A Christian must have a great heart. A Christian’s dealings with his fellowmen should be a generous outpouring of supernatural affection, overcoming a tendency to egoism.
We pray that Our Lord enlarge our hearts; that He help us to offer our sincere friendship to more people; that He may move us to do apostolate with everyone, regardless of their response, even if we must often submerge our ego, or set aside our personal preferences.
Part and parcel of a loyal friendship is making a positive effort. We will maintain this attitude through a constant friendship with Jesus Christ, “to understand the convictions of our friends, even though we may never come to share them or accept them” (St Josemaria Escrivá, “Furrow”, 746) if they are irreconcilable with our Christian convictions.
Assisted by grace, we will show charity towards those who do not behave as children of God; but rather offend Him, because “no sinner, as a sinner, is worthy of love; but every man, as a man, is lovable by God” (St Augustine, “On Christian Doctrine”, 1:27). They all remain as children of God, capable of conversion and attaining eternal life.
When our friends lack formation or are ignorant in doctrinal matters, display character defects, or even seem indifferent to such things, we must not get discouraged. These failings are urgent signs that reveal a greater need of spiritual help, an invitation to intensify our concern. After all a friend is a person who always wills the good of the other.
If at some time we suffer through particularly painful rebuffs in our efforts to befriend people in the course of our apostolate, we should ask for Our Lady’s help. Very often we have contemplated her at the foot of the Cross, enduring the infamous things done to her Son; and many of those offences came from us.
We must resolve to get close to those relatives, friends and acquaintances who are most in need. Let us ask Our Lady for the necessary graces to realize it.
Ref: Cf F Fernandez, “In Conversation with God”, 3:343-5
Be Artisans of the Charity of Christ
“Those who believed were together and shared all things in common; they would sell their property and goods, distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.” (cf Acts 2:44-5)
Our relationships with our neighbor are of capital importance. ‘Neighbor’ obviously means those who live beside us, in the family, neighborhood; in the town or village, in the city. Also those we work with, those who are suffering, are sick, know loneliness, are really poor.
My neighbor is all those who are geographically quite distant, or who are exiled from their own countries, lack food and clothing, often lack liberty.
My neighbor is all those unfortunates who have been completely or almost ruined by unforseeable and dramatic catastrophes, which have thrown them into physical and moral want, often enough also into the sadness of losing their dearest ones. ...
‘Sharing’ is a duty which no one of goodwill, above all no disciple of Christ, can evade.
Ref: Cf Pope John Paul II, “Prayers and Devotions”, 1994, pp148-9
Repairing Sin’s Damage
Penance is closely connected with reconciliation with God, with oneself and with others. It implies overcoming that radical break which is sin. And this is achieved only through interior transformation or conversion which bears fruit in a person’s life through acts of penance ...
Sacred Scripture speaks to us of this reconciliation, inviting us to make every effort to attain it. But Scripture also tells us it is above all, God’s merciful gift to humanity.
The wonderful history of salvation, a reconciliation by which God, as Father, in the blood and cross of his Son made man, reconciles the world to himself; thus brings into being a new family: those who have been reconciled.
Ref: Pope John Paul II, “Breakfast With the Pope”, 1995, 34
On Commitments
In ‘a broad perspective of our commitments, Mary Most Holy’, the highly favoured daughter of the Father, will appear before the eyes of believers as the perfect model of love towards both God and neighbor. As she says in the Canticle of the ‘Magnificat’, great things were done for her by the Almighty, whose name is holy (cf Lk 1:49).
The Father chose her for a ‘unique mission’ in the history of salvation: to be the Mother of the long-awaited Saviour. The Virgin Mary responded to God’s call with total openness: “I am the handmaid of the Lord.” (Lk 1:38)
Her motherhood, which began in Nazareth and was lived most intensely in Jerusalem at the foot of the Cross, continues as a loving and urgent invitation addressed to all the children of God, so that they will return to the house of the Father when they hear her maternal voice: “Do whatever Christ tells you.” (cf Jn 2:5)
Ref: Cf Pope John Paul II, Apostolic Letter, “Tertio Millennio Adveniente”, pp64-5
Lourdes: The fourteenth apparition
‘Wednesday.’ Bernadette, with her mother and faithful aunt Bernarde, left for the grotto at seven in the morning. She had to cross a mass of about three-thousand people to reach her usual place.
Despite her prolonged prayers, Bernadette was not awarded with an apparition. Crying, she anxiously thought of reasons for “Aquero’s” not appearing. Finally, she returned home and went to school.
That afternoon, her uncle advised her to go back to the grotto. On arrival, she found the Lady awaiting her. As soon as she fell into ecstasy, as we read in her memoirs: “when I was inside the grotto, after reciting the rosary, I asked on behalf of our parish priest, to tell me her name.” The answer she got was a tender smile.
When Peyramale was informed, he was skeptical. While he couldn’t deny that the visions had reawakened religious fervor in Lourdes, the affair was dangerous. Bernadette should stop meeting with a stranger.
If she really wanted a chapel built, she would just have to identify herself and give some sort of sign, for example, make the rose arbor in the grotto bloom. That would certainly be tangible proof of her powers.
Ref: Cf G Menotti, “Lourdes”, p12
• Establishment of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception by Sixtus IV (1476). (maryfest.htm / www.starharbor.com/santiago/m_feasts.html)
• Establishment of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception by Sixtus IV (1476). (maryfest.htm / www.starharbor.com/santiago/m_feasts.html)
• Our Lady of Longport, in Valois. This abbey of the Cistercian order was founded in the year 1131 by Josselin, Bishop of Soissons. — Gallia Christiana, t. iv. (“Catholic Gems or Treasures of the Church” Historical Calendar; www.bethlehemobserver.com)
• Our Lady of Longpont / Longport. Valois, France. 1131. (www.marylinks.org/Mary-Calendar.htm); (www.miraclehunter.com/marian_apparitions/calendar/index.html)
• Our Lady of Longpont (Valois, France). (maryfest.htm / www.starharbor.com/santiago/m_feasts.html)
• Our Lady of Longport, Valois, France (1131). (www/divinewill.org/feastofourlady.htm); (www.iskandar.com/ourlady/ourladyfeasts.html)
• Our Lady of Angels of Toulouse, France. (www/divinewill.org/feastofourlady.htm); (www.iskandar.com/ourlady/ourladyfeasts.html); (www.marylinks.org/Mary-Calendar.htm)
• Our Lady of Angels. Toulouse, France. (www.miraclehunter.com/marian_apparitions/calendar/index.html); (http://mariedenazareth.com)
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