our 33 day consecration to Mary journey

Ecc2,

You're taking me deep with this post! When you combine the Trinity with the theological virtues, it's like a double wammy! Thanks!

Safe in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary!

 

In discussing St. Max's thoughts on being an instrument in Mary's hands, the imagery of being a pencil comes to mind. Yes, it is my lead which gets spread on the lines of paper, but I let the writer (Mary) determine the letters and words that I form according to the Will of God. The more I trust her Heart to lead me, the more fruitful, inspiring, and loving will my actions be. All for the Glory of God!

Holy Spirit, form me to trust the Two Hearts more and more!

 

PS,

Perhaps the call of facilitator on this thread is part of your divine mission!

Safe in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary!

 

This reminds me of Mother Teresa,
"I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world."
Trust is the key to total love but it is so hard to place all of ourselves from what we see in such a untrustworthy world. We have to continue to understand and remind ourselves that Mary and her son Jesus were in this world, know this world and all of its pain and suffering. Romans 5:3-5 ...rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Who knows more clearly how to trust than Mary? It is a simple YES an act or action of love on our part to find true love. Just as it is an action of our will to follow His Divine Will for us. Luke 10:27 "LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND"
Oh, Mary Mother of God help us to be strong to be able to open our hearts to the depth of our souls and let us never forget the love you have for us.

 

A bit of self-knowledge has come to the fore as we moved into the week with Mother Teresa. For me personally, the surrendering of "all that I am, have, and do" into Mary's hands would be impossible if she were not my Mother. In other words, my trust in her is dependent upon her being not only Mother of God, but Mother of Terry, too! Perhaps this is rooted in the profound influence my own Mom, Christine, had in my life. Perhaps it is because the Church as Family is the most inspiring model for me.

And so, the motherly presence of Mary in Teresa's visions and at the foot of the Cross deeply resonate in my heart. It is why I have adopted the following as a daily prayer:

Come Holy Spirit living in Mary; may you and your Beloved Spouse bring me face-to-face with Jesus Crucified!

From Galatians 4:

4 But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!" 7 So through God you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son then an heir.

 

Great when the feast day of St Louis De Montfort occurs during the consecration like today.

https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=4306


What a saint.

 

well, if so Mario...I'm not doing as well as I should be on that mission! I'm behind in posting but will try to catch up now

 

such a beautiful post ecc, and much to reflect on. trust...it truly all starts and ends with trust. it's hard to know when we are really trusting. I
have come to the conclusion that I am trusting when I can say with all my heart, "Jesus, I trust in you...come what may". It's that "come what may" that's hard, especially when a situation is really, really difficult and there is an easier way out but I know I should go the harder way. Total trust and throwing all caution to the wind is hard to do.

 

Amen Indy. Think of the impact his writings have had on just us on the forum. Amazing!!

 

Reflect on those past difficulties in your life and see Gods prescence through it all. Through all my difficulties and losses in life I now reflect back and see His guiding path leading and preparing me for what was ahead and to where I am presently. Know too that in all of our turmoils when we tried to do it on our own abilities it is only when we break and are at the point of surrender then we recognize His guidance and protection. The walk to Emmaus was heart wrenching for the apostles as they kept dwelling on their losses, their needs and it took the breaking of the bread or the breaking of their hearts to see true love in their midst. It was hard for His select 12 as it is hard for us, but we really have nothing ,but God in us and through the prayers interceding for us. How can we not trust when He is our everything?

 

One of Kolbe's reflections gives us what I feel, a real practical tool for living our consecration. In order to grow in holiness and become a saint...our will must be conformed to God's will. We must "die to self" and remove from our lives what we feel is not God's will in our lives. It could be big stuff like not forgiving someone or some type of addiction or smaller stuff like being lazy or over-eating. Little by little, we've got to remove it from our lives.

During last year's consecration, I developed the habit of a nightly "die to self" exercise. I was trying to remove sins from my life, and I'd review the day to see how I did. If it was a good day and I felt like I made progress on removing a particular sin and lived God's will that day, I put a capital "W" in my journal, if I had a so-so day I'd put a medium sized "w" in my journal, and when I completely bombed and was totally lazy and didn't work on my sins, I put a tiny w in my journal.

I really needed that daily reflection and a conscience effort to make progress. But as Kolbe says, the formula is:

W + w = S

When God's will (W) is united to our own will (w) then it equals Sanctity. That is the goal!! I fell out of the habit of that exercise...but I must get back to it...lots of sins to work on!

 

Your prayer practice is similar to the Examen which is a prayer practice with over a 500 year history in the process of looking back through the day. I liked the idea of
charting the day!
We purchased a DVD with Fr. Albert Haase (http://albertofm.org/books/catching-fire/ ) explaning the process of the Examen and the following are some notes I have taken on this prayer practice:

It is not an examination of your conscious which looks over the past days in our life and asks where could I have led a better moral life and is focused on me which is what I believe you are doing and I also do as an examination . Where could I be more loving, caring and giving? This goal is conversion through the sacrament of Penance. Which is excellent in taking your life to a new or holy place in your growth.


The Examen is not focused on me, but on God or “GOD CENTERED”. It deepens your sensitivity & prayer with God in your life. In my understanding it is a prayer practice that Saint Ignatius started. It is a time to look over our past 12 hours and ask: Where was God? Where was God calling me? Where was God touching and moving me? Where was God peeking through the clouds in my life? Our goal is to become aware and sensitive to the prescence of God in our lives.
To recognize that God is closer than we can ever imagine and where ever we go he is the center of our being.


