Tag Archives: Prayer

Emptying ourselves Day 10 – True love

Day 10 – True love

A Reading from the First Letter of Saint John:

Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God; for God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only-begotten Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No man has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. (1 John 4:7-12)

From Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical letter Deus Caritas Est (God is Love):

Nowadays Christianity of the past is often criticized as having been opposed to the body; and it is quite true that tendencies of this sort have always existed. Yet the contemporary way of exalting the body is deceptive. Eros, reduced to pure “sex”, has become a commodity, a mere “thing” to be bought and sold, or rather, man himself becomes a commodity. This is hardly man’s great “yes” to the body. On the contrary, he now considers his body and his sexuality as the purely material part of himself, to be used and exploited at will. Nor does he see it as an arena for the exercise of his freedom, but as a mere object that he attempts, as he pleases, to make both enjoyable and harmless. Here we are actually dealing with a debasement of the human body: no longer is it integrated into our overall existential freedom; no longer is it a vital expression of our whole being, but it is more or less relegated to the purely biological sphere. The apparent exaltation of the body can quickly turn into a hatred of bodiliness. Christian faith, on the other hand, has always considered man a unity in duality, a reality in which spirit and matter compenetrate, and in which each is brought to a new nobility. True, eros tends to rise “in ecstasy” towards the Divine, to lead us beyond ourselves; yet for this very reason it calls for a path of ascent, renunciation, purification and healing.

Concretely, what does this path of ascent and purification entail? How might love be experienced so that it can fully realize its human and divine promise? Here we can find a first, important indication in the Song of Songs, an Old Testament book well known to the mystics. According to the interpretation generally held today, the poems contained in this book were originally love-songs, perhaps intended for a Jewish wedding feast and meant to exalt conjugal love. In this context it is highly instructive to note that in the course of the book two different Hebrew words are used to indicate “love”. First there is the word dodim, a plural form suggesting a love that is still insecure, indeterminate and searching. This comes to be replaced by the word ahabà, which the Greek version of the Old Testament translates with the similar-sounding agape, which, as we have seen, becomes the typical expression for the biblical notion of love. By contrast with an indeterminate, “searching” love, this word expresses the experience of a love which involves a real discovery of the other, moving beyond the selfish character that prevailed earlier. Love now becomes concern and care for the other. No longer is it self-seeking, a sinking in the intoxication of happiness; instead it seeks the good of the beloved: it becomes renunciation and it is ready, and even willing, for sacrifice.

Reflection:

We see the intensity of God’s eros when He overshadows Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit and becomes Incarnate in her womb. We also see that His first encounter with our human nature is in our littleness and helplessness—He first becomes Incarnate in the womb of Mary. It is not the seductive power of our sexuality that first attracts Him nor does He encounter us first in the ecstatic experiences of sexual intimacy. He meets us first in weakness, in littleness, in the womb of Mary. His eros drives Him to empty Himself in agape and unite Himself with our most fragile human experiences.

Does this correspond to my idea of love? Where did I get my idea about what love is? Do I buy into the lie that sex is simply a bodily experience without a meaning or spiritual implication? Do I see the goodness of eros and also the way that it must be purified by agape? Let us reflect on any distortions in our view of love and then make an act of love:

O my God, I love you above all things, with my whole heart and soul, because you are all good and worthy of all my love. I love my neighbor as myself for the love of you. I forgive all who have injured me and I ask pardon of all whom I have injured.

Prayers:

Veni Sancte Spiritus

Ave Maris Stella or Sub Tuum Praesidium

Litany of Penance or Radiating Christ

Prayer of Entrustment to the Womb of Mary

Emptying ourselves Day 9 – Hope in suffering

Day 9 – Hope in suffering

From Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical Spe Salvi #39:

