Wk 1 - Day 2 - "seeking true self-knowledge" (also Thanksgiving in the USA)

[MariaChristi]

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Week 1 is difficult. It is easier to excuse oneself seeing not as God sees, but as imagination may lead us. The very self-love we are trying to discern can keep us from His Truth.

We only discern Truth by imploring Truth Himself, by the power of His Holy Spirit and the intercession of Mary. St. Louis de Montfort began with seeking to rid ourselves of the “spirit of the world” which opposes the Spirit of Jesus. It is easier to look at the world – harder to recognize it in ourselves!!! We are more “worldly” than we thought before we sought God as seriously as today. In the USA, it is “Thanksgiving Day” - let us thank God for His Grace!

Jesus said:

“…Whoever wishes to come after Me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it. What profit is there for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? What could one give in exchange for his life?.." (Mk 8: 34-37, Mt 16:24-26 and Luke 9: 23 - 24)

St. Louis listened to Scripture, and wrote:

1. It is very difficult, considering our weakness and frailty, to keep the graces and treasures we have received from God.

1. We carry this treasure, which is worth more than heaven and earth, in fragile vessels, that is, in a corruptible body and in a weak and wavering soul which requires very little to depress and disturb it.

1. 2. The evil spirits, cunning thieves that they are, can take us by surprise and rob us of all we possess. They are watching day and night for the right moment. They roam incessantly seeking to devour us and to snatch from us in one brief moment of sin all the grace and merit we have taken years to acquire. Their malice and their experience, their cunning and their numbers ought to make us ever fearful of such a misfortune happening to us. People, richer in grace and virtue, more experienced and advanced in holiness than we are, have been caught off their guard and robbed and stripped of everything. How many cedars of Lebanon, how many stars of the firmament have we sadly watched fall and lose in a short time their loftiness and their brightness!

What has brought about this unexpected reverse? Not the lack of grace, for this is denied no one. It was a lack of humility; they considered themselves stronger and more self-sufficient than they really were. They thought themselves well able to hold on to their treasures. They believed their house secure enough and their coffers strong enough to safeguard their precious treasure of grace. It was because of their unconscious reliance on self - although it seemed to them that they were relying solely on the grace of God - that the most just Lord left them to themselves and allowed them to be despoiled. …
Litany of the Holy Spirit
Ave Maris Stella
Litany of the Blessed Mother