June 16, 2014

                And Jesus says

                    Open wide your hearts, My
                        chosen ones –

                    Open - open - open –>
                    Open to love –

                R. Let the gifts God gives us
                        fill us –

                How can God fill us when we are
                    closed down

                R. God is love –

                We can fool ourselves saying we love
                    and be so closed in and not
                    really loving anybody outside
                    our family, because we lack
                    trust and are
                    closed down –
                    controlling everything –
                    not communication

                CLOSED – DOWN –

                How many messages can God
                give us to love others outside
                our family –
                to really love the whole world
                to really love the whole Church –

                When we have angry, closed down,
                    controlling hearts and we
                    won't listen to God –

                Open your hearts He says –
                Spread your arms open wide –
                Be mindful of others, outside
                    your family, in love –

                R. Like Jesus who –
                    Spread His arms –
                    Gave His all –
                    And LOVED –

                Jesus took flesh –
                    He loved men so much,
                    Jesus came –
 

                R. The Bible is a story of
                    God's love –

                God created the world–
                God created all He gave us –
                God created man in His
                    image and likeness –

                Adam and Eve sinned –
                Eve listened to the devil –

                Despite all God's gifts to them –
                    Eve wanted to be equal to God –

                Pride is a big block to spiritual
                    growth –
                    So a man focuses on himself –
                    that is the vision satan wants
                    him to have –

                God knocks on his door and says
                    "Come out and play"

                And the man says
                    "No" to God

                I am too busy planning my
                    way to live –
                    "Get lost God"

                Then he sits and tells himself
                    how he is holy – he
                    prefabricates what he
                    wants God to do in his
                    vision and writes his
                    own agenda –

                God is –
                A man surrendering
                    to God's will is loving others
                    outside his family –

                    His heart is growing in
                real love likened to Jesus, who
                sacrificed Himself –
                His Body, His Blood, His all –

                Love is spreading one's arms
                    and answering the door
                    to God: 24/7 –

                The man of faith has his eyes
                    opened to God's plan –

                He isn't angry –

                Love and anger at others
                    can't co-exist –

                Love is a state of oneness
                    with God in the heart –
                    God is perfect
                    God is pure
                    God is love

                Living one's life giving in
                    love –

                A man who shuts his door in
                    fear of opening it –
                    has a closed door –
                    doesn't he?

                How do you see the posture of
                    Jesus on the cross 

                R. OPEN – LOVE

                God is love –

                The devil can tie up one man's
                    mind he never really
                    opens to the will of
                    God –
                    A man can be too busy
                    calculating how he should
                    fear, manipulate others,
                    organize his life –
                    be busy – worry about
                    what people think of him –

                And the soft quiet message of
                    God is
                    so faint, he never stops
                    and really hears Jesus
                    in the message that
                    is the same –

                Jesus: Open your heart –

                Spread your arms –

                Trust in Me –

                Work with others in your
                    vocation in God's will –
 

                Song: Little Child –

                Jesus: Children learn trust at
                    an early age –
                    If people around them
                    are manipulative,
                    untrustworthy,
                    unpredictable –
                They learn survival tactics
                    because they are children and
                    need to survive –

                A child can be rewarded for
                    achievements, but the
                    acceptance and real
                    love and trust in
                    a warm heart – he is
                    deprived of –

                At the age he leaves that
                    environment – he needs
                    healing –
                    he needs to grow in the ways
                    of the heart – Life is in this –
                    but instead he can work
                    harder on achievements
                    to show he is worthy and
                    press harder and harder
                    to prove he is loving –

                Loving comes from the heart –

                You were made for relationships
                    with God, others and yourself –

                If a man stays in his house,
                    his whole life – he never
                    goes anywhere
 

                R. In Genesis we see creation –
                    how plants and animals
                    reproduce –

                We see the words
                    "Increase and multiply"

                The devil wants a man to
                    shut down –
                    put a sign on "stay out"
                    I'm afraid of relationships!

