The Fourth Sorrowful Mystery:   THE CARRYING OF THE CROSS

• One condemned to death by crucifixion is forced to carry the cross to the place of execution.
• The suffering of Jesus is intense as the cross is laid on His bruised and wounded back and shoulders.
• Weak and exhausted from loss of blood, lack of food and rest, Jesus falls three times under the cross.
• Jesus meets His afflicted Mother causing untold anguish in the Hearts of Son and Mother.
• The countenance of Jesus is disfigured with blood and sweat, with dust and spittle.
• Veronica wipes His face, leaving on her towel the image of His countenance.
• Fearing that Jesus might die on the way, the soldiers force Simeon of Cyrene to carry the cross behind Jesus.
• Jesus speaks to weeping women; “Weep not for Me, but for yourselves and your children.”
• “If anyone is to be My disciple, let him take up his cross and follow Me.”
• Father, by the merits of this painful journey to Calvary, have mercy on us and on the whole world.

“I wish, oh Jesus, that my voice could reach to the ends of the world, to call all sinners and tell them to enter into Thy Heart….Oh, if only all sinners would come to Thy Heart! Come! Come sinners, do not be afraid! The sword of Justice cannot reach you Here!”  ~St Gemma Galgani

Ave Maria Meditations

from St. Maximus the Confessor: 

God’s will is to save us, and nothing pleases him more than our coming back to him with true repen­tance. The heralds of truth and the ministers of divine grace have told us this from the beginning, repeating it in every age. Indeed, God’s desire for our salvation is the primary and preeminent sign of his infinite good­ness. It was precisely in order to show that there is nothing closer to God’s heart that the divine Word of God the Father, with untold condescension, lived among us in the flesh, and did, suffered, and said all that was necessary to reconcile us to God the Father, when we were at enmity with him, and to restore us to the life of blessedness from which we had been exiled.

THE CROWNING WITH THORNS

• Pilate asks, “Are You a king?” Jesus answers: “I am a King, but My kingdom is not of this world.”
• In the praetorium, the soldiers place an old purple robe on Jesus in mockery of His claim to be a king.
• They fashion a crown out of thorns, and forcefully press it down upon His head.
• In His bound hands they place a reed, as a sceptre, in mockery of His kingship.
• Kneeling before Him in derision, they spit on Him, and cry out: “Hail, King of the Jews!”
• Taking the reed from His hand they strike Him on the head, driving the thorns more deeply into His scalp.
• Pilate brings Jesus before the people, hoping His pitiful sight will soften them: “Behold the man!”
• Their response: “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!”
• Our Blessed Lord submitted to this terrible humiliation to make reparation for our pride.
• Father, by the merits of this painful humiliation, have mercy on us and on the whole world.

After the meeting in the Temple, Jesus returns to Galilee with Mary and Joseph. He went down with them on their journey to Nazareth and lived there in subjection to them.  The Holy Spirit wanted to leave this fact clearly stated in the Gospel. Its source can only be Mary who, time and time again, saw the silent obedience of her Son. It is one of the few pieces of information we have from those years of hidden life: that Jesus obeyed them. St Augustine comments that Christ, to whom the universe is subject, was subject to them. To obey His Father, Jesus subjected himself to those who, in his earthly life, were invested with authority; in the first place, his parents.

Our Lady must have reflected very often about Jesus’ obedience, which was extremely refined and, at the same time, very natural. St Luke tells us immediately that His Mother kept in her heart the memory of all this. The whole of Jesus’ life was an act of obedience to the will of the Father.  What I do is always what pleases Him, he will tell us later; and on another occasion he said clearly to his disciples: “My meat is to do the will of him who sent me; and to accomplish the task he gave me”. Food is what gives energy for life. And Jesus tells us that obedience to the will of God – manifested in so many different ways – should be what nourishes and gives meaning to our lives. Without obedience there is no growth in the interior life, nor true development of the human person. Obedience, far from lowering the dignity of the human person, leads it to maturity by extending the freedom of the sons of God.

 God is not indifferent to any situation in our life. He is waiting for a response from us at each moment; the response which coincides with his glory and our personal happiness. We are happy when we obey, because we are doing what Our Lord wants for us, which is what is best, although at times it costs us effort. God’s will is shown to us through his Command­ments, through those of his Church, through things that happen and, also, through those persons to whom we owe obedience.

Fruits of obedience.

In the Gospel we see how our mother Mary obeys: she calls herself the handmaid of the Lord showing that she has no other will than that of her God. St Joseph obeys – and always rapidly – whatever is commanded on the Lord’s behalf. Promptness in doing what is commanded is one of the qualities of true obedience.

The Apostles, in spite of their limitations; know how to obey. Because they trust in Our Lord they cast the net to the right of the boat where Jesus has told them; and they make a great catch of fish, despite its not being the right time, and despite their earlier experience that day of there apparently not being a single fish in the lake. Obedience, and faith in Our Lord’s word, works miracles.

