Vol.5 No.21 DoM E Message
Spiritual Gift of the Week
We ask for the grace to receive and proclaim the good news of Christ, especially to those closest to us. Mary, Mother of Mercy, intercede for us, your daughters. Amen
Spiritual Instruction of the Week—Presented by Lindsay Nagy
Christ made manifest the love of God.
Let us practice fully opening our hearts to receive this love and make it manifest in our lives.
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Dear Beautiful Daughters of Mary,
This week we heard Part I in a 2-part presentation on receptivity to God’s love—
Presented by Lindsay Nagy.
Read her words below. Then rest in silence:
What are we tuned into? Are we tuned in to Fox news, worried about the upcoming presidential election or terrorist plot? Are we tuned in to the Weather Channel glued to the latest crisis weather situation? Are you like me wanting to escape reality into the fantasy world of HGTV and watch marathon of episodes of “Flip or Flop” or “Fixer Upper” and then find yourself wondering why it seems so easy and inexpensive to have the house of your dreams? Are we tuned in to ourselves…busy calling our friends venting about problems? Is this how our prayer sounds too? From the moment we open our eyes in the morning, we are bombarded by new challenges and new distractions attempting to cut off our awareness and receptivity to the love of God. What happens to us when we allow ourselves to fall into this trap? How do we feel? Anxious? (thank you Fox news), fearful? (thank you Weather Channel), or depressed? (thanks HGTV!!). The truth is, when we aren’t tuned correctly, when we aren’t dialed in to the true source of truth and happiness, we feel disconnected to others, agitated, doubtful, hopeless etc. etc.…the list of negative thoughts goes on and on.
We all long for a deeper and more intimate union with Christ. A union is about giving and receiving love and remaining faithful to it. His abundant love is all around us, but how receptive are we to it? The reality is, that there are forces at work trying their best to separate us and distract us from the transformative power of His Love. It seems we fall every other minute, no matter how pure our intentions are. All it takes is a simple thought, a distraction, and the disconnection begins. It is a battle of our spirit to remain open and in union with the Love of God. The lives of the saints show us the way-they remind us of what each of us were created for. To be in union with perfect love and to reflect it to each person we encounter.
How can we stay faithful to Jesus’s promises, to our union, to His Love? We have to practice receiving his love first. We worship and receive him in the sacrament of the Eucharist, but we see by the betrayal of the disciples after the last supper how limited and weak the return of our love can be. Our participation is just for show if we are not consciously tuning our hearts to receive Jesus. When we don’t receive him with our hearts, we too are rejecting him. How can we discipline ourselves to be better disciples? How can we allow him to fully transform us? How can we help him fulfill his plan for us?
I found a post on IgnatianSpirituality.com from Marina McCoy who is a philosophy professor at Boston College. She lists four ways that we can open ourselves up to receiving God’s love. Over the next two weeks, we will reflect on these practices, and hopefully we will better tune our hearts to receive the love of God.
1. Rest in Silence.
Quieting our own interior voice allows the voice of God to rise to the top. Psalm 46 sums this up perfectly, “Be still and know that I am God!” This is what the catechism calls contemplative prayer. St. Teresa of Avila defines this as “a close sharing between friends; it means taking the time frequently to be alone with him who we know loves us.”
Contemplative prayer “seeks him whom my soul loves”. It is Jesus, and in him, the Father. We seek him, because to desire him is always the beginning of love, and we seek him in that pure faith which causes us to be born of him and to live in him. (CCC 2709)
Entering into contemplative prayer is like entering into the Eucharistic liturgy: we “gather up” the heart, recollect our whole being under the prompting of the Holy Spirit, abide in the dwelling place of the Lord which we are, awaken our faith in order to enter into the presence of him who awaits us. We let our masks fall and turn our hearts back to the Lord who loves us, so as to hand ourselves over to him as an offering to be purified and transformed. (CCC 2711)
Contemplative prayer is the prayer of a child of God, of the forgiven sinner who agrees to welcome the love by which he is loved and who wants to respond to it by loving even more. But he knows that the love that he is returning is poured out by the spirit in his heart, for everything is grace from God. Contemplative prayer is the poor and humble surrender to the loving will of the Father in ever deeper union with his beloved Son. (CCC 2712) Contemplation is a gaze of faith, fixed on Jesus. The focus on Jesus is a renunciation of self. His gaze purifies our heart; the light of the countenance of Jesus illumines the eyes of our heart and teaches us to see everything in the light of his truth and his compassion for all men. Thus it learns the “interior knowledge of our Lord, “the more to love him and follow him. (ccc 2715).
Contemplative prayer is the simple expression of the mystery of prayer. It is a gaze of faith fixed on Jesus, an attentiveness to the Word of God, a silent love. It achieves real union with the prayer of Christ to the extent that it makes us share in his mystery. (2724) Quiet time with the Lord is essential to our spiritual growth. We must always remember to make this time a priority in our day. If we wait until we have time, it won’t happen! Whether it be sitting quietly with the Lord in front of the blessed sacrament in Adoration, or with your cup of coffee in a quiet place in your home, we can all make the time to as St. Teresa says, “be alone with him who we know loves us”.
1. Ignatianspirituality.com titled Receptivity to the Love of God
2. Catechism of the Catholic Church
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“We must avoid the attitude of someone who judges and condemns from the lofty heights of his own certainty, looking for the splinter in his brother’s eye while remaining unaware of the beam in his own.” (Pope Francis in The Name of God Is Mercy)
Vieni, Spirito Santo, la misericordia di Dio ci salva—Come Holy Spirit, it is by God’s mercy that we are saved,
Deb
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