A New Mentality
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September 28, 2014.
Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
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Matthew 21: 28-32
"What do you
think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, ´Son, go and work
in the vineyard today.´ He answered, ´I will not´; but later he changed his
mind and went. The father went to the second and said the same; and he
answered, ´I am on my way, sir´; but he did not go. Which of the two did the
will of his father?" They said, "The first." Jesus said to
them, "Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are
going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you in the way
of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the
prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your
minds and believe him.
Introductory Prayer: In You, Lord, I find all my joy and
happiness. How could I offend You by chasing after fleeting success and
lifeless trophies? I believe in You because You are truth itself. I hope in You
because You are faithful to Your promises. I love You because You have loved
me first. I am a sinner; nevertheless, You have given me so many blessings. I
humbly thank You.
Petition: Lord, help me to follow You, regardless of
circumstances and times.
1. A Higher Authority: Jesus is in Jerusalem, exchanging words
with the Pharisees. They have tried to trap our Lord by asking him from where
he gets his authority. Our Lord, in his wit, turns it back to them. He asks
them a question which brings them to accuse themselves of lacking fidelity to
God. Jesus is looking for faith. Faith is the attitude that searches for an
authority in life higher than one’s own. When God calls us to live his will,
we should in faith accept it and live it. Even if it seems inconvenient or
uncomfortable to us, we should not look for ways to live outside it. It is
very important that we bypass inauthentic outlooks on life.
2. Christ’s Mentality: If we are to understand this Gospel
passage, we must make an effort to rid ourselves of the “modern mentality”.
In the modern mentality, we do whatever we please as long as we don’t step on
anyone else’s toes. Jesus proposes a different mentality. Jesus suggests that
we not only listen to, but also do the will of God in our lives. Neither son
in this parable was perfectly in tune with Christ’s suggestion, but at least
one of the sons came to his senses and repented for his stubbornness of
heart.
3. An Apparent Defeat: Many of us reading through this scene would
congratulate Jesus for putting down his enemies and winning the debate. We
would toss confetti at the Lord for his wisdom and knowledge in getting out
of this predicament. This, though, wasn’t the case. Jesus felt it as a loss.
He did not care about appearing better than the others. He left this
encounter saddened because he truly desired that the Pharisees believe him
and accept his saving message. We ought not to try to shine over our foes.
Instead we should work hard to help them see the light.
Conversation with
Christ: With even a little
of Your charity, I could certainly be a son of two “yeses.” Help me to say
“yes” when You ask me something and also to do it immediately – without
hesitating for even a moment. Lord, may Your will be done!
Resolution: This week, when the alarm goes off early to
start my day, I will make an effort to be diligent and punctual for love of
God’s will.
Excerpts from
the DIARY of Saint Faustina Kowalska
1
O Eternal Love, You command Your Sacred Image [1] to be painted
And
reveal to us the inconceivable fount of mercy,
You
bless whoever approaches Your rays,
And
a soul all black will turn into snow.
O
sweet Jesus, it is here [2] You established the throne of Your mercy
To
bring joy and hope to sinful man.
From
Your open Heart, as from a pure fount,
Flows
comfort to a repentant heart and soul.
May
praise and glory for this Image
Never
cease to stream from man's soul.
May
praise of God's mercy pour from every heart,
Now,
and at every hour, and forever and ever.
282 Once the Lord said to me, My Heart was moved by
great mercy towards you, My dearest child, when I saw you torn to shreds
because of the great pain you suffered in repenting for your sins. I see your
love, so pure and true that I give you first place among the virgins. You are
the honor and glory of My Passion. I see every abasement of your soul, and
nothing escapes my attention. I lift up the humble even to my very throne,
because I want it so.
388
See what grace and reflection made out of the greatest criminal. He who is
dying has much love: "Remember me when You are in paradise."
Heartfelt repentance immediately transforms the soul. The spiritual life is
to be lived earnestly and sincerely.
423 Praise the Lord, my soul, for everything, and glorify
His mercy, for His goodness is without end. Everything will pass, but His
mercy is without limit or end. And although evil will attain its measure, in
mercy there is no measure.
O my God, even in the punishments You send down upon the earth I see the abyss of Your mercy, for by punishing us here on earth You free us from eternal punishment. Rejoice, all you creatures, for you are closer to God in His infinite mercy than a baby to its mother's heart. O God, You are compassion itself for the greatest sinners who sincerely repent. The greater the sinner, the greater his right to God's mercy.
