In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit Amen, I would like to welcome you all to our Perseverance Family conversation, I am Fr. Ed Broom, Oblate of the Virgin Mary. Its great to be with all of you! As always, we would like to start off our conversation by inviting Mary to be with us. Mary has many wonderful titles, among which is: Mary is the Mother of God, which is her greatest title.
LET US PRAY
Mary is also the mother of the Church. And also Mary is a mother of each and every one of us. When we pray that prayer at the end of the Rosary, the Hail Holy Queen. We also invoke Mary as our life, our sweetness and our hope. So lets invite Mary to be with us, to walk with us to encourage us to inspire us to love God more and more each day. As we say the prayer that Mary loves most, and that prayer is the Hail Mary. Together. Hail Mary. Full of grace. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art. Thou amount women And blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus. Holy Mary. Mother of God. Pray for our sinners. Now that they are of our death. Amen.
Now I would like to be with us our Spiritual Director, our Spiritual Director is the Holy Spirit. Like the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Holy Spirit, has many wonderful titles. A list of wonderful titles, among which would be the Holy Spirit, is known as the Paraclete. The Holy Spirit is also known as the Gift of gifts. Holy Spirit is also known as the Sweet Guest of our soul. Holy Spirit is also known as our Counselor. Holy Spirit is also known as Our Consoler. Holy Spirit is also known as our Sanctifier. He who helps us to grow in holiness.
Saint Paul in his Letter to the Romans also points out that the Holy Spirit is our Interior Master, our Teacher. Saint Paul says: “we really don’t know how to pray as we ought, but the Holy Spirit intercedes with ineffable groans so we can say “Abba, Father”, which means daddy. Beg the Holy Spirit with great humility and trust to enlighten our minds, and to set our hearts on fire with love for God and all that pertains to God. So together, let us pray: Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful, and enkindle within us the fire of your divine love, send forth your spirit, and thou shall renew the face of the earth. Let us pray. Oh God, who did instruct the hearts of your faithful by the light of the Holy Spirit, grant us that by the same Spirit. We may be truly wise and ever rejoice in His consolation through the same Christ our Lord. Amen. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in beginning is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. Our lady of Fatima, pray for us. St Joseph, pray for us. St Michael the archangel, pray for us. Think Gabriel pray for us. Saint Raphael, pray for us. Saint Ignatius of Loyola, pray for us.
St Francis Javier, pray for us. Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska, pray for us. All God’s, angels, and Saints, pray for us. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
PRAYER INTENTIONS
This is the day the Lord has made, let us be glad and rejoice in it! Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia. We’re still on the Easter season. Preparing for the Feast Day of the Ascension of Our Lord and then the Feast of Pentecost. So the courage all of you I will be praying for all of you. And I’ll be praying for all of you in the greatest of all prayers. And the greatest of all prayers is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. That’s right, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the greatest of all prayers. It’s the prayer part excellence, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. I would like to place you all on the altar and offer several intentions. My first intention will be I’d like to pray in a special way for our openness to the Holy Spirit. That we would be open and docile to the workings of the Holy Spirit. And we can pray and such. Come, Holy Spirit, come. Come, Holy Spirit, come through the heart of Mary. Come, Holy Spirit, come. Come, Holy Spirit, come through the heart of Mary.
My next intention, I’d like to pray for our families. With respect to our families, pray for the conversion of our families, the sanctification of our families, and the salvation of our families. Those three different verbs, the dynamic praying for our conversion, our sanctification and our salvation. And finally, a prayer that very pleasing to God which Jesus to reveal to St. Faustina Kowalska in the Diary of Divine Mercy in my soul, it’s to pray for the dying. But there’s a category that dying that’s even more important. That’s those who are dying not in the state of grace. Pray that they would open up their hearts at the end of their lives and beg for mercy so that they will be saved for all eternity.
Jesus said in the Gospel: “What does it profit a man if he gained the whole world and lose his soul”. The salvation of our soul is the most important enterprise that all of us must undertake. We should do all we possibly can too, with God’s grace, to procure this salvation of our immortal soul.
TOPIC FOR TODAY:
So my friends would like to move into the topic for today. Is have said at the beginning of this month. May is the month of Mary. St. John Bosco in the oratory for his youth, suggested they tried to offer a special gift to Mary every day of May. May is Mother’s Day Month. So like to do is I’d like to follow up on a story I told you yesterday and developed that little bit more s we honor Mary. I mentioned earlier that St Alphonsus Liguori had a great devotion to Mary and his greatest work was The Glories of Mary. This spiritual masterpiece took him years to compile them to complete. The Glories of Mary is a detailed explanation of Mary’s powerful presence in the world by explaining the Hail Holy Queen, the, prayer that we pray at the end of the rosary.
