Renewal of our Divine Sonship
August 29, 2023
Renewal of our Divine Sonship
Hi! How is each and every one? In this post
today, Feast of St. Augustine, let us find inspiration in his words “You made
us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”
St. Josemaria on the fact
that you and I are children of God, has all the following to say about our
divine filiation. From Furrow:
No. 368: “It is true that we,
the children of God, ought not to serve the Lord in order to be noticed. But we should not mind being seen; much less
should we cease to fulfill our duty because we are seen!”
No. 417: “A calm and balanced
character, an inflexible will, deep faith, and an ardent piety: these are the indispensable characteristics
of a son of God.”
No. 451: “Prayer is not the prerogative of monks; it
is a Christian undertaking of men and women of the world who know themselves to
be children of God.”
No. 686: “Jesus has remained in the Sacred Host for us
so as to stay by our side, to sustain us, to guide us. And love can only be repaid with love. How could we not turn to the Blessed
Sacrament each day, even if it is only for a few minutes, to bring him our
greetings and our love as children and as brothers?”
No. 750: “Being children of God transforms us into
something that goes far beyond our being people who merely put up with each
other. Listen to what the Lord
says: Vos autem dixi amicos! We
are friends who, like him, give our lives for each other, when heroism is
needed and through our ordinary lives.”
No. 790: “God wants his children to be on the
offensive. We cannot stay on the
defensive. Our business is to fight,
wherever we may be, as an army in battle array.”
No. 793: “There are three important things you need to
do to draw people to God. Forget
yourself, and think only of the glory of your Father God. Subject your will filially to the Will of
heaven, as Jesus Christ taught you.
Follow with docility the lights of the Holy Spirit.”
No. 935: “How sad it is to realize that those who hate
the Lord arch arm-in-arm with some who claim they are in his service. They follow different passions, but are
united against Christians, the children of God.”
No. 943: “Believe me, the apostolate of giving doctrine
usually has to be, as it were, capillary, spreading from one to another, from
each believer to his immediate companion.
The children of God care about all souls, because every soul is
important.”
Considering the above points, may you and I Renew our
divine sonship or divine filiation (From Joseph Tissot, How to profit from your faults, pp. 130-132). You and I are children of God as well as children of Mary.
A spiritual writer exclaims: How could I despair, O Mary, despite the
enormity of my crimes! For you, Mary,
are the mother of all men but especially of sinners! (Laurent. A Pointe).
Yes, it is sinners who obtain the incessant
re-creation of the glories and joys of divine motherhood for this august
Virgin. For as often as she brings
Christ to live again within them, she is in fact giving birth to Christ
(Borgius de Gubbio, 9: De signis
Ecclesiae).
Every sinner’s conversion is a rebirth to
grace. Every renewal of divine sonship
comes with being reunited with the Savior, and living in Christ (Ephesians ch.
2) again. The sinner then gives the
heavenly Father an occasion to say: You are my son, today I have begotten you
(Psalm 2). The guardian angel of the
happy convert, showing him to Mary, salutes her in the words of Elizabeth: Blessed
are you among women, for truly, he is the fruit of her womb.
Mary is the mother of them embers as well as of the
Head of the Mystical Body of the Church.
Not one just soul can be formed without having been engendered by the
new Eve, by the real Mother of all the living beings.
From
goats to lambs
While commenting on the text Pasce hedos meos (feed my goats), an ancient interpreter of the
Song of Songs (Guillelm, apud Delrio in
Cant) has no difficulty in applying
it to Mary with regard to sinners. They,
indeed, are the he-goats, he says; and very correctly they are called the goats
of Mary. No, certainly not because she
would like them as they are in their present condition, to be placed on the
left side of the Judge. They are goats
of Mary because she adopts them in order to ensure for them a place on his
right by transforming them into faithful sheep.
That is why, in common parlance, a doctor addresses a patient as his
patient, the one whose cure he desires, not the sickness.
Of course, a lamb is preferable to a goat. So also, nothing is worth the
straightforwardness of an innocent soul.
Happy are they who like spotless lambs are worthy of being fondled by
the Virgin of Virgins, aptly called the Divine Shepherdess. This truth remains a great consolation for
sinners. They admit that their crimes
have merited for them a place like the accursed goats, to the left of the
Judge. And yet it depends on them alone
to approach Mary with confidence, and become her goats, soon to be changed into lambs.
Health, similarly, will always be preferable to
sickness. He indeed is lucky who doesn’t
require a doctor. But once sick, what
assurance and joy it is to be under the treatment of a prince of medical
science, to be his client and to be numbered among his patients.
However weak we are, however desperate the state of
our soul, Mary will adopt us as her patients if we wish it. And inasmuch as no spiritual infirmity here
on earth is incurable, because none can resist the treatment of the
All-powerful Mother of God, she will heal us.
Her glory, like that of an expert doctor, will shine in proportion to the
seriousness of the evil she has to cure.
Her fame, similar to that of an expert doctor, will shine in proportion
to the gravity of the sickness she has to heal.
Then, after being healed and snatched from death,
this loving Mother will love us and watch over us all through the weakness and
dangers of a life-long convalescence, like a doctor who checks on his patients
after their cure. We will now have a
special right to her motherly protection.
It will be an honor for her to be interested in our persevering in the
state of grace that she has acquired for us at the price of her prayers and
sufferings.
Shall we remain unfaithful to her and fall again
into sin? Does the doctor desert and let
his patients relapse? Is he going to take revenge on us for not being docile
enough to take his prescriptions? Will
he not, rather, redouble his efforts to tax his talent and dedication to effect
a more difficult cure?
Let us pray to Our Mother
Mary, Mediatrix:
“Remember, O Virgin Mother of God, while you stand in the sight of the
Lord, to speak good things on our behalf.”
Trust that Our Lady will do just that!
See you in the next post,
“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
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