Spiritual Gift of the Week
We ask for the grace to humbly receive and respond to the healing mercy of Christ.
Mary intercede for us, that we may clearly see the light and love of your son.
Spiritual Instruction of the Week
We have access to God’s light and an inner vision of God’s love. Pray for sight and insight.
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Dear Beautiful Daughters of Mary,
There is an Indian fable that can be interpreted as a message on prayer. It goes like this: The wise of India suggest that if a person does not attend to true happiness, but foolishly follows every temporary pleasure, then he or she will become like the fly who, in one moment alights on candy and next flies to a pile of dung. But if one attends to what is really true, she becomes like the bee who goes from nectar to nectar. And a postscript to complete our brief fable: the bee’s movement is guided by images not colors, for bees are color blind.
We pray for spiritual sight. It is our desire to see God clearly. We want to attend to the true light and love of Christ. So we pray, as Teresa of Avila wrote, we “remain in recollection like a wise bee.” Nectar to nectar—light to love— for God’s light and love is true sight.
We pray for insight. It is our desire to see ourselves clearly—never blind to our faults and failings, our sin, our weakness, our disorder. We pray and discern, for our inner deceptions and temptations are like “colors,” which attract us to sin and disorder. We want insight, that our movements will be guided, not by colors, but rather, by God’s image. Where we find sin—we will also find God’s forgiveness. Where we find disorder—we will also find God’s order. And when we feel distressed or desolate—we remain, that we may be reassured by Christ’s light and love. We move in prayer from insight to sight.
We have access to God’s light and an inner vision of God’s love. Pray—see the flowering of God’s image in our hearts—move from nectar to nectar. Again we may reflect on even more of Teresa of Avila’s thought: ”Remain in recollection like a wise bee…enjoy the gift!”
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ONLY IN PRAYER CAN WE FIND SIGHT.
Taken from the original text of the Spiritual Exercises conceived by Ignatius of Loyola
(adapted by Michael Hansen S.J)
I will allow the spirit to rest a little, considering where I am going and for what purpose. I make a gesture of reverence and humility. I read the prayer texts.I ask the Creator for help and understanding of my senses that I may use them better for the greater service of God.
I desire spiritual progress through the gifts of my body.
1. I consider my sense of sight. What has the Creator given me here?
2. Where do I see best in my life?
3. Where do I see the least in my life?
4. I reflect on the contrary of my sight.
After 3 minutes of consideration, I ask the Lord for what I desire.
Say the Our Father. The same procedure is repeated for each of the five senses.
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This week we celebrate the feast of our own Pope Saint John Paul II (October 22). Let us remember and celebrate his words, written In a Letter To Women in June, 1995:
“Necessary emphasis should be placed on the “genius of women”, not only by considering great and famous women of the past or present, but also those ordinary women who reveal the gift of their womanhood by placing themselves at the service of others in their everyday lives. For in giving themselves to others each day women fulfill their deepest vocation. Perhaps more than men, women acknowledge the person, because they see persons with their hearts. They see them independently of various ideological or political systems. They see others in their greatness and limitations; they try to go out to them and help them. In this way the basic plan of the Creator takes flesh in the history of humanity and there is constantly revealed, in the variety of vocations, that beauty-not merely physical, but above all spiritual-which God bestowed from the very beginning on all, and in a particular way on women.”
Preghiamo—Let us pray,
Deb
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