For Love of the Sorrowful Mysteries

Oh God, thank You for this new devotion to Your Passion.

When I contemplate Your sufferings, I wish to be a “drop of joy in an ocean of bitterness,” since a drop is all I can hope to be.

I see the Sorrowful Mother and I follow her, follow Jesus, on the way to the Cross.

“Silly Me”

Oh God, defeat my silly vanity! I am always feebly inflating myself with pride and vanity, until I can only look at my puffed-up self in disgust. Free me from this cycle, God, and instill in me a deep humility and love of hiddenness. I wish to be little and hidden like Mary, like Jesus in the Eucharist. I wish to redirect all praise to You.

Gethsemane

I have entered Gethsemane today, Lord, though I am sure it is only a taste. I have entered, and I just want to say, I do not regret following You. I wish to go on following You.

Absolute Truth

There is no room for democracy in determining Truth. Truth simply is. If a thing is not pure Truth, it is the absence, perversion, or shadow of Truth.

There is no room for democracy in determining the existence of God. God simply is. Nothing we say can change the highest reality of God’s being.

“I AM.”

Jesus is Lord

Thank You, O my beloved Jesus, for giving us hope…for giving me hope, and saving me from despair.

Jacinta and I were the leaders for tonight’s prayer meeting. It was the second seminar of Bread’s Life in the Spirit seminars, with the theme of Salvation. In putting together our talks we realized our theme for the night was Hope. This struck me because so often recently I have been struggling with hope. But more on that later.

We began with the Gospel story of Peter’s confession, the one when Jesus asks, “Who do you say that I am?” And asking that question of ourselves, as we should every day, we answered, Jesus is Shepherd, Healer, Lord, and Redeemer – alleluia! Jesus is alive!

Every day we see around us the effects of a fallen world. Wars and terror; poverty such as in Haiti and other third world countries; diseases like cancer; and the indifference you see just from people on the street. Sometimes people like me walk around almost catatonic, wondering if there is anything more to this life. (Of course there is!)

But amid all this, Jesus is Lord. Regardless of what goes on, Jesus is forever Lord. He is forever reaching out His hands to help us, to heal us, because that’s the kind of Lord He is. God sent Him into the world to show us His love and to save us. Jesus continues to save us every day; He continues to open His arms to us. Every day we must turn to Him, must remind ourselves of His question to Peter: “Who do you say that I am?”

How do we see Jesus? Amid all our sorrows and fears and struggles and doubts, do we see Him as Lord? Do we believe He will be with us even in the shadow of death? After all, He’s been there, done that. He can lead us through. Is this real to us?

Jesus is alive! Jesus is in control!

And our world is badly in need of Him. He hasn’t turned His face away – no, He’s calling us and beckoning us to Him. When life is hard, when you’re in crisis or when you’re in joy, turn to Jesus. Nothing can keep us from the love of God. Alleluia.

***

As part of the talk, I witnessed to Jesus’s saving work in my own life. I told everyone how I have been struggling with disillusionment, depression, and even despair. But then Sunday night I was praying the Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary, and I begged Mary to obtain Hope for me. While meditating on those mysteries of glory my heart was inundated with sudden hope and trust in Jesus. Things began to take perspective. And the next day, God spoke to me through someone else and gave me hope specific to my life.

O praise You, Jesus!

And then, what a beautiful prayer meeting we had, and what beautiful comforts I received from Maria, Jacinta, and Lucia. I had no idea that I might have the ministry of Healing, but apparently – from what Maria and Lucia said, in particular – this spring God used me for a lot of emotional and spiritual healing. Praise Jesus! That is precisely what I asked for. O how You answer our prayers!

I consider myself the weakest link of what our sister Teresa called “the Angel Force,” but still Jesus works gloriously through our human feebleness.

O Mother, Our Lady of the Rosary, thank you for obtaining this Hope for me! My Lord, thank You for having mercy on me!

And my brother Michael, we all think and speak of you very often, and we all are praying for you. Your three little sisters, the Little Candles, Jacinta, Lucia, and Felicity.

Day of Consecration

Mary, I am now yours.

What joy!

As soon as I signed the paper, on which the words of consecration are written, I whispered, “I’m yours!” Praise God. I am not my own.

Palm Roses

I hold out my hands, palms up, and upon them appears the mark of my fealty, the brand that shows I belong to Mary and Jesus: pink-edged roses resting in my palms.

Sitting and listening, I feel a warmth, a strong awareness of His presence as He holds me.

In the silence I see Him approaching from the mist across a moor, and the expression on His face is so loving and calm, and everything else falls away. We dance.

Reminders in Suffering

From Imitation of Christ, by Thomas a Kempis:

“My son, be not wearied out by the labors which thou hast undertaken for My sake, nor let tribulation cast thee down ever at all; but let My promise strengthen and comfort thee under every circumstance. I am well able to reward thee, above all measure and degree. Thou shalt not long toil here, nor always be oppressed with griefs. Wait a little while, and thou shalt see a speedy end of thine evils.”

From The Diary of St. Faustina:

“There is but one price at which souls are bought, and that is suffering united to My suffering on the cross.”

*

Last night Jesus told me, “You are My diamond in the rough.”

And I asked Him, “How can I be Your diamond?” But He knows what I can be with His grace. I do not.

To Be Created

What a comfort it is to realize that one has been created. To realize that one is not one’s own, that one is not God, that one has been lovingly formed by a Hand who wills only good things. Though we may have gone horribly awry with sin, we are still created by God. Everything we truly are - any pure, unperverted truth that lies somewhere in each of God’s people - was not of our own doing but of a great and mysterious design.

It is a pleasantly humbling thought.

Dependence

I am in the stage of servile fear, which precedes service done out of love.

I am so weak, muddled, and pathetic that I must always ask for the simplest things. I am always begging for God’s assistance and asking Him to do everything for me. While I do this, I begin to feel that it is very unfair, very unequal – naturally – and I want to give back. I want to comfort Jesus in His sufferings over sinners, I want to make Him happy. But then a voice says, “Are you so proud as to believe that you could give Him anything? All your attempts are in vain.”

I don’t know what to do about this. I’ve heard that I should give my little gifts through Mary, who will make them fit for presentation, and that’s something. But it seems that for right now, I am learning to be dependent on God, like a child dependent on its mother.