The First Step

“On the Way of the Cross, you see, my children, only the first step is painful. Our greatest cross is the fear of crosses. . .”

“We must ask for the love of crosses; then they become sweet.”

“The Cross gave peace to the world; and it must bring peace to our hearts. All our miseries come from not loving it. The fear of crosses increases them. A cross carried simply, and without those returns of self-love which exaggerate troubles, is no longer a cross. Peaceable suffering is no longer suffering. We complain of suffering! We should have much more reason to complain of not suffering, since nothing makes us more like Our Lord than carrying His Cross.”
-St. John Vianney (Catechism on Suffering)

May you have a very blessed and holy season of Lent, and come to love the Cross as our Lord did for our sake!

In our Loving Lady,
Lena

In oratione, et jejunio {the Ember Days are upon us}

 

“And when He was come into the house, His disciples secretly asked Him: Why could we not cast him {the demon} out? And He said to them: This kind can go out by nothing, but by prayer and fasting.”
-Gospel of today

I just wanted to put out a reminder about the Michaelmas Ember Days (today, Friday, and Saturday). If you aren’t familiar with the concept of Ember Days, they are three days (always a Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday) which occur in the traditional calendar of the Church four times a year, roughly at the start of every season. They are days of fasting and abstinence (partial on Wednesday and Saturday, meaning you can have meat at your main meal; full on Friday) as well as additional prayers and lessons in the liturgy. They are intended to thank God for the fruits of the earth and pray for the continued blessing of them, and also, since ordinations used to happen typically on Ember Days, to pray for priests.

If you’d like to read more about Ember Days, Mary gathered some excellent resource material last year on the subject here. (Thanks Mary!)

I don’t think it’s necessary to say that the practice of this beautiful penitential tradition of the Church, directly especially towards the sanctity of priests, is more needed today than ever before. If we desire (as we certainly should) to rid our Church of the evils afflicting Her today, our Lord clearly dictates that the only way this can happen is through the avenue of prayer and fasting. So let us not delay in embracing this wonderful opportunity!

“We beseech Thee, O Lord, that our weakness may be upheld by Thy healing mercy, so that what of itself is falling into ruin may be restored by Thy clemency. Through our Lord.”

Image from Wikipedia

Let us begin {with a big smile!}

“Take your eyes from yourself and rejoice that you have nothing–
that you are nothing–that you can do nothing.
Give Jesus a big smile each time your nothingness frightens you.
Just keep the joy of Jesus as your strength–be happy and at peace,
accept whatever He takes with a big smile.”
-St. Teresa of Calcutta

“I will extoll Thee, O Lord, for Thou hast upheld me,
and hast not made my enemies to rejoice over me:
O Lord, I have cried to Thee, and Thou hast healed me.”
-Offertory from Ash Wednesday

One day down: thirty-nine to go! And I’ve already discovered something about myself:

I am weak! (I know, so shocking.)

And yet, Mother Teresa’s idea of meeting my nothingness with a big smile is making more and more concrete sense to me. It makes me think a lot of Blessed Chiara and her beautiful smile. During her illness, she wrote about exactly what Mother Teresa was getting at–the joy of knowing our nothingness and relying completely on Christ.

“I must learn to trust Jesus more, to believe in his immense love. In this period, the occasions for embracing my Spouse have certainly not been lacking; as a matter of fact, I’ve had a very high temperature for about a week, which, being already very debilitated, makes me very weak; but these are so many occasions for love that I have to be even more rooted in God. I offer my nothingness so that the Holy Spirit can bestow his gifts of love, light and peace upon the youth; so that everybody can understand what a free and immense gift life is and how important it is to live every instant in the fullness of God.
I feel so little and the road ahead is so arduous that I often feel overwhelmed with pain! But that’s the Spouse coming to meet me. Yes, I repeat it: ‘If you want it, Jesus, so do I’.”

When I get a clearer glimpse of my weakness and nothingness, which suffering (especially in voluntary penances like fasting) tends to provide me with, there are two potential reactions: that of misery, and that of joy. Misery and frustration because my pride is hurt, or joy and peace because I know that Christ knows that I am nothing, and it does not disturb Him. It does not deter His love. It seems to attract it!

