On Guarding the Senses
Sunday, February 13th, 2011Ave Maria Meditations
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Jesus, Mary, and Joseph: The Holy Family
Sunday, December 26th, 2010Ave Maria Meditations
O Jesus, how I love to contemplate You as a Child, in the poor house at Nazareth, with Mary and Joseph! Your simple, humble life was just like that of any other child of Your age. You, the splendor of the Father, did not wish anything to distinguish You from the children of men; You, uncreated wisdom, wished to learn from Mary and Joseph, Your creatures, the ordinary little details of life. Joseph showed You how to handle his tools and You watched Him attentively, You learned and You obeyed. Mary taught You holy hymns and recounted tales from the Sacred Scriptures ; You listened to her like a humble disciple, You who are the one true Teacher, You who are Truth itself. No one, neither Your relatives nor Your fellow townspeople, knew who You really were. Everyone believed You to be the carpenter’s son and paid no more attention to You than they would have paid to an ordinary apprentice. Only Mary and Joseph knew; they knew by divine revelation that You were the Son of the Most High, the Savior of the world, and yet they knew it more by faith than by experience. Your ordinary way of life concealed Your majesty and divinity from them so completely that when, without their knowledge, You remained among the doctors in the Temple, they could not understand the reason for Your unusual behavior. That incident, however, was an isolated one; immediately afterward, You wished to return to the hiddenness of Your most humble life. You went back with them, and were subject to them. And this, day by day, until You were thirty years old. O most sweet Jesus, grant that I may imitate, at least to some degree, Your infinite humility! You, the Creator, were obedient to Your creatures. Teach me to bow my proud head and willingly obey my superiors. You came down from heaven to earth. Give me the grace to humble myself, to come down, once and for all, from the pedestal of my pride! How can I bear the sight of Your humility and self-effacement, O my God and my Creator, when I, who am nothingness and sin, use the gifts I have received to set myself above others, to prefer myself even to my superiors? Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene (Divine Intimacy) |
Perseverance and Confidence in God
Tuesday, July 27th, 2010Ave Maria Meditations
PRESENCE OF GOD – O Lord, increase my confidence in Your help and grant that in this confidence, I may always find courage to begin again. MEDITATION What most distresses souls of good will who are seriously trying to live a spiritual life, is to find themselves falling so many times, despite their continual and sincere resolutions. When they begin a program of asceticism, they are usually very brave and have no doubts concerning their success; but being still inexperienced, and not having yet faced the demands of more advanced virtue, they know nothing of the struggles that await them on this way. And herein lies the danger: meeting with new difficulties, they fall; they rise and fall again; again they rise, and shortly after, find themselves prostrate once more until they are at a certain point, attacked by that most dangerous temptation: to give up the undertaking which henceforth seems impossible. How many souls have fervently begun the ascent of the mount of perfection, but discouraged by their continual falls, have stopped halfway up or even turned back, because they lacked the courage to begin anew every day and every moment. Humility is needed for the exercise of courage; (more…) |
Holy Mary, Mother of God
Wednesday, March 24th, 2010Ave Maria Meditations
THE MOTHER OF GOD Prayer: O Holy Mother of God, make my heart one with yours, which was ever one with the Heart of God ! The divine maternity is the source of all Mary’s privileges. Mary, the Immaculate One, the beloved daughter of the Father, is also the Spouse of the Holy Spirit, whose power overshadowed her because she had been chosen the Mother of the Incarnate Word. All Mary’s greatness glory are explained in the light of her divine maternity; furthermore, her very existence is explained by her predestination to this high office. If God had not decreed that the Incarnation of His Son should take place in the womb of a virgin, we should never have had that masterpiece of grace and loveliness, the Most Blessed Virgin; we should never have had her smile or her maternal caresses. Therefore, love and honor Mary because she is the Mother of God, Mother of Jesus; and loving her in her relation to God, devotion to her only makes our love for God, for Jesus, deeper and more tender. “Mater Dei, Mater Creatoris, Mother of God, Mother of our Creator”, we invoke her in the litany. These two titles which seem to be contradictory, actually express a unique synthesis because Mary, although a creature, is really the Mother of her Creator, the Mother of God’s Son to whom she has given a human body: the fruit of her flesh and blood is the Son of God in whom and by whom all things were created. Here we understand more than ever how Mary’s dignity reaches the threshold of the infinite. “God could make a bigger world or a wider sky, but He could not raise a pure creature higher than Mary; for the dignity of Mother of God is the highest dignity that can be conferred on a a creature. (more…) |
