Blue Book 16 is available.

                May 31, 2016 - The Visitation

                R. Today is the Feast of the Visitation.

                R. We see Mary's humility –

                We see Mary going to her cousin
                    Elizabeth to help her.

And Mary said:

My soul proclaims
    the greatness of the Lord
and my spirit rejoices
    in God my Saviour;
because he has looked upon
    the humiliation of his servant.
Yes, from now onwards
    all generations will call me blessed,
for the Almighty
    has done great things for me.
Holy is his name,
and his faithful love extends age after age
    to those who fear him.
He has used the power of his arm,
he has routed the arrogant of heart.
He has pulled down princes
    from their thrones
        and raised high the lowly.
He has filled the starving with good things,
    sent the rich away empty.
He has come to the help
    of Israel his servant,
        mindful of his faithful love
—according to the promise
    he made to our ancestors—
of his mercy to Abraham
    and to his descendants for ever.

   
 

           From Tell My People by Fr. Edward J. Carter, S.J.

The Holy Spirit

Jesus: "My beloved friend, tell My people to pray daily to the Holy Spirit. They are to pray for an increase in His gifts. My people must realize that the Holy Spirit comes to transform them. The Spirit desires to transform you more and more according to My image. Those who are docile to His touch become increasingly shaped in My likeness. He performs this marvel within Mary's Immaculate Heart. The more one dwells in My Mother's Heart, the more active are the workings of the Spirit. The Spirit leads Mary to place you within My own Heart. In both Our Hearts, then, your transformation continues. The more you are formed after My own Heart, the more I lead you to the bosom of My Father. Tell My people all this. Tell them to pray daily for a greater appreciation of these wondrous gifts. I am Lord and Master. All who come to My Heart will be on fire to receive the gifts of the Spirit in ever greater measure! I love and bless My people!"

Reflection: The Holy Spirit is given to us to fashion us ever more according to the likeness of Jesus. And the more we are like Jesus, the more Jesus leads us to the Father. Do we, each day, pray to the Holy Spirit to be more open to His transforming influence? Do we strive each day to grow in union with Mary? The greater our union with our Mother, the spouse of the Holy Spirit, the greater is the transforming action of the Holy Spirit within us.

end of excerpt

                R. Dear Jesus,

                    Help me this day to do Your holy will.
                I love You Jesus and I give You my life.

                    We must learn that we are not perfect
                and we want to tell God we are sorry
                for our sins and ask Him to help work
                things out in our lives if we have
                hurt others or have not given the
                impression to others of the truth.

                    Only Mary was conceived without sin. So our
                lives are lived trying to be more and more
                holy as God wants us to be.
 

                    I quote from Response in Christ -- Fr. Carter says:

. . .Despite our best efforts there will always be some sin in our lives, unless God were to give extraordinary graces. There is only one human person, as far as our certain knowledge goes, who has been preserved from all sin. This person is Christ's mother, Mary. Let us remember this very important point, however. The Church's teaching that we cannot avoid all venial sin without a very special assistance from God refers to semi-deliberate venial sin. With God's ordinary graces we can avoid all fully deliberate sin, both serious and venial. It is this fully deliberate sin which is such an obstacle to our proper growth in the Christian life. Finally, let us remember that as we grow in Christ, even the number of semi-deliberate sins become fewer.

2. The Sacrament of Penance

All of us are sinners, and God in His mercy has made special provision for this fact. He has given us the sacrament of penance. It is fitting – in fact necessary as regards serious sin – that the Christian incarnate his sorrow for sin through this sacrament. This is in keeping with the incarnational and sacramental dimensions of our life of grace. These dimensions impel us to exteriorize or incarnate our interior life of grace. The central focus for such exteriorization is the Mass and the sacraments. This exteriorization satisfies both our corporeal and social nature. 

As regards this social aspect of grace-life exteriorization, the Christian must always remember that he is a member of the new covenant, he is a member of a community. In sinning he has not only failed to love God, he has also sinned against the Christian community, and against man in general. As he expresses his sorrow for sin to God in the sacrament of penance, the Christian also gives expression to this communal aspect of his Christianity, because the sacraments have a very definite communal dimension. They are the sacraments of a community, the People of God. Through the sacrament of penance, therefore, the Christian expresses his sorrow to God in community and he likewise receives God's forgiveness in community. 

Certain contemporary practices which strive to bring forth more fully the communal aspect of the sacrament of penance are to be highly recommended.⁴ The practices we speak of are those in which there is a preparation for private confession and absolution through communal readings, prayer and examination of conscience.  