This self-knowledge, that I am but dust, is comforting because it is true. I have nothing good of myself–I can do nothing good when relying on myself. And yet I desire to be a Saint. I desire to live a life of heroic virtue and holiness and the charity of a martyr.

This apparent paradox and frustration of my very life and destiny does not frighten me, though, because of the great but undeniable mystery that Christ loves to work through weak vessels. He made all the Saints–our Lady–out of dust–out of nothingness. As Fr. Mawdsley would say, it’s a proof of His divinity. One of the greatest, I think.

I know that reminders of my nothingness are given to me to help me “take my eyes from myself” and make me rejoice that I am not supposed to find the strength to get to Heaven, to become a Saint, to practice the smallest virtue, even simply to fast, anywhere in myself (thank God!). I have to cast myself completely upon Christ, like a child. He wants my total reliance and trust to rest upon Him–to let Him do the heavy lifting behind all my efforts this Lent and during all my life. He has made Himself my example, my life and breath, my very food!

He alone can fill my emptiness, and He alone can give me the strength to empty myself of every obstacle to Him. The steps, the temptations, and the difficulties are simply “so many occasions for love that I have to be even more rooted in God.”

I can only love Him as He desires if I am rooted in His own most Sacred Heart. I can only be a martyr if I am rooted in His Cross. I can only fast if I rely on His strength in fasting and temptation. That is the way of holiness, of sanctity, of freedom and of joy! And, in a most wonderful way, there will be nothing I cannot do for God; I will never be able to say “Enough!” to Him, because it is Christ Who is doing all good in me, the Omnipotent One. There is simply no other way than this; and to try to do it on my own would not only be futile, but displeasing to Him because of my pride.

At the end of Lent, and at the end of my life, I will not dare to tell the Lord, “See how well I overcame my sinfulness? See all the wonderful things I did for You? See how holy I’ve become?” I hope and pray that I will say nothing except, “I will extoll Thee, O Lord, because Thou hast upheld me, and has not made my enemies to rejoice over me. O Lord, I have cried to Thee, and Thou hast healed me.”

Surely that is why the Saints smiled, especially during Lent!

 May Our Lord bless you with the joy of relying on His strength as you battle vice, do penance, and strive to grow closer to Him in this beautiful season!

In our Loving Lady,
Lena

 

O Innocence, how beautiful you are!

Praised be Jesus Christ!

A most joyful Candlemas to you!

 Adorn thy bridal-chamber, O Sion, and welcome Christ the King:
with loving embrace greet Mary, the very gate of heaven;
for she bringeth to thee the glorious King of new light:
ever Virgin she remaineth, yet in her arms doth bear
the Son begotten before the day-star; that Child
Whom Simeon did take into his arms and proclaim to the nations
as Lord of life and Savior of the world.
-First Antiphon of the Candlemas Procession

Almighty and everlasting God, we humbly beseech Thy Majesty,
that as Thine only begotten Son was this day presented in the temple
in substance of our flesh, so Thou wouldst cause us too
with purified hearts to be presented unto Thee. Through the same our Lord
-Collect from today’s Mass

A few days ago, on the feast of St. John Bosco, I picked up my dad’s copy of Forty Dreams of St. John Bosco and browsed about, certain of finding something worth contemplating (one of these days I need to just read the whole book). Dad’s bookmark was in the middle of a dream, and so I flipped back a few pages to start from the beginning of that chapter, titled Innocence Preserved by Penance.

I was allured pretty quickly by the description of a glorious green slope, described as an earthly paradise, “brilliantly illuminated by a light purer and brighter than the light of the sun”, and by the huge carpet that stretched to cover the slope, several miles wide. Its edges were inscribed with gilded Latin verses, such as Beati immaculati in via, qui ambulant in lege Domini, “Blessed are they who pass through life’s journey unstained, who follow the law of the Lord”. (I know; so cool!)

Don Bosco was a spectator in this dream, watching as two beautiful young girls, twelve years old or so, dressed in purest white and emanating “heavenly modesty” and “an ardor of the purest love and a joy of heavenly bliss” spoke back and forth in sweet voices.

I was so struck by the beauty and power of their dialogue on innocence that I just had to share some of it here. (I think it’s a very appropriate feast day for a reflection on the virtue of innocence, don’t you?)

