Remember, O Thou Man - How My Sins Offend Our Lord

Look at these images...

 

 

"Behold this Heart which has loved men so much, which has heaped on them so many benefits, in exchange for this infinite love it finds ingratitude; instead it meets with forgetfulness, indifference, outrages" (Words of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to St. Margaret Mary, complaining of man's sins.)

Sin offends God.  Not only the fact that it exists, but every time we commit actual sin, we offend our Good God who we should love above all things because He is infinitely perfect and truly worthy of all love.  "Actual sin is any willful thought, desire, word, action, or omission forbidden by the law of God." (St. Joseph Baltimore Catechism #2)  Any time we willfully sin, we hurt Our Lord and add to His passion.  Yes, He is in glory now, but because He is outside of time and He took the punishment for our sins all those years ago, each one we commit was felt by Him then.  The Catechism tells us that there are two kinds of actual sin, mortal and venial.  But what does it matter which ones we commit?  In a way, it does, but in an arguably greater way, it doesn't matter.  I say this because the infinitely perfect God of the universe who is all goodness and love does not deserve one harsh remark, unkind look, or complaining thought.  

 

"Every sin must be said to renew in a certain way the Passion of Our Lord, 'crucifying again to themselves the Son of God and making Him a mockery'" (Heb. 6:6) (Words of Pope Pius XI in his encyclical on Reparation to the Sacred Heart)

We should avoid venial sin at all costs first and foremost because it hurts the all-good God.  Lent reminds us of that as it brings the above images of the suffering and death of Our Lord to our close attention.  In Lent, we are encouraged to approach the cross, sit with Our Lord, and notice the incredible suffering He endured; He endures at our hands.  Venial sin, although not as serious as mortal sin is still like one of the thorns in His crown or one of the many lashes He received in the scourging.  None of it should have ever happened to Him.  He was the only one in history with the right to complain of evil happening to Him, but like a sheep led to the slaughter, He opened not His mouth.  He offered no complaint.

Venial sin also harms us.  It is a sickness to our soul.  When the immune system, so to speak, of a soul is compromised, it is easier to fall into greater sins, including mortal, which are the death of the soul.  We should avoid venial sin firstly because it hurts Our Lord, but also because it compromises our own souls leaving them more vulnerable to further and greater sins.

God hates sin because it is the breaking of His law, which is in place not to restrict us but to guide us to the true happiness of Heaven.  The Saints hated sin because, being friends of God, they hated all that God hates.  They knew sin offends God and so of course, they wanted to avoid it, because they loved Him above all else.  This is what we should do too for we are all called to be saints, to love God above all things, and be happy with Him forever.  

This Lent, think that it could be your very last.  Our priest said this morning in his sermon that we should live this Lent as if we will be in Heaven by Easter.  If you knew that's where you were headed in these next 40 days, how would you prepare?  Wouldn't you try to avoid sin and frivolities at all costs?  If you were getting ready to go on the trip of a lifetime or move across the world, of course, you would prepare yourself well in advance.  Why do we not do that now as we look forward to our home of Heaven?  We lose sight of the goal and we think we have many years to put all our lives in order.  No one, however, is guaranteed that time so use what you have now well.  Offend the good Jesus no more!  Do not neglect Him, but strive now to make up for all your past offenses and those of the fallen world around you.  He loves and cares for each one of us, but so many do not even pay Him the time of day.  He is our God, our Creator, our Redeemer.  Let us remember this and live every day in light of this blessed reality.

How can we keep from committing sin?  The Catechism tells us, "By praying and receiving the sacraments; by remembering that God is always with us; by recalling that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit; by keeping occupied with work or play; by promptly resisting the sources of sin within us; by avoiding the near occasions of sin."

In short, follow the examples of the Saints.  St. Thérèse, St. John Bosco, St. Alphonsus, the martyrs, St. Rose of Lima, St. Benedict, any of them!  Their lives are full of stories that tell us how they occupied themselves and avoided sin.  It is not always easy but if we make a great effort, God will give us great grace to help us succeed.  He is actually just waiting to give us the grace.  He waits even a little sorrowfully, because we often give Him a pitiful glance, like the woman in the above image, but do we actually make a concerted effort to turn from our bad habits and sinful ways?  Not often.  Let us take this Lent to try again most ardently.  Remember that we may only have this one and after that, we shall stand before Our Lord and render Him an account of all our thoughts, words, and actions.  Let us make this Lent a time that we will be proud to recount.

"Death rather than sin!"

Thank you for reading my poorly written little post.  I'm mostly writing this as an outline for my 4th grader's Catechism lesson.  Please pray for them and me as I present this lesson and may they become little saints in love with their Divine Master!

In cordibus Jesu et Mariae,

Sarah 

Catholic Holy Cards: What to do with them all?