What about the frequency of receiving the sacrament of penance? Some in the Church today seem to be questioning the value of frequent confessions of devotion, that is, confessions which are not necessary because there is no serious sin. What is the truth of the matter? First of all, it must be admitted that in the early Church this sacrament was administered much less frequently that it is today. Gradually, the practice of frequent confession inserted itself more and more into the life of the Church. It is difficult not to admit that such a practice has taken root under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Frequent confession, although not necessary, has various values. Rahner, in his usual penetrating manner, gives a contemporary description of the value of frequent confession of devotion.⁵ The new Dutch catechism puts it very simply: "Some Catholics have the habit of receiving the sacrament frequently. If this is the result of anxieties, it is not advisable. But if it is due to a desire to meet Christ as the Lord who forgives, frequent confession can be a very evangelical practice."⁶ 

In conclusion, we remind ourselves that the struggle against sin is part of the Christian participation in Christ's death-resurrection. In baptism we die to sin and rise to a newness of life. We are constantly living out one aspect of our baptism, then, through our continual resistance to the forces of sin. As with all elements of our Christian existence, such an effort requires motivation. We can use a variety of motives, of course, but all of them ultimately will be centered in Christ. To grow in the realization of what sin has cost Christ is to grow in the determination to avoid sin. To permeate such determination with love of Christ is to respond to Him who has loved us first: "The life I now live in this body I live in faith: faith in the Son of God who loved me and who sacrificed himself for my sake." (Ga 2:20).

 ______

4. One description of such services is given by A. M. Roguet, O.P., "Les celebrations communautaires de la penitence" in Vie spirituelle, 116 (1967), pp. 188-202.
5. Cf. Karl Rahner, Theological Investigations, Vol. III (Baltimore: Helicon, 1967), pp. 177-189.
6. A New Catechism (New York: Herder & Herder, 1967), p. 459.

                R. Seeing ourselves in the light of what God wants
                us to be is realizing God loved us so much and
                Jesus paid a big price for our sins. Our
                life is to be lived loving God and bringing
                that love to others.

                    Fr. Carter talks about the need to love
                as we should in the communal aspect.
                What we do effects others. God has given
                us a calling in our life to go out and
                spread the Good News –

                God commands us to love Him first – above
                ourselves and to spread this love to others.
                A person, therefore, must see themselves and
                their lives in relation to others, called in
                their vocation to serve God and to be as
                they should be with others.

                    Fr. Carter would always say "No man
                is an island" and he would talk about
                them as being part of other things.

                    The devil tempts a man to be prideful
                like Eve in the Garden. Pride like Eve was
                that she wanted to be equal to God. But it
                is important for us to know our place.
                We are under God. We are imperfect, we
                can pray to God and ask Him to help us
                with things, but we can have a tendency
                to overlook the fact we can contribute
                to problems in our lives by trying to
                see ourselves as always acting perfectly
                even when we know in our heart, we
                did not act perfectly.

                    Pride keeps a person stuck and it
                is from this aspect where they don't see
                themselves as imperfect and tell themselves
                they are perfect.

                    When I pray to God, I have to admit
                my failings in how I treated others, how
                I talked to others, if I deceived others when
                God wanted me to report accurately – the truth
                and be united in building the Kingdom of God.

                    When we pray and we see we fall short
                of doing or saying what we should have,
                when we lied because of bad habits of
                lying and deception, reporting upward,
                working in community as we need to,
                obeying authority over us, discrediting
                those with authority God put over us –
                we want God to forgive us and help us
                to be set free of bad habits, deception,
                hurting the community, or not obeying those
                over us.

                    Freedom is found in telling the truth
                and obeying God's will for us.

                    Jesus shows us about love. He loved
                us so much – He died for our sins.
                But we see He died for the sins of all.
                Can we not love our brothers as God
                commands us to do?

                    In today's world – many can live their
                lives trying to prove they are perfect –
                even when they make a big mistake – their
                pride keeps them so stuck, they would
                rather live the rest of their lives not
                obeying God's will – than ever admit
                they did anything wrong or saying they
                were sorry or being accountable for
                their actions and responsible for the damage
                they did that hurt others and ultimately hurt
                souls.

                    God calls us to identify the sufferings we
                have in dealing with others with His sufferings.
                How Jesus must have had things to deal with,
                with 12 apostles who were men. And yet
                we see His love and unity in keeping
                the Apostles close to him.

                    Judas betrayed Jesus. Judas rebelled
                against Jesus. Judas was sneaky and
                prideful and greedy –

                    Judas was called by God to be an
                Apostle and Jesus loved Judas very
                much, but Judas did not know his
                place.

                    The devil wants to raise people over
                authority so he can operate in them
                to try to take out what God is using
                to help build His Kingdom.

                    We see the pride of Eve – she did not know
                her place – she was tempted by satan and
                she listened to him – she wanted to be equal
                to God. We see how the sin of Adam and Eve
                hurt the whole human race.

                    This helps us see how sin hurts others,
                sin hurts our descendants. When we
                teach them bad patterned behaviors of
                pride and pass anger down where there
                should have been love and holiness.
                We hurt our descendants when we deceive
                others with little white lies that become
                habits, prefabricating deception and
                manipulation and not telling the truth.

                    Our lives are not to be lived to prove
                we are right and above others.

                    Our lives are to be lived to follow
                Christ for He is the way, the truth
                and the life.

                    We walk humbly and give to God
                and others what is their just due.

                    We know our place. We live to build
                unity and love – to walk the way with
                God and allow the reflection of His love
                to come forth from us.

                    God is love – in living as He desires
                we aren't in competition with our
                brothers, we want what God wants –
                we work in His framework of love –
                we build a milieu of love because
                God is love –

                    We are ready to forgive and we ask the
                forgiveness of God and others –