Seek good and not evil,
that you may live;
Then truly will the LORD, the God of hosts,
be with you as you claim!
Hate evil and love good,
and let justice prevail at the gate;
Then it may be that the LORD, the God of hosts,
will have pity on the remnant of Joseph.

I hate, I spurn your feasts, says the LORD,
I take no pleasure in your solemnities;
Your cereal offerings I will not accept,
nor consider your stall-fed peace offerings.
Away with your noisy songs!
I will not listen to the melodies of your harps.
But if you would offer me burnt offerings,
then let justice surge like water,
and goodness like an unfailing stream.

R. (23b) To the upright I will show the saving power of God.
“Hear, my people, and I will speak;
Israel, I will testify against you;
God, your God, am I.”

R. To the upright I will show the saving power of God.
“Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you,
for your burnt offerings are before me always.
I take from your house no bullock,
no goats out of your fold.”

R. To the upright I will show the saving power of God.
“For mine are all the animals of the forests,
beasts by the thousand on my mountains.
I know all the birds of the air,
and whatever stirs in the plains, belongs to me.”

R. To the upright I will show the saving power of God.
“If I were hungry, I should not tell you,
for mine are the world and its fullness.
Do I eat the flesh of strong bulls,
or is the blood of goats my drink?”

R. To the upright I will show the saving power of God.
“Why do you recite my statutes,
and profess my covenant with your mouth,
Though you hate discipline
and cast my words behind you?”

R. To the upright I will show the saving power of God.

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
The Father willed to give us birth by the word of truth
that we may be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

When Jesus came to the territory of the Gadarenes,
two demoniacs who were coming from the tombs met him.
They were so savage that no one could travel by that road.
They cried out, “What have you to do with us, Son of God?
Have you come here to torment us before the appointed time?”
Some distance away a herd of many swine was feeding.
The demons pleaded with him,
“If you drive us out, send us into the herd of swine.”
And he said to them, “Go then!”
They came out and entered the swine,
and the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea
where they drowned.
The swineherds ran away,
and when they came to the town they reported everything,
including what had happened to the demoniacs.
Thereupon the whole town came out to meet Jesus,
and when they saw him they begged him to leave their district.

Catechism of the Catholic Church

29 But this “intimate and vital bond of man to God” (GS 19 # 1) can be forgotten, overlooked, or even explicitly rejected by man. Such attitudes can have different causes: revolt against evil in the world; religious ignorance or indifference; the cares and riches of this world; the scandal of bad example on the part of believers; currents of thought hostile to religion; finally, that attitude of sinful man which makes him hide from God out of fear and flee his call.

“For greater things you were born.” (Ven. Mother Luisita)

WEDNESDAY, JULY 1^ST   Mt. 8:28-34   “They begged him to leave the district.”

• Jesus is in the territory of the Gadarenes, a Gentile people. On the road He meets two possessed men who are well known in the area. No one will walk on that road for fear of them! In a great act of mercy, Jesus sets them free. And the locals beg Him to leave the district.
• God visits them and they don’t recognize Him. The moment of grace passes. He could have filled their lives with spiritual riches worth more than silver or gold but instead they beg Him to leave them alone!
• The worldly still reject Jesus. They build a society without Him. There is no room for Him in their laws or in their schools. On Sunday they take their children to soccer games instead of church. They exclude the One who gives meaning to life, and wonder why their lives have so little meaning!
• Sometimes we are not as different from them as we think… We decide what will make us happy, then ask God to help us carry out our plans!
• Dom Eugene Boylan, O.C.R. reminds us, “The true state of affairs is just the opposite. God has His plans for our happiness and He is waiting patiently for us to help Him accomplish them – and let us be quite clear about it; we cannot improve on God’s plans.” “‘I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’” (Jer.29:11)
• He comes to us along paths quite different than we expect. We expect Him in our triumphs, but we are more likely to encounter Him in our failures, in our need.
• Consider our own life… Are we more likely to turn to the Lord when we get a big promotion at work or when we lose our job? When our family and friends enjoy good health, or when one of them is diagnosed with cancer? When we successfully avoid temptation, or when we fall into temptation and we fall hard? These are the moments of grace. Moments when we embrace Jesus’ mercy and love, and ask Him to carry us through difficult times.
• The townspeople in today’s Gospel miss this moment of grace. They can’t see beyond the loss of their material riches to the greater spiritual riches Jesus is willing to pour forth upon them, as evidenced by driving demons out of two possessed men!
• How many missed opportunities have there been in our lives? Times when we settled for the passing pleasures of this life and missed the far greater good He had planned for us from all eternity! What attachments are we still clinging to? The things of this life are passing – Jesus and His love are eternal!
• Let us be ever watchful for Him… especially when He presents Himself in a place and a manner we do not expect. May we be prepared to recognize Him in the unexpected ways He chooses to pass by!