Last year I received a comment on my decluttering post asking, 

"How do you pray with your holy cards?"

That's a great question!  Besides using them as bookmarks, holy cards can be a tremendous spiritual aid.  I really like to use ones that have my favorite prayers, quotes, and images on them when I'm praying at church or sitting in quiet meditation at home.  

I keep the bulk of my holy card collection in a box from my Little Flower's Girls Group growing up.  The box was part of our project for the virtue of orderliness.  I have to chuckle a little bit because, while the box keeps my holy cards all in one place and is not visibly a mess, the inside of the box is a little chaotic.  But there is a method to the madness.

Usually, these holy cards are out of sight and out of mind but I do rifle through this box whenever I need to find a certain prayer, image, or even a card for a letter or a gift!  I also keep some extra brown scapulars in here, as you can see.

Now to the ones I pray with!  I have this lovely little holy card album I purchased while visiting the Norbertine Canonesses.  It's perfect for keeping my most favorite prayer cards and carrying them in my purse/backpack.  I whip this out after every Mass and nearly every time I visit a church or chapel!  The most important way we can remember to use holy cards in our prayer is to have them readily available at any time!  (Here's one from Full of Grace USA!)

                   

This picture of St. Thérèse is my grandfather's memorial card.  

It reminds me to pray for him and all my departed family whenever I open this album.

I had an aversion to this image of Christ after the scourging when I was younger as I thought it gratuitous.  But in the last 5 or so years, I read some of the book, "Revelations of St. Bridget: On the Life and Passion of Our Lord and the Life of His Blessed Mother" (affiliate link) in which Our Lord's sufferings are described.  Our Lady speaks,

"...I beheld His body bruised and beaten to the very ribs, so that His ribs could be seen; and what was still more bitter, when the scourge was raised, His very flesh was furrowed by the thongs. ... my Son stood thus, all bloody, all torn, so that no soundness could be found in Him nor any spot to scourge..."

Venerable Fulton Sheen also wrote in his book, "The Life of Christ" speaking of Our Lord, 

"He will find Himself without a friend in the world, an outcast on a hill, with mobs shouting His death, and His flesh hanging from Him like purple rags."

So you see, this image of Our Lord could be very accurate and I find it so helpful in meditation on Our Lord's suffering and passion.  Now to the praying part!!  I have this picture opposite The Litany of Humility.  A great pairing, right?  (You can find both of these holy cards here!)

Other holy cards included in my album are these wedding remembrance cards!  These are so beautiful for meditating on parts of the Holy Family's life that are hidden but they're also good reminders to pray for the couples whose weddings I've attended and for all married couples.

These images are so beautiful.  I use the left one of Mary, Jesus, St. Dominic, and St. Catherine while praying the Rosary.  It is a remembrance of a priest's ordination so I pray for him too!  The right one is my uncle's funeral card.

I try to pray this prayer every time I use this album.  This is The Golden Arrow prayer as given by Our Lord to Sr. Mary of St. Peter.  He said that it delightfully wounds His heart in reparation for the blasphemies He receives.  (Copies of this card can be found here!)

The card opposite is one from Catholic to the Max.  The prayer is so beautiful and has helped me so much in my vocation discernment.  Or at least, it has helped me to pray for patience and resignation.

Then in the front of my missal under the flap of the cover, I keep all the priestly ordination cards I've collected.  These priests are all very special to me so having their cards in the front of my missal allows me to pray for them at every Mass.

Then at the back of my missal, I have a few random cards.  These were given to me by friends so I often remember to pray for them as well.  The one of Mary and Baby Jesus is the card from the profession of a Carmelite nun!  

I usually grab this nice small card of Our Lady of Guadalupe to use as an extra bookmark if the Mass is from the common of the Blessed Virgin.  It was given to me by my dear Carmelite pen-pal whose title is "of Our Lady of Guadalupe!" 💙  Please pray for her as she will be making her final profession in July!! 🎉

Finally, I also have holy cards as bookmarks in my Catholic Girl's Guide by Father Lasance.  This book is full of beautiful meditations, lessons, and prayers so I have lots of pages bookmarked.  It really is a little powerhouse of prayer that I carry with me almost everywhere in my purse!

I also keep a few holy cards that I've received from pen-pals in my writing desk.  This one is very special as it's a relic of the Infant of Prague statue!  😊  

Even if you don't have room for all of your most important holy cards in your missal or prayer album, get creative and put them around the house in places you'll see them!  Your desk, bathroom mirror, car, and kitchen are all great places to put little prayer reminders!

I hope you enjoyed reading this and that you got even a little inspiration about how to use your holy cards!  They can be a very helpful and handy tool for memorizing prayers and praying for others.  

Where do you keep your holy cards and how do you use them?  I'd love to hear in the comments below!

