“WHEN HE HEARD THIS, MY FRIEND STARTED TO CRY BECAUSE HE KNEW THAT IT WAS OUR LADY WHO HAD LED HIM BACK TO HER SON JESUS”

HE STOPPED AND LOOKED AT MARY AND SAID TO HER, ‘ARE YOU REAL? BECAUSE IF YOU ARE I NEED YOU BECAUSE I’M DYING HERE!’

“… One friend of mine was leading a self-destructive lifestyle, he hated himself for something he had done in the past and he couldn’t forgive himself.

So for a number of years he drank heavily and took drugs. One night he stayed at his mum’s house and at the top of the stairs she had a picture of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

As he was passing it, he stopped and looked at Mary and because of the despair he was feeling he said to her, ‘Are you real? Because if you are I need you because I am dying here!’ and nothing happened so he went to bed.

NO CALL TO MARY EVER GOES UNHEARD; SOONER OR LATER SOMETHING SHE OBTAINED WILL DEFINITELY HAPPEN

A VERY UNPLEASANT SHOCK

The next morning he awoke to the sound of the Hoover going downstairs in the living room. Now it was a Sunday morning and his mum would never normally clean on a Sunday.

Then he remembered that he had hidden his stash of drugs underneath the settee in that room and he knew she had found them. The rest of that day he was in fear of the confrontation that he was sure would arise because of this discovery.

Later that day his dad came up to him and asked him to come outside. Then he held out his hands towards his son. In one hand were the drugs his mum had found and the other hand was empty.

Then his dad said to him, ‘Today I’m giving you a choice, you can take your drugs and you can leave this home because we will not watch you destroy yourself any longer, or you can take the hand of the family that loves you and you can change your life and be our son again.’

That day, he decided he wanted to change and not long afterwards the love of God touched his life in a deep way and he committed himself to live for the Lord.

HE COMMITTED HIMSELF TO LIVE FOR THE LORD

A few years later he was asked to give a talk on Our Lady at his local parish and he decided to use the picture of the Immaculate Heart of Mary from his mum’s house. When he took it down off the wall he was surprised to find the names of all his brothers and sisters written on the back with his own name written at the very bottom.

So he went to his mum and asked why his name was written on the back of the picture of Mary? She replied, “When you were in your wildest times and I was worried sick about you and I couldn’t even sleep at night, I went on a retreat and the priest said, ‘If you are worried about your children, consecrate them to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and she will look after them because she loves them even more than you do.’

When he heard this, my friend started to cry because he knew that it was Our Lady who had led him back to her son Jesus!

St Pio always used to say, ‘Pray, hope and don’t worry.’ I think that is very good advice, because there is always some situation that will worry us and rob us of our peace if we allow it to.”
Pray, hope and don’t worry!
– This is an excerpt of an article by John Pridmore which was published in “The Pilgrim” issue October 2013. More about the Archdiocese of Southwark including vocation information at http://www.rcsouthwark.co.uk (external link).

 

WE SHALL BE CAPABLE OF EVERYTHING IN HIM WHO GIVES US STRENGTH THROUGH THE IMMACULATE VIRGIN MARY

BY ST MAXIMILIAN KOLBE

How many times have we heard resigned or even desperate expressions such as: ‘I can’t succeed’, ‘I can’t make it’, ‘I lack the strength’!

Undoubtedly, in the physical field the energies we have are limited: it would be useless for someone to try to lift a weight of a few tons with only one hand. But also in the moral field, we sometimes happen to hear this same lament: I cannot get rid of this fault; I’m too weak to decide to acquire this virtue; this is too much for me!

But is it really true we cannot make it, as we claim?

STRENGTH THROUGH HUMILITY

If we listen to Saint Paul, he expressedly says: “… I have strength for everything!” (Ph 4:13). Still, the complete phrase says: “In him who is the source of my strength… I have strength for everything!” (Ph 4:13). And, “For apart from me,” Jesus himself says, “you can do nothing” (Jn 15:5).

And why?

Because if God asks something from us, he surely provides us with the energy we need to carry out his will, on condition that we do not neglect to do our part. We require God’s grace in order to function, and our soul can surely obtain that grace through prayer.

At our disposal there is someone through whom we can easily and surely obtain this: the Mediatrix of all graces. All that is required is that we really accept her and keep always closer to her, that we love her always more ardently in every temptation, difficulty, or trouble, acknowledging her power, her universal mediation next to God, and that we turn to her with total confidence.

Then we too shall be capable of everything, but in him who gives us the strength through the Immaculate.

