Mar. 24 - Wk 3 - Day 7 - Journey's end - "seek to understand Jesus better"

[MariaChristi]

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Tomorrow is the Feast of the Annunciation/Incarnation and by God’s Grace some of us will be praying our “Act of Total Consecration” for the first time, while others will be praying the words after many times but ALL who sincerely pray the words will be blessed – I am believing, trusting and loving God with all the grace He gives me in writing this.

I have linked the title above so you can read over St. Louis de Montfort’s Prayer of Total Consecration ahead of time – so that when we pray these words tomorrow they will have more meaning for us. St. Louis wrote:

1. At the end of these three weeks they should go to confession and Holy Communion with the intention of consecrating themselves to Jesus through Mary as slaves of love. When receiving Holy Communion they could follow the method given later on. They then recite the act of consecration which is given at the end of this book. If they do not have a printed copy of the act, they should write it out or have it copied and then sign it on the very day they make it.

Since we are now in a time when most churches have suspended public celebration of Mass and some also suspended or greatly limit Confession, I would again encourage all to participate in the Live -streamed Masses offered in some parishes but universally offered on EWTN. I plan to participate in the EWTN Mass and pray the prayer of Spiritual Communion they have on the TV screen during the recitation of Holy Communion at their Mass.

After Mass, I hope to enter the interior of my soul (which St. Teresa of Avila called the “Interior Castle”) where His Majesty dwells and by God’s Grace, pray my Act of Total Consecration with all the Faith, Hope and Charity He gave me at my Baptism – trusting He will increase in me those gifts – that I may live in Him on earth as Mary did.

Where God is Mary is and so I will “Behold my Mother” also spiritually, with all the love and gratitude my poor heart can give her and through her to Jesus. Let us pray today for one another, for the Church and for all those in most need of God’s Mercy:

Litany of the Holy Spirit: see HERE

Ave Maris Stella: see HERE

Litany of the Holy Name of Jesus: see HERE

Hopefully some of you have printers at home and can make copies of the Act of Consecration so that tomorrow you may sign it, date it and keep it AFTER you pray the prayer tomorrow. Also tomorrow after praying the prayer and signing it, you may enroll at the Association of Mary, Queen of All Hearts..

Please feel free to ask any questions here on this thread and I’ll do my best to answer as best I can, by God’s Grace. “Totus Tuus”

 

[hazcompat]

IOANNES PAULUS PP. II

REDEMPTORIS MATER

On the Blessed Virgin Mary

in the life of the Pilgrim Church

1. When the Holy Family returns to Nazareth after Herod’s death, there begins the long period of 11 the hidden life. She “who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord” (Lk. 1:45) lives the reality of these words day by day. And daily at her side is the Son to whom “she gave the name Jesus”; therefore in contact with him she certainly uses this name, a fact which would have surprised no one, since the name had long been in use in Israel. Nevertheless, Mary knows that he who bears the name Jesus has been called by the angel “the Son of the Most High” (cf. Lk. 1:32). Mary knows she has conceived and given birth to him “without having a husband,” by the power of the Holy Spirit, by the power of the Most High who overshadowed her (cf. Lk. 1:35), just as at the time of Moses and the Patriarchs the cloud covered the presence of God (cf. Ex. 24:16; 40:34-35; I Kings 8:10-12). Therefore Mary knows that the Son to whom she gave birth in a virginal manner is precisely that “Holy One,” the Son of God, of whom the angel spoke to her.
   During the years of Jesus’ hidden life in the house at Nazareth, Mary’s life too is “hid with Christ in God” (cf. Col. 3:3) through faith. For faith is contact with the mystery of God. Every day Mary is in constant contact with the ineffable mystery of God made man, a mystery that surpasses everything revealed in the Old Covenant. From the moment of the Annunciation, the mind of the Virgin-Mother has been initiated into the radical “newness” of God’s self-revelation and has been made aware of the mystery. She is the first of those “little ones” of whom Jesus will say one day: “Father, …you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes” (Mt. 11:25). For “no one knows the Son except the Father” (Mt. 11:27). If this is the case, how can Mary “know the Son”? Of course she does not know him as the Father does; and yet she is the first of those to whom the Father “has chosen to reveal him” (cf. Mt. 11:26-27; 1 Cor. 2:11). If though, from the moment of the Annunciation, the Son-whom only the Father knows completely, as the one who begets him in the eternal “today” (cf. Ps. 2:7) was revealed to Mary, she, his Mother, is in contact with the truth about her Son only in faith and through faith! She is therefore blessed, because “she has believed,” and continues to believe day after day amidst all the trials and the adversities of Jesus’ infancy and then during the years of the hidden life at Nazareth, where he “was obedient to them” (Lk. 2:51). He was obedient both to Mary and also to Joseph, since Joseph took the place of his father in people’s eyes; for this reason, the Son of Mary was regarded by the people as “the carpenter’s son” (Mt. 13:55)

