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You are currently browsing the archives for the Ave Maria Meditations category.
Ave Maria Meditations
The message of The Divine Mercy is simple. It is that God loves us — all of us. And, he wants us to recognize that His mercy is greater than our sins, so that we will call upon Him with trust, receive His mercy, and let it flow through us to others. Thus, all will come to share His joy. (more…) |
Ave Maria Meditations
First of all, there is light … Where there is light, life is born, chaos can be transformed into cosmos. The resurrection of Jesus is an eruption of light. With the resurrection, the Lord’s day enters the nights of history … This Light alone – Jesus Christ – is the true light, something more than the physical phenomenon of light. He is pure Light: God himself, who causes a new creation to be born in the midst of the old, transforming chaos into cosmos … Let us pray to the Lord that the fragile flame of the candle he has lit in us, the delicate light of his word and his love amid the confusions of this age, will not be extinguished in us, but will become ever stronger and brighter, so that we, with him, can be people of the day, bright stars lighting up our time. (more…) |
Ave Maria Meditations
Graces of the Resurrection Jesus says of his death: “I go away, and I will come to you.” It is by going away that he comes. His going ushers in a completely new and greater way of being present. By dying he enters into the love of the Father. His dying is an act of love. Love, however, is immortal. Therefore, his going away is transformed into a new coming, into a form of presence which reaches deeper and does not come to an end. Jesus, who is now totally transformed through the act of love, is free from barriers and limits. He is able not only to pass through closed doors in the outside world, as the Gospels recount (see Jn 20: 19). He can pass through the interior door separating the ”I” from the “you,” the closed door between yesterday and today, between the past and the future … Now he can even surmount the wall of otherness that separates the ”I” from the “you.” This happened with Paul, who describes the process of his conversion and· his baptism in these words: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2: 20). Through the coming of the Risen One, Paul obtained a new identity. His closed “I” was opened. Now he lives in communion with Jesus Christ, in the great “I” of believers who have become – as he puts it – “one in Christ” (Gal 3: 28). |
Ave Maria Meditations Through the tender mercy of our God when the day shall dawn upon us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness…(Lk 1:78-79)
Lauds II The darkness flees, and dew-kissed earth Sings welcome to the waking day; Hope holds to Christ the mirror high To catch the Dayspring’s healing ray! You fill with light this sacred time, Give tears as well to purify; Give flames of love to purge our hearts; In us your mercy magnify. The hidden wound whence flow our sins, Wash clean by bathing in the tide; Remove the things that, of ourselves, We cannot reach, or put aside. The Day draws near when all re-blooms — Your Day, O Christ, life-giving Lord! We too will joy, by your right hand From death’s dark tomb to joy restored. To God, the loving Trinity, Let earth and sky adoring bend; And evermore from hearts renewed Let songs fresh sprung of praise ascend. Amen. |
Ave Maria Meditations
You have been the Victim of the envy of the high priests, of the mockery of Herod, of the weakness of Pilate, of the ingratitude of the people; but You will to die unavenged. Patiently You hang there on the open wounds of Your hands and feet, exhausted almost to death by the long stretch of the physical and mental suffering (more…) |
Ave Maria Meditations
Jesus and the Thieves –a painting by Michael O’Brien Artist Commentary: Jesus promises Paradise to the repentant thief. We tend to think that when severe trials come we will suffer with the same courage and love as Jesus did. Or, perhaps as the “good thief” did. Yet we often find ourselves reacting to trials in the manner of the unrepentant thief. Within our hearts is (more…) |
Ave Maria Meditations
On Corporal Mortification As a result of original sin, man no longer has complete dominion over his senses and his flesh; therefore he is filled with evil tendencies which try to push him toward what is base. St. Paul humbly admits: “I know that there dwelleth not in me, that is to say, in my flesh, that which is good…. For the good which I will, I do not; (more…) |
Ave Maria Meditations
The martyrdom of the Virgin is set forth both in the prophecy of Simeon and in the actual story of our Lord’s passion. The holy old man said of the infant Jesus: He has been established as a sign which will be contradicted. He went on to say to Mary: And your own heart will be pierced by a sword. Truly, O blessed Mother, a sword has pierced your heart (more…) |
Ave Maria Meditations