                ALL or Nothing –

                We can discern –

                We can open up –

                We can live God's Plan –

                R. I think of the song –

                    We are blind we need your
                        grace –

                What about the man who lives
                    his life, year after year,
                    planning, prodding, protecting
                    his heart like an armed-guarded
                    bank against people outside
                    his family –

                    What about a child learning
                about the plan of God to
                go out and get married
                and increase and multiply –

                    In looking at flowers and
                how some are crossed with
                others of the same species –
                men can try to make a perfect,
                pure white, flower –

                    Why can we see how God
                gives us a gift to work with
                others – outside our family
                of origin and in so doing
                see faults we need to correct –

                    We need to die to those ways
                we were taught that are not
                like Jesus to rise to new
                life –

                A person that stays in the same
                    family structure may never
                    see things they need to
                    change in their bad habits –

                God intends us to work in
                    love with certain others
                    and grow in greater
                    perfection –
                    likened to Him, by
                    recognizing our
                    family of origin had
                    imperfections and we
                    learned them like a baby
                    drinking from their mother's breast –
                    A person can still be in the
                    Command – Response Stage

                If they hear a strong voice –
                    they can still be the little
                    girl back home –
                    with shaky knees and
                    fear
  

                R. How does anyone reach a person
                    closed down in the same
                    house of origin at 50
  

                R. I have told this story:

                    My dad wanted all the lights out,
                        except in the room where we
                        were working or socializing.

                    My dad let us know it.
                    He told us and he was strong –

                    I didn't like my dad hollering,
                        I did what he told me –

                When I got married, my husband
                    wanted all the lights on –
                    he liked a bright house –

                When he would say
                    "Why did you turn all the
                        lights out?"

                I reacted like the little child and
                    the big parent
 

                R. The little child of the past
                    was still in me –

                The little child with reactions to my daddy –

                Had I not left my house of origin
                    and got in another person's
                    family –
                    I would have kept my reactions
                    that were deep seated in me.

                A man was watching his wife cut off
                    both ends of a ham before
                    cooking it.

                He said, "Honey, that ham is good
                    why do you throw it out
                    at the ends."

                She went back and found out
                    her grandma's pan was
                    very small and she had to
                    cut off the end to put it
                    in the pan.

                She and her mother who taught
                    her, cut off the ends of
                    the ham for 2 generations
                    because grandma's pan was
                    very small –

                A person can get so set in their ways
                    and be trapped in bad habits
                    that are destructive –
                    survival tactics they learned
                    because of angry or imperfect
                    parents –

                Children can be taught from parents
                    to be co-dependent –
                    A child was taught to feel sorry
                    for mom, because dad did
                    this to her and made her cry.

                In this case the focus was on the parent, and not the
                    child as it should be. The focus is not right.

                But we can all make mistakes in
                    our homes and families, but
                    the problem comes –

                When a person grew up with an
                    angry dad that was emotionally
                    damaging to a child's self-concept
                    and the child spends their
                    life trying to force their
                    disrespect for themselves
                    on others they want to
                    get to validate their self-worth.

                It is a prison for a person to not
                     recognize their family wasn't
                    perfect and through force try
                    to implement their family
                    dysfunctions on others –

                In marriage a person may leave
                    in a separation because of
                    abuse from a blind person
                    disrespecting them and hurting
                    them in the family –

                What about single people who
                    just stay locked in that
                    family system because they
                    won't believe they are not
                    perfect and can't really get
                    along intimately with anybody else,
                    because of what happened in
                    childhood and how they were
                    taught and don't want to look at their issues.

                    Anyone who marries know
                that it takes work, people hurt
                each other, there is lots of
                learning and working on unity
                of the spouses.

                    What about religious life,
                or starting a new order, if
                the leaders under an authority
                try to use measures to force
                dysfunction on others –

                    God intends men to work in unity
                and He gives us His Plan. If bad
                example is shown, and an attitude "I won't change"
                and "I will do what I want and
                I am on top and you are under
                me" – from people under authority –
                How can there be any growth from this
                Who would come to such a sterile
                set-up – project themselves
                to this.

