MEDITATIO

Let us fully grasp this: our heart will belong wholly to God as soon as we hand over our whole will to him, as soon as we want only what he wants. For the rest, this God only wants our wellbeing and happiness. “For this is why Christ died (…) that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living,” says the apostle Paul. “Whether we live or die, then, we are the Lord’s” (Rm 14:9.8). Jesus willed to die for our sakes; what more could he have done to win our love and become the sole Lord of our heart? So now it is our turn to show before heaven and earth, by our life and by our death, that we are no longer our own but are entirely possessed by our God and by him alone. How God longs to see a heart that is truly all his! With what intense love does he not love it? What signs of tenderness does he not lavish upon it even here below! What blessings, what happiness, what glory does he not prepare for it in heaven! (…) O faithful souls! Let us go to meet Jesus: if he is happy enough to possess us then we, too, have the happiness of possessing him! This exchange is far more to our own advantage than to his. The Lord once said to the saint [of Avila]: “Teresa, until now you have not been wholly mine; but now that you are all for me, know that I am all for you”(…). God burns with an intense desire to be united with us but we have to be careful, too, to unite ourselves to God.

Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team

I am Shepherd and Lord of those who desire it; on the other hand I am most certainly the Creator and God by nature of those others too, but I am absolutely not the King or Guide of those who have not taken up their cross to follow me — in fact they are the children, slaves and instruments of the Enemy. See these redoubtable mysteries, their lack of consciousness, see and grieve over them at every moment, if you can. Indeed, while they are called from darkness to light that never sets, from death to life, from the underworld to the heavens, from what is temporary and corruptible to eternal glory, they give way to anger, furious with those who teach them, and they devise all kinds of ruses against them, they prefer death to abandoning darkness and the works of darkness so as to follow me. (…) Don’t force them to carry out what you are teaching them: simply repeat my words to them and exhort them to observe them as being that which gains them eternal life, and those words will themselves arise when I come for Judgement and will judge everyone, one by one, according to their merits, whereas you, you will remain without responsibility, without any kind of condemnation, since you will not have falsified the silver of my words but will have lavished on everyone all you have received. This is what pleases me, this is the work of my apostles and disciples who have acted according to my commandments: announce God throughout the whole world, teach my will and commands and bequeath them for people in writing. So strive to act and teach as they do. (…) Try hard to help yourself, you and those who listen to you, if by chance you find on earth a man who has ears to hear and listens to your words!

Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team

Let us contemplate our Lord who is our model in all things, whom we wish to follow for love’s sake. What does his life teach us? He, so to speak, espoused poverty. He was God. (…) And behold this God becomes incarnate to bring us to himself. What way does he choose? That of poverty. When the Word came into this world, He, the King of heaven and earth, willed in his divine wisdom, to dispose the details of his birth, life, and death in such a manner that what most transpired was poverty, contempt for the things of this world. The poorest are born at least under a roof; he first sees the day as he lies upon straw, for “there was no room” for his mother in the inn (Lk 2:7). At Nazareth he leads the obscure life of a poor artisan (cf. Mt 13:55). (…). Later on, in his public life, he has nowhere to lay his head although “foxes have holes” (Lk 9:58). At the hour of his death, he is stripped of his garments and fastened naked to the Cross. He leaves his executioners to take possession of that tunic woven by his mother; his friends have forsaken him; of his apostles, he sees only Saint John near him. At least his mother remains to him: but no, he gives her to his disciple (cf. Jn 19:27). Is not this absolute renunciation? Yet he finds a means of going beyond this extreme degree of utter destitution. There are still the heavenly joys with which his Father inundates his humanity. He renounces them for now his Father abandons him, (cf. Mt 22:46) (…). He remains alone, hanging between heaven and earth. (…) When we contemplate Jesus poor in the manger, poor at Nazareth, poor upon the Cross, holding out his hands to us and saying: “It is for you,” we understand the follies of the lovers of poverty. Let us then keep our eyes fixed on this divine Poor One of Bethlehem, of Nazareth, and of Golgotha.

Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team