To suffer with the other and for others; to suffer for the sake of truth and justice; to suffer out of love and in order to become a person who truly loves—these are fundamental elements of humanity, and to abandon them would destroy man himself. Yet once again the question arises: are we capable of this? Is the other important enough to warrant my becoming, on his account, a person who suffers? Does truth matter to me enough to make suffering worthwhile? Is the promise of love so great that it justifies the gift of myself? In the history of humanity, it was the Christian faith that had the particular merit of bringing forth within man a new and deeper capacity for these kinds of suffering that are decisive for his humanity. The Christian faith has shown us that truth, justice and love are not simply ideals, but enormously weighty realities. It has shown us that God —Truth and Love in person— desired to suffer for us and with us. Bernard of Clairvaux coined the marvellous expression: Impassibilis est Deus, sed non incompassibilis—God cannot suffer, but he can suffer with. Man is worth so much to God that he himself became man in order to suffer with man in an utterly real way—in flesh and blood—as is revealed to us in the account of Jesus’s Passion. Hence in all human suffering we are joined by one who experiences and carries that suffering with us; hence con-solatio is present in all suffering, the consolation of God’s compassionate love—and so the star of hope rises. Certainly, in our many different sufferings and trials we always need the lesser and greater hopes too—a kind visit, the healing of internal and external wounds, a favourable resolution of a crisis, and so on. In our lesser trials these kinds of hope may even be sufficient. But in truly great trials, where I must make a definitive decision to place the truth before my own welfare, career and possessions, I need the certitude of that true, great hope of which we have spoken here. For this too we need witnesses—martyrs—who have given themselves totally, so as to show us the way— day after day. We need them if we are to prefer goodness to comfort, even in the little choices we face each day—knowing that this is how we live life to the full. Let us say it once again: the capacity to suffer for the sake of the truth is the measure of humanity. Yet this capacity to suffer depends on the type and extent of the hope that we bear within us and build upon. The saints were able to make the great journey of human existence in the way that Christ had done before them, because they were brimming with great hope.

Reflection:

In our humanity, apart from God, solitude becomes like a tomb for us where there are dead and dying things. But as Christ enters into our solitude it becomes like a womb for us, where we are little and loved and there is life and growth. In this way, every suffering, every threat, every difficulty becomes only a reminder that I am in the womb of Mary, with Jesus. As things become more intense and the pressure increases, it is only because I am growing and drawing closer to birth, which is a victorious emergence into Eternal Life.

Do I have the certitude of the great hope that will not fail—Jesus Christ? Do I find strength in that hope even to suffer for the sake of truth and for the sake of others? Let us reflect on the little hopes and the great hope in our lives and then make an act of hope:

O my God, relying on Your almighty power and infinite mercy and promises, I hope to obtain pardon of my sins, the help of Your grace and life everlasting, through the merits of Jesus Christ, my Lord and Redeemer. Amen.

Prayers:

Veni Sancte Spiritus

Ave Maris Stella or Sub Tuum Praesidium

Litany of Penance or Radiating Christ

Prayer of Entrustment to the Womb of Mary

Emptying ourselves Day 8 – Light dispels darkness

Day 8 – Light dispels darkness

A Reading from the Book of Genesis:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.

And God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day. (Gen 1:1-5)

Pope Benedict XVI’s Easter Vigil homily 2012:

What is the creation account saying here? Light makes life possible. It makes encounter possible. It makes communication possible. It makes knowledge, access to reality and to truth, possible. And insofar as it makes knowledge possible, it makes freedom and progress possible. Evil hides. Light, then, is also an expression of the good that both is and creates brightness. It is daylight, which makes it possible for us to act. To say that God created light means that God created the world as a space for knowledge and truth, as a space for encounter and freedom, as a space for good and for love. Matter is fundamentally good, being itself is good. And evil does not come from God-made being, rather, it comes into existence only through denial. It is a “no”.

At Easter, on the morning of the first day of the week, God said once again: “Let there be light”. The night on the Mount of Olives, the solar eclipse of Jesus’ passion and death, the night of the grave had all passed. Now it is the first day once again – creation is beginning anew. “Let there be light”, says God, “and there was light”: Jesus rises from the grave. Life is stronger than death. Good is stronger than evil. Love is stronger than hate. Truth is stronger than lies. The darkness of the previous days is driven away the moment Jesus rises from the grave and himself becomes God’s pure light. But this applies not only to him, not only to the darkness of those days. With the resurrection of Jesus, light itself is created anew. He draws all of us after him into the new light of the resurrection and he conquers all darkness. He is God’s new day, new for all of us.