 Making Room For Christ…   Reflection by Father Tadeusz Dajczer (+2009)

• An obvious sign of attachments is your sadness in situations when God takes something away from you. He will, therefore, take that by which you are enslaved, hence everything that is your greatest enemy, that which causes your heart not to be free for Him. It is when you start to accept this and do it cheerfully that you will become more and more free.
• During prayer in the presence of the Lord, show Him not only your empty but also dirty hands, defiled by the attachments to mammon (riches), and pray that He will have mercy on you.
• Prayer can develop only in the atmosphere of freedom. As a disciple of Christ, you are called to prayer; and that is to contemplative prayer. For your prayer to become contemplation – that is, a loving gaze on Jesus Christ, your beloved – a free heart is essential.
• That is why Christ fights so much for your heart to be free. He fights through various events, through difficulties and storms, by putting you in difficult situations, all the while giving you a chance to cooperate intensively with grace.
• In all these situations, Christ expects that you will try to cleanse your heart, soiled by attachments and servitude to mammon (riches). In this way, all these difficult moments and all the storms are a grace for you.
• They are the passing by of the Merciful Lord, who loves you so much that He wants to give you this magnificent gift – the gift of total freedom of your heart. Your heart should not be divided, it should be a heart solely for Him.
• To have faith means to see and understand your life’s sense in accordance with the Gospel – God is most important. Your life is to be aimed at Him: to seek and build primarily His kingdom believing that everything else will be given to you (see Mt 6:33).
• God wants to bestow on each person all His love. However, He can gift a person only to the extent of his openness, of his readiness to be stripped of attachments, so that room may be made for Him. End of Reflection
  

Jesus speaks to us from the Sermon on the Mount… Do Not Worry (Mt. 6:25-34)

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’

For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. 

Union with Christ…  By Dom Eugene Boylan, O.C.R.

What then have we to do? We must realize that God is our tremendous lover, that He is our all and that He has done all our works for us. We must believe in God and not in ourselves; we must hope in God and not in ourselves; we must love God and not ourselves. As Saint Augustine told us, there is one man who reaches to the extremities of the universe and unto the end of time. We have to enter into this one man – this one Christ – by faith, hope, and charity. We have to find our all in Him. He is our full complement and our perfect supplement. No matter how weak we are, He is our strength; no matter how empty we are, He is our fullness; no matter how sinful we are, He is our holiness.

All we have to do is to accept God’s plan – to say as Christ said coming into the world: “A body thou hast fitted to me; behold I come to do Thy will, O God.” We have to accept the self, and the surroundings, and the story that God’s providence arranges for us. In humility we must accept our self – just as we are; in charity, we must accept and love our neighbor just as he is; in abandonment, we must accept God’s will just as things happen to us, and just as He would have us act. Faithful compliance with His will and humble acceptance of His arrangements will bring us to full union with Christ.  For the rest, let us gladly glory in our infirmities that the power of Christ may dwell in us. In our weakness and in our love we shall thus become one with Him, and there shall be one Christ loving Himself.

Dom Boylan +1963 was Abbot and monk of the Cistercian Abbey of Mount Saint Joseph, Roscrea, Ireland. 

Hear this word, O children of Israel, that the LORD pronounces over you,
over the whole family that I brought up from the land of Egypt:

You alone have I favored,
more than all the families of the earth;
Therefore I will punish you
for all your crimes.

Do two walk together
unless they have agreed?
Does a lion roar in the forest
when it has no prey?
Does a young lion cry out from its den
unless it has seized something?
Is a bird brought to earth by a snare
when there is no lure for it?
Does a snare spring up from the ground
without catching anything?
If the trumpet sounds in a city,
will the people not be frightened?
If evil befalls a city,
has not the LORD caused it?
Indeed, the Lord GOD does nothing
without revealing his plan
to his servants, the prophets.