 

[hazcompat]

IOANNES PAULUS PP. II
REDEMPTORIS MATER
On the Blessed Virgin Mary
in the life of the Pilgrim Church (continued)

The Mother of that Son, therefore, mindful of what has been told her at the Annunciation and in subsequent events, bears within herself the radical “newness” of faith: the beginning of the New Covenant. This is the beginning of the Gospel, the joyful Good News. However, it is not difficult to see in that beginning a particular heaviness of heart, linked with a sort of night of faith"-to use the words of St. John of the Cross-a kind of “veil” through which one has to draw near to the Invisible One and to live in intimacy with the mystery.36 And this is the way that Mary, for many years, lived in intimacy with the mystery of her Son, and went forward in her “pilgrimage of faith,” while Jesus “increased in wisdom…and in favor with God and man” (Lk. 2:52). God’s predilection for him was manifested ever more clearly to people’s eyes. The first human creature thus permitted to discover Christ was Mary, who lived with Joseph in the same house at Nazareth. 12 However, when he had been found in the Temple, and his Mother asked him, “Son, why have you treated us so?” the twelve-year-old Jesus answered: “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” And the Evangelist adds: “And they (Joseph and Mary) did not understand the saying which he spoke to them” (Lk. 2:48-50). Jesus was aware that “no one knows the Son except the Father” (cf. Mt. 11:27); thus even his Mother, to whom had been revealed most completely the mystery of his divine sonship, lived in intimacy with this mystery only through faith! Living side by side with her Son under the same roof, and faithfully persevering “in her union with her Son,” she “advanced in her pilgrimage of faith,” as the Council emphasizes.37 And so it was during Christ’s public life too (cf. Mk. 3:21-35) that day by day there was fulfilled in her the blessing uttered by Elizabeth at the Visitation: “Blessed is she who believed.”

 

[MariaChristi]

Dear KBS,

Thanks so much for your “Faith full Heart” - and for being with me and others on this journey. Hopefully it has been a blessing for all who have come through these 33 days of preparation urged on by the love of God.

I had an e-mail from a dear friend who was on this journey with us, who said, she was so very grateful, and wondered why she had never done this before. I told her I was just happy she is doing it now.

Let us continue to pray for one another and for all those in most need of God’s Mercy.

 

[MariaChristi]

Dear hazcompat,

These words you quoted in paragraph 17 of Pope St. John Paul II’s encyclical are a blessing – as tomorrow we celebrate the Feast of the Annunciation, and it is good to hear how Mary is: “the first of the little ones…”

"…From the moment of the Annunciation, the mind of the Virgin-Mother has been initiated into the radical “newness” of God’s self-revelation and has been made aware of the mystery. She is the first of those “little ones” of whom Jesus will say one day: “Father, …you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes” (Mt. 11:25). For “no one knows the Son except the Father” (Mt. 11:27). If this is the case, how can Mary “know the Son”? Of course she does not know him as the Father does; and yet she is the first of those to whom the Father “has chosen to reveal him” (cf. Mt. 11:26-27; 1 Cor. 2:11)

Yes, Mary is both Mother and Model for the Church. Thank you Jesus for the Gift of Mary to all your “little ones”.