                God has called us to be united
                    with the whole world
                    in peace and love –

                God gives us the Church, the
                    Mass, baptism,
                marriage, Holy Orders, Confession.

                R. God is teaching us about Himself –
                Jesus is truly present in His Divinity
                    and humanity in the Eucharist.

                We need help –
                We need God's grace –
                God is perfect love –

                Jesus and Mary's Hearts are all
                    pure in perfect love –

                Jesus invites us to His pure and
                    perfect Heart to dwell there –

                We are in need of healing!!

                God is love!

                God is all perfect!

                What about the guy who says,
                    in pride, "My way!! My way!!"

                "I am perfect, I am right,
                    I don't need the natural
                    law, the commandments,
                    not directions" –

                "You are under me – be
                    molded like my family setting" and
                    maybe in his family
                    he grew up with dysfunction,
                    perfectionist, manipulation,
                    hypochondrias,
                    overindulgence,
                    rejection, neglect,
                    abuse, anger, not learning to solve problems,
                    or division.

                Everybody should follow the
                    all perfect God – who
                    wants unity and love –
                    God who made marriage and
                    the family,

                God calls religious to work
                    in communities to help the
                    needs of the Church –

                Look at Salvation History –
                    Rebellion against God

                R. God created an orderly world –
 

Genesis 3: 1-7

    Now, the snake was the most subtle of all the wild animals that Yahweh God had made. It asked the woman, 'Did God really say you were not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?' The woman answered the snake, 'We may eat the fruit of the trees in the garden. But of the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden God said, "You must not eat it, nor touch it, under pain of death." ' Then the snake said to the woman, 'No! You will not die! God knows in fact that the day you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, knowing good from evil.' The woman saw that the tree was good to eat and pleasing to the eye, and that it was enticing for the wisdom that it could give. So she took some of its fruit and ate it. She also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they realised that they were naked. So they sewed fig-leaves together to make themselves loin-cloths.

                R. Salvation History

Revelation 21: 1-8

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; the first heaven and the first earth had disappeared now, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride dressed for her husband. Then I heard a loud voice call from the throne, 'Look, here God lives among human beings. He will make his home among them; they will be his people, and he will be their God, God-with-them. He will wipe away all tears from their eyes; there will be no more death, and no more mourning or sadness or pain. The world of the past has gone.'

Then the One sitting on the throne spoke. 'Look, I am making the whole of creation new. Write this, "What I am saying is trustworthy and will come true."' Then he said to me, 'It has already happened. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give water from the well of life free to anybody who is thirsty; anyone who proves victorious will inherit these things; and I will be his God and he will be my son. But the legacy for cowards, for those who break their word, or worship obscenities, for murderers and the sexually immoral, and for sorcerers, worshippers of false gods or any other sort of liars, is the second death in the burning lake of sulphur.'

Revelation 22: 20-21

                Song: A Song from Jesus

Revelation 12: 1-2

Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman, robed with the sun, standing on the moon, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant, and in labour, crying aloud in the pangs of childbirth."

   

                R. Where is the little child that once
                    was in us –
                    Do we just grow up at
                    20 or so and the child is gone and
                    we are adults –

                How foolish is this?

                The reactions, the ways
                    are a process in life –
                    to be more like Jesus –

                To learn to love –
                To learn to be pure
 

November 4, 2013

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.

                R. The Babylonians had 700 different gods.

                How many gods do we have today
                    in the secular world?

                R. Jesus spread His arms
                He gave His all –
                    He died on the cross!

                Song: Glory, Glory, Glory Lord

                The baby needs love –

                People at age 50 still don't think
                    they are lovable sometimes –

23 Years Ago
 

                R. Heaven is for lovers –

                Hearts were made for love
 

                Given June 5, 2014

                Jesus: Love is a state of being – a man
                can be asked by God to help and to
                do what his boss asks of him and
                he is being watched by God of his
                performance.

