Mar. 13 - Wk 2, Day 3

[MariaChristi]

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Today's Mass Readings are very helpful to us. In the Old Testament Reading we hear the beautiful Queen Esther praying for God's deliverance for herself and for her people. She is willing to risk her life to save them. Mary far surpasses all the valiant, holy women before her because God created Mary sinless and with the purest of love which casts out fear. Mary knew God, loved Him and served Him most perfectly of all human persons. If in beholding our Mother, we tremble at the thought of ever being like her, we need not fear, for God's Love can cast out fear from our hearts and we can ask with all confidence in Him.

Our desires are great because He has told us to "Be Holy, as I am Holy". We are called to desire, to long for union with Him in the perfection of Charity. We cannot be exactly like Mary or any saint, we can only long to be all God calls us to be. Each of us is called to participate in His holiness in a unique way. Let us ask, as Jesus told us, and receive all we need.

Thursday of the First week of Lent - Commentary of the day
Saint Augustine (354-430), Bishop of Hippo (North Africa) and Doctor of the Church

"Ask and it will be given to you"

The psalmist says: “And all my desire is before you” (Ps 37[38],10). Not indeed before men, who cannot see into the heart: but “before you is all my desire”. Set your desire on him, and “the Father who sees in secret will repay you” (Mt 6,4). This very desire of yours is your prayer. If your desire is continual, your prayer is continual too. It was not for nothing that the Apostle Paul said: “Pray without ceasing” (1Thes 5 17). Was it so that we should be continuously on our knees, or prostrating our bodies or raising our hands that he says: “Pray without ceasing” ? If that is how we say our prayers, then my opinion is that we cannot do that without ceasing.

But there is another and interior way of praying without ceasing, and that is the way of desire. Whatever else you are doing, if you long for that Sabbath rest, you are not ceasing to pray. If you do not want to cease praying, do not cease longing... You will lapse into silence if you lose your longing. Who did lapse into silence? Those of whom it was said: “Because wickedness is multiplied, the charity of many will grow cold” (Mt 24,12). The coldness of charity is the heart's silence; its glowing ardour, the heart's outcry. If charity “endures for ever” (1Cor 13,8), you are ever crying out; if always crying out, you are ever longing; if longing, you have not forgotten repose.

'And all my desire is before you... And my groaning is not hidden from you”... If the desire is always within, so too is the groaning: it does not always come to the ears of men, but it is never absent from the ears of God.

Let us continue to pray to the Holy Spirit and to our Mother, with confidence in their help:
Litany of the Holy Spirit can be found [HERE](https://www.ewtn.com/devotionals/pentecost/pent13.htm)
Ave Maris Stella (in English) [HERE](http://www.chantcd.com/lyrics/hail_star_sea.htm)

 

[tawny]

Praying with all.