…"If My people who bear My name, humble themselves and pray and seek My presence and turn from their wicked ways, I Myself will hear from Heaven and forgive their sins…" (2 Chron. 7:14) – "You will see that in prayer you will find more knowledge, more light, more strength, more grace and virtue than you could ever achieve by reading many books, or by great studies. Never consider as wasted the time you spend in prayer. You will discover that in prayer God communicates to you the light, strength and grace you need…" (Sr Lucia dos Santos)
BEAUTIFUL SHORT EASTER PRAYER BY ST GREGORY THE GREAT
It is only right, with all the powers of our heart and mind, to praise You, Father and Your Only-begotten Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ:
Dear Father, by Your wondrous Condescension of loving-kindness towards us, Your servants, You gave up Your Son.
Dear Jesus, You paid the debt of Adam for us to the Eternal Father by Your Blood poured forth in loving-kindness.
You cleared away the darkness of sin by Your magnificent and radiant Resurrection. You broke the bonds of death and rose from the grave as a Conqueror. You reconciled heaven and earth.
Our life had no hope of eternal happiness before You redeemed us. Your Resurrection has washed away our sins, restored our innocence and brought us joy.
How inestimable is the tenderness of Your love! Amen.
What is happening? Today there is a great silence over the earth, a great silence, and stillness, a great silence because the King sleeps; the earth was in terror and was still, because God slept in the flesh and raised up those who were sleeping from the ages. God has died in the flesh, and the underworld has trembled.
From a reading from an ancient homily for Holy Saturday
By the expression “He descended into hell”, the APOSTLES’ CREED confesses that Jesus did really die and through his death for us conquered death and the devil “who has the power of death” (Hebrews 2:14) [CCC 636]. In his human soul united to his divine person, the dead Christ went down to the realm of the dead. He opened heaven’s gates for the just who had gone before him [CCC 637].
🎨 After his death on the cross and before his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ grants salvation to the souls of the just who lived during all those centuries prior to His entry into Time by the Harrowing of Hell. Fresco, by Fra Angelico, c. 1430s
O Divine Jesus, incarnate Son of God, for our salvation You consented to be born in a stable, to spend Your whole life amid poverty, trials, and misery, and to die surrounded by sufferings on the Cross. At the hour of my death, please say to Your Father: “Father, forgive him/her”. Say to Your beloved Mother: “Behold your son/daughter”. Say to my soul: “This day you shall be with Me in paradise”.
“My God, my God, do not forsake me” in that hour. “I thirst”, yes, my soul thirsts for You Who are the fountain of living waters. My life passes away like a shadow; in a short while “everything will be accomplished”. Therefore, my adorable Saviour, from this moment and for all eternity “into Your hands I commend my spirit”. Lord Jesus, receive my soul. Amen.
QUESTION: “…I do notice people still going around the Stations of the Cross… When did the devotion of doing the Stations of the Cross begin? … Would you recommend it as a practice for Lent?
ANSWER: The answer to your second question is that I would certainly recommend it as a devotional practice for Lent. Lent is a time of prayer and penance in preparation for Easter – for Christ’s death and Resurrection. The Stations of the Cross, prayed at home or in the church, with their focus on the suffering of Christ as he made his way to Calvary is an ideal prayer and practice for Lent.
When did this devotion begin? The devotion to the passion of Christ actually began with the Crucifixion but it developed into its present form through the efforts of Franciscan Friars in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Franciscan preachers and writers began spreading the devotion worldwide, publicising the spiritual richness of the devotion.”
This article was published in “Saint Martin Magazine” issue March 2004. For subscriptions please visit http://www.stmartin.ie (external link).
EVEN A FEEBLE LENT OF BROKEN RESOLUTIONS MAY BY GOD’S GRACE BRING ABOUT A CHANGE IN ME
Jesus’ own period of 40 days in the desert introduces us to the meaning of Lent, for the experience of Jesus can itself only be understood in relation to the Israelites’ 40 years in the desert. Exodus recounts the story of how, by a gratuitous act of love on God’s part, in fidelity to a promise he made long ago – a promise which would seen to be all empty by reason of the years and the suffering which have intervened – God allows Israel to escape from the slavery of Egypt to worship him in the wilderness. There the Lord offers them a covenant on Sinai. He feeds them miraculously and even overlooks their worshipping a golden calf to bring them at last to the Promised Land.