But how is this to come about? How does all this affect us so that instead of remaining word it becomes a reality that draws us in? Through the sacrament of baptism and the profession of faith, the Lord has built a bridge across to us, through which the new day reaches us. The Lord says to the newly-baptized: Fiat lux – let there be light. God’s new day – the day of indestructible life, comes also to us. Christ takes you by the hand. From now on you are held by him and walk with him into the light, into real life. For this reason the early Church called baptism photismos – illumination.

Reflection:

Saint Louis de Montfort reminded us that Baptism is an entrance into Mary’s womb. That is the place where we learn a new logic, where we are enlightened as to the real power, providence and plan of God. It is where we first draw close to Christ, like a twin with Him in the womb and we are formed with Him by the Holy Spirit and we become another Christ. Have I allowed the logic of God to be fully formed in me? Do I allow a new light from God to rise up in my mind and heart? Do I believe that, “Life is stronger than death, good is stronger than evil, love is stronger than hate, truth is stronger than lies?” Will I take Christ’s Hand again, as I once did in Baptism, and allow myself to be illumined by the light of His Love? Let us do that especially by making a Profession of Faith and recite the Creed.

Prayers:

Profession of faith (I believe in one God…)

Veni Sancte Spiritus

Ave Maris Stella or Sub Tuum Praesidium

Litany of Penance or Radiating Christ

Prayer of Entrustment to the Womb of Mary

Emptying ourselves Day 7 – Victory through love, patience, not power

Day 7 – Victory through love, patience, not power

A Reading from the Letter of Saint Paul to the Romans:

I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God; for creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of him who subjected it in hope; because creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning with labor pains together until now; and not only creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. (Romans 8:18-25)

Pope Benedict XVI’s Inaugural homily April 25, 2005:

In the Ancient Near East, it was customary for kings to style themselves shepherds of their people. This was an image of their power, a cynical image: to them their subjects were like sheep, which the shepherd could dispose of as he wished. When the shepherd of all humanity, the living God, himself became a lamb, he stood on the side of the lambs, with those who are downtrodden and killed. This is how he reveals himself to be the true shepherd: “I am the Good Shepherd . . . I lay down my life for the sheep”, Jesus says of himself (Jn 10:14f). It is not power, but love that redeems us! This is God’s sign: he himself is love. How often we wish that God would show himself the stronger, that he would strike decisively, defeating evil and creating a better world. All ideologies of power justify themselves in exactly this way, they justify the destruction of whatever would stand in the way of progress and the liberation of humanity. We suffer on account of God’s patience. And yet, we need his patience. God, who became a lamb, tells us that the world is saved by the Crucified One, not by those who crucified him. The world is redeemed by the patience of God. It is destroyed by the impatience of man.

Reflection:

Do I wish for the destruction of my enemies? Do I pray that God would show Himself the stronger and strike decisively against those who could hurt me? Do I suffer because of God’s patience? Try to make an act of trust that God is taking care of everything and working out His plan of salvation. Make an act of love to unite your sufferings to the sufferings of Christ.

The first threat that Jesus faced was from King Herod. We can think of the helplessness of Jesus when He was threatened by Herod’s power. He was effectively still in the womb of Mary, with no voice, no understanding, no plan, no defense. Rather than destroying Herod, Joseph was warned in a dream and He took Mary and the child and went to Egypt. He remained hidden and helpless. Learning the patience of Mary’s little lamb is so hard but also possible when we can place our trust in Mary and Joseph that they take care of us as they took care of Jesus.

Prayers:

Veni Sancte Spiritus

Ave Maris Stella or Sub Tuum Praesidium

Litany of Penance or Radiating Christ

Prayer of Entrustment to the Womb of Mary

Emptying ourselves Day 6 – The sign of a child

Day 6 – The sign of a child

Pope Benedict XVI’s Midnight Mass Homily 2006:

We have just heard in the Gospel the message given by the angels to the shepherds during that Holy Night, a message which the Church now proclaims to us: “To you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger” (Lk 2:11-12). Nothing miraculous, nothing extraordinary, nothing magnificent is given to the shepherds as a sign. All they will see is a child wrapped in swaddling clothes, one who, like all children, needs a mother’s care; a child born in a stable, who therefore lies not in a cradle but in a manger. God’s sign is the baby in need of help and in poverty. Only in their hearts will the shepherds be able to see that this baby fulfils the promise of the prophet Isaiah, which we heard in the first reading: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government will be upon his shoulder” (Is 9:5). Exactly the same sign has been given to us. We too are invited by the angel of God, through the message of the Gospel, to set out in our hearts to see the child lying in the manger.