“Who can describe the beauty of an innocent soul? Such a soul is splendidly robed like one of us, adorned with the white stole of Baptism. His neck and arms are resplendent with divine jewels; he has on his finger the ring of union with God. He walks lightly on his way to eternity; moreover, there stretches out before him a road adorned with stars. . .
“A living tabernacle of the Holy Ghost, with the Blood of Jesus in his veins, coloring his cheeks and his lips; with the most Holy Trinity in his unspotted heart, he sheds around torrents of light, which clothe him with the brilliance of the sun; a shower of flowers rains down from on high and fills the air. Wafted all round are sweet strains of music of Angels, echoing his prayer. Mary Most Holy stands beside him, ready to defend him. Heaven is open to him. He is a charming sight to the immense legion of Saints and blessed spirits, who receive him and welcome him. God, in the unapproachable splendor of His glory, points out with His right hand the throne He has prepared for him, while in His left hand He holds the shining crown which is to adorn him forever.”

“The innocent is the desire, the joy, the applause of Paradise. His face is adorned with ineffable joy. He is God’s son; he has God for a father and Paradise for his inheritance. He is continually with God: he sees Him, loves Him; he possesses and enjoys Him; he has a ray of the delights of Heaven: he is in possession of all His gifts and of His perfections.”

“That is why innocence in the Saints of the Old Testament, in the Saints of the New Testament and especially in the Martyrs appears so glorious!
“O Innocence, how beautiful you are! When tempted, you increase in perfection; when humbled you rise more sublime; in the combat you come forth victorious; and in death you fly to your crown. In slavery you are free; in dangers you are tranquil and safe; in chains you are happy. The powerful bow down to you; the rulers welcome you; and the great seek you. The good obey you; the wicked envy you; your rivals emulate you; your adversaries succumb to you. Should men unjustly condemn you, you will always come out victorious.”

“Oh, if the young knew what a precious treasure innocence is, how jealously they would guard the stole of Holy Baptism right from the beginning of their life! But unfortunately they do not reflect, and they do not imagine what it means to stain it!”

“Innocence is a most precious liquor, but it is enclosed in a vessel of frail clay.”

“Innocence is a very precious gem, but its value is not known; it is lost and easily exchanged for a worthless object.”

“Innocence is a golden mirror which reflects the image of God. But a breath of damp air is enough to dim it, and one must keep it covered with a veil.”

“Innocence is a lily.”

“But the mere touch of a rough hand spoils it.”

“Innocence is a white robe: Omni tempore sint vestimenta tua candida–‘Let your garments be glittering white at all times.’“

“But one single stain is enough to soil it; therefore, one must walk with great precaution.”

“Innocence is integrity; it is lost if it is spoiled by a single sin, and it loses the treasure of its beauty.”

“Just one mortal sin is sufficient, and once it is lost, it is lost forever.”

“He can rise again! God’s mercy is infinite. A good Confession will give back the grace of God and the title of son of God.”

“But no more innocence!”

“A great mistake which boys make is that of thinking that penance must be practiced by sinners only. Penance is necessary also in order to preserve innocence. . . This should be continually preached, inculcated and taught to children. How many more would preserve their innocence, while at present there are so few!
“And Jesus, the Holy and Immaculate One, passed His life in privations and sufferings.”

“So did Mary Most Holy; so did all the Saints.”

“It was to give an example to all youths. St. Paul says: ‘If you live according to the flesh, you shall die; but if according to the spirit, you shall give the death-blow to the inclinations of the flesh, you shall live.'”

“Therefore, without penance, innocence cannot be preserved.”

“And yet many would like to preserve their innocence and live a free and easy life. . .”

“The way of the innocent has its trials and sacrifices, but it has its strength in Holy Communion, because he who communicates frequently has eternal life:
he is in Jesus, and Jesus is in him. He who lives of the same life as Jesus
will be raised up by Him at the last day. . .
“And the Virgin most sweet, beloved by him, is a Mother to him.”

“. . .innocence crowned with penance is the queen of virtues.”

I don’t think much need be added to this; except that our Lord has been putting the thought of innocence on my mind and heart very often since I read that, and I wanted to share with you something that moved me profoundly towards a desire to preserve innocence at all costs, especially in children, and towards a deeper gratitude for the gifts of Baptism.

If you’ve read all the way to the end of this, congratulations!