In this spiritual masterpiece I mentioned that St. Alphonsus not only explains the Hail Holy Queen but he will spice it up by telling stories to illustrate the point. One of the stories he told was a story in honor of Our Lady of Sorrows. There was a young man who had great devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows and he would greet her every day as he entered the church and this statue of Our Lady of Sorrows had her heart outside her body, but was 7 swords transpiercing her heart. Every day this young man would go into church and he would stop and greet her and say a prayer to her. One morning, he was taken by surprise and taken aback because he noticed that the statue was weeping and there were not seven swords piercing your heart, but there were eight. He wondered why? And the young man entered into a dialogue with Our Lady of Sorrows and asked her why she had eight sorrows rather, 8 swords piercing your heart. And she said the 8th was embedded in my heart because there’s something that you did yesterday. Right away, the young man understood what she was referring to. He committed a mortal sin. He understood right away that that 8th sword piercing her heart was the mortal sin that he committed. He understood what Our Lady of Sorrows wanted of him. She wanted him to reconcile himself to God in the church by means of making a Sacramental Confession. The young man entered into church and then the Church, there was a priest in the confessional. He went into the confessional any opened up his heart and made a good Sacramental Confession. Hey, good Sacramento Confession. He left the confessional with great peace of heart. When he passed in front of the statue of Our Lady of Sorrows, he now noticed that there were no longer 8 swords transpiercing your heart, but just seven. And he was led to understand that that sword was taken out of her heart because he had made a good sacramental Confession.
What can we do to show our love for Mary? Pope St. John Paul II made this comment. He said that the Marian sanctuaries are spiritual clinics, or if you like spiritual hospitals. The Marian Sanctuaries Lourdes, Fatima, Guadalupe, these Marian sanctuaries are Marian spiritual clinics. I was in Mexico quite a few years ago giving it 30-day retreat to the male Missionaries of Charity. The male Missionaries from Charity had their house of formation very close to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe. I was giving a month retreat. In a free day that I had, I went to the Basilica of Our Lady, Guadalupe and I offered to hear confessions that day and the rector gave me permission. So, I sat in the confessional, and I was in the confessional, I stay for about 7 or 8 hours, nonstop confessions in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe. And I had to get up because they were closing the basilica. Many hours, many, many hours in the Basilica of Our Lady Guadalupe. So, one way in which all of us in this month of May, the Mother Mary, that we can show our love, honor and dedication to Mary, would be to offer Mary our hearts: our wounded hearts, our dirty hearts, our soiled hearts, our thorny hearts, our wondered hearts, by making a good sacramental Confession.
5 STEPS TO A GOOD CONFESSION
I’d like to just go through those classical steps. The classical catechetical steps of making a good confession. And this could be a gift that we can offer to the Blessed Virgin Mary in the month of May, which is the month of Mary.
1. EXAMINATION OF CONSCIENCE. Make a good examination of conscience. Go through the 10 commandments. Perhaps have a booklet or a pamphlet to go through the explanation of the 10 Commandments of the law of God. And I invite you also to to write down on a piece of paper so you won’t forget. At times when we get nervous, we throw up blank and then we forget what we like to say.
2. SORROW FOR SIN. The second step of making a good confession. Is sorrow for sin. The two forms of sorrow, imperfect sorrow, perfect sorrow. Imperfect so are motivated by fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom, which is one of the seven gifts, the Holy Spirit. We don’t want to lose God for all eternity, fear of eternal damnation, if you like. Perfect contrition is contrition of love. We don’t want to send because we love God. We don’t want to do anything to hurt God who loves us so much and we want to love him in return.
3. FIRM PURPOSE OF AMENDMENT. The third step of making a good sacramental of confession. Is to have firm purpose of amendment. Not to go back to that sin anymore. And that entails, my friends, trying to avoid. The near occasion of sin, in other words, not to play with fire. He walks on a slippery slope will fall. Avoiding any person, place, thing, or circumstance that can lead me into sin.
4. CONFESS TO A PRIEST. Fourth step, we go to confession to the priest who represents Christ. That’s right! The priest acts in Persona Christi. He’s the altar Cristus. So it’s not so much that you’re confessing to the priest, but to Christ. And tell your sins with transparency, with humility and an attitude of obedience. Mortal sins: the number and types if they’re mortal sins. Then you say the Acting of Contrition, the priest gives you absolution.
5. CARRY OUT THE PENANCE. And then the last step. I’m making good confession. Would be to carry out the penance that the priest has given to you. So, my friends, that’s a gift that you can give the Blessed Virgin Mary today.
I promise that I’ll pray for you. This morning I have a concelebrated Mass and I’ve got to go right now, so I will give you my priestly blessing. You pray for me and I’ll pray for you. And may almighty God bless you, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