God’s sign is simplicity. God’s sign is the baby. God’s sign is that he makes himself small for us. This is how he reigns. He does not come with power and outward splendour. He comes as a baby – defenceless and in need of our help. He does not want to overwhelm us with his strength. He takes away our fear of his greatness. He asks for our love: so he makes himself a child. He wants nothing from us other than our love, through which we spontaneously learn to enter into his feelings, his thoughts and his will – we learn to live with him and to practise with him that humility of renunciation that belongs to the very essence of love. God made himself small so that we could understand him, welcome him, and love him.

Reflection:

Let us meditate on the little God who comes to us and welcome him into our arms and our hearts and love him.

We learn to see Him better as we become more like Him. When we choose to become little and we accept our weakness we draw closer to the Baby Jesus in the womb of Mary. As we love Him, we enter into his feelings, his thoughts and his will and we enter into the heart and into the womb of Mary, to whom He first entrusted His life. We find ourselves pressed up against Him like two twins in the womb, experiencing His paradise in that place of perfect love.

Prayers:

Veni Sancte Spiritus

Ave Maris Stella or Sub Tuum Praesidium

Litany of Penance or Radiating Christ

Prayer of Entrustment to the Womb of Mary

Emptying ourselves Day 5 – God reveals himself to the childlike

Day 5 – God reveals himself to the childlike

A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew:

At that time Jesus declared, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been delivered to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. (Matthew 11:25-27)

From Benedict XVI’s homily to the International Theological Commission (Dec. 1, 2009):

We have heard that our Lord praises the Father because he concealed the great mystery of the Son the Trinitarian mystery, the Christological mystery from the wise and the learned, from those who did not recognize him. Instead he revealed it to children, the nèpioi, to those who are not learned, who are not very cultured. It was to them that this great mystery was revealed.

…[I]n our time there have also been “little ones” who have understood this mystery. Let us think of St Bernadette Soubirous; of St Thérèse of Lisieux, with her new interpretation of the Bible that is “non-scientific” but goes to the heart of Sacred Scripture; of the saints and blessed of our time: St Josephine Bakhita, Bl. Teresa of Calcutta and St Damien de Veuster. We could list so many!

But from all this the question arises: “Why should this be so?”. Is Christianity the religion of the foolish, of people with no culture or who are uneducated? Is faith extinguished where reason is kindled? How can this be explained? Perhaps we should take another look at history. What Jesus said, what can be noted in all the centuries, is true. Nevertheless, there is a “type” of lowly person who is also learned. Our Lady stood beneath the Cross, the humble handmaid of the Lord and the great woman illumined by God. And John was there too, a fisherman from the Sea of Galilee. He is the John whom the Church was rightly to call “the theologian”, for he was really able to see the mystery of God and proclaim it: eagled-eyed he entered into the inaccessible light of the divine mystery. So it was too that after his Resurrection, the Lord, on the road to Damascus, touches the heart of Saul, one of those learned people who cannot see. He himself, in his First Letter to Timothy, writes that he was “acting ignorantly” at that time, despite his knowledge. But the Risen One touches him: he is blinded. Yet at the same time, he truly gains sight; he begins to see. The great scholar becomes a “little one” and for this very reason perceives the folly of God as wisdom, a wisdom far greater than all human wisdom.