The lion roars–
who will not be afraid!
The Lord GOD speaks–
who will not prophesy!

I brought upon you such upheaval
as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah:
you were like a brand plucked from the fire;
Yet you returned not to me,
says the LORD.

So now I will deal with you in my own way, O Israel!
and since I will deal thus with you,
prepare to meet your God, O Israel.

R. (9a)  Lead me in your justice, Lord.
At dawn I bring my plea expectantly before you.
For you, O God, delight not in wickedness;
no evil man remains with you;
the arrogant may not stand in your sight.

R. Lead me in your justice, Lord.
You hate all evildoers;
you destroy all who speak falsehood;
The bloodthirsty and the deceitful
the LORD abhors.

R. Lead me in your justice, Lord.
But I, because of your abundant mercy,
will enter your house;
I will worship at your holy temple
in fear of you, O LORD.

R. Lead me in your justice, Lord.

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
I trust in the LORD;
my soul trusts in his word.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

As Jesus got into a boat, his disciples followed him.
Suddenly a violent storm came up on the sea,
so that the boat was being swamped by waves;
but he was asleep.
They came and woke him, saying,
“Lord, save us!  We are perishing!”
He said to them, “Why are you terrified, O you of little faith?”
Then he got up, rebuked the winds and the sea,
and there was great calm.
The men were amazed and said, “What sort of man is this,
whom even the winds and the sea obey?”

Catechism of the Catholic Church

28 In many ways, throughout history down to the present day, men have given expression to their quest for God in their religious beliefs and behaviour: in their prayers, sacrifices, rituals, meditations, and so forth. These forms of religious expression, despite the ambiguities they often bring with them, are so universal that one may well call man a religious being:

From one ancestor (God) made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him – though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For “in him we live and move and have our being.”

“For greater things you were born.” (Ven. Mother Luisita)

TUESDAY JUNE 28^TH Mt. 8:23-27 “Suddenly a violent storm came up on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by waves; but he was asleep.”

Is the Lord asleep in your boat?

• Do you have dark days overwhelmed by troubles and you ask “Where is God”? Stormy days when passions rage within you? Days that end in frustration with uncompleted work and unanswered questions? Days of discouragement due to repeated failures? Days of being contradicted? Days when no one seems to understand you? Days of loneliness, of feeling abandoned? Or days when you simply feel tepid, languid? When it’s difficult to pray? A burden to be charitable? A struggle to keep your commitments? We’ve come to know this as desolation.
• St. Ignatius defines consolation as “when some interior movement in the soul is caused, through which the soul comes to be inflamed with love of its Creator and Lord.”
• He defines desolation as the opposite—as the soul being disturbed and agitated, “without hope, without love, when one finds oneself all lazy, tepid, sad, and as if separated from his Creator and Lord.”
• The natural rhythm of our spiritual life is an alternating movement between consolation and desolation. God wills consolation, but He permits desolation. Both have a salutary effect on our soul if we recognize them and take the appropriate actions. Kind of like riding a bicycle – we push the right pedal, then the left pedal, right pedal, left pedal; both pedals are necessary to move forward. So it is with consolation and desolation, appropriately addressed, both are necessary if we are to grow in the spiritual life.
• The appropriate action in consolation is for us to recognize it, embrace it – like wind in our sails, and run with it! We can do a lot of good in consolation! Understanding that desolation will return again, like night follows the day.
• While the appropriate action in desolation is to recognize it and reject it by making NO CHANGES in our spiritual practices, except Agere Contra which means to act against the desolation with these four practices:

1) More Vocal Prayer – pray three Hail Marys or other vocal prayers, or say short aspirations such as “Lord, help me!” and repeat them throughout the day.

2) More Meditation – if we are tempted to cut our holy hour short, stay 5 minutes longer instead. He also recommends returning to meditations that brought us consolation in the past and repeating those meditations.

3) More Penance – perform some small act of penance; it is not the size of the penance that matters but the act of turning our will to God.

4) Examine our Conscience – perhaps we have fallen into sin, either mortal or venial. That will cast us into desolation.

• In all four instances, we are acting against how we feel! The world calls that hypocrisy! The Lord calls it heroic virtue – the virtue of the saints!
• With Agere Contra in mind, Father Ed wrote the following article on desolation for our help and encouragement!

CONQUER DISCOURAGEMENT: USE OF BIBLE VERSES!