The Soul of the Apostolate
Saturday, February 13th, 2010Ave Maria Meditations
MEDITATION: Unless our life is one of intimacy with God and His Son Jesus, we cannot be His collaborators, docile instruments in His hands; unless we have an intense interior life, we cannot have the mind of Christ and be associated with His love and His work for the salvation of souls. By means of prayer and the struggle against sin, by self-renunciation, and the practice of the virtues, the interior life progressively rids the soul of all that is defective, thus favoring in it the growth of grace and love, that is to say it vivifies the soul with divine life, since grace and love are a participation in the very life of God. It follows, therefore, that the more a soul cultivates the interior life, the nearer it will come to God and having become like Him by grace and love, will be able to live in intimacy with Him, enjoy His friendship, penetrate His mysteries and participate in them. Who, then, will be better able to understand the great mystery of the Redemption and contribute his share to it, than one who by means of a fervent interior life, lives in intimate friendship with God? The first degree of friendship with God, which consists in the absence of serious sin, does not suffice to fulfill the purposes of the apostolate. A deeper friendship is required, one which creates such uniformity of will, desire and affection that the apostle is enabled to act according to God’s Heart; he is moved not by his own impulses, but by the impulse of grace, by God’s will, and the inspirations of the Holy Spirit. It is a very significant fact that Jesus made His apostles live for three years in intimacy with Him, treating them like dear friends, before sending them out to convert the world : ” I will not now call you servants … but I have called you friends” (Jn. 15:15) In a single moment, the moment of our justification, God infused charity into us without any cooperation on our part, but He does not preserve this gift, much less increase it, unless we remain united to Him by living an interior life. The purpose of the struggle against our passions, the practice of the virtues, recollection, prayer, the practice of the presence of God, and frequent reception of the Sacraments, is to foster union with God and the growth of charity. The interior life is a secret hearth where a soul in contact with God is inflamed with His love, and precisely because it is inflamed and forged by love, it becomes a docile instrument which God can use to diffuse love into the hearts of others. Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene OCD
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One Whom You Do Not Know
Tuesday, January 12th, 2010|
“The Lord is in the midst of you.”
It is St. John the Baptist who speaks to us in the Gospel (Jn1:I9~28), ” There is one in the midst of you whom you know not.” John, a man of faith, was telling the Jews with full conviction that Jesus had been living among them for thirty years and that they did not know Him because He had not yet manifested Himself by miracles. His words have value for us too; Jesus is really present in our midst: present in our tabernacles by the Eucharist, present in our souls by grace. But who recognizes Him? Only those who believe. Revive, then, your faith; you will find Jesus, and will know Jesus according to the measure of your faith in Him. Sometimes He conceals Himself from you, and you think that you will never find Him, never feel Him again. This is the time to redouble your faith, to walk “in pure faith.” “Blessed are they that have not seen, and have believed”(Jn.20:29). Such was the faith of St. John the Baptist, who had not seen Jesus’ miracles, and nevertheless believed. Such was Mary’s faith, to which the Vesper antiphon refers, “Blessed art thou, O Mary, that hast believed the Lord; those things will be fulfilled in thee, which were spoken to thee.” (Lk.1:45). Even Mary lived by faith; she had to believe in the words of the Angel, and when she agreed to become the Mother of God, she had to accept a mystery which she did not understand. But Mary did believe, and by her faith, God’s words were accomplished in her. And so shall they be in you; you will see all your hopes fulfilled, you will be able to realize your ideal of intimate union with God if you have faith in Him and in His promises. (more…) |