717
All night long, I was preparing to receive Holy Communion, since I could not
sleep because of physical suffering. My soul was flooded with love and
repentance.
852 Today the Lord's gaze shot through me suddenly, like
lightning. At once, I came to know the tiniest specks in my soul, and knowing
the depths of my misery, I fell to my knees and begged the Lord's pardon, and
with great trust I immersed myself in His infinite mercy. Such knowledge does
not depress me nor keep me away from the Lord, but rather it arouses in my
soul greater love and boundless trust. The repentance of my heart is linked
to love. These extraordinary flashes from the Lord educate my soul. O sweet
rays of God, enlighten me to the most secret depth, for I want to arrive at
the greatest possible purity of heart and soul.
908
+ O Jesus, how sorry I feel for poor sinners. Jesus, grant them contrition
and repentance. Remember Your own sorrowful Passion. I know Your infinite
mercy and cannot bear it that a soul that has cost You so much should perish.
Jesus, give me the souls of sinners; let Your mercy rest upon them. Take
everything away from me, but give me souls. I want to become a sacrificial
host for sinners. Let the shell of my body conceal my offering, for Your Most
Sacred Heart is also hidden in a Host, and certainly You are a living
sacrifice.
Transform
me into Yourself, O Jesus, that I may be a living sacrifice and pleasing to
You. I desire to atone at each moment for poor sinners. The sacrifice of my
spirit is hidden under the veil of the body; the human eye does not perceive
it, and for that reason it is pure and pleasing to You. O my Creator and
Father of great mercy, I trust in You, for You are Goodness Itself. Souls, do
not be afraid of God, but trust in Him, for He is good, and His mercy is
everlasting.
934 Small practices for Lent. Although I wish and desire
to do so, I cannot practice big mortifications as before, because I am under
the strict surveillance of the doctor. But I can practice little things:
first-sleep without a pillow; keep myself a little hungry; every day, with my
arms outstretched, say the chaplet which the Lord taught me; occasionally,
with arms outstretched, for an indefinite period of time pray informally.
Intention: to beg divine mercy for poor sinners, and for priests, the power
to bring sinful hearts to repentance.
1052 O my Jesus, I beg You on behalf of the whole Church:
Grant it love and the light of Your Spirit, and give power to the words of
priests so that hardened hearts might be brought to repentance and return to
You, O Lord. Lord, give us holy priests; You yourself maintain them in
holiness. O Divine and Great High Priest, may the power of Your mercy
accompany them everywhere and protect them from the devil's traps and snares
which are continually being set for the souls of priests. May the power of
Your mercy, O Lord, shatter and bring to naught all that might tarnish the
sanctity of priests, for You can do all things.
1248 I experience a desire to make reparation to the Lord
Jesus in a way which corresponds [to the offense]. Today I wore a chain belt
for seven hours in order to obtain the grace of repentance for that soul. In
the seventh hour I felt relief as the soul experienced interiorly the
remission of its sin, although it had not yet gone to confession. For sins of
the flesh, I mortify the body and fast to the degree that I am permitted. For
sins of pride, I pray with my forehead touching the floor. For sins of
hatred, I pray and do some good deed for a person whom I find difficult. And
thus I make amends according to the nature of the sin of which I am aware.
1489 Conversation of the Merciful God with a Perfect Soul.
Soul: My Lord and Master, I desire to converse with You.
Jesus: Speak, My
beloved child, for I am always listening. I wait for you. What do you desire
to say?
Soul: Lord, first let me pour out my heart at Your feet in
a fragrant anointing of gratitude for the many blessings which You lavish
upon me; even if I wanted to, I could not count them. I only recall that
there has never been a moment in my life in which I have not experienced Your
protection and goodness.
Jesus: Your words
please Me, and your thanksgiving opens up new treasures of graces. But, My
child, we should talk in more detail about the things that lie in your heart.
Let us talk confidentially and frankly, as two hearts that love one another
do.
Soul: O my merciful Lord, there are secrets in my heart
which no one knows or will ever know except You because, even if I wanted to
reveal them, no one would understand me. Your minister knows some because I
confess to him, but he knows only the bit of these mysteries that I am
capable of revealing; the rest remains between us for eternity, O My Lord!