In cordibus Jesu et Mariae,

Sarah

Remember, O Thou Man, ... Unto Dust Thou Shalt Return - Embracing Death

Here's my next installment in the "Remember, O Thou Man" tag that The Grim Writer is hosting.

"Remember, man, thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return."

We hear these words every year as the priest traces a cross of ash on our foreheads.  But how often do we think of this reality or how well do we really understand it?  How often do we pass by a cemetery without praying for the hundreds of souls buried there?  Do we even stop to think of those mortal bodies buried beneath the earth returning to that which they came from?  One day, we will come to that same reality.  Our souls will leave our bodies which will be buried to decay.  But our souls will not decay.  They will go to be judged by their maker.  And how will He judge us?  Will He be sad that we took more care of our mortal bodies than our immortal souls?  I hope not.  This is why we must contemplate our end often so that we don't forget what awaits us.  

It can be hard to contemplate our earthly end when we hardly know what death looks like.  Sure we've seen it acted out in movies, on stage, and in novels but they're just that, acting.  Have we actually seen death with our own eyes?  In this day and age, it is more than easy to look the other way.  Our elderly are placed in homes and out of our sight.  How often do we visit the elderly, let alone, care for them?  It is so important to visit the elderly often, and even more important, to care for them because when we have this beautiful fullness of life before our eyes, we can more easily picture ourselves there.

And do we assist the sick and the dying?  It can be a very uncomfortable thing but I believe that is because we just aren't used to it; we aren't exposed to it enough.  Again, it's not enough in dramatized movies with dramatic soundtracks and scenes that last but minutes.  We need to be exposed to old age and death in real life.

"Remember, o man!"

 To assist the dying with your prayers, presence, and physical care is a sure way of obtaining grace for yourself and for them.  We must learn to sit in the uncomfortable silence, in the pain, and in the darkness.  We must pray because someday soon, it will inevitably be our turn.  We should pray now that we are blessed with those same favors of prayer, company, and assistance when it is our turn.  No one goes to Heaven alone.  He is brought there by the prayers of the saints, his friends, and his family.  And he too will assist souls to Heaven both in his lifetime and in eternity.  

Finally, to really be able to remember our death, we need to experience death and enter into it.  Not only does the dying person need our prayers in their final days on earth, but once the soul has left the body.  Then he most certainly needs our prayers and assistance, for he can no longer help himself.  We must pray that Our Lady and all the saints and angels will accompany him on his journey to Heaven.  We must pray that God has mercy on this soul and that He would take it very soon to be with Himself.  We must enter into death by praying by the bedside of our departed loved one, by viewing the body and having before the eyes of our soul the image of Christ's body taken down from the cross, laid in His mother's arms, and placed in the stone-cold tomb.  

We must bury the dead by attending the graveside service.  It isn't always usual to remain at the graveside to see the casket lowered and the earth piled on top, but there is a beauty and completion as well as a little dying to self that takes place when the mourner sees the fulfillment of this prophecy,

"Remember, man, thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return."

Drop your flower into the grave, watch the dirt shoveled in on top, and let a part of yourself be buried in thought and prayer with your loved one.  To contemplate the body, feet below the surface under the dark earth waiting for its Master to call it forth is a sobering thought.  One day, we too will be buried in the earth from which our first parents were formed and the things of this earth won't matter in the slightest.  So as this Lenten season comes to a close, let us not forget the admonition we received upon starting this journey.

"Remember!"

"Requiem aeternam dona eis, domine et lux perpetua luceat eis.

Fidélium ánimæ per misericórdiam Dei requiéscant in pace. Amen."

"Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.

May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen."

My Favorite Lenten Meditation for Passiontide

 Hello dear friends,

A blessed Passion Week to you.  I think Lent is one of my favorite seasons of the year as far as liturgical music goes.  But where meditations are concerned, I absolutely love Christmas meditations.  Except, during Lent, I fall in love again with meditations on the passion, death, and resurrection of Our Lord especially close to Passiontide.  I reread this meditation before Confession the other day and boy was it moving in a whole new way!  So today I'd like to share with you my favorite meditation from Fr. Lasance's Catholic Girl's Guide that I read every Holy Thursday in front of the Altar of Repose.  

Sursum Corda! -- Lift up Your Hearts!

Shortly after the beginning of the last century, Napoleon the Great was sent as a captive to the lonely island of St. Helena.  On one occasion he is said to have endeavored to while away some of the weary hours of his exile  by passing in mental review the great men who accomplished the most heroic deeds in the world's history.  While he was considering Christ, he is said to have exclaimed: 

"Behold, He has drawn all mankind to Himself!"

And thus indeed it is.  The name of Jesus Christ sounds beside the cradle of the new-born infant and the grave of the aged man, in the hovel and the palace, among the powerful and the wak, in the depths and on the hights, on sea and on land, by day and by night.  Jesus alone is the hope and consolation of the unhappy, the pledge of pardon for the guilty.  For the love of Jesus how many have renounced, and still renounce, the pleasures of the world!