Our interior state can be compared to the weather variations that change, modify, and vary constantly. One day you awake and there is sunshine streaming through your window pane; the birds are singing joyful songs of praise; the fragrance of spring flowers penetrates and permeates wherever you go; the blue sky and gentle breeze lift your heart; still more, everybody seems to have a winning smile radiating from their countenance. Seems to be the portal of Heaven.

Then the following day presents to you, in marked contrast, a gray, drizzly morning; the sun totally hidden behind the clouds. The cold and damp air seems to penetrate your whole being to your very bones. Gray, dark, ominous clouds hover over you, threatening a downpour in their dreary chill. Crossing the street, a car honks loudly at you and the angry driver has his fist raised on high to let you know his feelings! Everybody hurries on with heads down to their daily activities, oblivious to the fact that you even exist. Everything is gray, dreary, cold, chilly, crude and cruel, sad and desolate; in the words of the English poet, T.S. Elliot, life seems to be a Waste Land and you are immersed in the midst of a dense fog!

Whether we like it or not, we are confronted with these realities in one form or another constantly. Part of being human means being exposed to the constant reality of both consolation and desolation. One of the most clear manifestations of desolation is the temptation to give in to discouragement. What exactly is this so called state of desolation as defined by St. Ignatius of Loyola in his classical text the Spiritual Exercises? This is his explanation:

“I call desolation what is entirely the opposite of what is described in the third rule, as darkness of soul, turmoil of spirit, inclination to what is low and earthly, restlessness rising from many disturbances and temptations which lead to want of faith, want of hope, want of love, the soul is wholly slothful, tepid, sad, and separated, as it were, from its Creator and Lord. For just as consolation is the opposite of desolation, so the thoughts that spring from consolation are the opposite of those that spring from desolation.” (Spiritual Exercises #317, Rule 4 of Rules for the Discernment of Spirits)

The thrust and purpose of this short essay is to help us to conquer the reality of desolation in our lives, most specifically, that of giving into discouragement. We would like to offer ten encouraging Biblical passages that we invite you to immerse yourself in, especially when it seems as if the clouds are descending, the rain is beating against you, and you feel as if you are in a long, dark and damp tunnel where there is no way out! Never forget: with God’s help which is omnipotent or all-powerful, we can exit and escape from the most desolate, sad, and despairing of situations. May the Word of God be your light, support, strength, and Rock-Foundation!

1. THE PSALM OF THE GOOD-SHEPHERD. (Psalm 23) Prayerfully and calmly read the most famous Psalm in the Bible, once, twice, or as many times as you like, starting with the words: “The Lord is my Shepherd; there is nothing I shall want…” The Lord will shine light in your darkness!

2. “Behold I am with you always, even until the end of the world.” (Mt 28:20) These were the last words of the Lord Jesus on earth before He ascended into heaven to sit at the right hand of God the Father. In discouragement, all too often we feel lonely – that nobody is there for me; nobody really cares for me. Not so! The Lord promised to be with us always, even until the end of the world.

3. Do not be afraid! (Mt. 14:27) Time and time again Jesus reminds the Apostles and us not to be afraid, but rather to trust, to place all our trust in Him. In addition to these four consoling words of Jesus are the five words that Jesus told Saint Faustina to paint on the Divine Mercy image: “Jesus, I trust in you.” May the Lord cast out your fears as you trust totally in His never-failing Love, Presence, and Friendship.

4. “Come to me, all of you who are weary and find life burdensome, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Mt. 11:28-30) Prayerfully repeat these words and the burden of your sorrows, the weight of your cross, the darkness of your sadness and desolation will dissipate like a cloud evaporates in sun-light.

5. “If God is with us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31) These ten short words contain the power to alleviate the heaviest of crosses due to the simple reason that we know that the Lord is in control and He can do whatever He wants. However, whatever the Lord does is always for our welfare, for our spiritual progress, and for the salvation of our immortal soul!

6. “For nothing will be impossible for God.” ( 1:37) These short seven words actually were addressed to the Blessed Virgin Mary from the Messenger, the Archangel Gabriel, referring to the Virginal conception of Jesus in Mary’s womb. Immersed in the dense cloud of desolation, we feel as if we are lost and nothing can possibly save us from this this interior state or our exterior circumstances. Quite the contrary! The Word of God reminds us that absolutely nothing is impossible for God. He can move the highest mountains of our discouragement and desolation, even our circumstances, in a split-second if we trust in Him.