Let us pray and do penance!
May our Eucharistic Lord and our Mother Most Holy preserve innocence in souls!
May they never cease to defend and strengthen us against those that try to steal it!

God bless you!
In our Loving Lady,
Lena

Choosing Joy: the hidden gifts of fasting

“To deny one’s self in order to follow Christ.
“To chastise the body.
“Not to seek after pleasures.
“To love fasting.”
–The Rule of St. Benedict, The Instruments of Good Works (Chp. 4)

Praised be Jesus Christ!

Septuagesima has come! Cue the countdown to Lent! Cue the Tracts! Farewell the Alleluia and Gloria (except on feast days, like that of St. Martina today)! And cue the approach of the Holy Fasts.

  “And every one that striveth for the mastery refraineth himself from all things. . .
I therefore so run, not as at an uncertainty; I so fight, not as one beating the air: but I chastise my body, and bring it into subjection. . .”
-Epistle from Septuagesima Sunday

The Lord has gently begun to turn my heart and mind towards the thought of fasting; especially in light of the vocation I am seeking, one which fasting is a pillar of. After all, the holy founder of the Benedictine family admonished his sons to love fasting. To love it.

But what is there to love about fasting? What hidden beauty and joy is really hidden in austerity, self-denial, and hunger? And is it truly important, not only to do, but to love?

 If one peers at fasting as it was once practiced, not only by great Saints but by the whole Church–the full Lenten fast (fasting on one full meal and two small ones, etc., every weekday of Lent), the from-midnight Eucharistic fast, vigil fasts, Ember Days–this idea of fasting starts to seem important, while at the same time becomes less frightening. If our Holy Mother the Church, in the richness of her wisdom and tradition and love, prescribed fasting for her children on such a regular basis, then it must be good, healthy, and not harmful. Certainly it must be important.

To go even further, if Christ Himself–purity and innocence Itself–fasted for forty days in a desert, it must have been (at least in part) to unveil to us the hidden gifts of fasting, to dispel our fear of it. Our Lord hungered to show us that fasting is a friend, a helper, and a true necessity of our souls, to be loved and sought after and practiced faithfully.

  

“This kind cannot be cast out but by prayer and fasting.”
Mark 9: 28

For me, the instrument which St. Benedict names right before the love of fasting is a great key to understanding fasting: Not to seek after pleasures.

I will be the first to admit that, coming from a family that loves food, I often find myself seeking after pleasure by the act of eating. While this may seem innocent enough, I am beginning to realize that, while the pleasure may very well be innocent, the seeking is subtly but truly harmful. It is a lie of my concupiscence that prompts me to seek after pleasures for my body, blinding me to the fullness of joy and satisfaction which, by grace, I possess already in Christ dwelling within my soul. Truly it is a disordered symptom of fallen nature that makes me feel somehow discontented and in need of diversion and pleasure, when in my heart of hearts, I possess God.

“Virtue, even attempted virtue, brings clarity. Indulgence brings fog.”
-C. S. Lewis

While concupiscence certainly rears its head against my soul in areas besides that of food, fasting is a wonderful antidote to the whole problem, because instantly it causes me to step back, to detach from the fog of distraction and pleasure and blindness. It is really like a spiritual silence, a stillness in my inmost being that allows space for me to refocus upon God, for Whom my soul pines with a hunger quieter than that of the body but far more deadly whenever I turn myself towards anything but Him. Fasting turns me towards God as my one and only End, my one and only Joy, the only One to be sought.

That is the first beautiful gift that fasting discloses to the soul; it empties, only to make room for the fullness of God; it stings, but only in order to wake the soul to the presence of its only true Comforter; it weakens, but only to lead to soul to realize its weakness and obtain ultimate security by casting itself upon God. Fasting, in a word, turns us back to God.

Closely knit to the first, the second gift is a mighty one as well: the act of denying ourselves strengthens us, just as the act of indulgence weakens us, in resisting sin and thus overturns concupiscence itself. Fasting, united to the fasting and sufferings of Christ, is a powerful remedy to our fallen nature. What a gift! What a weapon to be laid hold of with eagerness!

