It is Okay to be Ashamed. It is a Good Start.

March 28, 2023

 

Hi!  How is each and every one?  Congratulations to blogger.com!  Please allow me to rejoice and give thanks to you.  Last  Tuesday I found myself helpless when I could not publish a post such as this one in the same place. But they were so good to give a suggestion to the title of this blog that could be valid and supported by blogger.com. 

That Tuesday, the 28th, was the 98^th Anniversary of the Priestly Ordination of St. Josemaria, the Founder of Opus Dei.  This post was supposed to have been published that day.  I am publishing it today. 

Delayed by 3days but still within the month at least, would you like to join Opus Dei faithful in their thanksgiving celebration of this Anniversary?  For sure they must be thanking God with their ordinary life’s activities, work, and prayers. May you and I also offer our day’s activities, work and prayers in thanksgiving for the Work of God and our friends who are among the faithful of Opus Dei.

Suddenly it is summer.  The sun is strongly hot during the day and the heat is felt throughout the day.  We are advised to drink a lot of tepid water by sips from time to time during the day.  As they say and we have always observed it happen every year, Holy Week is coming and that is when it really becomes hot.  Hence let us take special care in keeping ourselves hydrated.

Following is another excerpt on Being Ashamed is a Good Start, from Joseph Tissot, How to Profit from your Faults pp 86-88.

Clipart Library

We have seen how both theology and the saints say that our imperfections should lead to an increase in our trust in God’s mercy.

Scribd

Now let us hear our Saint (Saint Francis de Sales) himself:  “You ask me, my dear daughters, if a soul full of its own misery can turn to God with full confidence?  My answer is that the soul, aware of its misery, can have great confidence in God.  In addition, this knowledge alone can inspire real confidence, and the recognition and confession of misery permits us to enter God’s presence.  Thus all the great saints, Job, David, and the others, began all their prayers by confessing their misery and their unworthiness.  It is a good thing, then, to recognize oneself as being poor, base, abject, and unworthy to appear in God’s presence.

Aleteia, Before you go to confession, ask God for his healing mercy to wash over you

“The famous saying of the ancients, ‘know thyself,’ refers primarily to the knowledge and excellence of the soul:  in this way it is not degraded and desecrated by things unworthy of its nobility.  But it also means understanding and knowing our unworthiness and misery.  Thus, inasmuch as we know ourselves to be miserable, the more we will place our trust in the goodness and mercy of God.  Between misery and mercy there is such a great link that the one cannot exist without the other.  If God had not created man, he would still have remained truly good; but then he could never have been merciful, because mercy is shown to those who are miserable.

 Woman’s Day

 “You see that the more we recognize ourselves as being miserable, the more opportunities we have to trust God, for we have nothing within us with which to trust ourselves.  The mistrust of ourselves comes from the knowledge of our imperfections.  It is good not to trust ourselves; but what good would it do us if we did not put our confidence in God and hope for his mercy?

“The mistakes and the acts of unfaithfulness that we commit every day must bring us shame and confusion when we want to approach our Lord.  We read that there are great souls, like St. Catherine of Siena and St. Teresa of Avila, who, when they made a mistake, had a strong sense of shame.  It is quite right that having offended God, we withdraw a little through humility and feel ashamed; because if we have offended a friend we are ashamed to meet him.  But one should not remain in this state; the virtues of humility, abjection, and shame are means by which we must proceed to unite our soul with God.  It would not be a great thing to annihilate and divest ourselves (which happens when we are ashamed), if it were not to give ourselves to God.  It is in this sense that St. Paul teaches us when he says:  Put off the old nature… and put on the new (Col 3: 9-10).  This little withdrawal is made only to advance move effectively toward God by an act of love and confidence.  Here, then, is the conclusion of the first point.  It is very good to be ashamed because we thereby know and feel our misery and imperfections.  However, we must neither stop nor be discouraged; rather, we must elevate our heart to God in holy trust.  The foundation of this trust should be in him and not in us.  All the more so because we change, and he never does; he always remains good and merciful, whether we are weak and imperfect or whether we are strong and perfect.

St. Josemaria Institute, Christ Reveals the Father’s Mercy

“I am often saying that our misery is the throne of God’s mercy.  The greater our misery, the greater the trust that we must have” (Talk 2, On confidence).

Jenn Hand

We are fast approaching Holy Week, the week of Our Lord’s entry into Jerusalem, His passion and death on the Cross out of love for you and for me.  How are you and I preparing ourselves to meet Christ on His way to Calvary?  He is giving His life for you and for me and how are we giving our life for Him in return?  How are we going to give our 100% participation in our own Redemption?  

Lord help us so that we may seek you, find you, love you and give our lives for you and for the others for your great glory. Have mercy on us. 

What you and I can do that is within our reach is to go to the Sacrament of Confession and ask God for His healing grace and then receive Him worthily in Holy Communion.  What joy and happiness you and I will have and a lot of peace at that.  Come on and prepare ourselves for a good confession in the Sacrament of Confession. Let us pray for each other.

See you in the next post on Holy Tuesday, “May tomorrow be a perfect day; may you find love and laughter along the way; may God keep you in his tender care; ‘til He brings us together again.”

Affectionately,

Guadalupinky