DAY 8 OF 33 TOTAL CONSECRATION

[Dawn Marie]

Begin With The Following Prayers:

Come Holy Ghost fill the hearts of Thy faithful...

The Holy Rosary

The Litany of the Blessed Virgin

 

Imitation of Christ

Of Resisting Temptations

As long as we live in this world, we cannot be without temptations and tribulations. Hence it is written in Job "Man's life on earth is a temptation." Everyone therefore should be solicitous about his temptations and watch in prayer lest the devil find an opportunity to catch him: who never sleeps, but goes about, seeking whom he can devour. No one is so perfect and holy as sometimes not to have temptations and we can never be wholly free from them. Nevertheless, temptations are very profitable to man, troublesome and grievous though they may be, for in them, a man is humbled, purified and instructed. All the Saints passed through many tribulations and temptations and were purified by them. And they that could not support temptations, became reprobate, and fell away.

Many seek to flee temptations, and fall worse into them. We cannot conquer by flight alone, but by patience and true humility we become stronger than all our enemies. He who only declines them outwardly, and does not pluck out their root, will profit little; nay, temptations will sooner return and he will find himself in a worse condition. By degrees and by patience you will, by God's grace, better overcome them than by harshness and your own importunity. Take council the oftener in temptation, and do not deal harshly with one who is tempted; but pour in consolation, as thou wouldst wish to be done unto yourself. Inconstancy of mind and little confidence in God, is the beginning of all temptations. For as a ship without a helm is driven to and fro by the waves, so the man who neglects and gives up his resolutions is tempted in many ways.

Pray to Know Thyself

They should then offer up all their prayers and pious actions to ask for knowledge of themselves and contrition for their sins; and they should do this in a spirit of humility.  For that end, they can, if they chose, meditate on what I have said before of our inward corruption. They can look upon themselves during this week as snails, crawling things, toads, swine, serpents and unclean animals; or they can reflect on these three considerations of St. Bernard: the vileness of our origin, the dishonors of our present state, and our ending as the food of worms. (True Devotion pp228)

They should pray Our Lord and the Holy Ghost enlighten them; and for that end they might use the ejaculations, “Lord that I may see!” (Lk. 18:41); or “May I know myself!” or “Come Holy Ghost”, together with the Litany of the Holy Ghost and the prayers which follows….They should have recourse to the Blessed Virgin and ask her to grant them this immense grace, which must be the foundation of all others; for this end, they should say the Ave Maris Stella and the Litany of the Blessed Virgin. (True devotion pp228)

 

We now enter the second week of preparation---a period dedicated to knowledge of self; something indispensable for our progress in the spiritual life.  Too often we have only a superficial knowledge of ourselves---imagining ourselves to be what we are not.  The purpose of this week is to see ourselves as we really are---to see ourselves as God sees us.  How shall we achieve this knowledge of ourselves?  By…

 

Prayer---asking God for the grace to see ourselves as we really are.  True knowledge of self, will only be achieved by the grace of God and this grace will only come if we ask it of God, through humble and sincere prayer.

 

Examining Our Life---to see how we have spent or misspent our lives.  To help you examine your life thoroughly, we have included an extensive examination of conscience   (if you click the word examnation of conscience it will take you to it) for day 2 of this week.  This covers all the 10 Commandments and various sins based on different states in life.  It is also an ideal way to prepare for confession.  It is recommend that you make a general confession of your whole life, or at least from the time of your last general confession.  However this is only recommended NOT obligatory and it suffices to make a regular confession in preparation for the consecration. 

Realizing that it can be difficult to find both the priest and the time for a general confession, it is suggested that you make your confession at any time during the five week preparatory period---or in cases of impossibility, at any time before or after the consecration.

 

Reflection---on why we were created?  By Whom?  Where we came from?  Where we are going?  Everyone ends up in one of two places----heaven or hell.  Reflect upon the fact that we cannot serve God and the world.  Which one do we really put first?  Are we really committed to serving God?  Is it only on Sundays and in private?  Or only in those things which we find to our liking?

 

Meditation:

Taken From:​ ​Sin and Its Consequences

 

[Mark Lecomber]

Wow, thank you!

[Dawn Marie]

Dear Mark,

I'm going to try and type the meditation out for you.  it's late where you are but you might be able to view them in the morning.

 

IMH
DM

 

 

TAKEN FROM SIN AND IT'S CONSEQUENCES:

Therefore my purpose is to begin by the most general outline of what sin is and to lay down certain broad but simple principals which I shall  have to apply hereafter in our future subjects.  I therefore intend first to speak of the nature of sin, of what it is, and of certain distinctions of sin, which will be necessary hereafter for us to refer to.

