Feb. 29 - Day 9 - continuing the journey

[MariaChristi]

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Today’s Gospel speaks especially to us on the journey to give ourselves, during 33 Days toward praying our Act of Total Consecration to Jesus through Mary on Mar. 25.

Let us listen and ponder in our hearts, Luke 5:27

Jesus saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the customs post.
He said to him, “Follow me.”
And leaving everything behind, he got up and followed Him…

Today, is Day 9 of the preliminary period of 12 days, seeking to “empty ourselves of the spirit of the world which is opposed to the spirit of Jesus.” By God’s grace are we truly seeking to “leave everything behind” that the spirit of the world invites us to love? Are we cooperating with God’s Grace to “get up” and “follow Jesus” as the tax collector did?

St. Louis de Montfort in his treatise on True Devotion bids us to be mindful of God’s gift of Mary to help us:

1. What Lucifer lost by pride Mary won by humility. What Eve ruined and lost by disobedience Mary saved by obedience. By obeying the serpent, Eve ruined her children as well as herself and delivered them up to him. Mary by her perfect fidelity to God saved her children with herself and consecrated them to his divine majesty.
2. God has established not just one enmity but “enmities”, and not only between Mary and Satan but between her race and his race. That is, God has put enmities, antipathies and hatreds between the true children and servants of the Blessed Virgin and the children and slaves of the devil. They have no love and no sympathy for each other. The children of Belial, the slaves of Satan, the friends of the world, - for they are all one and the same - have always persecuted and will persecute more than ever in the future those who belong to the Blessed Virgin, just as Cain of old persecuted his brother Abel, and Esau his brother Jacob. These are the types of the wicked and of the just. But the humble Mary will always triumph over Satan, the proud one, and so great will be her victory that she will crush his head, the very seat of his pride. She will unmask his serpent’s cunning and expose his wicked plots. She will scatter to the winds his devilish plans and to the end of time will keep her faithful servants safe from his cruel claws.

But Mary’s power over the evil spirits will especially shine forth in the latter times, when Satan will lie in wait for her heel, that is, for her humble servants and her poor children whom she will rouse to fight against him. In the eyes of the world they will be little and poor and, like the heel, lowly in the eyes of all, down-trodden and crushed as is the heel by the other parts of the body. But in compensation for this they will be rich in God’s graces, which will be abundantly bestowed on them by Mary. They will be great and exalted before God in holiness. They will be superior to all creatures by their great zeal and so strongly will they be supported by divine assistance that, in union with Mary, they will crush the head of Satan with their heel, that is, their humility, and bring victory to Jesus Christ.

Mary, Mother and Model for the Church, pray for us!

 

[MariaChristi]

Dear KBS and patricius,

Thank you both for your “hearts”, and for your willingness to continue the journey to Jesus through Mary! Please let us continue to pray for one another, and for all those who journey with us, all over the world, let us pray especially for those in most need of God’s Mercy, through Mary.

 

[MariaChristi]

Dear Stephie,

Thanks for your “heart”, and for your continuing desire to love Jesus more each day. St. Louis de Montfort in paragraph 257 of his treatise on “True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin” encourages us to be:

“…doing everything through Mary, with Mary, in Mary, and for Mary, in order to do it more perfectly through Jesus, with Jesus, in Jesus, and for Jesus.”

If anyone, reading this thread is looking for a good “Lenten” practice, St. Louis has given us these simple words to help us. Please let us continue to pray for one another, for the Universal Church and for the world so much in need of Jesus through Mary.

 

[patricius79]

St. Alphonsus Liguori, in his book “the Glories of Mary”, quotes the prophet Hosea, who says "I will hedge in her way with thorns.

St. Alphonsus says that is what God does with the elect, so that they will be detached from the things of the earth.

He then goes on to say that we can all be martyrs simply through persevering in our trials, provided that we do so with joy.

He quotes Teresa of Avila, who says that “those who embrace the Cross do not feel it” and “once one has made up his mind to suffer, there is no more pain”.

He then says that Mary is the remedy for all the sorrows of our heart.

 

[hazcompat]

Lumen Gentium
Chapter VIII

1. 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 shown first of all when Mary, arising in haste to go to visit Elizabeth, is greeted by her as blessed because of her belief in the promise of salvation and the precursor leaped with joy in the womb of his mother.(288) This union is manifest also at the birth of Our Lord, who did not diminish His mother’s virginal integrity but sanctified it,(10*) when the Mother of God joyfully showed her firstborn Son to the shepherds and Magi. When she presented Him to the Lord in the temple, making the offering of the poor, she heard Simeon foretelling at the same time that her Son would be a sign of contradiction and that a sword would pierce the mother’s soul, that out of many hearts thoughts might be revealed.(289) When the Child Jesus was lost and they had sought Him sorrowing, His parents found Him in the temple, taken up with the things that were His Father’s business; and they did not understand the word of their Son. His Mother indeed kept these things to be pondered over in her heart.(290)

 

[MariaChristi]

Dear patricius,

Thanks so much for the beautiful quotes from St. Alphonsus Ligouri . We can learn so much from the wisdom of the Saints. They help us to learn as they did from God – especially as they pondered His Word in Scripture and motst especially as they prayed with Mary, our Mother, who pondered all Jesus said and did in her heart.

Mary truly was for Alphonsus and is for us, “the remedy for all the sorrows of our hearts.”

 

[MariaChristi]

Dear hazcompat,

Thanks for another quote from “Lumen Gentium”. How the Holy Spirit does continually guide the Church into the fullness of Truth! I noticed in both your reply and in the reply of patricius, you both mention Mary’s Heart.

Vatican II chose to include Mary in the Document on the Church because by God’s Grace they knew Mary was as Pope Benedict would later write: “Mary, the Church at the Source.” She is both Mother and Model for the Church.

In paragraph 57 which you quoted, the “union of the Mother with the Son in the work of salvation is manifest…” in the Words of Holy Scripture, and Holy Tradition and the Magisterium of the Church. Mary kept all she heard and saw in Jesus… pondering all these things in her heart.