Thus have his own words been fulfilled:

"And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to myself." 

With the gentle cords of love He has drawn all things to Himself.  He has done all that it was possible to do, in order to win for Himself the love of the whole human race, and to hold it fast as long as time shall endure.  He has given to us, miserable mortals though we are, the most signal proofs of His divine and ever-abiding love.  Let these proofs encourage us; therefore

"Lift up your heart!"

Lift it up to the sacred mountains, up to the cross, up to heaven! 

To Mount Olivet, to Gethsemane!

There, amid the shades of night illumined by the Paschal moon, under the boughs of the olive-trees, you will see a Man prostrate on the ground, bowed down, crushed as it were by some heavy load, convulsively wringing His hands, His countenance pale as death.  He breathes heavily, deep sighs escape His tortured breast, a sweat of blood exudes from His pores and trickles down His pallid face.  And His dearest friends, the friends whom He loved as no friend ever loved his most beloved friend, no other her darling child,-- they leave Him alone in His agony; they have no word of comfort for Him; they are asleep; they could not watch with Him one hour, although only one brief hour had elapsed since they assured Him of their willingness to follow Him to prison and to death!

But all is not yet told!  His foes are approaching, like bloodthirsty wolves; one steps forward who was formerly a friend, a disciple, and imprints the hideous kiss of betrayal on the colorless lips of the Sufferer --- the patient Sufferer, whose pale face wears an expression of gentleness and of loving admonition, even while He gazes on this shameless man.

They lead the innocent Lamb, the incarnate Son of God, to Jerusalem; they treat Him, the sinless One, more barbarously than the vilest criminal; they mock Him and blaspheme Him; they courage Him, and place a crown of sharp thorns upon His head.

 

Now begins the ascent of Mont Golgotha.  Tottering and exhausted, His bleeding and lacerated shoulders laden with a heavy cross, the Man of sorrows climbs the steep and stony mountain!  Three times He sinks upon the ground and each time He is rudely lifted  up and dragged forward by His brutal executioners.  When the summit is reached, they strip the garments from His sacred body, and thus tear open His wounds afresh.  They stretch Him upon the cross, drive large nails through His hands and feet, in order to fasten Him to it, and elevate the infamous gibbet.

My dear child,

"Lift up your heart!" 

Lift it up to Mount Olivet, to Golgotha!  Behold the love of your God! 

But you must raise it higher still, you must raise it to the cross!  There you see the Lamb of God, hanging on the tree of shame, suspended between heaven and earth, His sole support being the large, rude nails of iron, which pierce His hands and feet, so that the slightest movement aggravates His unspeakable sufferings.  The blood is trickling down upon the cross from innumerable wounds, His tongue is parched by feverish thirst, and from His lips proceeds the piteous cry: 

"I thirst." 

Add to this the anguish which fills his soul at the sight of His beloved Mother, whom to behold thus standing at the foot of the cross causes His tender heart to well-nigh break with compassion.  To this add the mockery and blasphemy of the impious men by whom He was surrounded, wholse obduracy all His Passion, all His cruel sufferings, did not avail to subdue; yet on whose behalf He breathed forth the touching petition:

"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." 

The chalice of His Passion was filled to overflowing; then deprived of all consolation, He utters the heart-rending cry: "My God! My God! why hast Thou forsaken Me!"  Sum up all this; raise your heart to the cross;

"attend and see if there be any sorrow like to His sorrow"

see if there be any love which can compare with His love!

But look higher still; lift your heart up to heaven itself!  Though no mortal eye is able to gaze upon the glories of that celestial abode which is the dwelling-place of the blessed, though you cannot approach the eternal God for He "inhabiteth light inaccessible," be not disheartened on this account; lift up your heart to heaven, for the gleam of light which God will shed upon your oul may perchance enable you to form some faint conception of its splendors.

There the Son of God, not as yet incarnate, sat from all eternity at the right hand of the Father who "when the fullness of time was come" sent Him down to earth, in order toat He might suffer, and die upon the cross.  But what was His object in doing this?  He called Him His beloved Son in whom He was well pleased.  Why then send Him to endure the death of the cross?

The crucified One Himself gives the solution of the problem in the words He addressed to Nicodemus: 

"For God so loved the world as to give His only-begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting."

Thus againdo we see that it was love--O sweetest, fairest, greatest and most heavenly word--yes, it was sove that moved our gracious God to perform an act which neither earth nor heaven could have deemed possible, an act which alone would  suffice to justify the exclamation of the Apostle of Charity: "God is charity!"

Therefore let not your heart, O Christian maiden, be enslaved by any mere earthly, still less by any sinful, affections.  Lift up your heart to heaven!  There alone is an object truly worth of your love.