“How much it cost You to have loved me.” Only love can explain why God chose to seek us out in our misery. +St. Alphonsus Liguori We had sinned, and our sins had alienated us from God, and exiled us from the joys of Heaven. Yet God, compelled by his own unspeakable goodness, chose to stoop down to us and share the poverty and misery that we had merited. He stripped himself of his glory and majesty, hiding all the outward signs of his Divinity, and took on a body like ours, capable of suffering and death. Moreover, He chose to live in the most humble and poor conditions: being born in a manger, then living as refugee wandering in the desert, and as a persecuted foreigner in far off Egypt, and laying his life down, finally, on the wood of the Cross to die. The human mind cannot comprehend this abyss of supernatural love, and only with the light of faith can we begin to penetrate into it. Fr. Gabriele M. Pellettieri, FI |
Ave Maria Meditations
When we read that the messenger addresses Mary as “full of grace,” the Gospel context, which mingles revelations and ancient promises, enables us to understand that among all the spiritual blessings in Christ, this is a special blessing. In the mystery of Christ she is (more…) |
Ave Maria Meditations
Unite me to Yourself, O adorable Victim, life-giving heavenly Bread, feed me, sanctify me, reign in me, transform me to Yourself – live in me, and let me live in You, let me adore You in your life-giving sacraments as my God – listen to you as to my Master – obey you as my King – imitate you as my Model – follow you as my Shepherd – love you as my Father – seek you as my Physician who will heal all the maladies of my soul – be indeed my Way, Truth, and Life, sustain me O heavenly Manna through the desert of this world, till I shall behold You unveiled in Your glory. +St. Elizabeth Ann Seton |
Ave Maria Meditations
The Graces of Saint Joseph There is a general rule concerning all special graces granted to any human being. Whenever the divine favor chooses someone to receive a special grace, or to accept a lofty vocation, God adorns the person with all the gifts of the Spirit needed to fulfill the task at hand. This general rote is especially verified in the case of Saint Joseph, the foster-father of Our Lord and the husband of the Queen of our world, enthroned above the angels. He was chosen by the eternal Father as the trustworthy guardian and protector of his greatest treasures, namely, his divine Son and Mary, Joseph’s wife. He carried out this vocation with complete fidelity until at last God called him, saying: Good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Lord. |
Ave Maria Meditations Isaiah said that Christ offered himself in this tremendous act of sacrifice because he willed to do so. But he forced his human will to accept that from which his humanity recoiled. When, on the cross, he was drinking to its bitter dregs the chalice of wormwood and gall that had so revolted his human nature in the garden, he was draining it because it was his Father’s will. He was saying to the last dread gasp: “Not my will, but thine be done.” Love is a union of wills. And the love of God is a union of man’s will with God’s. It is so easy to unite one’s will with God’s when what he wills is sweet and easy, when his will fits hand in glove with one’s natural inclinations. But if all our days were filled with completely satisfied natural desires-ideal living conditions, economic success, robust health-how could we ever know that it was God’s will, and not our own, that we were seeking? It is only when his will is opposed to what we would naturally choose, only when his will takes the form of a cross, and it is still embraced, that we can be sure that it is not our will, but God’s, that we want to see exalted. (more…) |
Ave Maria Meditations
It is easy to say, “I believe in God.” But to say that “I believe that God is in control” can be very hard really to give him the evidence of the heart, of the soul bowed down before him, sometimes in confusion at what he seems to be doing (and not doing) and sometimes in real anguish – and to believe. This is the evidence he is asking of us. We tend to think of faith as a lovely thing. Faith is not just a matter of speaking, (more…) |
Ave Maria Meditations
The maker of man, He was made man, so that the director of the stars might be a Babe at the breast; that Bread might be hungry, and the Fountain thirsty; that the Light might sleep, and the Way be weary from a journey; that the Truth might be accused by false witnesses, and the Judge of the living and the dead be judged by a mortal judge; (more…) |
What is resurrection? It does not form part of our experience, and so the message often remains to some degree beyond our understanding … The Church tries to help us understand it by expressing this mysterious event in the language of symbols in which we can somehow contemplate this astonishing event.
Jesus, Man of Sorrows, at last the dearest wish of Your life is granted: You are crucified.