                    You have so long in this life to
                live to be more pure in your
                heart, likened to My Heart to
                prepare yourself for heaven.

                    A man was asked to report what
                he found to the one above him,
                why would he ignore what the
                one above asks and report nothing.

                God has called you to His service
                to some they learn to perfect traits
                that are holding back needed information
                for the building of My Kingdom and
                to argue as to how their ways
                are then the right ways.

                    I am pure and meek in Heart –
                your whole life is to live to be pure,
                to be as God is calling you to be.

                    A man had some land and was
                asked by God to care for it –
                instead he made friends with
                those who came to work and reported
                nothing to the owner and left the
                work the owner told him to do
                undone.

                    So when the owner expected the
                loyalty of the man in serving
                him, he found only disloyalty
                and anger from an impudent
                servant who seized the time for
                his own vain glory, which was
                as it was, of not serving where
                the owner in charge of it all
                asked him to report upward.

                    Why would a man be so
                neglectful of what really was asked
                of the one over them.

                    I have given you so many gifts
                to love and to serve your God and
                it is a very strong defect in one,
                needing healing to ignore the ones
                I call to lead and to withhold
                what I ask for.

                    A man went out to a field and
                in loyalty to his master he wanted
                to serve him and do all he could
                to promote the Kingdom.

                    Another man worked against
                the owner – no matter how the owner
                called him to serve – he continually
                withheld the important information
                he was being called to deliver. At
                long last there was an enormous
                storm brewing which could tear
                the land apart. The unworthy servant
                because of his bad ways withheld
                from the owner what information
                he asked of him.

                    Now the storm came and it
                took out the barn and the livestock
                and much of the possessions on the
                land were destroyed.

                    When the unworthy servant was
                asked by the owner – why he did
                this and there by caused the destruction
                of the place because they were unprepared,
                the unworthy servant was obstinate
                and denied any wrong on his part
                and further infuriated the suffering
                owner by his untruthfulness, deception
                and pride.

                    I have given to you gifts and
                land and love and the building
                of My Kingdom is the concern. The
                unworthy servant stoops to
                manipulate men in ways of obstinacy
                and argumentation –

                    While the just man seeks the ways
                of the building of the Kingdom, obedience
                to those God calls in His place over you.

                    When asked why the man disobeyed
                the authority and did not do as he
                was told – he became obstinate,
                angry and further infuriated the
                man who having lost patience with
                the man's constant untruthfulness
                and manipulation for no reason but
                dominancy over his superior.

                    Now a man will stand before Me
                on the last day and I will see how
                he served the will of God, how
                the man chose to do God's will
                over his own.

                    ... thy will be done on earth as
                it is in heaven.

                    Obedience to the Father's will is
                to be learned on this earth.

                    One can spend their whole life
                trying to be in charge over those
                they needed to obey.

                    ... Thy will be done on earth
                as it is in heaven. 

                Jesus: When Peter denied Me - he repented
                    and he was sorry for his sin.

                Judas betrayed Me and he despaired
                    because of his pride,
                    he did not understand the love
                    of God.

                Judas was doing what he did behind
                    My back. He did not understand
                    I was above him.

                    Many who continue being neglectful
                servants, continue in their ways with
                great spiritual pride and impudence.
                They need to be healed and instead they
                become more impudent in what really
                is important in the spiritual life –
                obedience to just authority over them.

                    The seeds of time move exceedingly
                slow until you have reached a plateau
                in which a man of folly finds himself
                in charge and his whole life is
                lived making his kingdom one in
                which he tries to dominate instead
                of being ready to let God lead.
                So he is "butting up" where he should
                have opened up as an unclogged pipe.
                I call men to be a connection in
                My plan – like the pipes in one's
                kitchen sink – a pipe brings water
                in, a pipe takes water out.

                    To the man manipulating, controlling,
                disobeying he is like a clogged pipe
                in both directions in the Plan of God.
                Where the man should have helped things
                zig – he will zag every time blocking
                thing and causing disharmony and
                shut down.