We could continue to interpret the holy story in this way. Just one more observation. These erudite terms, sofòi and sinetòi, in the First Reading are used in a different way. Here sofia and sìnesis are gifts of the Holy Spirit which descend upon the Messiah, upon Christ. What does this mean? It turns out that there is a dual use of reason and a dual way of being either wise or little. …

Then there is the other way of using reason, of being wise—that of the man who recognizes who he is; he recognizes the proper measure and greatness of God, opening himself in humility to the newness of God’s action. It is in this way, precisely by accepting his own smallness, making himself little as he really is, that he arrives at the truth. Thus reason too can express all its possibilities; it is not extinguished but rather grows and becomes greater. Sofìa and sìnesis in this context do not exclude one from the mystery that is real communion with the Lord, in whom reside wisdom and knowledge and their truth.

Let us now pray that the Lord will give us true humility. May he give us the grace of being little in order to be truly wise; may he illumine us, enable us to see his mystery in the joy of the Holy Spirit.

Reflection:

Do I see my own littleness? Do I see the greatness of God? Let us pray for true humility and the grace of littleness.

Mary’s womb is the Seat of Wisdom where we can be both little and wise. It is where we learn the Wisdom of Jesus who saved us by becoming small and weak. When we place ourselves in Mary’s womb and do all of our reasoning from that perspective, we take ourselves less seriously, empty out our intellectual pride and learn to delight in the wonders of God. We can think of the Baby Jesus in Mary’s lap as He reaches out to discover the world from that place of perfect love and safety.

Prayers:

Veni Sancte Spiritus

Ave Maris Stella or Sub Tuum Praesidium

Litany of Penance or Radiating Christ

Prayer of Entrustment to the Womb of Mary

Emptying ourselves Day 4 – God hears our cry

Day 4 – God hears our cry

A Reading from the Letter of Saint Paul to the Romans:

I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. So then it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me. …

So then, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh—for if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of sonship. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. (Romans 7:15-20; 8:12-17)

From Pope Benedict XVI Urbi et Orbi Christmas Message 2011:

This is the great evil, the great sin, from which we human beings cannot save ourselves unless we rely on God’s help, unless we cry out to him: “Veni ad salvandum nos! – Come to save us!”

The very fact that we cry to heaven in this way already sets us aright; it makes us true to ourselves: we are in fact those who cried out to God and were saved (cf. Esth [LXX] 10:3ff.). God is the Saviour; we are those who are in peril. He is the physician; we are the infirm. To realize this is the first step towards salvation, towards emerging from the maze in which we have been locked by our pride. To lift our eyes to heaven, to stretch out our hands and call for help is our means of escape, provided that there is Someone who hears us and can come to our assistance.

Jesus Christ is the proof that God has heard our cry. And not only this! God’s love for us is so strong that he cannot remain aloof; he comes out of himself to enter into our midst and to share fully in our human condition (cf. Ex 3:7-12). The answer to our cry which God gave in Jesus infinitely transcends our expectations, achieving a solidarity which cannot be human alone, but divine. Only the God who is love, and the love which is God, could choose to save us in this way, which is certainly the lengthiest way, yet the way which respects the truth about him and about us: the way of reconciliation, dialogue and cooperation.

Reflection:

Do I recognize that I cannot save myself? Do I believe that God will always hear my cry? Can I see that Jesus Himself is the answer to my cry, that He is God who has come close to me and He will never abandon me. He is my Savior.

We are crying for a home, crying to belong, crying for the things we need to grow, crying to make sense of the pain and find support, crying for others. When we cry out, Mary responds to us and brings us into her arms and even into that tighter, safer more beautiful embrace in her womb. In coming to share our human condition, Jesus made her womb the perfect place for all our needs to be met and also the place that we can always find Him, who is always the Son of God and also the Son of Mary.

Prayers:

Veni Sancte Spiritus

Ave Maris Stella or Sub Tuum Praesidium

Litany of Penance or Radiating Christ

Prayer of Entrustment to the Womb of Mary

Emptying ourselves – Day 3 – Self-sufficiency

Day 3 – Save us from the prideful presumption of self-sufficiency

A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to Luke:

[T]he Pharisees and their scribes murmured against his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” And Jesus answered them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” (Luke 5:30-32)

From Pope Benedict XVI Urbi et Orbi Christmas Message 2011:

This is how Christ is invoked in an ancient liturgical antiphon: “O Emmanuel, our king and lawgiver, hope and salvation of the peoples: come to save us, O Lord our God”. Veni ad salvandum nos! Come to save us! This is the cry raised by men and women in every age, who sense that by themselves they cannot prevail over difficulties and dangers. They need to put their hands in a greater and stronger hand, a hand which reaches out to them from on high. Dear brothers and sisters, this hand is Christ, born in Bethlehem of the Virgin Mary. He is the hand that God extends to humanity, to draw us out of the mire of sin and to set us firmly on rock, the secure rock of his Truth and his Love (cf. Ps 40:2).