NOT SEEKING TO ISOLATE OURSELVES FROM GOD BY MATERIAL SECURITY
Now we have the key to understanding the temptations of Jesus: the temptation to worship the Devil, the temptation to turn stones into bread, the temptations to power. These would all be temptations like those of his ancestors, to somehow want to be self-reliant, whereas the wilderness experience is about discovering the only true freedom: a total reliance on God expressed in worship of him, fidelity to his law and an essential love of poverty, of a depending on him for my how am I to live, not seeking once to isolate myself from him by material security.
THE ONLY TRUE FREEDOM: TOTAL RELIANCE ON GOD
Prayer, fasting and almsgiving are all to teach me reliance on God and solidarity with those who suffer. They are to make space in me for knowledge of my poverty and tame my ego a bit. Even a feeble Lent, a Lent of broken resolutions, might by God’s grace bring about a change in me if I am forced to admit how weak is my will, how shallow my religiosity, and how deep and real my need for God’s mercy. Remember that wonderful Chesterton paradox used to describe a saint: ‘A saint can be recognised by the fact that he knows himself to be a sinner.’
‘LOOK NOT ON OUR SINS, BUT ON THE FAITH OF YOUR CHURCH’
Just as Jesus needed to immerse himself the story of Israel, the story of God’s miraculous saving in history, so Lent is a time of identifying myself more fully with the Church, to experience in this time the miraculous effects the saving God wishes to bring about in my own history, particularly through the miraculous signs and wonders of the sacraments. This is not merely a personal journey, but also a collective one for the whole Church, a time to remember the prayer which precedes Communion which asks God to look ‘not on our sins, but on the faith of your Church’. It is also a time to remember that however weak or sinful I may feel I am supported by the merits and intercession of the whole Church. Together as part of the Chosen People we will rejoice in the arrival at the Promised Land of Easter.
LOOK TO THE HORIZON AND JUST KEEP GOING
We will welcome the newly baptised at Easter and share in the joy of the salvation they have been promised. Exodus also reminds us that salvation has a history: it does not happen all at once. We are on a journey. The direction of travel is all-important, and the wonderful promise of the destination allows one to lift the eyes to the horizon and slog on, even when the going is touch and we lament what must be left behind.
This is an excerpt of “Diary of a City Priest”, by Pastor Iuventus, (available from Amazon), published in the Catholic Herald, 14.3.14
So, on Palm Sunday, with the chant of [‘Hosanna to the Son of David’] we seem to enter another world. All the usual course of Saints’ days is laid aside; no other thought may disturb the yearly remembrance of our Redemption. One would like to spend these days in something of the nature of a retreat. That is not possible for most people. But at least, we should, as far as we can, leave behind our usual cares, at the threshold of Palm Sunday, to take them up again when we come out of the great days after Low Sunday.
Pain is one of our great supernatural resources. That statement is out of line with our usual pattern of thought. We are accustomed to viewing pain as an unmitigated evil. For some persons, the existence of pain even is a source of temptation against their religious faith. ‘If God is good,’ they ask, ‘why does He permit suffering, particularly so much innocent suffering?’
‘IF GOD IS GOOD,’ THEY ASK, ‘WHY DOES HE PERMIT SUFFERING?’
Thoughtful people realise that we could not have the world we do have, without suffering. A great amount of suffering is caused by man’s own inhumanity to man. To prevent this, God would have to make man a puppet, with God pulling the strings on each man’s actions. Being no longer free, man would cease to be human.
FREE WILL AND CREATION AS WE KNOW IT
Similarly, to eliminate all pain caused by nature, God would have had a different kind of world. Fire burns. Gravity crushes. Electricity kills. The world could not be our world, as we know it, without pain.
Still, after all possible explanations of pain have been made, there does remain a large element of mystery in this question of suffering. For example, why deadly microbes, why poisonous reptiles?
THERE DOES REMAIN A MYSTERY
It helps a little to remember that God’s plan for the universe encompasses billions of years. Our own world with its pain is but one pinpoint in that vast plan and only one moment in those uncounted eons. How the phenomenon of pain may eventually contribute to God’s over-all design, we must await to discover.
