“Invoke the Heart of Holy Mary, with the purpose and determination of uniting yourself to her sorrow, in reparation for your sins and the sins of men of all times.
“And pray to her -- for every soul -- that her sorrow may increase in us our aversion from sin, and that we may be able to love the physical or moral contradictions of each day as a means of expiation.”
Ref: St Josemaria Escrivá, “Furrow”, 258
The use of holy water to conquer the devil
“You ask me why I always recommend, with such insistence, the daily use of holy water. I could give you many reasons. But there could be none better than that of the Saint of Avila: ‘From nothing do evil spirits flee more precipitately, never to return, than from holy water’.” (St Josemaria Escrivá, “The Way”, 572)
John Paul II exhorts us, when we pray, to think more about the last petition of the “Our Father: Lead us not into temptation. Deliver us from Evil -- from the Evil One. Do not let us give in, Lord, to the infidelity towards which the one who has been unfaithful right from the beginning entices us.” (“General Audience”, 13 August 1986)
The best way to show that we want to replace the devil’s ‘non serviam’ with our personal ‘Serviam: I will serve you, Lord’, is by a special effort to improve in our faithfulness to what we know God wants of us.
Ref: cf Francis Fernandez, "In Conversation with God", 2:36
Necessity and manner of doing penance
God imposes penance as a duty. This command is formal and universal. Except you do penance, you shall perish not ‘perhaps’ or ‘probably’; but simply, ‘you shall all perish’. Why? Because we are sinners!
After losing baptismal innocence our only road to heaven is penance. Again, why? The flesh, ever rebelling against the spirit, inclines us towards sin. Thus, “If by the spirit you mortify ... the flesh, you shall live” (Rom 8:13).
We are then obliged to do penance proportioned to the number and gravity of our sins (cf Council of Trent); and to do it always, but especially during Lent. Whatever our age or vigor, we can do penance in some way.
The desert Fathers, eminent for their penance, did it mainly in ‘fasting, vigils’, and ‘austerities’. On fasting, we can observe it at least partly. We can limit our ordinary food with due discretion to what is absolutely necessary. Or mortify our taste by habitually avoiding treats. Eating less of what we enjoy; more of what we don’t.
We are not obliged to break our sleep to keep vigil in the oratory. But always rise quickly from sleep -- the heroic minute. Let us at least ‘watch’ in our mental prayers, and in all spiritual activities, ‘never’ yielding to sleep or spiritual torpor. This can be a very painful struggle.
An article of faith is, what we have not atoned for in life by penance will be expiated by the fire of purgatory. Therefore, as St Augustine says, ‘do penance, or burn’. We can choose.
To habitually kneel or sit without a comfortable support; to pass through public places without ever satisfying our curiosity, is to do penance; and, if continuous, can become a severe one.
Ref: cf “Practical Meditations” by a Father of the Society of Jesus, 1964, pp91-3
“Father, I have sinned against you ...” (Lk 15:18)
During Lent, the Church ponders these words with particular emotion, since it is the time when the Church more profoundly desires to convert herself to Christ. ‘Without these words there is no conversion in all its interior meaning.’
Without these words, ‘Father, I have sinned’, man cannot truly enter into the Mystery of the Resurrection of Christ, so as to obtain the fruits of Redemption and Grace from them. Those key words show man’s great interior openness to God: ‘Father, I have sinned against you.’
If it is true that sin in a certain sense shuts man off from God, it is likewise true that ‘remorse’ for sins opens up all the greatness and majesty of God, his fatherhood above all, to man’s conscience.
Man remains shut to God so long as the words, ‘Father, I have sinned against you’, are absent from his lips, above all, ... from his conscience, from his ‘heart’.
Being converted to Christ, finding the interior power of His Cross and Resurrection, the full truth of human existence ‘in Christ’, is possible only with this form: ‘Father, I have sinned.’ And only at the cost of them.
In Lent, the Church labors above all that everyone may blame himself / herself for sins before God alone; and may consequently accept the salvific power of the pardon in Christ’s Suffering and Resurrection.
Ref: cf Pope John Paul II, “Prayers and Devotions”, 1994, pp124-5
Prayer for Perseverance
“O ALMIGHTY and most merciful God, Who, according to the multitude of Thy tender mercies, has vouchsafed once more to receive Thy prodigal child, after so many times going astray from Thee, and to admit me to this Sacrament of reconciliation; I give Thee thanks with all the powers of my soul for this and all other mercies, graces, and blessings bestowed on me; and prostrating myself at Thy sacred feet, I offer myself to be henceforth, forever Thine.
“Oh, let nothing in life or death ever separate me from Thee. I renounce with my whole soul all my treasons against Thee; all the abominations and sins of my past life. I renew my promises made in Baptism; from now on, I dedicate myself eternally to Thy love and service.
“Oh, grant that for the time to come I may abhor sin more than death itself, and avoid all such occasions and companies as have unhappily brought me to it. This I resolve to do, by the aid of Thy divine grace, without which I can do nothing. I beg Thy blessing upon these my resolutions, that they may not be ineffectual, like so many others I have formerly made; for, O Lord, without Thee I am nothing but misery and sin. Give me grace to be, now and always a true penitent, through the same Jesus Christ Thy Son. Amen.”
Ref: Very Rev Charles J Callan, OP, STM and Very Rev John A McHugh, OP, STM, “Blessed Be God”, 1925, p30
Our Lady of Good Succor [Good Aid (maryfest.htm / www.starharbor.com/santiago/m_feasts.html)], at Nancy, in Lorraine. This Madonna, it is believed, enabled Rene, Duke of Lorraine, to gain a victory over Charles the Bold, the last Duke of Burgundy. — Triple Couronne, n. 55. (“Catholic Gems or Treasures of the Church” Historical Calendar; http://www.bethlehemobserver.com)
Our Lady of Good Help (Montreal, Canada, 1657) (http://www/divinewill.org/feastofourlady.htm); (www.marylinks.org/Mary-Calendar.htm); (www.iskandar.com/ourlady/ourladyfeasts.html)
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