Mar. 9 - Wk 1 - Day 6 - " to acquire knowledge of ourselves and sorrow for our sins"

[MariaChristi]

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

As in the 12 preliminary days of seeking “to rid ourselves of the spirit of the world which is opposed to the Spirit of Christ” so in this first week “to acquire knowledge of ourselves and sorrow for our sins” – in preparing for Total Consecration to Jesus through Mary, we can do nothing without God’s Grace. We grow in holiness throughout our lives, as we remain faithful to His call – until we are united with God eternally!

St. Louis de Montfort, helps us through stages of growth he learned from God, and God gave him this wisdom especially for the Church then as now for us. Let us listen again to words from True Devotion, continuing paragraph 83 from yesterday:

… To give us access to His mercies he provided us with powerful advocates, so that to neglect these mediators and to approach His infinite holiness directly and without help from any one of them, is to be lacking in humility and respect towards God who is so great and holy. It would mean that we have less esteem for the King of kings than for an earthly king or ruler, for we would not dare approach an earthly king without a friend to speak for us.

1. Our Lord is our Advocate and our Mediator of redemption with God the Father. It is through Him that we must pray with the whole Church, triumphant and militant. It is through Him that we have access to God the Father. We should never appear before God, our Father, unless we are supported by the merits of his Son, and, so to speak, clothed in them, as young Jacob was clothed in the skin of the young goats when he appeared before his father Isaac to receive his blessing.
2. But have we no need at all of a mediator with the Mediator Himself? Are we pure enough to be united directly to Christ without any help? Is Jesus not God, equal in every way to the Father? Therefore is He not the Holy of Holies, having a right to the same respect as His Father? If in His infinite love He became our security and our Mediator with His Father, whom He wished to appease in order to redeem us from our debts, should we on that account show Him less respect and have less regard for the majesty and holiness of His person?

Let us not be afraid to say with St. Bernard that we need a mediator with the Mediator Himself and the divinely-honored Mary is the one most able to fulfill this office of love…

May the Holy Spirit bring us to His Truth about ourselves, by His Grace may we see ourselves in His Light.

Litany of the Holy Spirit is found HERE

Litany of the Blessed Virgin - HERE

Ave Maris Stella - HERE

Since all graces come through her, let us turn to our Blessed Lady and beg her to obtain that great grace which is the foundation of all others, the grace of true self-knowledge.

 

[hazcompat]

The Spiritual Combat
Father Don Lorenzo Scupoli
…
You see, then, very clearly that, as I have said, the spiritual life consists not in these things. It consists in nothing else but the knowledge of the goodness and the greatness of God, and of our nothingness and inclination to all evil; in the love of Him and the hatred of ourselves, in subjection, not to Him alone, but for love of Him, to all His creatures; in entire renunciation of all will of our own and absolute resignation to all His divine pleasure; and furthermore, willing and doing all this purely for the glory of God and solely to please Him, and because He so wills and merits thus to be loved and served.

…

This is indeed the hardest of all struggles; for while we strive against self, self is striving against us, and therefore is the victory here most glorious and precious in the sight of God. For if you will set yourself to trample down and exterminate all your unruly appetites, desires, and wishes, even in the smallest and most inconsiderable matters, you will render a greater and more acceptable service to God than if you should discipline yourself to blood, fast more rigorously than hermits or anchorites of old, or convert millions of souls, and yet voluntarily leave even one of these evils alive within you. For although the conversion of souls is no doubt more precious to the Lord than the mortification of a fancy, nevertheless nothing should in your sight be of greater account than to will and to do that very thing which the Lord specially demands and requires of you. And He will infallibly be better pleased that you should watch and labor to mortify your passions than if, consciously and willfully leaving but one alive within you, you should serve Him in some other matter of greater importance in itself.

Now that you see wherein Christian perfection consists, and that it requires a continual sharp warfare against self, you must provide yourself with four most sure and necessary weapons, in order to secure the palm and gain the victory in this spiritual combat. These are:

Distrust of self;

Trust in God;

Spiritual exercises; and

Prayer.

Peace

 

[MariaChristi]

Ah yes, dear hazcompat,

Is this not what St. Louis is urging us to do? By God’s Grace we must acquire the knowledge that without Love we, ourselves, are nothing! (1 Cor. 13: 1-3) We must distrust ourselves for we are prone to sin by the consequences of the Original sin.

St. Louis and all the saints, listened to Jesus tell them:

“Whoever wishes to come after Me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me." (Mt 16:24)

None followed Jesus more closely than His humble Mother who remains His lowly Handmaid as well as His Mother who seeks not herself but only God’s Will as her Son did on this earth.

By our Baptism we were given Supernatural Faith, Hope and Divine Charity, and so we can believe that we must trust in God and not in self. With God nothing is impossible.( cf Luke 1:37)

The spiritual exercises which St. Louis and the saints practiced are ways in which they sought to do His Will and the most important of all was and is for us PRAYER.

Let us not be afraid to say with St. Bernard that we need a mediator with the Mediator Himself and the divinely-honored Mary is the one most able to fulfill this office of love … - From paragraph 84, True Devotion By St. Louis de Montfort.

Thanks again for your reply. I read “The Spiritual Combat” by Fr. Scupoli sometime ago and also found him very helpful. We surely are in constant Spiritual Combat, yet it is good to remember our Mother’s words at Fatima: “In the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph” – Her Heart is one with His, and so He tells us from His Cross:

Behold Your Mother.