Day 27 - week 3 (seeking to understand Jesus better)

[MariaChristi]

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Happy Feast of Mary’s Nativity today! It is lovely to consider the beginning of our salvation like the first pale light of a dawning day, when Mary was born. She was and is the beginning of the Church in a sense, for she would be the first to carry Christ into the world. How fitting for us to begin this final week, seeking to understand Jesus better, on this Feast of the Nativity of Mary given to us as Mother from His Cross!

St. Louis de Montfort describes this third week:

1. During the third week they should seek to understand Jesus Christ better. They may read and meditate on what we have already said about him. They may say the prayer of St. Augustine which they will find at the beginning of the second part of this book. Again with St. Augustine, they may pray repeatedly, “Lord, that I may know you,” or “Lord, that I may see.” As during the previous week, they should recite the Litany of the Holy Spirit and the Ave Maris Stella, adding every day the Litany of the Holy Name of Jesus.

How wisely, St. Louis de Montfort turns to St. Augustine, a sinner like us who became a great saint! The prayer of St. Augustine is found in Chapter 2 of True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary where De Montfort is explaining that Christ must be the ultimate end of all devotions, otherwise they would be false and misleading. Devotion to Mary is only to establish devotion to our Lord more perfectly. He wrote:

1. So that I may obtain from your mercy a genuine devotion to your blessed Mother and spread it throughout the whole world, help me to love you wholeheartedly, and for this intention accept the earnest prayer I offer with St. Augustine and all who truly love you.

Prayer of Saint Augustine

O Jesus Christ, you are my Father, my merciful God, my great King, my good Shepherd, my only Master, my best helper, my beloved friend of overwhelming beauty, my living Bread, my eternal priest. You are my guide to my heavenly home, my one true light, my holy joy, my true way, my shining wisdom, my unfeigned simplicity, the peace and harmony of my soul, my perfect safeguard, my bounteous inheritance, my everlasting salvation.

My loving Lord, Jesus Christ, why have I ever loved or desired anything else in my life but you, my God? Where was I when I was not in communion with you? From now on, I direct all my desires to be inspired by you and centred on you. I direct them to press forward for they have tarried long enough, to hasten towards their goal, to seek the one they yearn for.

O Jesus, let him who does not love you be accursed, and filled with bitterness. O gentle Jesus, let every worthy feeling of mine show you love, take delight in you and admire you. O God of my heart and my inheritance, Christ Jesus, may my heart mellow before the influence of your spirit and may you live in me. May the flame of your love burn in my soul. May it burn incessantly on the altar of my heart. May it glow in my innermost being. May it spread its heat into the hidden recesses of my soul and on the day of my consummation may I appear before you consumed in your love. Amen.

Holy Spirit, you who fill the hearts of the saints with Love for Jesus and Mary, transform our hearts and make us holy. Teach us to understand Jesus better. Litany of the Holy Spirit HERE
Mary, our Mother, on this Feast of your Nativity, intercede for us that we may grow in understanding your Son as you did.
Ave Maris Stella HERE and Litany of the Holy Name of Jesus HERE

 

[liturgy96]

Oh, Lord, that we may see! Mirror of justice, pray for us! Seat of Wisdom, pray for us!

 

[MariaChristi]

Oh, Lord, that we may see! Mirror of justice, pray for us! Seat of Wisdom, pray for us!

Dear Liturgy96,

Thanks for your prayers for us. May we open our hearts, and minds to see with the eyes of faith, as our Mother Mary did – all the Goodness of God, revealed in the Heart of Jesus.