This is the meaning of the Child’s name, the name which, by God’s will, Mary and Joseph gave him: he is named Jesus, which means “Saviour” (cf. Mt 1:21; Lk 1:31). He was sent by God the Father to save us above all from the evil deeply rooted in man and in history: the evil of separation from God, the prideful presumption of being self-sufficient, of trying to compete with God and to take his place, to decide what is good and evil, to be the master of life and death (cf. Gen 3:1-7). This is the great evil, the great sin, from which we human beings cannot save ourselves unless we rely on God’s help, unless we cry out to him: “Veni ad salvandum nos! – Come to save us!”

Reflection:

God does not answer prayers that cause us to need Him less. He is trying to save us from being alone and from needing no one. Generally when we go to an earthly physician, we hope that it will work well enough that we never need to see him again. This is not the approach of the Divine Physician—He seeks to treat us so that we never try to go without Him again, because He Himself is the cure. Let us reflect on the ways we try to use God in order to need God less.

A baby in the womb is so radically dependent on his/her mother, but never better off by being outside of the womb. Even if a baby must be born prematurely, the doctors care for it best by creating a womb-like environment as much as possible. But a baby with a perfect, loving mother cannot find a better place to grow in love and life than in the womb. This is true for us with Mary as well, until we are ready to be born into Eternal Life (which is a new kind of womb where God is in us and we are in God).

Prayers:

Veni Sancte Spiritus

Ave Maris Stella or Sub Tuum Praesidium

Litany of Penance or Radiating Christ

Prayer of Entrustment to the Womb of Mary

Emptying Ourselves Day 2 – Original sin poisons our thinking

A Reading from the Letter of Saint Paul to the Philippians:

So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any incentive of love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfishness or conceit, but in humility count others better than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. (Phil 2:1-8)

From Pope Benedict XVI’s homily for the Immaculate Conception, December 8, 2005:

Dear brothers and sisters, if we sincerely reflect about ourselves and our history, we have to say that with this narrative [in Gen 3:1-7] is described not only the history of the beginning but the history of all times, and that we all carry within us a drop of the poison of that way of thinking, illustrated by the images in the Book of Genesis.

We call this drop of poison “original sin”. Precisely on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, we have a lurking suspicion that a person who does not sin must really be basically boring and that something is missing from his life:  the dramatic dimension of being autonomous; that the freedom to say no, to descend into the shadows of sin and to want to do things on one’s own is part of being truly human; that only then can we make the most of all the vastness and depth of our being men and women, of being truly ourselves; that we should put this freedom to the test, even in opposition to God, in order to become, in reality, fully ourselves.

In a word, we think that evil is basically good, we think that we need it, at least a little, in order to experience the fullness of being. We think that Mephistopheles – the tempter – is right when he says he is the power “that always wants evil and always does good” (J.W. von Goethe, Faust I, 3). We think that a little bargaining with evil, keeping for oneself a little freedom against God, is basically a good thing, perhaps even necessary.

If we look, however, at the world that surrounds us we can see that this is not so; in other words, that evil is always poisonous, does not uplift human beings but degrades and humiliates them. It does not make them any the greater, purer or wealthier, but harms and belittles them.

Reflection:

Do I ever think that if I am “too good” life will be boring? Do I think that goodness is boring? Do I try to leave a little room for evil in my life, maybe on the weekend or just on Friday night or on vacation or after everyone has gone to bed? Am I only good when my spouse is nearby or an authority figure? Do I gloss over my sinfulness and justify it, even in the Confessional, with a phrase like, “Boys will be boys,” or “You gotta have a little fun!” Can I hear God calling me to a deeper conversion, to shut down these outlets and pursue goodness more whole-heartedly?