You have covered me with the cloak of Your mercy, pardoning my sins. Not once
did You refuse Your pardon; You always had pity on me, giving me a new life
of grace. To prevent doubts, You have entrusted me to the loving care of Your
Church, that tender mother, who in Your name assures me of the truths of
faith and watches lest I wander. Especially in the tribunal of Your mercy
does my soul meet an ocean of favors, though You did not give the Fallen
Angels time to repent or prolong their time of mercy. O my Lord, you have
provided saintly priests to show me the sure way. Jesus, there is one more
secret in my life, the deepest and dearest to my heart: it is You yourself
when You come to my heart under the appearance of bread. Herein lies the
whole secret of my sanctity. Here my heart is so united with Yours as to be
but one. There are no more secrets, because all that is Yours is mine, and
all that is mine is Yours. Such is the omnipotence and the miracle of Your
mercy. All the tongues of men and of angels united could not find words
adequate to this mystery of Your love and mercy.
When I contemplate this mystery, my heart falls into a new
ecstasy. In silence I tell You everything, Lord, because the language of love
is without words; not a single stirring of my heart escapes You. O Lord, the
extent of Your great condescension has awakened in my soul an even greater
love for You, the sole object of my love. The life of union manifests itself
in perfect purity, deep humility, gentle silence, and great zeal for the
salvation of souls.
O my sweetest Lord, You watch over me each moment and
inspire me as to how I should act in a precise situation, when my heart
wavers between two things. You yourself frequently intervened in the
resolution of a difficulty. Countless times, by means of a sudden
enlightenment, You have given me to know what is the more pleasing to You.
Oh, how numerous are the instances of forgiveness about
which no one knows! How often You have poured into my soul courage and
perseverance to go forward. It is You yourself who removed obstacles from my
road, intervening directly in the actions of people. O Jesus, everything I
have said to You is but a pale shadow of what is taking place in my heart. O
my Jesus, how ardently I desire the conversion of sinners! You know what I am
doing for them to win them for You. Every offense against You wounds me
deeply. I spare neither strength, nor health, nor life itself in defense of
Your kingdom. Although my efforts may remain invisible on earth, they are no
less valuable in Your eyes.
O Jesus, I want to bring souls to the fount of Your mercy
to draw the reviving water of life with the vessel of trust. The soul
desirous of more of God's mercy should approach God with greater trust; and
if her trust in God is unlimited, then the mercy of God toward it will be
likewise limitless. O my God, Who know every beat of my heart, You know how
eagerly I desire that all hearts would beat for You alone, that every soul
glorify the greatness of Your mercy.
Jesus: My beloved
child, delight of My Heart, your words are dearer and more pleasing to me
than the angelic chorus. All the treasures of My Heart are open to you. Take
from this Heart all that you need for yourself and for the whole world. For
the sake of your love, I withhold the just chastisements, which mankind has
deserved. A single act of pure love pleases Me more than a thousand imperfect
prayers. One of your sighs of love atones for many offenses with which the
godless overwhelm Me. The smallest act of virtue has unlimited value in My
eyes because of your great love for Me. In a soul that lives on My love
alone, I reign as in heaven. I watch over it day and night. In it I find My happiness;
My ear is attentive to each request of its heart; often I anticipate its
requests. O child, especially beloved by Me, apple of My eye, rest a moment
near My Heart and taste of the love in which you will delight for all
eternity.
But child,
you are not yet in your homeland; so go, fortified by My grace, and fight for
My kingdom in human souls; fight as a king's child would; and remember that
the days of your exile will pass quickly, and with them the possibility of
earning merit for heaven. I expect from you, My child, a great number of
souls who will glorify My mercy for all eternity. My child, that you may
answer My call worthily, receive Me daily in Holy Communion. It will give you
strength...
Jesus, do not leave me alone in suffering. You know, Lord,
how weak I am. I am an abyss of wretchedness, I am nothingness itself; so
what will be so strange if You leave me alone and I fall? I am an infant,
Lord, so I cannot get along by myself. However, beyond all abandonment I
trust, and in spite of my own feeling I trust, and I am being completely
transformed into trust-often in spite of what I feel. Do not lessen any of my
sufferings, only give me strength to bear them. Do with me as You please,
Lord, only give me the grace to be able to love You in every event and
circumstance. Lord, do not lessen my cup of bitterness, only give me strength
that I may be able to drink it all.
O Lord, sometimes You lift me up to the brightness of visions,
and then again You plunge me into the darkness of night and the abyss of my
nothingness, and my soul feels as if it were alone in the wilderness. Yet,
above all things, I trust in You, Jesus, for You are unchangeable. My moods
change, but You are always the same, full of mercy.