                    My world is to be made up of
                docile men acting as a network
                to let water to the faucet and wasted
                water to be removed efficiently.

                    Love to enter –
                    Truth to enter –
                    Building My Kingdom – not theirs,
                        not satan's –

                    Like a network

                My people have you ever studied the
                    human body –
                    The food is taken in, it is broken
                    down, it is stored, it brings
                    life and energy and it is
                    then discarded if it is waste!

                Perfection of feeding and nourishing
                    and working the Father's Plan
                    as the various organs bring
                    life to the man and nourishes
                    him, build up healthy blood
                    and a healthy body –
                    then what is waste is discarded.

                Now a house had a set up –
                    water came in and it was
                    distributed in the faucets for
                    use in the bathrooms and
                    kitchen –
                    drains were provided with pipes
                    to carry out old water and
                    take it from the house –

                    A man had broken pipes on
                the way it was to carry out
                the debris.

                    So rather than deal with it,
                he turned off the water and water
                could not be used right in that
                house because the network to
                remove old water and debris was
                broken.

                    But you say, what a foolish
                way to operate to shut everything
                down and abandon the house.

                    A man is given a heart and soul
                and he is to learn obedience and
                love and docility and learn he has
                a wounded human nature and
                has tendencies because of it to
                anger, jealousy, pride, envy,
                lust, slothfulness and gluttony –
                So instead of trying to grow in virtue,
                faith, hope, love, humility, prudence,
                temperance, justice, fortitude
                and the gifts of the Holy Spirit –
                Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel,
                Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety
                and Fear of the Lord 
                the man gives into the tendencies
                of his wounded human nature
                and does not grow in the ways
                in which he is to be a witness,
                a servant to Me in the world.

                    It is like a clogged network,
                like pipes broken on the return
                of emptying old water in the house.
                He shuts down and does not live.

                    Life is rooted in Me –

                    To have life, to live the life of
                resurrection you must die to the
                self-will opposed to God.

                    A man quit working the Plan
                of God and he stored up clogged
                things that never worked.

                    Where he was called to be humble,
                and obedient - he grew in pride
                because he didn't want anyone
                telling him what to do.

                    ... thy will be done on earth as
                it is in heaven –

                    He would not recognize his
                creaturehood, his woundedness
                and he further never recognized
                the Creator who made him to
                learn obedience, submission,
                meekness and be an empty pipe
                in the grand design of the Father.
                He zigged when he should have
                zagged and that operation caused
                a big failure in the plan of
                expelling dirty water.

                    Look at the body –

                    In – usage – out

                    All according to a master plan

                Jesus: The whole plan of consecration of the
                Shepherds of Christ is the submission of one's
                heart to My Heart and the heart of
                My Mother.
 

                From the Priestly Newsletter 2000 - Issue 1

The Father and Mary

In his Encyclical, Redemptor Hominis (Redeemer of Man) Pope John Paul II states: "The special characteristic of the motherly love that the Mother of God inserts in the mystery of the Redemption and the life of the Church finds expression in its exceptional closeness to man and all that happens to him. It is in this that the mystery of the Mother consists. The Church, which looks to her with altogether special love and hope, wishes to make this mystery her own in an ever deeper manner...

"The Father’s eternal love, which has been manifested in the history of mankind through the Son whom the Father gave... comes close to each of us through this Mother and thus takes on tokens that are of more easy understanding and access by each person." ³

3. Pope John Paul II, Encyclical Letter, Redemptor Hominis, (Redeemer of Man), United States Catholic Conference, No. 22.

                Jesus: As you give yourself more and more
                to God – you become as God
                wants you to be –

                The willful man – holds back –
                he is in control, he manipulates
                to keep control – he does not take
                responsibility for wrongs he
                commits, he tries to deceive
                others, because the focus is not
                truth, but his pride, himself.

