and patience, and so every day they advanced in spirit and gained great favor with God. They were given for example to all religious, and ought more to excite us to advance in good, than the number of lukewarm to induce us to grow remiss. Oh! how great was the fervor of all religious in the beginning of their holy institute! Oh, how great was their devotion in prayer, how great was their zeal for virtue! How vigorous the discipline that was kept up, what reverence and obedience, under the rule of the superior, flourished in all! Their traces that remain still bear witness, that they were truly holy and perfect men who did battle so stoutly, and trampled the world under their feet. Now, he is thought great who is not a transgressor; and who can, with patience, endure what he has undertaken. Ah, the lukewarmness and negligence of our state! that we soon fall away from our first fervor, and are even now tired with life, from slothfulness and tepidity. Oh that advancement in virtue be not quite asleep in thee, who has so often seen the manifold examples of the devout!

Meditation:

Taken From Abandonment to Divine Providence

Chapter 1

SECTION III.—The Work of our Sanctification.

 

How much more easily sanctity appears when regarded from this point of view.

If the work of our sanctification presents, apparently, the most insurmountable difficulties, it is because we do not know how to form a just idea of it. In reality sanctity can be reduced to one single practice, fidelity to the duties appointed by God. Now this fidelity is equally within each one’s power whether in its active practice, or passive exercise.

 

The active practice of fidelity consists in accomplishing the duties which devolve upon us whether imposed by the general laws of God and of the Church, or by the particular state that we may have embraced. Its passive exercise consists in the loving acceptance of all that God sends us at each moment.

 

Are either of these practices of sanctity above our strength? Certainly not the active fidelity,since the duties it imposes cease to be duties when we have no longer the power to fulfil them. If the state of your health does not permit you to go to Mass you are not obliged to go. The same rule holds good for all the precepts laid down; that is to say for all those which prescribe certain duties.

Only those which forbid things evil in themselves are absolute, because it is never allowable to commit sin. Can there, then, be anything more reasonable? What excuse can be made? Yet this is all that God requires of the soul for the work of its sanctification. He exacts it from both high and low, from the strong and the weak, in a word from all, always and everywhere. It is true then that He requires on our part only simple and easy things since it is only necessary to employ this simple method to attain to an eminent degree of sanctity. If, over and above the Commandments, He shows us the counsels as a more perfect aim, He always takes care to suit the practice of them to our position and character. He bestows on us, as the principal sign of our vocation to follow them, the attractions of grace which make them easy. He never impels anyone beyond his strength, nor in any way beyond his aptitude. Again, what could be more just? All you who strive after perfection and who are tempted to discouragement at the remembrance of what you have read in the lives of the saints, and of what certain pious books prescribe; O you who are appalled by the terrible ideas of perfection that you have formed for yourselves; it is for your consolation that God has willed me to write this. Learn that of which you seem to be ignorant. This God of all goodness has made those things easy which are common and necessary in the order of nature, such as breathing, eating, and sleeping.

No less necessary in the supernatural order are love and fidelity, therefore it must needs be that the difficulty of acquiring them is by no means so great as is generally represented. Review your life. Is it not composed of innumerable actions of very little importance? Well, God is quite satisfied with these. They are the share that the soul must take in the work of its perfection.  This is so clearly explained in Holy Scripture that there can be no doubt about it: “Fear God and keep the commandments, this is the whole duty of man” ( Ecclesiastes xii, 13 ), that is to say—this is all that is required on the part of man, and it is in this that active fidelity consists. If man fulfills his part God will do the rest. Grace being bestowed only on this condition the marvels it effects are beyond the comprehension of man. For neither ear has heard nor eye seen, nor has it entered the mind what things God has planned in His omniscience, determined in His will, and carried out by His power in the souls given up entirely to Him. The passive part of sanctity is still more easy since it only consists in accepting that which we very often have no power to prevent, and in suffering lovingly, that is to say with sweetness and consolation, those things that too often cause weariness and disgust. Once more I repeat, in this consists sanctity. This is the grain of mustard seed which is the smallest of all the seeds, the fruits of which can neither be recognised nor gathered.

 

It is the drachma of the Gospel, the treasure that none discover because they suppose it to be too far away to be sought. Do not ask me how this treasure can be found. It is no secret. The treasure is everywhere, it is offered to us at all times and wherever we may be. All creatures, both friends and enemies pour it out with prodigality, and it flows like a fountain through every faculty of body and soul even to the very centre of our hearts. If we open our mouths they will be filled. The divine activity permeates the whole universe, it pervades every creature; wherever they are it is there; it goes before them, with them, and it follows them; all they have to do is to let the waves bear them on.

