The Indestructible Temple
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November 9, 2019. Feast
of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica
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Father Steven Reilly, LC
John 2: 13-22
The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus
went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep,
and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of
cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle.
He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their
tables. He told those who were selling the doves, "Take these things out
of here! Stop making my Father´s house a marketplace!" His disciples
remembered that it was written, "Zeal for your house will consume
me." The Jews then said to him, "What sign can you show us for
doing this?" Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and in
three days I will raise it up." The Jews then said, "This temple
has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in
three days?" But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After he was
raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and
they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
Introductory Prayer: Lord, I believe that You are here with me,
and I hope in Your boundless mercy and love. Thank You for watching over me
and keeping me in Your friendship. Thank You for the precious gift of our
Mother, the Church.
Petition: Lord, increase my zeal!
1. The Indestructible Temple: Today we celebrate the dedication of St.
John Lateran Basilica, known as the “mother and head of all the churches.”
Going to Rome and visiting this wonderful church, now some seventeen
centuries old, one gets a sense of the durability of Catholicism. The
Catholic Church has been around for a long time, and it will be around for a
lot longer — until judgment day, to be exact. No matter how hard the world
has tried, it hasn’t been able to destroy the temple of the Church. This
should give us a deep confidence that the Lord is with us as we journey
through history.
2. Purification: Being indestructible doesn’t mean, however,
that the Catholic Church does not need constant purification. When our Lord
arrived to the temple in Jerusalem, he found many things that marred the
spirit of prayer and devotion that was to characterize that sacred building.
His vigorous reaction serves to underline the high vocation of holiness that
God had given to the Chosen People. We Catholics have inherited that call;
yet all too often, the ways of the world creep into our souls. Each one of us
needs to submit to the Lord’s purification. He will challenge us in our
conscience, and sometimes that will sting like the whip of cords. But if we
are sincere in our desires, we accept this with humility, aware that our
souls must be living temples of God’s presence.
3. Consuming Zeal: When the apostles contemplated our Lord’s
action in the temple, “zeal” was the word that summed it all up. Jesus is
zealous because he doesn’t accept the status quo of entrenched mediocrity.
The day he arrives it is no longer business as usual: His Father’s house WILL
be respected. Too often we let the barnacles of laziness and the accretions
of apathy weigh down and extinguish our zeal. Every day we must pray that the
Lord will once again “enkindle in our hearts the fire of his love.” Our zeal
in living the faith is part of the way God works to make this temple of his
Church indestructible. Don’t we want to cooperate with his love, so that the
“gates of hell will not prevail?”
Conversation with Christ: Lord, I love Your Church. I thank You for
the priceless gift of my Catholic faith. Protect the Church from all her
enemies and help me to be an effective apostle filled with authentic zeal.
Resolution: I will offer myself to collaborate in a
parish ministry or other Catholic apostolate out of love for the Church.
Excerpts from the
DIARY of Saint Faustina Kowalska
38 In order to purify
a soul, Jesus uses whatever instruments He likes. My soul underwent a
complete abandonment on the part of creatures; often my best intentions were
misinterpreted by the sisters,[26] a type of suffering which is most painful;
but God allows it, and we must accept it because in this way we become more
like Jesus. There was one thing which I could not understand for a long time:
Jesus ordered me to tell everything to my Superiors, but my Superiors did not
believe what I said and treated me with pity as though I were being deluded
or were imagining things.
Because of this,
believing myself to be deluded, I resolved to avoid God interiorly for fear of
these illusions. But the grace of God pursued me at every step, and God spoke
to me when I least expected it.
95 +A Deeper
Knowledge of God and the Terror of the Soul.
In the beginning, God
lets himself be known as Holiness, Justice, Goodness - that is to say, Mercy.
The soul does not come to know this all at once, but piecemeal, in flashes;
that is to say, when God draws near. And this does not last for long, because
the soul could not bear such light. During prayer the soul experiences
flashes of this light which make it impossible to pray as before. Try as it
may to force itself to pray as it did before, all is in vain; it becomes
completely impossible for it to continue to pray as it did before it received
this light. This light which has touched the soul is alive within it, and
nothing can either quench or diminish it. This flash of the knowledge of God
draws the soul and enkindles its love for Him.