7. “Cast your cares upon the Lord because He cares for you.” (I Peter 5:7) Once again, just a few words—11 in total—offer us infinite consolation and strength. The Lord commands us to unload, to unpack, to release the burden of discouragement and sadness that weighs us down. Give all to the Lord Jesus and He will resolve the most intricate and complicated scenarios.

8. “I have come to set captives free.” (Isaiah 61:1/Lk. 4:18) If seven is one of those numbers of perfection, once again we have a seven-word Biblical passage gleaned from the Shakespeare of the Bible—the Prophet Isaiah. Jesus will quote the same passage in His early preaching! In a state of desolation and discouragement we might feel as if we are bound, as if we are chained, as if we are shackled, and as if we are a slave of our interior state of darkness. Jesus, the Savior, the Redeemer, the Liberator, came to smash and destroy our interior slavery, and often that means our discouragement. We might even pray: “Lord free me; Lord liberate me; Lord shatter the bonds that enslave me!”

9. “So do not worry and say, ‘What are we to eat?’ or ‘What are we to drink?’ or ‘What are we to wear?’ All these things the pagans seek. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and everything else will be given you besides. (Mt 6:31-33) A good part of our desolation and discouragement stems from a lack of trust in God and our useless and needless worry. These comforting, consoling, and challenging words of Jesus can put you back on the right path of trusting in His loving and Divine Providential plan for your life.

10. “Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with you.” (Lk. 1:28) These words of the Hail Mary that come from the Archangel Gabriel can prove to be most powerful in the midst of the dark nights, the dark tunnels, the stormy interior tempests that we all experience. Pray slowly and with trust and confidence the HAIL MARY and Mary, who is truly “our life, our sweetness, and our hope” will hurry to your rescue and place you in the Sacred Heart of Jesus, your true refuge in all your trials, tribulations, afflictions, and the most profound desolations.

It is our firm hope and prayer that when you are passing through that painful and difficult time of desolation and discouragement, the quiet, peaceful, trusting, and prayerful reading of these Biblical passages will dissipate the dense clouds in your heart, so that you will experience and feel the sunshine and warmth of God’s infinite love and Mary’s tender embrace!

 

 

 

 

One day Elisha came to Shunem,
where there was a woman of influence, who urged him to dine with her.
Afterward, whenever he passed by, he used to stop there to dine.
So she said to her husband, “I know that Elisha is a holy man of God.
Since he visits us often, let us arrange a little room on the roof
and furnish it for him with a bed, table, chair, and lamp,
so that when he comes to us he can stay there.”
Sometime later Elisha arrived and stayed in the room overnight.

Later Elisha asked, “Can something be done for her?”
His servant Gehazi answered, “Yes!
She has no son, and her husband is getting on in years.”
Elisha said, “Call her.”
When the woman had been called and stood at the door,
Elisha promised, “This time next year
you will be fondling a baby son.”

R. (2a) For ever I will sing the goodness of the Lord.
The promises of the LORD I will sing forever,
through all generations my mouth shall proclaim your faithfulness.
For you have said, “My kindness is established forever;”
in heaven you have confirmed your faithfulness.
R. For ever I will sing the goodness of the Lord.
Blessed the people who know the joyful shout;
in the light of your countenance, O LORD, they walk.
At your name they rejoice all the day,
and through your justice they are exalted.
R. For ever I will sing the goodness of the Lord.
You are the splendor of their strength,
and by your favor our horn is exalted.
For to the LORD belongs our shield,
and the Holy One of Israel, our king.
R. For ever I will sing the goodness of the Lord.

Brothers and sisters:
Are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus
were baptized into his death?
We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death,
so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead
by the glory of the Father,
we too might live in newness of life.

If, then, we have died with Christ,
we believe that we shall also live with him.
We know that Christ, raised from the dead, dies no more;
death no longer has power over him.
As to his death, he died to sin once and for all;
as to his life, he lives for God.
Consequently, you too must think of yourselves as dead to sin
and living for God in Christ Jesus.

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation;
announce the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Jesus said to his apostles:
“Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me,
and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;
and whoever does not take up his cross
and follow after me is not worthy of me.
Whoever finds his life will lose it,
and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

“Whoever receives you receives me,
and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.
Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet
will receive a prophet’s reward,
and whoever receives a righteous man
because he is a righteous man
will receive a righteous man’s reward.
And whoever gives only a cup of cold water
to one of these little ones to drink
because the little one is a disciple—
amen, I say to you, he will surely not lose his reward.”

