Lenten Tidbits: Confession

Does your stomach grind when you think about going to confession?  Do you duck your head in shame because you're confessing the same sins over and over? Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene has a suggestion for those of us who are out there rolling our eyes at ourselves and thinking, "Am I ever going to beat this?  How embarrassing to be stuck goofing up the same way every week." In meditation #104 of Divine Intimacy he gives us this advice:

...[I]t is much more profitable to fix the attention on deliberate faults [sins] first, then on those which are semi-deliberate - even if they are only simple imperfections - telling not only the faults themselves but also the motives behind them.

Although this method is not required for the validity of the confession, it is certain that the soul will draw much profit from it since the accusation will have exposed the root of the evil.  The soul will benefit too by its act of humility, which will be a stimulus to deeper repentance and will arouse in it a more ardent desire to amend its life, for this is the logical result of considering the motives - usually not noble ones! - from which our faults arise.

Furthermore, an accusation of this kind helps the confessor to have a better knowledge of the penitent's weak points, and to suggest the most suitable remedies, a matter of special importance when direction is given with confession.

I wish somebody had told me this fifty years ago. "Know thyself", an ancient Greek aphorism often ascribed to Socrates, is possible by admitting our motives honestly in all that we do. The better we know ourselves, the more we see how much we need God and the better able we are to humbly submit to His purification on the path to sainthood.

Happy Lent!

Lenten Tidbits - Examination of Conscience

In this season as we polish up our lives to follow Christ better, God often gives us delicious morsels from spiritual reading in place of the food we have renounced in fasting and abstinence.  In meditation #103 of Divine Intimacy Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene writes about examination of conscience:

Another important point...is the remembrance of our duty to sustain and guard the desire for sanctity and to enliven our determination to do always what is most pleasing to God; here is the heart of the spiritual life, of generosity.  It is also an excellent method to examine ourselves from God's point of view instead of our own, to ask ourselves if God is pleased with us and how He will judge our conduct.

Perspective.

Finding God

Having a bad day?  Want to reach out and slap someone?  Take several deep breaths and and consider this from Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, O.C.D., from meditation #298 in Divine Intimacy:

God does not let Himself be found nor does He show Himself in the midst of disturbance and excitement, but only in interior peace and calm.

We often want to change others. What we really need to do is change ourselves, peacefully, calmly, and with the grace of God.

Encompassed by His Love

Sometimes in life we have to go through really hard times.  Sometimes it's consequences for sins committed (which can take years to play out) and sometimes it's for no apparent reason.  Often we may be tempted to whine and complain about it.  Other times we seem to be able to suck it up and bear it.  So what is God doing to us, visiting calamities on us and surrounding us with misery to the point we want to find a hole, crawl in, and pull the entrance in after us? 

In today's meditation by Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, O.C.D. in Divine Intimacy he writes:

 In all the circumstances of our life, even the saddest and mot painful, we are always encompassed by His love.  God's love can will nothing but good; even when He leads us by the harsh, rough road of suffering, He is infallibly willing our good.

God "makes us die and makes us live.... He scourges us and He saves us" (cf. 1 Sm. 2:6; Tb. 13:2), always because of His love.  Thus it is not rare that He strikes hardest those whom He loves most, for as the Holy Spirit says, "...acceptable men [are tried] in the furnace of humiliation" (Sir. 2:5).

St. Teresa of Jesus says: This suffering "is what the Father gave to Him whom He loved most of all [Jesus].... These, then are His gifts in the world.  He gives them in proportion to the love He bears us.  He gives more to those He loves most and less to those He loves least" (Way 32).

 In one of her books St. Teresa recounted a particularly grueling journey on which many things went wrong, the weather was terrible, etc.  She said something like, "Lord, if this is the way You treat Your friends, no wonder you have so few of them."

I liked this quote because it showed her humanness and sense of humor in the midst of adversity. Most of all, hard times are an invitation to trust in God and submit to His will, to take the cotton out of our ears and listen to Him.  He is in charge and He is polishing us up for heaven, even if we can't see the reasons why we are suffering.

When I was a little girl my dad told me and my brothers and sisters that he abhorred nothing more than lying.  Of course this statement came about because we had tried to lie about something unsuccessfully.  That lesson has stuck with me all my life.

Yesterday I wrote a post about God's simplicity and how duplicity is at odds with God.  Mary333 suggested I also put it here.  Rather than double post, which Google frowns upon, let me ask you to read more here about Divine Simplicity and Truth..

God bless all.

Jesus Our Mediator

We're still in Christmastide and the Babe still opens His arms to us from the manger. In childlike confidence we can approach Him in the presence of Joseph and Mary and respond to His ineffable love for us by opening our arms to Him.

No matter how difficult our problems are, we are part of this Holy Family whose door is always open to us. With them there is always plenty of love, encouragement, and acceptance. No obstacle is too great when we place ourselves in their midst. No matter who rejects us, they are always there waiting for us to come in.

Michael asked in a previous post if we are closer to God now than we were at the beginning of 2011. What a great question it is and how fitting to contemplate the answer kneeling before the manger in the presence of the Holy Family. 2012 can be a great year spiritually for all of us if we consider deeply this passage from today's meditation in Divine Intimacy:

The grace which Adam had received directly from God, we now receive only through Jesus, our Mediator; our whole supernatural life always comes through Him. If we wish to be united to God, we have no other means than to attach ourselves to Jesus, to pass through Him, our Mediator, our Bridge, our Way. Jesus has said, "I am the way" (Jn.14:6); "I am the door. By Me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved" (ibid. 10:9). Behold the only condition, the only way of salvation, of sanctity.

Let us always walk through the door who is Christ and live forever with the Holy Family.

Repeat Offenders

Have you ever resolved never to commit a sin or fault ever again and bang! the next thing you know you're at it again? Like nagging your spouse over some annoying habit or yelling at the kids to clean up their rooms? Or maybe it's that tendency to overindulge yourself in your favorite treats? Or gossip about things and people? Or not do stuff you know you really ought to do and inconvenience others?

The list could go on and on, right? Priests get it all the time in confession. Somebody comes in and says he is discouraged because he keeps confessing the same sin over and over, intends to improve, and the good intentions come to naught.

If you give up the devil has already beaten you. Surely God doesn't want us to throw in the towel. So why does God let us keep falling? Here's an answer from Divine Intimacy by Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, OCD.

…God permits it in order to humble us more - we must join to humility an immense confidence in the divine help.

"He that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved" (Mt. 10:22), said Jesus. He who will persevere unto the end is not he who will never fall, but he who after every fall will humble himself and rise again, relying on the infinite strength of God.

One no less than the great Doctor of the Church, St. Therese of Lisieux says:

If it is Your will that throughout my whole life I should feel a repugnance to suffering and humiliation; if you permit all the flowers of my desires and good will to fall to the ground without producing any fruit, I shall not be disturbed. I am sure that if I persevere in my good efforts, in the twinkling of an eye, at the moment of death, You will cause rich fruits to ripen on the tree of my soul.

What a happy thought.

I apologize to my fellow bloggers. This was supposed to go up tomorrow and I clicked the "publish" button accidentally. I know we only want one post a day so it will be easier for all of us to get read.