Saturday, May 16, 2009

The Sixteenth Day of May


Mary, Our Mother in the Cenacle.

I.

It is to our best interest to honor with an entirely special devotion the life of Mary in the Cenacle, altogether given up to the service and glory of the adorable Eucharist. We must try to catch something of her spirit and her love, in order to render to our Divine Savior present among us, a worship of adoration more agreeable and more perfect in union with that which His most holy Mother offered Him. To become good servants of the Eucharist, we must be docile and devout children of Mary. It was not an empty claim that Jesus from the Cross gave us over the heart of His Mother. By that testament of love, we take His place in Mary’s heart. That good Mother loves us henceforth as her true children.

Let us, then, breathe in Mary’s spirit. It is the same as that of Jesus. She inhaled it from its divine Source. She is full of His grace, in order to communicate it to us. She is the only true and perfect copy of His virtues. She labored for three and thirty years, the Divine Original before her eyes. She possesses all the secrets of the Savior’s love for men. She shares His unbounded love for us. like Mary, let us tenderly love, let us love devotedly! She loves us as Jesus loves us. She loves us as only a Mother so good and so powerful can love.

II.

Her great mission is to form Jesus in us. It is the mission that He gave her on Calvary.

Mary wished at that moment to die with Jesus at the foot of the Cross. But when the flame of the love of her virginal heart encircled His Divine Person, Our Lord seemed to say, when giving to her St. John: "By My sacrifice I become the Savior and the Father of the great human family; but these poor children still so young, must have a mother. O strong Woman, be thou their Mother! Love them as thou has loved Me, as I have loved them. It was through love for them that I became man, and that My Heavenly Father made thee My Mother. It is for them that I am giving My Blood and My life. I love them more than Myself, and I transfer to them all the claims that I have to thy maternal love. Whatever thou wilt do for them, will be done for Me. I remit into thy hands the fruit of My Redemption, the salvation of mankind, the care of My Church, the service of My Sacrament of Love. Form for Me true adorers in spirit and in truth, that they may adore Me as thou hast adored Me, that they may serve Me as thou hast served Me, that they may love Me as thou hast loved Me!"

This was Jesus last legacy, signed with His Blood, and ratified by the heart of Mary, His divine Mother.

She ascended Calvary with Jesus to die with Him. She came down from it with the disciple, her son of adoption, with the holy women, her daughters, and went to the Eucharistic Cenacle, there to begin her Christian maternity at the foot of the Divine Sacrament.

It is she who will form for Jesus in the Eucharist His court of honor, it is she who will train for Him His servants.

O do not doubt it! If you have entered into the Cenacle, if you have the happiness of knowing, loving, and serving the Most Holy Sacrament, it is to Mary that you owe it. It is she who demanded you of the Heavenly Father as a guard of love for the Eucharistic King. It is she who preserved you pure in the midst of the world, who led you by the hand to the foot of the Eucharistic throne.

O thank this good Mother! You owe to her all the graces of your life, and the greatest of all, that of loving and serving, by consecrating your entire life to Him, the King of kings on His throne of love.

Practice: Render to Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament the respect, the duty, and the love of a true child.

Aspiration: It is thou, O Mary most amiable, who dost nourish thy children with the Bread of immortality.

2 comments:

me said...

"It is she who preserved you pure in the midst of the world"

My past is far from pure Father,are there any conditions for this type of prayer path,prerequisites etc? All I have is a desire.

Fr Scott Bailey, C.Ss.R. said...

Dear Shadowlands,

First, let me say that the desire you have is all. It is a great grace that comes from God through our dear Mother. For just as Jesus himself came into the world through her, so all grace comes to us through her. And the desire for Jesus, the desire for a life of prayer and holiness is a tremendous grace....it is the grace that, if we try to surrender to it, leads to eternal salvation. Now that you have this desire the work begins.

I do not know the circumstances of your life. I do know that none of us are free from sin. Even those cloistered in monasteries can live very sinful lives. However, the desire to be holy, to be a saint, is the beginning. The next step is what is called the "Purgative Way" and it is basically a nurturing of the desire so that we purge or strip away the old self. Another way of looking at it is that it is the time in which God prepares the "clay" to make it soft and maleable so he can form us according to his will.

The first step is to spend time meditating on the fact that whether or not we are saved is our choice, that we condemn ourselves to eternal damnation. God sends no one to hell. It is our choice alone. Also, our eternity is just that... eternal, forever, un-ending. This life is but a fleeting moment. Is there really anything.... anything that is worth the loss of our eternal salvation? Is not the salvation of our souls our absolute top priority?

Then we meditate on the Passion and Death of Christ to really understand how horribly he suffered and that it was for one reason: out of love for me (you).

With all this in mind, and knowing that we have but one life in which to save our soul, it is time to take an honest look at the past and make a very thorough examination of conscience as far back as we can remember. This is not easy. It is painful. It causes fear. But it's important. We can't get rid of the infection of sin unless we see and recognize it. Now, it's important not to be discouraged or judgemental. We are doing this so we can reveal all to the Divine Physician who will then remove the infection for ever. It will be helpful to write down the results in a journal or simply on a sheet or two of paper to help with the next step, a general confession. This examination of conscience should not be rushed. It will take several days or perhaps longer. It should be done prayerfully and with the guidance of the Holy Ghost.

In the general confession, we confess all the sins of our past life to the best of our ability. While we are only obliged to confess all mortal sins, it is also good to confess all venial sins as well. Then we have not only the joy of receiving absolution and knowing that we are reconciled with God, but that we can absolutely put all our past sins behind us and forget about them. Anything we forget and may later remember, we simply mention in our next confession. As long as we do not deliberately conceal anything we have nothing to worry about.

N.B. Anyone who has made a previous general confession, as long as it was not sacriligeous, need only go back to their previous general confession if they have need of or desire to make another.

As to prerequisites, there are no prerequisites at all for prayer. One need not be holy, a saint, or even in a state of grace. One need only pray... but pray, one must. For as St. Alphonsus tells us, whosoever prays will be saved: whosoever does not pray will be damned.