PART ONE:
THE PROFESSION OF FAITH
SECTION ONE
“I BELIEVE” – “WE BELIEVE”

26 We begin our profession of faith by saying: “I believe” or “We believe”. Before expounding the Church’s faith, as confessed in the Creed, celebrated in the liturgy and lived in observance of God’s commandments and in prayer, we must first ask what “to believe” means. Faith is man’s response to God, who reveals himself and gives himself to man, at the same time bringing man a superabundant light as he searches for the ultimate meaning of his life. Thus we shall consider first that search (Chapter One), then the divine Revelation by which God comes to meet man (Chapter Two), and finally the response of faith (Chapter Three).

“For greater things you were born.” (Ven. Mother Luisita)

SUNDAY, JUNE 28^TH   Mt. 10: 37-42   “Whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me.” 

• Sometimes, it is someone else carrying the cross with faith and trust in God that gives us the strength to carry ours. For there is one abiding truth – God is always God and He is always good! In heaven we will be filled with wonder at the good He brought out of what appeared to us to be only pain and suffering!
• “When it is all over you will not regret having suffered; rather you will regret having suffered so little, and suffered that little so badly.” (St. Sebastian Valfre)
• “If you embrace all things in this life as coming from the hands of God, and even embrace death to fulfill His holy will, assuredly you will die a saint.” (St. Alphonsus Liguori)

Reflection from a letter to the editor of “Traces” magazine…

• I have five kids and one of them, Simone, who is 11 was diagnosed with lymphoma. We entrusted our family to the Virgin Mary. He started chemo, with all that it entails for an eleven year-old-kid. Right from the first signs of my son’s illness, seeing him defenseless and bedridden, it became clear that his existence and well-being did not depend on me; he was not mine, he belonged to Another.
• The certainty that it is the Lord who makes all things, including myself, doesn’t spare me from struggling and worrying. Nonetheless, it makes me glad for everything that happens, because I feel embraced and supported by Him. Every instant that I live is an opportunity to say “yes” to Him who makes me.
• Right from the beginning, my friends and I began incessantly praying to the Virgin (reciting the rosary) and to Father Luigi Giussani. God doesn’t want anything bad for me – of this I am certain – and what the Lord takes away, He gives back, increased a hundred-fold.
• Indeed, I see the hundredfold happening one drop at a time, because Simone’s cancer has been, and still is, on a daily basis, an opportunity to be more serious about everything, with a desire for the meaning of everything that happens to me – the difficulty dealing with my husband working abroad, raising my children, my relationship with people. I asked for help from some of my older friends, that is to say, from people I hold dearest and to whom I ask for prayers, support, and companionship.
• “Circumstances, good or bad – all of them – are ways through which the Mystery calls us. They are not, as we so often interpret them according to our measure (that is, rationalism), burdens that we must put up with. They have a very specific purpose in God’s design.” (Father Julian Carron)  
• The purpose is certainly my daily conversion! If my tendency to sweat the small stuff makes my day a little opaque, the Lord gives me something to make me look up, give thanks, and surrender to Him; it may be a friend’s phone call, or a student coming to visit Simone. Nothing happens by chance.
• For me, for my husband and children, and for my friends, too, recognizing Christ within this trial has allowed us to keep walking through this valley of tears and has made everything mysteriously simple.

End of reflection from Traces magazine… 

• “God doesn’t want anything bad for me – of this I am certain – and what the Lord takes away, He gives back, increased a hundredfold.” Let us beg for the grace to see the hundredfold! It’s not that God doesn’t give, it’s that what He gives we fail to see!
• From the beginning, God willed only good for us, but because of the original sin of our first parents, He permitted evil to bring about an even greater good, one that would not exist without the evil.
• Think of this – God the Father sent His only Begotten Son to become man and save us from our sins! Jesus suffered everything for us and even now suffers everything in us and with us! Thus God triumphs over the devil!
• Our life is about accepting and trusting all that God wills and permits to happen knowing He will bring about a greater good that we may only see in heaven.

