Get Up and Walk Again

February 6, 2024

Hi!  How is each and every one? Isn’t that a beautiful picture of the Holy Family with the dog?  It reminds me of this Dalmatian I got from the Befana some years ago. 

Last Sunday we started the custom of the Seven Sundays to St. Joseph.  You can still catch up if you wish.  Just turn to Saint Joseph and say some things to him about anything.  He listens you know.  If you want you can search the devotion to him in opusdei.org.  You will easily find it.  Like Our Lady, Saint Joseph will bring you to Jesus and bring Jesus to you.  Go to Saint Joseph and see for yourself. Following is the Introduction to the devotion.  The First Sunday to the Seventh Sunday prayers follow after in the same article in opusdei.org.

The custom of the Seven Sundays of Saint Joseph

 

Pope Gregory XVI, whose pontificate began in 1831, encouraged the custom of dedicating the seven Sundays before March 19 to Saint Joseph in memory of his seven sorrows and joys, and attached many indulgences to this devotion. His successor, Blessed Pope Pius IX, asked the faithful to petition Saint Joseph to alleviate the afflictions of the universal Church in those times. 

INTRODUCTION

The Seven Sundays Devotion is a long-standing tradition of the Church in preparation for the feast of St. Joseph on March 19. The devotion begins on the seventh Sunday before March 19 and honors the seven joys and seven sorrows that St. Joseph experienced as husband of the Mother of God, faithful guardian of Christ, and head of the holy family. The devotion is a prayerful opportunity to “help us find out what God is telling us through the simple life of Mary’s husband” (St. Josemaria Escriva; Christ is Passing By, no. 39).

ST. JOSE PH, PATRON AND GUARDIAN

“The whole Church recognizes St Joseph as a patron and guardian. For centuries many different features of his life have caught the attention of believers. He was a man ever faithful to the mission God gave him. That is why, for many years now, I have liked to address him affectionately as ‘our father and lord.’ “St Joseph really is a father and lord. He protects those who revere him and accompanies them on their journey through this life – just as he protected and accompanied Jesus when he was growing up. As you get to know him, you discover that the holy patriarch is also a master of the interior life – for he teaches us to know Jesus and share our life with him, and to realize that we are part of God’s family. St Joseph can teach us these lessons, because he is an ordinary man, a family man, a worker who earned his living by manual labor – all of which has great significance and is a source of happiness for us.” (St. Josemaria Escriva, Christ is Passing By, no. 39 4).

LITANY OF ST. JOSEPH

Lord, have mercy…

Christ, have mercy…

Holy Trinity, one God…                                                        Have mercy on us.

 

Holy Mary…                                                                           Pray for us.

St. Joseph…                

Noble son of the House of David…

Light of patriarchs…

Husband of the Mother of God…

Guardian of the Virgin…

Foster father of the Son of God…

Faithful guardian of Christ…

Head of the holy family…

Joseph, chaste and just…

Joseph, prudent and brave…

Joseph, obedient and loyal…

Pattern of patience…

Lover of poverty…

Model of workers…

Example to parents…

Guardian of virgins…

Pillar of family life…

Comfort of the troubled…

Hope of the sick…

Patron of the dying…

Terror of evil spirits…

Protector of the Church…

 

Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world…        Have mercy on us.

Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world…

Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world…

 

God made him master of his household…                             And put him in charge of all that he owned.

Let us pray:

Almighty God, in your infinite wisdom and love you chose Joseph to be the husband of Mary, the mother of your Son. As we enjoy his protection on earth, may we have the help of his prayers in heaven. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Now let us continue getting to know more about our divine longings (From Broken Gods, Hope, Healing, and the Seven Longings of the Human Heart, Gregory K. Popcak, Ph. D. Ch 3).

I’ve Fallen and I Can’t Get Up!

The Tipography of Tipi

Satan does not want us to become the gods that God intends us to be.  So, as we discovered in the last chapter, his first tactic is to completely obscure the path of deification revealed through the seven divine longings.  But a second way he plots against our success is by causing us to lose sight of God’s grace when we fall.  He hopes that he can persuade us to keep lying in the mud of our own pathetic brokenness, and that he can prevent us from getting back up again.  But God will raise you up if you let him!

SpiritualDirection.com

Peter could walk on the water as long as he kept  his eyes on Christ, but as soon as he looked at the wind and waves instead, he began to drown (Mt 14:28-31).  The same is true for us.  When we fail, as we inevitably will, we have a choice to make:  Will we focus in disgust on our failings and brokenness?  Or will we turn our eyes to the merciful face of God and find the strength to laugh good-naturedly at our feebleness while rejoicing in the abundant, loving mercy of God, who has at his disposal the power of the universe to raise us out of the ditch we’ve dug for ourselves?

St Josemaria Institute With our eyes in Heaven

I Will Boast of My Weakness!

How happy I am to see myself imperfect and be in need of God’s mercy. –St. Therese of the Child Jesus

Recognizing that it is the depth of our relationship with God, not our goodness that propels us down the path of deification, the mystic realizes that failure is an opportunity to encounter grace.  St. Paul speaks of this in the Second Letter to the Corinthians:  Therefore, that I might not become too elated, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, an angel of Satan, to beat me, to keep me from being too elated.  Three times I begged the Lord about this that it might leave me, but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”  I will rather boast most gladly of my weaknesses, in order that the power of Christ may dwell with me.  Therefore, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and constraints, for the sake of Christ; for when I am weak, then I am strong (12:7-10).

DailyVerses.net

How many of us can relate to Paul’s frustration?  He begs God to take away this struggle, this…thing that he finds frustrating about himself, and still it remains.  So what does God tell him to do?  To beat himself up? To despair that he will never be good enough?  God challenges Paul to abandon his desire to prove himself worthy through his pathetic efforts and asks him instead to surrender into a deeper relationship with God and a more intense encounter with God’s transforming love.

Earlier, in his first letter to the church in Corinth, St. Paul points directly at what I am calling the divine longings of the human heart when he says,

Therefore, do not make any judgment before the appointed time, until the Lord comes, for he will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will manifest the motives of our hearts, and then everyone will receive praise from God (1 Cor 4:5).

Most people read this passage and think that St. Paul is referring to God exposing the darkness of our hearts that he is talking about our sin.  But why, having exposed our deepest sins, would God praise us?

He praises us not because he reveals our sins—those are obvious—but because he reveals the divine longing behind those sins, which are praiseworthy!  Paul reminds us, after all, to rejoice in God’s power to reclaim the godly treasure buried under our brokenness and to help us find fulfillment and divinization despite ourselves.

Opus Dei Walking towards Jesus

This is how the mystic faces his failures.  Not with shame.  Not with condemnation.  Not with self-hatred or crippling guilt, but with the knowledge that he is being invited to draw closer to God so that God may instruct his heart in love and transform him from the inside out.  When we surrender our pathetic efforts to transform ourselves, we discover God’s power to transform us.

So why is it so difficult to overcome our struggles by our own effort?  And how can we get to the place where we are no longer tormented by our struggles and are instead able to surrender ourselves to the transforming power of God’s love?  The practical answer to both questions may come to us from a surprising source—neuroscience.

St Josemaria Institute

 

 Prayer of abandonment

My Lord and my God:
into your hands I abandon the past and the present and the future,
what is small and what is great,
what amounts to a little and what amounts to a lot,
things temporal and things eternal.
Amen.

Wow! What a consoling panorama or scenario the article unfolds to you and me!  Take it up with the Holy Spirit in your scheduled quiet time of intimate conversation with Him. You will experience His great love for you if you still need to. And once you do experience it you will not want to continue living without it.

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