Day 14 (Week 1: Seeking true knowledge of self)

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MariaChristi

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Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I was blessed by a reply from a poster on another Forum who responded to yesterday’s thread beginning Week 1. She wrote: “I felt keenly that I should not be afraid of humility, as both the Holy Spirit and Our Lady embody it.” What a grace to see the necessity of humility and the opposition we can experience from fear!

It seems to me a very similar experience occurs when God invites us to grow in His Life of Grace through stages. The saints have written about this for centuries, but so many do not read the wisdom of the saints! Too many treasures are not passed on from one generation to another. St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bernard, St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Catherine of Siena have all written about growth in the supernatural life which God intends for His children. St. Louis de Montfort, in his 33 Day preparation is in line with them as he likewise helps us to grow. God calls us to progress by Grace, but we draw back in fear! The tragedy is that there is no “standing still” in the supernatural life of grace – we go forward or backwards!

The first step is to recognize we are sinners, but redeemed and by our Baptism we are called to holiness. Humility is Truth about God and ourselves and we learn from God as He reveals Himself and His Plan to us through Scripture, Tradition and the Magisterium of the Church. “Learn of Me”, Jesus tells us, “for I am meek and humble of Heart” (cf Mt 11:29).

Dying on the Cross, Jesus tells John and all of us “Behold your Mother”. Mary is the perfect disciple who was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit, who heard the Word of God and kept it. By God’s Grace, let this “Week 1” be time in which we “see” by faith how much we need God’s Holy Spirit to bring us into the complete Truth of Himself and the knowledge of ourselves as He sees us. Mary, our Mother, pray for us. Holy Spirit teach us to be humble of heart. Jesus, we trust in You for you have told us: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand”.

See HERE
 
I am following these “days” , awaiting a “poetic” impulse I knew the rest of my experience was and is first of the Holy Spirit and then the Star of the Ocean of Souls… I was stunned… and am still…

Wounded by the One who wounds to heal I will follow…

Praying with and for those who pray

Peace
 
MARY COOPERATES IN GOD’S SAVING PLAN

Pope Saint John Paul II

The Blessed Virgin’s cooperation is founded on Christ’s unique mediation and her sharing in his work takes nothing from him as the unique Mediator
At the General Audience of Wednesday, 12 January, the Holy Father continued his reflection on Mary’s place in our journey to the Father, who “desired Mary’s presence in salvation history”. The Virgin Mother has a mediating role, but one subordinate to the Saviour’s, since “it flows forth from the super-abundance of the merits of Christ, rests on his mediation, depends entirely on it and draws all its power from it”. Here is a translation of the Pope’s catechesis, which was the 37th in the series on God the Father and was given in Italian.
  1. Completing our reflection on Mary at the end of the series of catecheses devoted to the Father, today we want to stress her role in our journey to the Father.
He himself desired Mary’s presence in salvation history. When he decided to send his Son into the world, he wanted him to come to us by being born of a woman (cf. Gal 4:4). Thus he willed that this women, the first to receive his Son, should communicate him to all humanity.

Mary is therefore found on the path that leads from the Father to humanity as the mother who gives the Saviour Son to all. At the same time, she is on the path that human beings must take in order to go to the Father through Christ in the Spirit (cf. Eph 2:18).
  1. To understand Mary’s presence on our journey to the Father, we must recognize with all the Churches that Christ is “the way, and the truth, and the life” (Jn 14:6) and the only Mediator between God and men (cf. 1 Tm 2:5). Mary is involved in Christ’s unique mediation and is totally at its service. Consequently, as the Council stressed in Lumen gentium: “Mary’s function as mother of men in no way obscures or diminishes this unique mediation of Christ, but rather shows its power” (n. 60). In no way do we state that Mary has a role in the Church’s life apart from Christ’s mediation or alongside it, as if it were a parallel or competing mediation.
 
hazcompat said:
Ever present, breath of the Love of God, come.