Many graces and fruits accompany obedience. The ten lepers are cured by obeying the words of Our Lord:

Go and show yourselves to the priests and thereupon, as they went, they were made clean. The same happened to that blind man on whose eyes Jesus put clay. He said to him, “Away with thee and wash in the pool of Siloe” (a word which means sent out). So he went and washed there and came back with his sight restored. What an example of firm faith the blind man gives us – a living, operative faith! Do you behave like this when God commands? When so often you can’t see, when your soul is worried and the light gone? What power could the water possibly contain that when the blind man’s eyes were moistened with it they were cured? Surely some mysterious eye salve or precious medicine made up in the laboratory of some wise alchemist would have done better? But the man believed. He acted upon the command of God and he returned with his eyes full of light. How often we too are going to find the light in that person placed there by God to guide and cure us, if we are docile in obeying. In the Acts of the Apostles we read God gives the Holy Spirit to all who obey Him.

 The Gospel gives us many examples of persons who knew how to obey: the servants of Cana in Galilee, the shepherds in Bethlehem, the Kings – all received abundant grace from God. Obedience makes our actions and our sufferings meritorious, in such a way that the latter, which could seem futile, can become very fruitful. One of the marvels performed by Our Lord is having made what was useless, like suffering, become so advantageous. He has glorified suffering through obedience and love. Obedience is great and heroic when one is ready to face death and ignominy in order to fulfill it.  

 Obedience and freedom. Obedience for love.  

Christ obeys for love. This is the meaning of Christian obedience: that which we owe God and his Commandments, that which we owe the Church and our parents – their commands and those of the Magisterium of the Church – and that which affects all those very intimate things of our soul. In every case, more or less directly, we are obeying God, through the authorities. And Our Lord does not want unwilling servants, but children who want to do his will. Obedience also brings about a true formation of character and great peace to soul: the fruits of sacrificing and giving up one’s own will for a higher good.

If we come very close to Our Lady we will learn easily how to obey promptly, joyfuly and effectively. Following her example of obedience to God, we can learn how to serve with refinement, without being slavish. In Mary we don’t find the slightest trace of the attitude of the foolish virgins who obey, but thoughtlessly. Our Lady listens attentively to what God wants, ponders what she doesn’t fully understand and asks about what she doesn’t know. Then she gives herself completely to doing the divine Will: ‘Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done unto me according to your word’ (Luke 1:38).

He emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness and found human in appearance, He humbled Himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Because of this God greatly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name. (Phil.2:7-9)

Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered.        (Heb 5:

Fr. Francis Ferandez

Ave Maria Meditations

  Tags: Ave Maria Meditations, Immaculate Heart, Litany, Sacred Heart
]]> http://airmaria.com/2010/03/01/no-greater-love-2/feed/ 1 http://airmaria.com/2010/02/26/second-sorrowful-mystery/ http://airmaria.com/2010/02/26/second-sorrowful-mystery/#comments Fri, 26 Feb 2010 20:00:13 +0000 JosephMary http://airmaria.com/?p=10106 One Minute Meditation

THE SCOURGING AT THE PILLAR

• Jesus is taken before the High Priest where He is falsely accused, buffeted and insulted.
• The Jewish leaders take Jesus before Pilate, for only he can impose the death penalty.
• The robber, Barabbas, is preferred to Jesus.
• Pilate can “find no cause in Him”, yet to appease the Jews, he orders Jesus to be scourged.
• The scourge is made of leather thongs to which are attached small sharp bones.
• Jesus is bound to a pillar and cruelly scourged until His whole body is covered with deep wounds.
• The Lamb of God offers His suffering for the sins of mankind.
• Jesus suffers so much in His sacred flesh to satisfy, especially, for sins of the flesh.
• The prophesy of Isiah is fulfilled: “He was wounded for our iniquities, He was bruised for our sins.”
• Father, by the merits of Jesus in this painful scourging, have mercy on us and on the whole world.

One more point, so that we may have a perfectly clear idea of Saint Therese’s self-denial. Generally speaking we have a too material, too external idea of self-denial; we almost always picture self-denial under the form of privation, as the sacrifice of something material, or again as some external mortification. And so we tire ourselves out looking for something to give up instead of denying ourselves always and in everything.   

Self-denial is primarily and often solely something interior and spiritual; it is in no way synonymous with mortification, with privation. Even when there is no mortification, there ought always to be self-denial. Self-­denial is simply the disposition of the soul to live for self in nothing, a sincere and constant disposition, a fixed determination to turn the soul from its natural tendency to make self the centre of its life, a fixed determination not to think of self, to put self on one side. 

Saint Therese’s self-denial was often of this kind, wholly interior; the not doing something, the repressing of a natural eagerness, of a too vehement desire, of over-curiosity, of a feeling of antipathy, of feelings of complacency or gratification. Outwardly these little sacrifices were often imperceptible. Even when expressed by an exterior and material sacrifice, it was in the interior turning away from self, the interior turning to God, that they primarily consisted. The turning of the heart to God, and so, away from self: that is self-­denial.

