Feb. 27 - Day 8 on our journey

[MariaChristi]

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Today we continue “to empty ourselves of the spirit of the world”, learning to discern being “in the world” but not “of it”. Pope Francis warned the Church about “worldliness” but I wonder how many Catholics listened – or how many read what he or any Pope in the past said or wrote.

St. Louis de Montfort, shows his love for the Church. He knew God’s Revelation comes through Scripture, Tradition and the Magisterium of the Church and he lived the Truth the heard. The Catechism of the Catholic Church is a prime example of how God raises up saints like St. JPII to initiate actions to bring us into closer union with God and not to love things of the world more than God. The Catechism teaches:

963 … it is fitting now to consider her place in the mystery of the Church. “The Virgin Mary . . . is acknowledged and honored as being truly the Mother of God and of the redeemer… She is ‘clearly the mother of the members of Christ’ … since she has by her charity joined in bringing about the birth of believers in the Church, who are members of its head.” “Mary, Mother of Christ, Mother of the Church.”…

964 Mary’s role in the Church is inseparable from her union with Christ and flows directly from it. “This union of the mother with the Son in the work of salvation is made manifest from the time of Christ’s virginal conception up to his death”; it is made manifest above all at the hour of his Passion:

Thus the Blessed Virgin advanced in her pilgrimage of faith, and faithfully persevered in her union with her Son unto the cross. There she stood, in keeping with the divine plan, enduring with her only begotten Son the intensity of his suffering, joining herself with his sacrifice in her mother’s heart, and lovingly consenting to the immolation of this victim, born of her: to be given, by the same Christ Jesus dying on the cross, as a mother to his disciple, with these words: "Woman, behold your son."

If we are “to empty ourselves of the spirit of the world today”, we do well to focus on Jesus’ words to Mary, and renew our desire to be true sons and daughters of so worthy a Mother. The Catechism exhorts us:

971 “All generations will call me blessed”: “The Church’s devotion to the Blessed Virgin is intrinsic to Christian worship.” The Church rightly honors “the Blessed Virgin with special devotion. From the most ancient times the Blessed Virgin has been honored with the title of ‘Mother of God,’ to whose protection the faithful fly in all their dangers and needs… This very special devotion … differs essentially from the adoration which is given to the incarnate Word and equally to the Father and the Holy Spirit, and greatly fosters this adoration.” The liturgical feasts dedicated to the Mother of God and Marian prayer, such as the rosary, an “epitome of the whole Gospel,” express this devotion to the Virgin Mary.

Mother most humble, pray for us that we may adore the Holy Trinity with you, becoming one with Christ Your Son. May He live in us by the power of the Holy Spirit!