Peace
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Dear hazcompat,

How true it is that God is ever present and yet we need to continue to seek Him, and beg Him to come more fully into our hearts. We sense the “breath of the Love of God” all around us and yet as Jesus told Nicodemus:
The wind blows where it wills, and you can hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. (Jn 3:8)
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It seems to me the 12 Days of seeking to empty ourselves from the spirit of the world, leads us to the “emptiness” we continue to seek in this current Week 1 of Preparation. The Holy Spirit cannot fill us if we do not make room. It is not only the spirit of the world we need to empty ourselves of, but also our own spirit of pride and selfishness. We need to know ourselves so that we, by God’s Grace, may truly die to ourselves, so that Christ and not we may live in us by the power of the Holy Spirit through Mary.
 
hazcompat said:
MARY COOPERATES IN GOD’S SAVING PLAN

Pope Saint John Paul II

The Blessed Virgin’s cooperation is founded on Christ’s unique mediation and her sharing in his work takes nothing from him as the unique Mediator
At the General Audience of Wednesday, 12 January, the Holy Father continued his reflection on Mary’s place in our journey to the Father, who “desired Mary’s presence in salvation history”. The Virgin Mother has a mediating role, but one subordinate to the Saviour’s, since “it flows forth from the super-abundance of the merits of Christ, rests on his mediation, depends entirely on it and draws all its power from it”. Here is a translation of the Pope’s catechesis, which was the 37th in the series on God the Father and was given in Italian.
  1. Completing our reflection on Mary at the end of the series of catecheses devoted to the Father, today we want to stress her role in our journey to the Father.
He himself desired Mary’s presence in salvation history. When he decided to send his Son into the world, he wanted him to come to us by being born of a woman (cf. Gal 4:4). Thus he willed that this women, the first to receive his Son, should communicate him to all humanity.

Mary is therefore found on the path that leads from the Father to humanity as the mother who gives the Saviour Son to all. At the same time, she is on the path that human beings must take in order to go to the Father through Christ in the Spirit (cf. Eph 2:18).
  1. To understand Mary’s presence on our journey to the Father, we must recognize with all the Churches that Christ is “the way, and the truth, and the life” (Jn 14:6) and the only Mediator between God and men (cf. 1 Tm 2:5). Mary is involved in Christ’s unique mediation and is totally at its service. Consequently, as the Council stressed in Lumen gentium: “Mary’s function as mother of men in no way obscures or diminishes this unique mediation of Christ, but rather shows its power” (n. 60). In no way do we state that Mary has a role in the Church’s life apart from Christ’s mediation or alongside it, as if it were a parallel or competing mediation.
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Dear hazcompat,

Thanks for the quote from St. John Paul II. It is no wonder that this Pope’s words are so close to what he read and heeded in St. Louis de Montfort’s “True Devotion”. No wonder he said reading De Montfot’s “True Devotion” was a turning point in his young life. God continues to raise up saints to honor His Mother by preaching His Truth. This from the quote above was so clear. Hard for me to understand why many reject Mary:
…Thus he willed that this women, the first to receive his Son, should communicate him to all humanity.
Click to expand...
Mary is therefore found on the path that leads from the Father to humanity as the mother who gives the Saviour Son to all. At the same time, she is on the path that human beings must take in order to go to the Father through Christ in the Spirit (cf. Eph 2:18)…
Click to expand...
 
hazcompat said:
Forgive them Father, they know not who they are.

Peace
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Thanks again, hazcompat. May we pray for ourselves during this first week of seeking a true knowledge of ourselves. Let us pray with confidence that God will answer the prayer of His Son from the Cross when He asked the Father’s forgiveness for those who know not what they do.

If we do not know ourselves truly, we can go on sinning — but by God’s Grace, when we “see” and “know” what in us continues to be prideful and selfish, then we can turn from those ways, and truly die to our sin that we might live in His Love.
 
hazcompat said:
I am following these “days” , awaiting a “poetic” impulse I knew the rest of my experience was and is first of the Holy Spirit and then the Star of the Ocean of Souls… I was stunned… and am still…

Wounded by the One who wounds to heal I will follow…

Praying with and for those who pray

Peace
Click to expand...
Thanks, hazcompat for your following, and waiting and praying. Yes, He wounds only to heal. His Word tells us of God’s Suffering Servant and Son:
…Yet it was our infirmities that he bore,
our sufferings that he endured,
while we thought of him as stricken,
as one smitten by God and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our offenses,
crushed for our sins;
upon him was the chastisement that makes us whole,
by his stripes we were healed… (See Isaiah 52:13–53:1)
Click to expand...
 
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