I am completely self-sufficient and dont need you, but you need me for everything." She realized that she couldnt compete with Gods love. After all, that cuts right to the heart of the Little Way, which is really all about heaven. Specifically, it follows the theology of her Offering to Merciful Love, which is essentially a consecration to Divine Mercy. That vessel is this image with the signature: Jesus, I trust in You (327). To put it differently, Therese teaches us that when we clearly see the reality of Gods passionate love for us, it makes us realize we cant compete! Actually, a lot. Immediately afterward, she went to her sister Pauline (Mother Agnes), who was prioress at the time, a nd asked permission to make the Offering. (We covered it in the reading for Day 9.) More precisely, its all about our lack oftrust. And while we can get to the Fountain of Mercy with out making a Marian consecration, such a consecration enables us to drink from it so much more deeply and easily. Specifically, hell lift the veil of his glory and approach us at the end with such a beautiful radiance of love and mercy that we wont be able to stand it. In other words, do they seem like towering mountains while youre just a small grain of sand? One of my teachers felt sorry for me and graciously invited me to spend Christmas with her and her family a true act of mercy! Dont say that. David Came, Marian Press 'You Did It to Me:' Putting Mercy into Action 5-part DVD series. On Calvary, Marys Heart was pierced with a sword, as Simeon had foretold (see Lk 2:35). First, theyre wrong. Take away anyfears or anxieties I may have about making the Offering. T)reathing Meditation. No. Get your copy of 33 Days to Merciful Love, the stirring sequel to the international sensation, 33 Days to Morning Glory. Truly blessed is she who clung to the memory of Gods love in the midst of darkness! 32 33 DAYS TO MERCIFUL LOVE The great key, the great secret, has to do with Marys faith, because faith gets to her deepest reality'. Of course, he could give such a gift if he wanted to. After all, I figured that only the "quickest and easiest" path could help someone like me to become a saint. But it Mil be wonderful. Copyright 2023 DOKUMEN.PUB. To offer ourselves to Mercifiil Love is to let our hearts be more deeply moved by the suffering of others. And now, to confirm my resolve and to con sole you for so much rejection of your mercy, I OFFER MYSELF, THROUGH THE HANDS OF MARY IMMACULATE, AS A VICTIM OF HOLOCAUST TO YOUR MERCIFUL LOVE, asking you to consume me incessantly, allowing the waves of infinite tenderness shut up within you to overflow into my soul, and that I may thus become a martyr of your love, O my God, and a gift of mercy to so many others. In other words, by taking on a human heart, God, in Christ, made himselfvulnerable. I can think of no better way to begin to see through the lens of mercy titan by spending time each day gazing upon dtis image of Jesus. For most of my life, I wasnt a very happy person. You do a great injury to God in believing youre going to purgatory. When we give it, look out! Wisdom & Works of Mercy; Stage 3. So, in a way, you might say diat die Image of Divine Mercy is Jesus own heart medication. As we learned on Day 13, in many ways were living in a time of unprecedented dark ness and evil. Help me to believe in God and his love for me, even when the darkness surrounds me. During her life, she wasnt famous or well known. Faith, hope, and love in the midst of the daily darkness: That was Marys greatness, and that can be our greatness, too. Amen. That moment is supercharged because, at the Mass, Jesus is giving himself Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity into our hands: literally, in the hands of the priest, and spiritually, in the hands of all the lay faithful who unite their own sacrifices to the offering of the priest at the altar. 48 Ibid., p. 27. I promise that the soul that will venerate this image will not perish. (See pages 135-137 for the fall text.) 44 Story of a Soul, pp. In fact, several times, she urged her superior with words such as these: One could think that it is because I havent sinned that I have such great confidence in God. Indeed, those are words that, APPENDIX ONE: Living the Offering 157 as the Catechism says, cannot remain only in the past, words that participate in the divine eternity, words that transcend all times while being made present in them all, words that abide.204 In fact, those words I thirst are directed to each one of us. Notice how, having stated the goal (becoming a saint), Therese clearly realizes that she is helpless when it comes to attaining it. And who could be afraid of such a mother? Due to a planned power outage on Friday, 1/14, between 8am-1pm PST, some services may be impacted. Does this fact mean were