5 STEPS TO THE EXAMEN:
1.Gratitude – It will make you happy.
Look to where God resigns and how much thankfulness you have in your heart
for all he has done and continues to do for you. Search and find how rich our lives really are. You realize that everything is a gift, everything is a grace,
Everything is a blessing. None of us in life can say this is mine , except for our sins.
Examine starts with the prayer of gratitude.

2. Prayer to the Holy Spirit & ask the Spirit
to open up your eyes, ears, mouth and heart
“Come into my life open my eyes to see and
my heart to experience the fire of your love.”
Step 3. Heart and Soul of the Examen
I look over the past 12 hours – Hour by hour – minute by minute
Ask –
Where was God speaking to me?
Where was God Calling me to respond to His love?
Where was God trying to touch my heart?
We look through all the junk in our lives to find what we were looking for all along – GOD! We realize that upon discovery we were not in the past sensitive enough to see.
We are asking God to come out wherever you are in my life.
God is many times hidden not because He wants to be hidden, but because of our lack of FAITH, TRUST, LOVE or HOPE in Him in our lives
We open our hearts and ask God to live in our Hearts

Step 4. FORGIVENESS
Express our sorrow for not seeing His presence in our lives.
Showing our regret of not seeing His presence and voice in our lives through
a Dialogue of Forgiveness. After expressing my regret be silent and listen and
hear Gods word of mercy, forgiveness and compassion. If we leave the 4th step guilty, we have not done it correctly! The final word always comes from God.
Love, mercy, compassion in this life and at the end of our lives. Life is not about finding ourselves, but finding God in us.

Step 5 – RENEWAL
Look at the upcoming 12 days and ask where might be God appearing through my clouds? How will God appear in the days ahead, how will He guide us- protect us-
select us? How we may need to be more sensitive in the times ahead? We start to realize that the spiritual and earthly life has no separation . There is no wall separating us from God and God from us. We are on a journey together.

Just my thought. There are parts of this that we could include Mary in!
Ask –
Where was Mary speaking to me today?
Where and when was Mary Calling me to respond to His love?
Where was Mary trying to touch my heart with her Immaculate and Sorrowful Heart in union with her Sons Sacred Heart??
Where was Mary in my life journey today?

 

Thanks so much for this Ecc! It is very similar to what 33 days has for the nightly reflection Mother Theresa did. I copied much of what you wrote above to my journal for a nightly reflection.

 

I wanted to mention something about Kolbe before moving to Mother Theresa. Last year I found Kolbe a bit hard to read, but I enjoyed him very much this year. He strikes me as a type A personality with a high level of passion and energy. He didn't want to be just a saint, but a great saint. He wanted to bring all of creation to God immediately and as soon as possible. He spoke in military terms, such as knights, soldiers, Mary is the General. It is a real sense of urgency and mindset we all need for these times, for this great spiritual war we are participating in right now!! I'm such a laid back person sometimes I really need a bit of a kick and Kolbe does it for me

 

According to Mother Teresa...Jesus thirsts for souls...yours, mine, everyone's! She is so soft and loving (really appealling to the heart of Jesus, wanting Mary to lend her her heart, and wanting to be led by Mary to bring us face to face with the crucified heart of Jesus) but she was also very tough (living in poverty conditions, living in the dark night of the soul) and she was also very brave (vowing to refuse Jesus nothing!!). My mother, mold me into the person I need to be in order to be an instrument you use to bring souls to Jesus...to quench his thirst!!

 

As I wrapped up my week with Mother Teresa and her emphasis on: 1) Mary lending each of us her heart and, 2) each of us indwelling her pure heart, I happened to read a portion of Scripture that was included at my marriage to my precious wife, Geralyn!

1Peter 1:22 Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from a pure heart...

O purity of heart and purity of intention, how greatly I need these! Help me, Dear Lady!

Safe in the Refuge of the Immaculate Heart!

 

In need a lot of help here too Mario! this world does not promote selfless giving and it's tough to break and change the mindset.

 

Mother Teresa gives us some great practical advice for how to live the consecration. On page 80, there is a chart with my duties towards Mary and her duties towards me that mother teresa used as her guidelines for her consecration or "covenant", as she called it. If I focus on those duties...I can't go wrong...I will be living my consecration day in and day out. It is without doubt that my heavenly mother will fulfill her duties to me...but will I consistently fulfill mine? And not just one, but all of them? I hope so...I have to do my best and the some. Time is short before events start, so I know I need to be clicking on all cylenders with conversion and growing in holiness. I believe I can only go at the pace that my acceptance of grace allows me. I truly believe all the grace in the world is available to all of us to become saints tomorrow...but it is acceptance and cooperation with grace where I stumble.
For those who are not using 33 Days, I'm posting below my duties and Mary's corresponding duties in parenthesis) below:

1 Total gift of all I have and am (to give of her spirit & heart)
2. Total dependance on her (to possess, protect, and transform me)
3. Responsiveness to her spirit (to inspire, guide, and enlighten me)
4. Faithfulness to prayer (to share her experience of prayer & praise)
5. Trust in her intercession (responsibility for my sanctification)
6. Accept all as coming from her (responsibility for all that befalls me)
7. Imitate her spirit (to share with me her virtues)
8. Constant recourse to her (to provide for my spiritual & material needs)
9. Remembrance of her presence (union with her heart)
10. Purity of intention - self denial (to purify me and my actions)
11. Right to avail myself of her & energies for the sake of the kingdom (right to dispose of me, of my prayers and intercessions and graces)
12. Right to enter into her heart; to share in her interior life (total freedom in and around me, as she pleases in all things)

 

Great video on the consecration from Fr Jason Worthley.

 

http://catholicexchange.com/the-litany-of-the-blessed-virgin