                A just man seeks the truth –
                    he wants what God wants –
                    he wants to be made more pure –
                    he enlists God's help –
                    he asks the Holy Spirit for wisdom to
                        see his imperfections –
                    he is giving his heart to the Immaculate Heart
                        of My Mother – so she will,
                        with the Holy Spirit help him to
                        be more and more  holy –

The late Archbishop Luis M. Martinez of Mexico strikingly speaks of the ongoing cooperation of Mary with the Holy Spirit regarding the reproduction of Jesus within us: "Christian life is the reproduction of Jesus in souls…

"Now, how will this mystical reproduction be brought about in souls? In the same way in which Jesus was brought into the world, for God gives a wonderful mark of unity to all His works. Divine acts have a wealth of variety because they are the work of omnipotence; nevertheless, a most perfect unity always shines forth from them because they are the fruit of wisdom; and this divine contrast of unity and variety stamps the works of God with sublime and unutterable beauty.

"In His miraculous birth, Jesus was the fruit of heaven and earth…The Holy Spirit conveyed the divine fruitfulness of the Father to Mary, and the virginal soil brought forth in an ineffable manner our most loving Savior, the divine Seed, as the prophets called Him…

"That is the way He is reproduced in souls. He is always the fruit of heaven and earth.

"Two artisans must concur in the work that is at once God’s masterpiece and humanity’s supreme product: the Holy Spirit and the most holy Virgin Mary. Two sanctifiers are necessary to souls, the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, for they are the only ones who can reproduce Christ.

"Undoubtedly, the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary sanctify us in different ways. The first is the Sanctifier by essence; because He is God, who is infinite sanctity; because He is the personal Love that completes, so to speak, the sanctity of God, consummating His life and His unity, and it belongs to Him to communicate to souls the mystery of that sanctity. The Virgin Mary, for her part, is the co-operator, the indispensable instrument in and by God’s design. From Mary’s maternal relation to the human body of Christ is derived her relation to His Mystical Body which is being formed through all the centuries until the end of time, when it will be lifted up to the heavens, beautiful, splendid, complete, and glorious.

"These two, then, the Holy Spirit and Mary, are the indispensable artificers of Jesus, the indispensable sanctifiers of souls. Any saint in heaven can co-operate in the sanctification of a soul, but his co-operation is not necessary, not profound, not constant: while the co-operation of these two artisans of Jesus of whom we have just been speaking is so necessary that without it souls are not sanctified (and this by the actual design of Providence), and so intimate that it reaches to the very depths of our soul. For the Holy Spirit pours charity into our heart, makes a habitation of our soul, and directs our spiritual life by means of His gifts. The Virgin Mary has the efficacious influence of Mediatrix in the most profound and delicate operations of grace in our souls. And, finally, the action of the Holy Spirit and the co-operation of the most holy Virgin Mary are constant; without them, not one single character of Jesus would be traced on our souls, no virtue grow, no gift be developed, no grace increased, no bond of union with God be strengthened in the rich flowering of the spiritual life.

"Such is the place that the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary have in the order of sanctification. Therefore, Christian piety should put these two artisans of Christ in their true place, making devotion to them something necessary, profound, and constant." ¹⁸

18. Archbishop Luis M. Martinez, The Sanctifier, op. cit. pp. 5-7.

                From the Priestly Newsletter 2000 - Issue 2

                From the Priestly Newsletter 2000 - Issue 2

Christ is Our Strength

I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep. The hired man, since he is not the shepherd and the sheep do not belong to him, abandons the sheep and runs away as soon as he sees a wolf coming, and then the wolf attacks and scatters the sheep; this is because he is only a hired man and has no concern for the sheep. I am the good shepherd; I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for my sheep. (Jn 10:11-15¹)

St. Paul tells us: It is, then, about my weaknesses that I am happiest of all to boast, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me; and that is why I am glad of weaknesses, insults, constraints, persecutions and distress for Christ’s sake. For it is when I am weak that I am strong. (2 Cor 12:9-10)

This brief passage contains one of the greatest lessons of the spiritual life. As we progress along our spiritual journey, we become increasingly aware of how weak we are in ourselves, but how strong we are in Christ.