unacceptable to the Lord? In fact, most of the rime, we probably wont feel it at all, WEEK FOUR: Into the Darkness 103 and well have to fight to believe that God still loves us. She is in purgatory, surely because she had trusted too little in the mercy of the good Lord. In this way you will console My Heart. Using the same 33-day preparation format, 33 Days to Merciful Love journeys with one of the most beloved saints of modern times, St. Thrse of Lisieux, and concludes with a Because she knew it was her littleness that at tracted Gods Merciful Love. Erfahren Sie, wie wir und unser Anzeigenpartner Google Daten sammeln und verwenden, Pray the Rosary for the conversion of souls. Indeed, her time in the convent truly was a hidden life full of the daily darkness we all experience. All our justice is stained in Your eyes. Well, I think we can live, so to speak, in one act of perfect love if our central motivation in life is like that of perfect contri tion. Making the Family Offering to Mercifill Love is rather simple. After all, what is holiness but the Merciful Love of God poured into our hearts? 33 DAYS TO MERCIFUL LOVE 72 Todays Prayer: Come, Holy Spirit, fire of mercy. Still, in the midst of such darkness, she clung to the Lord with faith, hope, and love and encourages us to do the same. Thereses battle with scruples began during her retreat in preparation for her First Holy Communion, a retreat that was led by a very severe priest. Its to believe Thereses word in Letter 197 that it is confidence and nothing but confidence that must lead us to Love. Its to trust the word of the greatest saint of modern times when she tells us in that same letter that her only treasure is the blind hope that I have in [Gods] mercy. Its to listen to her ask us, Why cant that treasure be ours? And its to realize, That treasure can be mine, if I cling to Gods mercy with trust. Try So, to live the Little Way, we must recognize our weakness and trust in Gods mercy and we must also keep trying. Just remember to count back 33 days from the feast itself, with the day of consecration (the feast day) being the thirty-forth day. Now, yes, we w'ould still be obligated to follow our conscience under such circumstances. And how do we console him best? Help us to accept your Sons mercy with your own openness of heart at the Annunciation. We stop feeling its rays. Great. Over the years, Ive come across various devotional prayers labeled A Consecration to Divine Mercy, and theyve been great. 66 Pope Francis, homily at the parish of St. Anna in the Vatican, Fifth Sunday of Lent, March 17,2013. Youre ready to breathe back out to the Lord your love and mercy, your praise and thanks. I fainted from fright, and even though I know the depth of Gods mercy, I was surprised that God allows humanity to exist. Get Book . And she knew she could! Think of it: God loves us so much more than we love him. God is Love and Mercy itself, and the heart of the Little Way and the Offering is to trust 'va God. May this 196 33 DAYS TO MERCIFUL LOVE message radiate from this place to our beloved homeland and throughout the world. Alright, so how do we properly form our conscience? Among other things, die book asserts that every Carmelite should offer herself as a victim soul to Gods justice, and several nuns from the Lisieux convent did just that.84 Alright, so what did that offering mean? It is then that He particularly deserves mercy from the people to whom He has done good, and He does not receive it . The precise moment came during a conversation with Fr. Todays Prayer: Come, Holy Spirit, fire of mercy. Okay, so youre ready to make your consecration. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was; and when he saw him, he had compassion, and went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; then he set him on his own beast and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. What youve just experienced (inhaling) illustrates what happens when we say fiat." Yes, I believe. (This is probably why we dont see in our churches statues of the Sacred Brain of Jesus but, rather, statues of his Sacred Heart.) At that very moment I felt in my soul the power of Jesus grace, which dwells in my soul. This is the temptation of Jansenist fear, but theres no need to be afraid. I dont know. His answer changed my life: T&r way you live trust is by praise and thanksgiving, to praise and thank God in all things, Thats what the Lord said to St. Faustina. But if we do that, if we keep trying, then theres no end to the Lords mercy, and we can believe that he can and will satisfy our desires for holiness. Simply recall what Therese had told her novice, Sr. Marie of the Trinity, who had asked if even she could hope to get to heaven right away after dying. I remember that little children are as pleasing to their parents when they are