Day #23: The Aspirations of the Heart
MARY: A soldier who wants to keep himself really faithful to his duty should not be one who serves under constraint; he should have an ideal toward which he aspires. In moments of danger in which it seems as if life is slipping away, in which he feels the full impact of the adversary, the soldier takes up his arms and at the outcry of his ideal, he musters all of his energy and wins.
Look for a moment at your heart, my child, and study it with regard to its supreme aspirations …
You gaze on me, your eyes contemplate the immaculate candor of my soul and you sense all the beauty of purity.
You see me in profound recollection; in my countenance you read the life of infinite Love which attracts me and you want to fly, fly, like a little bird that flutters anxiously when it sees the magnificent flight of its mother! …
You see me with downcast countenance … desolate from the bitter grief of Calvary. Expand your heart and cry out: Mother, grant me to weep with you!
You, therefore, must aspire to innocence, to the infinite, to the sacrifice which will lead you to these two harbors of true happiness!
I saw you so many times involved in worldly affairs, but you were not happy with them and you remember now with regret. As you advance in years, you perceive in life something more elevated than what appears … you want God! Nothing satisfies you; nothing consoles you; all of your castles in the air begin to crumble and collapse; you desire God! Only his charity convinces you; only his love satisfies you; only his friendship gives you peace!
Lift yourself up, then, in great purity of heart: ?Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.? Jealously preserve the innocence which Jesus has given you back in the Baptism of his blood when he received the tears of your repentance and purified you. Flee the frivolous company of creatures because you will not find God in the hubbub of human affairs.
Recollect yourself in your nothingness because God only stoops down to holy humility, as he lowered himself even to me, because he looked upon me in my interior annihilation.
Don?t flee the cross, rather carry it willingly close to Jesus.
It is the key of heaven; it is the door that introduces you into the kingdom of the eternal aspirations of your soul …
The little human things will soon pass away; they will fall into oblivion … I will garner you like a lily of the valleys to adorn the heavenly garden.
ASPIRATION: O Jesus, may your kingdom come soon!
LITTLE WORK: Avoid saying useless words in order to maintain the holy recollection of the soul.
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!
