"I have loved you with an everlasting love...And I know the plans I have for you says the Lord"
Jeremiah:29-31
We have ashes placed on our foreheads. What a curious Catholic custom. What does it mean, having ashes on your head? It means that you came from the earth and to the earth you will return. “Remember, man, that you are but dust.” Ah, but what dust! You are dust that is going to be one with God. Isn’t that enough to make you dance, right in the middle of this ash business? We are not an ordinary dust—we are a dust that is going to be eternal, a dust that is going to be glorified, a dust that is going to be with God. So, let us prepare ourselves to receive that “dust” with joy—a joy based on discipline—and let us enter the corridor of Lent. Lent is a time of going very deeply into ourselves, of really straightening the ways of the Lord. What is it that we have to tear out of our soul, by the roots? What is it that stands between us and God? Between us and our brothers and sisters? Between us and life, the life of the Spirit? Whatever it is, let us relentlessly tear it out, without a moment’s hesitation. Let us be willing to surrender all that we have within ourselves. Lent is a corridor that leads us to the face of the Father, the face of God. You cannot come heavily laden—you were born naked, and when you die you will come naked before God. His Son died naked. So, do not carry anything. You will take before God only that which you have given away. But you are not dead yet! So meanwhile, let things drop, really drop. Then you will enter Lent with a fantastic joy. For every time you drop anything pertaining to the wrong type of self-fulfillment, or to the adoration of yourself, or to all the things that clutter up your life, a sense of immense joy will come to you and through you. Seven weeks are set aside every year for us to let go of the old and to enter into the new, because God is merciful. Now we can pass over from the old life that we led before Lent into the new life after. This “passover” is a daily occurrence; it is not only during Lent. But Lent enhances it and makes you think. It concentrates you. It brings you into the heart of God. Lent is you and I, like Saint John the well-beloved, putting our head on the bosom of Christ and hearing the heartbeats of God (Jn 13:21-25). When you hear the heartbeats of God, you change. We try to listen well to those heartbeats during Lent, so that we may not only repent and make our peace with God, but forgive all who have hurt us. Let each one of us open his or her heart to God, and let him wash us clean, let him fill us with a hunger for him, and a thirst. Let him make us his own, so that when we come to Easter our joy will be beyond reckoning. Servant of God Catherine de Hueck Doherty A Truly Profitable Life
May peace be in your soul…. Every other gift which one possesses in this life is vanity just as all other things of the world are vanity. It is wonderful to be alive inasmuch as our true life is the life beyond; otherwise who could bear the burden of this life if there weren’t a prize for suffering, an eternal joy; how could one explain the admirable resignation of so many poor creatures who struggle with life and often die in the breach if it weren’t for the certainty of God’s justice? In the world which has distanced itself from God, there is a lack of peace, but there is also a lack of charity that is true and perfect love. Maybe if all of us listened more to Saint Paul, human miseries would be slightly diminished…. My life is monotonous, but every day I understand better what a grace it is to be Catholic. Poor unlucky those who don’t have a faith: to live without a faith, without a patrimony to defend, without a steady struggle for the truth, is not living but existing. We must never exist but live, because even through every disappointment we should remember that we are the only ones who possess the truth, we have a faith to sustain, a hope to attain: our homeland. And therefore let us banish all melancholy that can only exist when the faith is lost. Human sorrows touch us, but if they are viewed in the light of religion, and thus of self-surrender, they are not harmful but helpful, because they purify the soul of the little and inevitable stains by which we men, due to our wicked nature, dirty ourselves many times. In this holy Lent, let us lift up our hearts and always go forward for the triumph of the reign of Christ in Society. Cordial greetings in Jesus Christ. Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati is a lay Dominican who died at the age of 24 and was dedicated to serving the poor in his native Italy. The Leaven of Grace
Grace is a principle of life. Final glorification has flowed from the love of the Father and has been bestowed upon the baptized by the Holy Spirit. The person has been sealed by the indwelling of the Spirit who now gives the baptized a new direction and a new mind, the “mind which is in Christ Jesus.” The Holy Eucharist is precisely this new mind. Jesus said, I am the living Bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this Bread he shall live forever, and the Bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. In the Eucharist is realized the whole essence and meaning of creation, of the redemption and of the return to the Father. Here is realized the whole essence of Christianity: “God is made Man in order that man might become God.” This means that the kernel of our spiritual life shines forth in this most intimate reunion with God. “Man becomes by grace what God is by nature.” This is what we mean, as I’ve stated several times, by man’s deification or his theosis. It is indeed the divinization of the whole human being and the realization of immortality that God grants us in the reception of the Body and Blood of Christ…. Because of this union with Christ the Christian becomes fully alive with the Holy Spirit, and with the infinite power of the Love that breathes life wherever it enters. The measure of our communication in this Life is the measure of our possession of it. The Christian now knows with certainty that the anointing of the Good News of Christ cannot be done by words alone. Verbalization about his faith will not convince anyone. His faith is a life. Life must be lived, and its radiation gives life. The sign of credibility, especially in our own days, can only be acts which are not done simply to project some kind of good image, but which proceed from an interior conviction which inspires heroism in the service of others. Holy Communion, which is Christ himself—living, teaching, inspiring—becomes this fire which sustains the Christian in such a life. Archbishop Joseph M. Raya Jesus and Mary
O most compassionate heart of Jesus, accept all my tears, every cry of pain as an entreaty for those who suffer, for those who weep; for those who forget you. O Mary, Mother of sorrows, at the foot of the cross you received the title of “Our Mother.” I am the child of your sorrow, the child of Calvary. My Jesus, I suffer and I love you. All my cries of anguish rise to you, my Comforter. In your adorable heart I weep. To your heart I confide my sighs, my anguish, my grief to your grief. My Jesus, sanctify my sufferings by this holy union. Grant that by increasing my love for you, my grief may become lighter and easier to bear. My divine spouse has drawn me to a humble and hidden life and he often tells me that my heart will not stop beating until I have sacrificed all to him. To help me decide, he often reminds me that at the hour of death I shall have no other comforter than Jesus, and Jesus crucified. He alone, faithful friend, shall I carry, to my grave between my icy, cold fingers…. O Jesus, give me, I beg you, the bread of humility, the bread of obedience, the bread of charity, the bread of strength to break my will and to mold it in yours, the bread of interior mortification, the bread of detachment from creatures, the bread of patience to bear the sufferings my heart endures. O Jesus, you want me to be crucified, fiat. The bread of strength to suffer as I ought, the bread of seeing you alone in all things and at all times, Jesus, Mary, the Cross, I want no other friends but these. Saint Bernadette Soubirous |
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I'm not really a writer, but it's on my long list of aspirations to become one. The first on the list is to become a great Saint! My hope is to share knowledge and inspiration as we walk together during our pilgrim journey on earth and guide each other, hand in hand to the gates of Heaven... If you for find this website helpful please consider making a donation today! Archives
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