asleep as well as when they are wide awake; I remember, too, that when tliey perform operations, doctors put their patients to sleep. Spiritual blindness extends even to those w'ho recognize that theyre sinners. A St. Therese-style Consecration to Divine Mercy. And as I mentioned earlier, he wants us to be on fire with love. I want, O my Beloved, at each beat of my heart to renew this offering to You an infinite number of times, until the shadows having disappeared I may be able to tell You of my Love in an Eternal Face to Face!1*3 Please note: If on your day of consecration, you recite your consecration prayer with a group, I highly recommend only using the Prayer of Consecration to Merciful Love. In our own day, Pope Paul VI praised and explained it at length in his 1974 apostolic exhortation on devotion to Mary, Marialis Cultus. 186 Ibid. Well recall that she, too, did not fully understand. Not by necessity but by his free choice, God allowed himself, in Jesus Christ, to feel a need for our love. Because its words reveal the secret of Marys faith, which is this: She believed that what the Lord had spoken to her at the Annunciation would be ful filled. By the way, Pope Francis has a great devotion to St. Therese and often receives a white rose from she who said, [A]fter my death [I] will send down a shower of roses (Cited in The Passion of Therese of Lisieux by Guy Gaucher [New York: Crossroad, 1989], p. 194). And as Aristode righdy pointed out long ago, true friendship requires a kind of equality and mutuality it cant be one-sided.206 So, let me ask you: Have you ever had a friendship where you shared with your friend but he or she never shared with you? Remain in me as in a tabernacle and never separate Yourself from Your little victim. Now, as weve learned, the threefold means to that goal involve trusting, trying, and recognizing. 164 See Gaucher, p. 94. Let me explain this crucial point. But then, to make her point even clearer, Therese goes on, It is not because God, in His anticipating Mercy, has preserved my soul from mortal sin that I go to Him with confidence and love.139 And with that, her journal ends. Jesus, we trust in you. Well, because magnificat basically means the same as praise and thanksgiving, when we give our magnificat to the Lord, were consoling him in the best possible way. Of course, sometimes its easier to praise and thank the Lord than at other times. She was die subpriorcss in the Lisieux convent who thought Therese was being presumptuous when she taught others to trust boldly in Gods mercy so as to avoid die punishment of purgatory. Wonderful. We tell her shes forgiven but in vain. For God had told Adam and Eve that if they ate from the forbidden tree they would die (see Gen 2:17). Now, thats great. 135 Story ofa Soul, pp. Why not? 149-150). Is Your disdained Love going to remain closed up within Your Heart? Talk to you later. With those words, the dots immediately connected. Thereses expressed desire is no less remarkable: She wants to console Jesus, a desire that she repeats later (see paragraph 6), a desire thats a particularly important concept in her spirituality.122 Actually, Thereses desire to console Jesus responds to an objection some might have, namely, that the goal of the Offering is selfishly all about Thereses own personal sanctity. She was actually quite big. And then theyd go on about Thereses impressive virtues, desires, sacrifices, and sufferings such that Id think to myself: Well, maybe the Little Way is too big for me. Whats going to hap pen to us? Hes looking for families who want to receive his gifts of mercy, love, peace, and joy. He asked the Lord, Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; will you then destroy' the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it? (Gen 18:24). I will not stop singing my song of love until the choir ofAngels picks it up. For instance, we read the following in the introduction to her autobiography: T [Jesus] set before me the book of nature; I under stood how all the flowers He has created are beautiful, how t he splendor of the rose and die whiteness of the Lily do not take away the perfume of the little violet or the delightfill simplicity of the daisy. As the first drops of this blood and water touch your face, you take a deep breath in, fiat. All of these perfec tions appear to be resplendent with love-, even His Justice (and perhaps this even more so than the others) seems to me clothed in love. Because, again, one of die effects of the Offering to Mercifill Love is that it makes our hearts more compassionate. He knew that the Offering to Merciful Love is not well known. 33 Days to Merciful Love: A Do-It-Yourself Retreat in Preparation for Divine Mercy Consecration Paperback - Illustrated, Feb. 15 2016 . 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