Day #27: The Medicine of the Soul
THE SOUL: Even with so many means of sanctification and salvation, I recognize, unfortunately, that I am weak and empty. At the first occasions of sin I vacillate miserably and fall. Do I have recourse to Jesus in the Eucharist? But if my fall made me unworthy of him, that food of life becomes for me the condemnation to death!
Oh how good Jesus is! He has provided for my mortal infirmity and has given me the effective remedy to cleanse me from my iniquities: holy Confession. In the Eucharist he comes to me living and true, substantially, and makes himself my food and drink; in Confession instead he has himself represented by a man invested with his power so that I may have no reluctance to lay at his feet my abhorrent burden.
I kneel at the feet of that man, but it is always Jesus who receives me … it is Jesus who makes himself anew my Redeemer, who appears to me in human vesture, who takes pity on my weaknesses, who counsels me, comforts me, helps me, heals me. I am not afraid of his presence, and even if I find it repugnant to speak to a mortal man, he changes my repugnance into expiation and fills me with secret consolation.
O Jesus, do not allow me to render so great a Sacrament vain! So many times I have gone to Confession almost by rote; perhaps I tried to minimize my faults; I found so many excuses to avoid humiliating myself for them! O Mary, Mother of grace and of mercy, accompany me to the feet of the priest and grant that I may emerge renewed by this Sacrament of spiritual resurrection.
ASPIRATION: O Jesus, give me the grace to confess well.
LITTLE WORK: Prod some soul whom you know to be in mortal sin to go to Confession.
About the Meditations
The daily School of Mary meditations come from the book, A Month with Mary, written by a holy Italian priest Father Dolindo Ruotolo (1882-1970). Originally written as spiritual thoughts to his spiritual daughter, the work is comprised of thirty-one meditations for the month of May.
Father Dolindo wrote A Month with Mary on pocket-sized pages joined into small fascicles of 8 to 12 pages. He sent them to Laura de Rosis every two to three days and later transcribed them with some modifications in volume III of his autobiography: The Story of My Life in the Plan of the Great Mercy of God, pp. 1140ff (cf. Epistolario 1:212n, 218n). This work is from 1912: one of those years which passed in the life of Father Dolindo with the cadence of a ?Way of the Cross? ? But he, serene as ever, loved Christ the more, loved Our Lady the more and reflected on this love in these few pages to which he wished to give the significant title: A Profound Reform of Heart in the School of Mary. These meditations are written in the style of the Imitation of Christ. (90pp. laminated gloss, saddle stitch)
To obtain a copy of A Month with Mary or other books published by the Academy of the Immaculate, visit our on-line bookstore at http://www.marymediatrix.com/bookstore/academy
Ave Maria!