To experience our weakness involves suffering. The degree and kind of suffering can vary. The suffering can include the experience of the classical dark night of the spirit as described by St. John of the Cross.

One of the main purposes of the dark night is to make a person keenly aware of his or her helplessness without God. This is a most necessary point that mystics must pass through if the spiritual marriage, or transforming union with God in Christ, is to occur. In this transforming union, there is a profound exchange between God and the mystic. God’s self-communication to the mystic is most profound, and the mystic makes a profound gift of self to God. In this state the mystic is supremely aware of living by the life of God, and without experiencing one’s helplessness without God, this lived awareness does not occur.

If not all on the spiritual journey experience the classic dark night, all must undergo a proportionate purification which includes increased awareness of personal weakness. In this process one more and more abandons the self to Christ and increasingly lives by His life, by His strength. Again St. Paul speaks to us: I have been crucified with Christ and yet I am alive; yet it is no longer I, but Christ living in me. The life that I am now living, subject to the limitation of human nature, I am living in faith, faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. (Gal 2:19-20)

Our sense of weakness is not a paralyzing one. It does not hinder our performance of duty. On occasion, athletes and other performers may, for various reasons, feel very inadequate regarding the exercise of their particular skill. The sense of inadequacy, in turn, can detract from performance. In the spiritual life, however, our sense of weakness does not impair our capacity to function as Christians. On the contrary. If, sensing our helplessness, we increasingly abandon ourselves to Christ, we act with greater spiritual vitality. We do this with a basic peace of which the world knows not. St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, one of the greatest apostles of devotion to the Heart of Christ, speaks about this peace and its connection with surrender to Christ and His strength. In one of her letters she says: "Try especially to preserve peace of heart... The way to preserve this peace is not to have a will of our own any more, but to put the will of the Sacred Heart in the place of ours, and let Him will for us whatever gives Him the most glory, being content to submit and abandon ourselves. In a word, this loving Heart will supply whatever is wanting in you. He will love God for you, and you will love God in Him and through Him." ²

Indeed, to those who are unspiritual, the concept of striving to grow through the sense of our weakness is complete folly, utter craziness. To those who have received the gift of the Holy Spirit, however, being properly aware of one’s weakness is strength and peace and consolation.

Jesus is our Savior. When we are tired and weary, let us go to the Heart of Christ. Let us not worry about anything. Let us not fret. Our work for Christ is the work of God. Do we not trust that God will take care of His own work?

To be able to say in the midst of adversity and struggle, "Jesus’ hand is here and He knows what is happening, I will let go of my anxiety and be at peace," is to have reached a great plateau of trust in Christ. Yes, let us trust in Jesus in all our trials. Let us refuse to worry. What good does worry accomplish? Let us convert the energy put into worrying into the energy of trusting in Our Lord.

Jesus spread His arms on the cross in the greatest love for each of us. He knew each of us by name. If He endured such agonizing suffering for love of each of us, why do we not have the greatest trust that He wants to be so close to us, attending to all our needs — if only we allow Him?

The more we place our trust in Jesus, the more we experience His peace. Again, let us refuse to worry. Let us place all cares in the hands of Jesus and trust that He will tend to them. He is present to us, loving us, guarding us, asking for our love, asking for our surrender.

We end these reflections concerning how we find our strength in Christ with another quotation from St. Paul: As for me, I am full of joy in the Lord, now that at last your consideration for me has blossomed again; though I recognise that you really did have consideration before, but had no opportunity to show it. I do not say this because I have lacked anything; I have learnt to manage with whatever I have. I know how to live modestly, and I know how to live luxuriously too: in every way now I have mastered the secret of all conditions: full stomach and empty stomach, plenty and poverty. There is nothing I cannot do in the One who strengthens me. (Phil 4:10-13)

1. Scripture quotations are taken from The New Jerusalem Bible, Doubleday.

2. Pope John Paul II, On The Christian Meaning of Human Suffering, United States Catholic Conference, Nos. 19 and 23.

 

Priestly Newsletter 1996 - March/April