‘GREATER LOVE THAN THIS NO MAN HAS, THAT ONE LAY DOWN HIS LIFE FOR HIS FRIENDS’
The really important truth about pain, for the Christian, is the fact that it does have a meaning in the here and now. In Eden God gave to suffering its value as an atonement for sin. On Calvary Jesus Christ gave to suffering its ultimate nobility as He expressed, in the language of pain, God’s infinite love for man. ‘Greater love than this no man has, that one lay down his life for his friends.’
SHARING THE SUBLIME FRUIT OF SUFFERING
Jesus did not hoard to Himself this sublime fruit of suffering, this ability to make one’s pain count for others. In His scheme of salvation, our Lord has chosen to share with us His redemptive work. Each of us who has been baptised in Christ has the privilege of helping Him to carry His cross. Each of us has the power to atone by our sufferings for the sins of others and to crack the locks on hearts that have been closed to God’s grace.
‘WHO NOW REJOICE IN MY SUFFERINGS FOR YOU, AND FILL UP THAT WHICH IS LACKING IN THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST IN MY FLESH FOR HIS BODY’S SAKE, WHICH IS THE CHURCH’ (Colossians 1:24)
Whatever pain may be our lot, in honesty we must admit, ‘I deserve this for my sins.’ Only an innocent child can truthfully say, ‘I do not deserve to suffer.’ If God’s justice were not tempered with mercy and if we had to pay the full price of our infidelities, we should be living our whole lives in pain.
However, when suffering does come to us, it would be a mistake to conclude, ‘I am being punished for my sins.’ God is not a vindictive God. He may permit us to suffer for our spiritual good and to better assure our eternal happiness, but He does not send suffering to ‘get even’ with us for our offences against Him.
MOST SUFFERING IS THE INEVITABLE RESULT OF LIVING IN THE KIND OF WORLD THAT IS OURS
In fact, it probably is quite rarely that God positively ‘sends’ suffering to anyone. Most suffering, such as disease or accident, is simply the result of natural causes; or, it is the result of the evil will of fellow humans. Most suffering, in other words, is the inevitable result of living in the kind of a world that is ours.
If God does ‘send’ suffering, it is more likely to be to a saint than to a sinner. The saint is better qualified to use suffering unselfishly for the salvation of others.
‘I OFFER THIS CROSS, BELOVED JESUS, IN UNION WITH YOURS’
Suffering comes in all styles and sizes. It may be a simple headache, a slight cold or a minor disappointment. It may be the excruciating agony of cancer or of acute arthritis, or the mental distress of deep despondency or loneliness.
Whatever our particular pain may be, it will be a tragic waste if we refuse or forget to say, ‘I offer this cross, beloved Jesus, in union with Yours. I offer it for my own sins and especially in atonement for the sins of others. Let my suffering bring another soul to You!’
Fr Leo J. Trese, One Step Enough (Capital headings added afterwards)
To preserve our cheerfulness amid sicknesses and troubles is a sign of a right and and good spirit.
A man should not ask tribulations of God, presuming on his being able to bear them: there should be the greatest possible caution in this matter, for he who bears what God sends him daily does not do a small thing.
They who have been exercised in the service of God for a long time, may in their prayers imagine all sorts of insults offered to them, such as blows, wounds, and the like, and so in order to imitate Christ by their charity, may accustom their hearts beforehand to forgive real injuries when they come.
Let us think of Mary, for she that unspeakable Virgin, that glorious Lady, who conceived and brought forth, without detriment to her virginity, him whom the width of the heavens cannot contain within itself.
The true servant of God acknowledges no country but heaven.
When God infuses extraordinary sweetnesses into the soul, a man ought to prepare for some serious tribulation or temptation. When we have these extraordinary sweetnesses, we ought to ask of God fortitude to bear whatever he may please to send us, and then to stand very much upon our guard, because there is danger of sin behind.
One of the most excellent means of obtaining perseverance is discretion; we must not wish to do everything at once, or become a saint in four days…
A man should not so attach himself to the means as to forget the end; neither must we give ourselves so much to mortify the flesh as to forget to mortify the brain, which is the chief thing after all.
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