But this same flash,
at the same time, allows the soul to know itself as it is; the soul sees its
whole interior in a superior light, and it rises up alarmed and terrified.
Still, it does not remain under the effects of terror, but it begins to
purify itself, to humble and abase itself before the Lord. These lights
become stronger and more frequent; the more the soul is crystallized, the
more these lights penetrate it. However, if the soul has responded faithfully
and courageously to these first graces, God fills it with His consolations
and gives himself to it in a perceptible manner. At certain moments, the
soul, as it were, enters into intimacy with God and greatly rejoices in this;
it believes that it has already reached the degree of perfection destined for
it, because its defects and faults are asleep within it, and this makes it
think that they no longer exist. Nothing seems difficult for it; it is ready
for everything. It begins to plunge itself into God and taste the divine
delights. It is carried along by grace and does not take account of the fact
that the time of trial and testing may come. And, in fact, this state does
not last long. Other moments will soon come. I should add here, however, that
the soul will respond more faithfully to divine grace if it has a well -
informed confessor to whom it can confide everything.
178 Today we are
beginning the third probation. All three of us met at Mother Margaret's, as
the other sisters were having their probation in the novitiate. Mother
Margaret began with a prayer, explained to us what the third probation
consists of, and then spoke on how great is the grace of the perpetual vows.
Suddenly I began to cry out loud. In an instant all God's graces appeared
before the eyes of my soul, and I saw myself so wretched and ungrateful
toward God. The sisters began to rebuke me, saying, "Why did she break out
crying?" But Mother Margaret came to my defense, saying that she was not
surprised.
At the end of the
hour, I went before the Blessed Sacrament and, like the greatest and most
miserable of wretches, I begged for His mercy that He might heal and purify
my poor soul. Then I heard these words, My
daughter, all your miseries have been consumed in the flame of My love, like
a little twig thrown into a roaring fire. By humbling yourself in this way,
you draw upon yourself and upon other souls an entire sea of My mercy. I
answered, "Jesus, mold my poor heart according to Your divine
delight."
+ For the Greater Glory of God.
The Eight-day Retreat before Perpetual Vows.
218 I am beginning
the retreat today. Jesus, my Master, guide me. Govern me according to Your
will, purify my love that it may be worthy of You, do with me as Your most
merciful Heart desires. Jesus, there will be just the two of us during these
days until the moment of our union. Keep me, Jesus, in a recollected spirit!
551 How great should each one's
love for the Church be! As a good child prays for the mother it loves, so
also should every Christian soul pray for the Church, its Mother. What then
should be said of us religious who have especially committed ourselves to
praying for the Church? How great, then, is our apostolate, hidden though it
be. All our little daily nothings will be placed at the feet of the Lord
Jesus as a propitiatory offering for the world; but in order that our
offering may be pleasing to God, it must be pure. And for it to be pure, the
heart must be freed of all natural attachments, and all its affections must
be directed towards the Creator, loving all creatures in Him and according to
His will; and, acting thus, each with a zealous spirit will bring joy to the
Church.
1611 + When the
chaplain [Father Theodore] brings me the Lord Jesus, there are moments when I
am pervaded with a very vivid presence of God, and the Lord gives me to know
His holiness. At such times, I see the smallest speck on my soul, and I would
like to purify my soul before every Holy Communion. When I asked the
confessor, he said there was no need to confess before every Holy Communion.
Holy Communion takes away these tiny things and it is a temptation to think
about confession when receiving Holy Communion. I did not go on to explain
the condition of my soul in any greater detail, because he was not my
director, but the confessor.237 This knowledge does not take up my time,
because it is faster than lightning; it enkindles my love, leaving me with a
knowledge of myself...
(Diary
of Sister Faustina Kowalska Notebook-I-38, 95, 178, 218)
(Diary
of Sister Faustina Kowalska Notebook-II-551)
(Diary
of Sister Faustina Kowalska Notebook-VI-1611)
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Nobyembre 09, 2019
The Indestructible Temple-Divine Mercy Miracles Meditations
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