Would to God that kings, and their ministers, princes of the Church and of the world, priests and soldiers, the peasantry and labourers, in a word, all men could know how very easy it would be for them to arrive at a high degree of sanctity. They would only have to fulfil the simple duties of Christianity and of their state of life; to embrace with submission the crosses belonging to that state, and to submit with faith and love to the designs of Providence in all those things that have to be done or suffered without going out of their way to seek occasions for themselves. This is the spirit by which the patriarchs and prophets were animated and sanctified before there were so many systems of so many masters of the spiritual life.

 

This is the spirituality of all ages and of every state. No state of life can, assuredly, be sanctified in a more exalted manner, nor in a more wonderful and easy way than by the simple use of the means that God, the sovereign director of souls, gives them to do or to suffer at each moment.

Prayers

Veni Creator Spiritus

Come, Holy Spirit, Creator blest,
and in our souls take up Thy rest;
come with Thy grace and heavenly aid
to fill the hearts which Thou hast made.

O comforter, to Thee we cry,
O heavenly gift of God Most High,
O fount of life and fire of love,
and sweet anointing from above.

Thou in Thy sevenfold gifts are known;
Thou, finger of God's hand we own;
Thou, promise of the Father,
Thou Who dost the tongue with power imbue.

Kindle our sense from above,
and make our hearts o'erflow with love;
with patience firm and virtue high
the weakness of our flesh supply.

Far from us drive the foe we dread,
and grant us Thy peace instead;
so shall we not, with Thee for guide,
turn from the path of life aside.

Oh, may Thy grace on us bestow
the Father and the Son to know;
and Thee, through endless times confessed,
of both the eternal Spirit blest.

Now to the Father and the Son,
Who rose from death, be glory given,
with Thou, O Holy Comforter,
henceforth by all in earth and heaven. Amen.

Ave Maris Stella

Hail, O Star of the ocean,
God's own Mother blest,
ever sinless Virgin,
gate of heav'nly rest.

Taking that sweet Ave,
which from Gabriel came,
peace confirm within us,
changing Eve's name.

Break the sinners' fetters,
make our blindness day,
Chase all evils from us,
for all blessings pray.

Show thyself a Mother,
may the Word divine
born for us thine Infant
hear our prayers through thine.

Virgin all excelling,
mildest of the mild,
free from guilt preserve us
meek and undefiled.

Keep our life all spotless,
make our way secure
till we find in Jesus,
joy for evermore.

Praise to God the Father,
honor to the Son,
in the Holy Spirit,
be the glory one. Amen.

Magnificat

My soul doth magnify the Lord.
And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.
Because he hath regarded the humility of his handmaid; for behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
Because he that is mighty, hath done great things to me; and holy is his name.
And his mercy is from generation unto generations, to them that fear him.
He hath shewed might in his arm: he hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart.
He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble.
He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away.
He hath received Israel his servant, being mindful of his mercy:
As he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed for ever.

Glory Be

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

 

[bernadette szczepkowski]

"What would happen to us if we had not Your light for guide?" Lord, that I may faithfully serve You in my

ordinary duties.

[Alley]

Your Cross

The everlasting God had in His wisdom foreseen from eternity the cross that He now

presents to you as a gift from His inmost heart.

This cross He sends you has been considered with His all-knowing eyes, understood

with justice, warmed and weighed with His with His loving arms and hands, to see

that it be not one inch too large nor one ounce too heavy for you. He has blessed it

with His Holy name, anointed it with His grace, perfumed it with His consolation,

taken one last glance at you and your courage, then sent it to you from heaven;

a special greeting from God to you; an alms of the all-merciful love of God.

 

St. Francis de Sales

 

With love!   

[Dawn Marie]

"Holy Mary, Virgin Mother of God, intercede for me."

An indulgence of 300 days

(1940).

[Alan]

This is the spirituality of all ages and of every state. No state of life can, assuredly, be sanctified in a more exalted manner, nor in a more wonderful and easy way than by the simple use of the means that God, the sovereign director of souls, gives them to do or to suffer at each moment.

[Gloria]

Amen †

[Cathleen]

+Amen