 

“I WAS PUSHED HARD, SO I WAS FALLING…” – WHY WE NEED TEMPTATION TO EXPERIENCE GOD’S GRACE

“Suppress all temptation, and no-one will be saved.” (St Anthony)

THE SPIRIT IS WILLING, THE FLESH IS WEAK

“To want to avoid temptation would be useless, and sooner or later we would still be obliged to undergo it. There is no escape, either for the monk in the desert or for the Christian in the world, since both the desert and the world are places of temptation. The only difference between the two is that the monk, led by the Spirit, goes out willingly to meet temptation. As for what happens at the heart of temptation, Jesus described it for the use of his apostles, in a short sentence pronounced at the moment where he himself, sorrowful even unto death, was prey to his decisive temptation: ‘Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak’ (Matthew 26:41).

TWO OPPOSITE FORCES

Two opposite forces confront each other, fighting for the hearts of Jesus and of his disciples: the flesh, infirm and weak, and the spirit, willing of course, but terribly hindered by the impulses of the flesh. Jesus counsels a double attitude: watching and praying. For it is in the midst of temptation, more than anywhere else, that the believer, already shaken by the flesh’s complicity, feels the absolute necessity of God’s help: and he asks for it. It is there, at the heart of the crisis that, like a gift from the Spirit, true humility will begin and will enable them to undergo temptation with a minimum of risk.

TRUE HUMILITY

This battle between flesh and spirit, between sin and grace, between man and the Spirit of God, therefore implies a double consciousness: that of the abyss of weakness that characterises the potential sinners that we are at the moment, and that of the gentle and delicate, but finally irresistible strength of grace. No-one has described the redoubtable risks of this process better than Saint John Cassian. When temptation becomes so insistent that it risks overwhelming everything in its fall. With the awareness of weakness comes another awareness that helps maintain its balance.

THE ACTION OF GRACE

It is while he is prey to temptation that man perceives the action of grace within himself. This action operates in the very midst of the moans that the brutality of the assault draws from him, and nourishes his prayer which now becomes constant. ‘Let us learn also, then’, writes Cassian, ‘to feel in each action both our weakness and the help of God, and to proclaim daily with the saints: ‘I was pushed hard, so I was falling, but the Lord helped me. The Lord is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation’ (Psalm 118:13-14)”.
– Dom Andre Louf

 

WE ARE TO CARRY OUR CROSS WILLINGLY – BUT HOW CAN WE NEVERTHELESS ASK GOD FOR HAPPINESS IN THIS WORLD?

God could not give us little, he could not restrict his liberality to small things without doing us grave harm…

Let me show you a good way to ask for happiness even in this world. It is a way that will oblige God to listen to you. Say to him earnestly: either give me so much money that my heart will be satisfied, or inspire me with such contempt for it that I no longer want it. Either free me from poverty, or make it so pleasant for me that I would not exchange it for all the wealth in the world.

Either take away my suffering, or – which would be to your greater glory – change it into delight for me, and instead of causing me affliction, let it become a source of joy. You can take away the burden of my cross, or you can leave it with me without my feeling its weight. You can extinguish the fire that burns me, or you can let it burn in such a way that it refreshes me as it did the three youths in the fiery furnace.

I ask you for either one thing or the other. What does it matter in what way I am happy? If I am happy through the possession of worldly goods, it is you I have to thank. If I am happy when deprived of them, it gives you greater glory and my thanks are all the greater.
– St Claude de la Columbiere

 

PENITENTIAL PSALM VII

TO BE PRAYED DURING LENT

ANTIPHON:

“Remember not, O Lord, our or our parents’ offences: neither take vengeance of our sins.”

PSALM 143

Hear my prayer, O Lord, give ear to my supplications: in thy faithfulness answer me, and in thy righteousness.
And enter not into judgment with thy servant: for in thy sight shall no man living be justified.
For the enemy hath persecuted my soul: he hath smitten my life down to the ground; he hath made me to dwell in darkness, as those that have been long dead.
Therefore is my spirit overwhelmed within me; my heart within me is desolate.

I remember the days of old: I meditate on all thy works; I muse on the work of thy hands.
I stretch forth my hands unto thee: my soul thirsteth after thee, as a thirsty land. Selah.
Hear me speedily, O Lord: my spirit faileth: hide not thy face from me, lest I be like unto them that go down into the pit.
Cause me to hear thy lovingkindness in the morning; for in thee do I trust: cause me to know the way wherein I should walk; for I lift up my soul unto thee.

Deliver me, O Lord, from mine enemies: I flee unto thee to hide me.
Teach me to do thy will: for thou art my God: thy spirit is good; lead me into the land of uprightness.
Quicken me, O Lord, for thy name’s sake: for thy righteousness’ sake bring my soul out of trouble.
And of thy mercy cut off mine enemies, destroy all them that afflict my soul: for I am thy servant.

“Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.”