If this interior movement is sincere, the exterior and material detachment will correspond to it when the occasion arises, but the exterior part is far from being the whole, the essential part of it. The essential part is the glance of the heart turned, not to self, but to God.

We can now see why Therese’s care not to miss any opportunity of little sacrifices, did not result, with her, in preoccupation or anxiety, constraint or scrupulosity, no more than did her desire to please God her Father in all things. Joyfully she goes on her way borne up by her all-absorbing desire. The very sincerity, the integrity of her desire to please God, tells her when- in this or that- there would be a slight self-satisfaction, and that she can please God by sacrificing it to Him. She makes her little sacrifice and passes on. A moment later a fresh opportunity comes, and she makes another and she goes on, freely, in simplicity. She is sincere in her desire to do everything to please God. That is all.

Her little sacrifices-of which she misses no opportunity-are but the spontaneous fruit of her ever watchful desire to love. There is no anxiety, no uneasiness, no narrowness, no restless preoccupation with self, no constraint of the heart, on the contrary, the heart is enlarged, the soul expands, there is joy; the joy of giving which is one with the joy of loving.

Pere Liagre C.S.Sp.

For nearly two thousand years, Catholics have read, re-read and reflected upon the great passage in the sixth chapter of the gospel of Matthew in which Jesus lays out the three essential practices of Christian life: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

When Ash Wednesday Mass is finished, the next forty days – all of Lent- is observed in the context of this passage. This happens every year without fail. These three essential practices of Christian life are brought to our attention and emphasized. You would think that we Catholics would get the point.

How many Catholics understand the normal Christian life to be composed of a healthy dose of all three? Sure, we’re supposed to pray. Everyone believes that.

Giving alms – once we get past the archaic word, is also commonly accepted. We live in a society where giving to charities and doing service work is considered a normal part of our civic life. It takes no great faith commitment to do this.

But fasting?

Who fasts? And if we do fast, isn’t that just obedience to some minimal Church norms during Lent?

As Catholics, we are called to imitate Christ in all things. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. We are called by Him to take up our cross everyday and follow Him. So shouldn’t we pay close attention to what He actually said and did?

For instance, what was the final stage of His preparation for His public ministry? Forty days of fasting in the desert! Is fasting important? Consider this. When the devil appeared to Jesus to try to thwart his mission, what was the VERY FIRST thing he tried to get Jesus to do?  Look it up (Matthew 4:1-4) He tried to get Jesus to break his fast! Yes, fasting is just that powerful and the devil understood this profoundly.

I believe that the Lord has led me to focus attention on the power of fasting as a regular part of the Christian life. To pray is good. To give alms is good. But fasting is the glue. To fast is to combine prayer and almsgiving. It is to pray with your body. It is to give spiritual alms. In striving for holiness, prayer lifts you up. Almsgiving coupled with prayer is a selfless movement of love that powers you higher.

But fasting? Fasting allows you to soar to supernatural heights virtually unimaginable. This is not because you yourself are in control, but because fasting is an abandonment of control, a radical letting go that, along with sacramental confession, allows all barriers to your acceptance of God’s love to be broken.

Did you know that none other than St. Paul himself received his mission after a three day absolute fast? Yep. He was knocked off his horse, made blind, and then led to Damascus. Then for three days he was unable to see, and he neither ate nor drank. (Acts 9:9) When the Lord sent Ananias to Judas’ house to lay hands on Saul (his pre-conversion name), he found Saul in the midst of intense prayer and fasting. The rest is history.

Is fasting important for the spiritual life?

The very first pope, St. Peter, the rock upon whom Christ built his Church, the man to whom Christ gave the keys to the kingdom, also received a very important message at the end of what appears in scripture to be a fast. It is well known that after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus into heaven, Peter initially favored Jewish Christians. He saw the Jewish people as the rightful heirs to Christ’s actions and message. But we can learn much from Peter. Even an apostle needed to learn and grow in submission to God’s will. In Acts 10, it says that while he was still hungry and people were making preparations to feed him, Peter received a revelation that would alter the future of Christianity. The gospel was for not exclusively for the Jews, it was for everyone! A pretty important insight gained while being hungry.

Fasting is like one of the three legs on the stool of Christian life. Without all three legs, the stool cannot stand as it should. I believe that fasting, as an ordinary practice of Christian life, must be recovered if we are to live any kind of balance. Fasting pulls together and amplifies all other acts of piety. It gives prayer and almsgiving a power and a vitality that might come to you as a great surprise. I’ve been surprised by fasting and there are many stories to tell.

It is my belief that if the average Catholic understood the intimacy possible with Our Lord through fasting, if he understood the power it has in the spiritual realm, he would desire it so passionately that he would pursue it at any cost. The astonishing secret is that price is not really very high. In fact, it is absolutely free.

A threefold cord is not quickly broken.  Ecclesiastes 4:12

One Minute Meditation