United to Christ…  by Caryll Houselander

We are united to Christ, we are one, and it is when His Passion becomes real to us, through experience and love, that we grow aware of His presence in us. But for this presence of Christ, His living in us, His actually being our life, we could not bear the things which have actually happened to some, indeed to many, and which are more than a threat to everyone.

We can bear them for one reason only, because Christ, who is identified with us, who is in us, has already suffered and overcome everything that we shall suffer, or ever can suffer! We cannot shed a tear, but that tear has already blinded the eyes of Christ. We cannot be without tears, but that constriction of the heart has constricted His heart. He has known all and every kind of fear that we know, and there is no possible loneliness, no agony of separation, but it is Christ’s; indeed, not one of us can die, but it is Christ dying.

And Christ, who faces all these things in our lives, has overcome them all and has sanctified them by His limitless love. His love made every moment of His Passion redeeming and healing and life-giving, and this love, this Christ-love, is ours, just as much as His suffering is ours. We are now beginning in very earnest to experience the contemplation which consists in suffering with Christ, and the way to sanctify it is not so much to suffer with Him as to ask Him to let us realize that He it is who suffers in us!

For, this understood, we cannot help abandoning our will to His completely, and letting Him suffer in us in His way, and His way is the way of love… Complete though it is, in His grief there is no bitterness; and what seems to be frustration and waste is not, it is fruitful; this is because every moment of His Passion is informed by love. Our work is to love too, to love always, to love everyone, and to love to the end.

(Caryll Houselander +1954 was a British mystic, spiritual teacher and writer)

The Lord has consumed without pity
all the dwellings of Jacob;
He has torn down in his anger
the fortresses of daughter Judah;
He has brought to the ground in dishonor
her king and her princes.

On the ground in silence sit
the old men of daughter Zion;
They strew dust on their heads
and gird themselves with sackcloth;
The maidens of Jerusalem
bow their heads to the ground.

Worn out from weeping are my eyes,
within me all is in ferment;
My gall is poured out on the ground
because of the downfall of the daughter of my people,
As child and infant faint away
in the open spaces of the town.

In vain they ask their mothers,
“Where is the grain?”
As they faint away like the wounded
in the streets of the city,
And breathe their last
in their mothers’ arms.

To what can I liken or compare you,
O daughter Jerusalem?
What example can I show you for your comfort,
virgin daughter Zion?
For great as the sea is your downfall;
who can heal you?

Your prophets had for you
false and specious visions;
They did not lay bare your guilt,
to avert your fate;
They beheld for you in vision
false and misleading portents.

Cry out to the Lord;
moan, O daughter Zion!
Let your tears flow like a torrent
day and night;
Let there be no respite for you,
no repose for your eyes.

Rise up, shrill in the night,
at the beginning of every watch;
Pour out your heart like water
in the presence of the Lord;
Lift up your hands to him
for the lives of your little ones
Who faint from hunger
at the corner of every street.

R. (19b) Lord, forget not the souls of your poor ones.
Why, O God, have you cast us off forever?
Why does your anger smolder against the sheep of your pasture?
Remember your flock which you built up of old,
the tribe you redeemed as your inheritance,
Mount Zion, where you took up your abode.

R. Lord, forget not the souls of your poor ones.
Turn your steps toward the utter ruins;
toward all the damage the enemy has done in the sanctuary.
Your foes roar triumphantly in your shrine;
they have set up their tokens of victory.
They are like men coming up with axes to a clump of trees.

R. Lord, forget not the souls of your poor ones.
With chisel and hammer they hack at all the paneling of the sanctuary.
They set your sanctuary on fire;
the place where your name abides they have razed and profaned.

R. Lord, forget not the souls of your poor ones.
Look to your covenant,
for the hiding places in the land and the plains are full of violence.
May the humble not retire in confusion;
may the afflicted and the poor praise your name.

R. Lord, forget not the souls of your poor ones.

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Christ took away our infirmities
and bore our diseases.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

When Jesus entered Capernaum,
a centurion approached him and appealed to him, saying,
“Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, suffering dreadfully.”
He said to him, “I will come and cure him.”
The centurion said in reply,
“Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof;
only say the word and my servant will be healed.
For I too am a man subject to authority,
with soldiers subject to me.
And I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes;
and to another, ‘Come here,’ and he comes;
and to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”
When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him,
“Amen, I say to you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith.
I say to you, many will come from the east and the west,
and will recline with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
at the banquet in the Kingdom of heaven,
but the children of the Kingdom
will be driven out into the outer darkness,
where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.”
And Jesus said to the centurion,
“You may go; as you have believed, let it be done for you.”
And at that very hour his servant was healed.