“Lord, give bread to those who have hunger,
and hunger of Thee to those who have bread.”
-Haitian Proverb

Fasting is also very useful in reminding us of the hunger pangs of the poor–and of the pain of Christ Who ever suffers in them. Feeling a little of what the hungry feel detaches us, at least on occasion, from the thoughtless ‘security’ of our daily lives. It is one thing to be hungry when you know that, if you feel like you’re about to pass out, you can run to the pantry for some crackers. It’s another thing–difficult to truly imagine–to be without food and altogether helpless to obtain it, for yourself or your family. Yet that true hunger consumes so much of the world beyond my home. It is a sobering thought–one that pulls me out of myself, encourages both compassion and gratitude, and moves me to pray for others, which is always good!

It’s true that fasting isn’t fun. But, as Father Augustine Wetta said so well in his book Humility Rules:

“Everyone comes to a point in his life where he has to choose between fun and joy. And to choose the former over the latter leads to a whole lot of emptiness. These decisions aren’t always life-changing, but they do have a cumulative effect; and they are often very difficult because  joy takes work. Ironically, the rich young man went away sad because he threw in his lot with fun.”

Fasting is one of those points in my spiritual journey. It’s fun to eat as much as I want, when I want, because I want to. But there is incredible joy–matchless joy–in seeking nothing but God, in refraining myself from everything to strive for the mastery of the life of love. I choose joy!

An Act of Love
(From the 1962 Missal from Angelus Press)
To be said before receiving Holy Communion

As the hart panteth after the fountains of water, so my soul panteth after Thee, O God!
My soul hath thirsted after the strong living God;  when shall I go
and appear before the face of God?
For what have I in heaven? and besides Thee, what do I desire upon earth?
Let blind and infatuated worldlings intoxicate themselves with the
false, transient, and fading happiness of this life; for my part,
nothing besides Thyself can content me, either in heaven or on earth.
Come then, O Thou Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world!
Come, Thou Beloved of my heart! Come, to nourish, comfort, and enliven my sickly soul. O God of my heart! let me neither love, seek, nor think on any other object
but Thyself alone; for Thou alone art my consolation,
my treasure, my joy, my life, my all!
“My heart and my flesh have rejoiced in the living God. . .
Thou art, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God!”
“Who will give me wings like a dove and I will fly and be at rest!”

God bless you!
In our Loving Lady,
Lena

Let us Pray

Praised be Jesus Christ!

If you haven’t already been notified by The Missive (as I have!), today is an annual Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children, called for by our bishops.

In all the Dioceses of the United States of America, January 22 (or January 23, when January 22 falls on a Sunday) shall be observed as a particular day of prayer for the full restoration of the legal guarantee of the right to life and of penance for violations to the dignity of the human person committed through acts of abortion.
-General Instruction of the Roman Missal, No. 373

In thinking about how overwhelmingly heartbreaking the reality of abortion is to anyone who understands the truth of the matter, how horrible this complete shattering of maternal love is to those who recognize the sacredness and beauty of the family, and how astutely the warped lies of the Adversary have infiltrated our society, I cannot imagine what pain abortion causes to the Hearts of Jesus and Mary.

“I am thinking about God, Who is so sad because of so many sins!
If only I could give Him joy!”
-St. Francisco Marto

“Men are lost because they do not think of the Lord and do penance.
“What is it all for? If they only knew what eternity is!”
–St. Jacinta Marto

It is so easy to sink into thinking that we have prayed for the end of abortion for so long that our prayers are unheard, powerless, or just not good enough. We can slip into a subtle despair or anger so easily, forgetting that Jesus and Mary weep for each baby that is lost to such rampant evil, each mother that is deceived. As our parish priest reminded us last week, even when it is impossible to see the fruit or effect of our prayers, we have no idea how much worse things might be now without them. If the prayers of faithful Catholics for thirty years only saved one child–and there certainly have been children saved–would it not all be worthwhile? If they served only to comfort the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts, can we say they were wasted?

Let us not lose heart in praying and doing penance. Let us become more generous than ever. Let us give and give until it hurts, without counting the cost, without losing heart. This is spiritual warfare, and we cannot accurately gauge its progress by what we see around us in this world, in our lifetimes.

As the Angel of Fatima told Lucia, Francisco, and Jacinta (such wonderful models of prayer and penance):

“What are you doing? Pray, pray a lot!”
“The Hearts of Jesus and Mary are attentive to your supplications!”

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us!
Most Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!

In our Loving Lady,
Lena