1521 The Lord said to me, My daughter, do not tire of proclaiming My mercy. In this way you
will refresh this Heart of Mine, which burns with a flame of pity for
sinners. Tell My priests that hardened sinners will repent on hearing their
words when they speak about My unfathomable mercy, about the compassion I
have for them in My Heart. To priests who proclaim and extol My mercy, I will
give wondrous power; I will anoint their words and touch the hearts of those
to whom they will speak.
1698 l often attend upon the dying and through entreaties
obtain for them trust in God's mercy, and I implore God for an abundance of
divine grace, which is always victorious. God's mercy sometimes touches the
sinner at the last moment in a wondrous and mysterious way. Outwardly, it
seems as if everything were lost, but it is not so. The soul, illumined by a
ray of God's powerful final grace, turns to God in the last moment with such
a power of love that, in an instant, it receives from God forgiveness of sin
and punishment, while outwardly it shows no sign either of repentance or of
contrition, because souls [at that stage] no longer react to external things.
Oh, how beyond comprehension is God's mercy! But-horror!- there are also
souls who voluntarily and consciously reject and scorn this grace! Although a
person is at the point of death, the merciful God gives the soul that
interior vivid moment, so that if the soul is willing, it has the possibility
of returning to God. But sometimes, the obduracy in souls is so great that
consciously they choose hell; they [thus] make useless all the prayers that
other souls offer to God for them and even the efforts of God Himself...
1702 Towards the end of the Way of the Cross which I was
making, the Lord Jesus began to complain about the souls of religious and
priests, about the lack of love in chosen souls. I will allow convents and churches to be destroyed. I answered,
"Jesus, but there are so many souls praising You in convents." The
Lord answered, That praise wounds My
Heart, because love has been banished from convents. Souls without love and
without devotion, souls full of egoism and self-love, souls full of pride and
arrogance, souls full of deceit and hypocrisy, lukewarm souls who have just
enough warmth to keep them alive: My Heart cannot bear this. All the graces
that I pour out upon them flow off them as off the face of a rock. I cannot
stand them, because they are neither good or bad. I called convents into
being to sanctify the world through them. It is from them that a powerful
flame of love and sacrifice should burst forth. And if they do not repent and
become enkindled by their first love, I will deliver them over to the fate of
this world...
How can they
sit on the promised throne of judgment to judge the world, when their guilt
is greater than the guilt of the world? There is neither penance nor
atonement. O heart, which received Me in the morning and at noon are all
ablaze with hatred against Me, hatred of all sorts! O heart specially chosen
by Me, were you chosen for this, to give Me more pain? The great sins of the world
are superficial wounds on My Heart, but the sins of a chosen soul pierce My
Heart through and through...
1728 Write: I am
Thrice Holy, and I detest the smallest sin. I cannot love a soul which is
stained with sin; but when it repents, there is no limit to My generosity
toward it. My mercy embraces and justifies it. With My mercy, I pursue
sinners along all their paths, and My Heart rejoices when they return to Me.
I forget the bitterness with which they fed My Heart and rejoice at their
return.
Tell sinners
that no one shall escape My Hand; if they run away from My Merciful Heart,
they will fall into My Just Hands. Tell sinners that I am always waiting for
them, that I listen intently to the beating of their heart... when will it
beat for Me? Write, that I am speaking to them through their remorse of
conscience, through their failures and sufferings, through thunderstorms,
through the voice of the Church. And if they bring all My graces to naught, I
begin to be angry with them, leaving them alone and giving them what they
want.
1766 During this reading, my soul was filled with deep
repentance. I saw all the ingratitude of creatures toward their Creator and
Lord; I asked God to protect me from spiritual blindness.
(Diary of Sister Faustina Kowalska
Notebook-I-282, 388, 423)
(Diary of Sister Faustina Kowalska
Notebook-II-717, 852, 908, 934)
(Diary of Sister Faustina Kowalska
Notebook-III-1052)
(Diary of Sister Faustina Kowalska
Notebook-IV-1248)
(Diary of Sister Faustina Kowalska
Notebook-V-1489, 1521)
(Diary of Sister Faustina Kowalska
Notebook-VI-1698, 1702, 1728, 1766)
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Setyembre 28, 2014
A New Mentality-Divine Mercy Miracles Meditations
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