No one lived a more exciting life than Jesus and Mary, starting from when Jesus was conceived in the womb of Mary at the Annunciation and then she carried Him to her cousin Elizabeth. When we are willing to live in such a constant dependent relationship with Mary by being in her womb, life becomes more exciting, full and rich.

Prayers:

Veni Sancte Spiritus

Ave Maris Stella or Sub Tuum Praesidium

Litany of Penance or Radiating Christ

Prayer of Entrustment to the Womb of Mary

Emptying Ourselves Day 1 – Dependence on God

First Part – Emptying ourselves of the spirit of the world

One of the consequences of original sin is that we have been tainted by a spirit of the world. That spirit of independence, self-sufficiency, and grasping at control is very much with us. We need to see it intellectually as far as we are able. For this we seek the wisdom God gave us through one of the greatest teachers of our time, Pope Benedict XVI. This will help to expose the taint of original sin that has invaded our thinking. We also need the grace to turn away from it. For this we must pray earnestly. Some other forms of self-sacrifice will help us well. In this regard we can target those areas that further the spirit of the world. Intellectually we would do well to fast from content on media that propagates the lies—TV, Facebook, Netflix, secular news sources and other forms social media reinforce the thinking that is poisoned by original sin. We can also cut back on those things and activities we turn to as a substitute for prayer. That could include comfort food, alcohol, shopping, romance novels, over-exercising, excessive work, or others. Some self-knowledge is important here and also consultation with a close spiritual friend or spiritual director.

Day 1 – Dependence on God

A Reading from the Book of Genesis:

Now the serpent was more subtle than any other wild creature that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree of the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. (Genesis 3:1-7)

From Pope Benedict XVI’s homily for the Immaculate Conception, December 8, 2005:

If we set ourselves with the believing and praying Church to listen to this text, then we can begin to understand what original sin, inherited sin, is and also what the protection against this inherited sin is, what redemption is.

What picture does this passage show us? The human being does not trust God. Tempted by the serpent, he harbours the suspicion that in the end, God takes something away from his life, that God is a rival who curtails our freedom and that we will be fully human only when we have cast him aside; in brief, that only in this way can we fully achieve our freedom.

The human being lives in the suspicion that God’s love creates a dependence and that he must rid himself of this dependency if he is to be fully himself. Man does not want to receive his existence and the fullness of his life from God.

He himself wants to obtain from the tree of knowledge the power to shape the world, to make himself a god, raising himself to God’s level, and to overcome death and darkness with his own efforts. He does not want to rely on love that to him seems untrustworthy; he relies solely on his own knowledge since it confers power upon him. Rather than on love, he sets his sights on power, with which he desires to take his own life autonomously in hand. And in doing so, he trusts in deceit rather than in truth and thereby sinks with his life into emptiness, into death.

Love is not dependence but a gift that makes us live. The freedom of a human being is the freedom of a limited being, and therefore is itself limited. We can possess it only as a shared freedom, in the communion of freedom:  only if we live in the right way, with one another and for one another, can freedom develop.

We live in the right way if we live in accordance with the truth of our being, and that is, in accordance with God’s will. For God’s will is not a law for the human being imposed from the outside and that constrains him, but the intrinsic measure of his nature, a measure that is engraved within him and makes him the image of God, hence, a free creature.

If we live in opposition to love and against the truth – in opposition to God – then we destroy one another and destroy the world. Then we do not find life but act in the interests of death. All this is recounted with immortal images in the history of the original fall of man and the expulsion of man from the earthly Paradise.

Reflection:
Where can you see this thinking in your own life? In what ways are you suspicious of love? Unwilling to ask for help? Rebellious against God’s law? Do you fear that God wants to take something away from you? Are you willing to rely on Him for everything? In what ways do you seek a security in your own control?

A baby in the womb is so radically dependent on the mother, but also so perfectly provided for. God has given us in Mary and in the Church a Mother who wants to provide for everything as she forms us in her womb into another Christ.

Prayers:

Veni Sancte Spiritus

Ave Maris Stella or Sub Tuum Praesidium

Litany of Penance or Radiating Christ

Prayer of Entrustment to the Womb of Mary