I. First then what is sin?  There are many definitions of it and one is this:  it is the transgression of the law.  God is a law to Himself; His perfections are the law of His own nature; and God wrote upon the conscience of man, even in the state of nature, the outline of His own perfections.

He made man to know right from wrong, he made him to understand the nature of purity, justice, truth and mercy.  These are perfections of God and on the conscience of man the obligations to this law are written.

Every man born into this world in a state of nature, has this outline of God's law written upon him, and sin is the transgression of that law.

Another definition of sin is, any thought, word or deed which is contrary to the will of God.  Now the will of God is the perfection of God Himself-holy, just, pure, merciful, true; and anything contrary to these perfections in thought, word or deed is sin.  The conformity of man to the will of God, to the perfections of God, is the sanctity or the perfection of the human soul; and the more he is conformed to the will of God , the holier and more perfect he is.  Therefore to be at variance with God is to be  deformed; and the monstrous deformity of the human frame is not more humbling nor more hideous-nay it is not more humbling and  hideous compared with the deformity of the soul.

When the soul is unlike to God, when it is departed from the perfection of God, when instead of purity there is impurity, instead of justice there is injustice, instead of truth there is falsehood, instead of mercy there is cruelty, instead of the perfections of God there is the direct contrary of those perfections, no deformity or hideousness that can strike the eye is so terrible.

The malice then of sin consists in this, that it is a created will in conscience variance with the uncreated will of God.  God made us to His own image and likeness, He gave us all that He could bestow upon us.

He could not bestow upon us His own nature, because that is uncreated, and no creature can partake of the uncreated nature of God; but God could bestow, and He did by His omnipotence with His mercy, bestow upon us His likeness, His image, an intelligence and a will, a heart and a conscience, so that we become intelligent and moral beings.

The malice of sin  consists then in this;  that an intelligent creature having a power of will, deliberately and consciously opposes the will of its maker.

The malice of sin is essentially internal to the soul. The external action whereby the sinner perpetrates his sin adds indeed an accidental malice and an accidental of wickedness; but the essence, the life of the malice consists in the state of the soul itself.

We see then that sin is the conscious  variation of our moral being from the will of God.

We abuse our whole nature, we abuse our intellect by acting irrationally, in violation of the will of God which is written upon the conscience; we abuse our will , because we deliberately abuse the power of the will whereby we originate our actions in opposition to the will of God who gave it.

[Mark Lecomber]

Thank you!

[Dawn Marie]

Don't worry about the meditations you can't access for now.  It must be some kind of glitch.  It was posted as an image because there was no other way to post it unless it was hand typed out.

Contact the good Padre and we will keep praying for you.  Stick with it, you'll make it, and don't feel bad alot of people feel like this is a great deal over their heads so to speak.  Just take in what you can and leave the rest to God:)

IMH
DM

[Mark Lecomber]

Thank you, D.  Still can't access the meditations - the same thing comes up as in the original post.  Maybe it's because i'm on a Mac, but i don't usually have any problems.  Thank you for the email address as well.

In the past i have found that the 54-day Rosary tends to dominate my prayer life and stifle everything else.  I think, a week into doing the Consecration as well I'm feeling a little bamboozled.  

But... just done day 25 of the 54-d RN and I was drawn to reflect on Mary's experience within those events and particularly the consolation she received from God, having first trusted Him, e.g. I've never thought of Simeon's prophecy "thy soul also a sword shall pierce" as a consolation before but rather a consequence or a "necessary evil" in order to accomplish a good work.  I feel much better now, like not overwhelmed by it all, but that actually I need it.  It also helps knowing that I am part of a group doing it!

[Dawn Marie]

Can you access these Mark?  Maybe there was just a quirk.

[Dawn Marie]

Dear Mark,

here is Father Vernoy's address:

[e-mail]

[Mark Lecomber]

I couldn't access the meditations today.  They came up as three squares saying "Image not available".  I'm only writing this in case anyone else is affected a some point.  

I have struggled to take everything on board so far, such is the depth and breadth of the daily material. Although I want to continue I feel that I am sooo not ready!  I'd like to put a question or two to Fr. Vernoy, but I don't know where to find his email address - I'm sure I read that this was a possibility - can someone point me in the right direction?

Thank you,  Mark

[Birgitta]

Day 8 completed

[Copacabana]

Day 8 prayed.

Will... reflect on these three considerations of St. Bernard: the vileness of our origin, the dishonors of our present state, and our ending as the food of worms.