Jesus entered the house of Peter,
and saw his mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever.
He touched her hand, the fever left her,
and she rose and waited on him.

When it was evening, they brought him many
who were possessed by demons,
and he drove out the spirits by a word and cured all the sick,
to fulfill what had been said by Isaiah the prophet:

He took away our infirmities and bore our diseases.

Catechism of the Catholic Church

25 To conclude this Prologue, it is fitting to recall this pastoral principle stated by the Roman Catechism:

The whole concern of doctrine and its teaching must be directed to the love that never ends. Whether something is proposed for belief, for hope or for action, the love of our Lord must always be made accessible, so that anyone can see that all the works of perfect Christian virtue spring from love and have no other objective than to arrive at love.

“For greater things you were born.” (Ven. Mother Luisita)

SATURDAY, JUNE 27^TH  Mt. 8:5-17   “Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof; only say the word and my servant will be healed.”… And Jesus said:  “Amen, I say to you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith.”

• In every Mass, the priest and the congregation together respond to the invitation, “Behold the Lamb of God” with these words: “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.”
• What is this faith that Jesus praises in the centurion? This faith that we profess? It is total abandonment to God and His arrangements for our lives… requiring faith in His power and trust in His goodness!

On the Question of Abandonment to God…   by Father Jacques Philippe

• Relative to the question of abandonment, it is useful to make an observation. In order that abandonment might be authentic and engender peace, it must be total. We must put everything, without exception, into the hands of God, not seeking any longer to manage or “to save” ourselves by our own means; not in the material domain, nor the emotional, nor the spiritual.  
• We cannot divide human existence into various sectors: certain sectors where it would be legitimate to surrender ourselves to God with confidence and others where, on the contrary, we feel we must manage exclusively on our own. 
• And one thing we know well: all reality that we have not surrendered to God, that we choose to manage by ourselves without giving carte blanche to God, will continue to make us more or less uneasy. The measure of our interior peace will be that of our abandonment, consequently our detachment.  
• Abandonment inevitably requires an element of renunciation and it is this that is most difficult for us. We have a natural tendency to cling to a whole host of things: material goods, affections, desires, projects, etc. and it costs us terribly to let go of our grip, because we have the impression that we will lose ourselves in the process, that we will die.
• But that is why we must believe with all our hearts the words of Jesus, that law of “who loses gains,” which is so explicit in the Gospel: Whoever would save his life will lose it, while whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. (Matthew 16:25) He who accepts this death of detachment, of renunciation, finds the true life. 
• The one who clings to something, who wishes to protect some domain in his life in order to manage it at his convenience without radically abandoning it into the hands of God, is making a very bad mistake: he devotes himself to unnecessary preoccupations and exposes himself to the gnawing sense of loss.
• By contrast, he who accepts to put everything into the hands of God, to allow Him to give and take according to His good pleasure, this individual finds an inexpressible peace and interior freedom. “Ah, if one only knew what one gains in renouncing all things!” (St. Therese of the Child Jesus). End of Reflection by Father Jacques Philippe

• Our good God created us out of love and desires to give us all that is good, if we would not hinder Him! Saint John of the Cross expresses this same truth in other terms: “All things were given to me from the moment when I no longer sought them.” If we detach ourselves from everything, and put everything into the hands of God, He will return them to us a hundredfold, from this day forward.
• Is my abandonment to you total, Lord? Or are there areas of my life that I still want to “manage”? Where do I invite you into my life, and where do I put up a “Do Not Enter” sign? Where do I experience interior peace in my life? Where am I uneasy? Who or what in my life would it “cost me terribly” to give up? Do I want true life in you, Jesus? Or am I afraid of what you will ask of me? Am I ready to radically abandon myself to you, allowing you to give and take as you choose?
• If only I knew that by giving up my life as I know it, I would gain new life in you of unsurpassed peace and joy. But I do know… deep inside me, I know… and that is why I am here every day in my holy hour. Jesus, you and you alone are the reason I am here… help me surrender more and more of myself to you every day.
  
  “May it please Christ our Lord to grant us true humility and abnegation of will and judgment, so that we may deserve to begin to be His disciples. Amen” (St. Ignatius of Loyola)