Secret Greatness

Jesus in the praetorium is the image of man who has "given God's power back to him." He expiated all the abuse we have made and continue to make of our freedom; this freedom we want no one to touch and which is nothing other than slavery to ourselves. We must impress this episode of Jesus in the praetorium well into our hearts, because the day will come when we will also find ourselves in this state, either due to man or to age, and then only Jesus will be able to help us understand and sing, amid tears, our new-found freedom. There is an intimacy with Jesus that can only be obtained by staying close to him, cheek to cheek, in the hour of his and our ignominy, we too bearing "his abuse" (see Heb 13:13). Many people have been condemned by illness or a disability to a helplessness similar to Christ's in the praetorium and have to spend their lives in wheelchairs, or in bed. Jesus reveals the secret greatness hidden in these lives if lived in union with him.

--Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, O.F.M.Cap.

God's Surprises

Newness always makes us a bit fearful, because we feel more secure if we have everything under control, if we are the ones who build, programme and plan our lives in accordance with our own ideas, our own comfort, our own preferences. This is also the case when it comes to God. Often we follow him, we accept him, but only up to a certain point. It is hard to abandon ourselves to him with complete trust, allowing the Holy Spirit to be the soul and guide of our lives in our every decision. We fear that God may force us to strike out on new paths and leave behind our all too narrow, closed and selfish horizons in order to become open to his own. Yet throughout the history of salvation, whenever God reveals himself, he brings newness and change, and demands our complete trust: Noah, mocked by all, builds an ark and is saved; Abram leaves his land with only a promise in hand; Moses stands up to the might of Pharaoh and leads his people to freedom; the apostles, huddled fearfully in the Upper Room, go forth with courage to proclaim the Gospel. This is not a question of novelty for novelty’s sake, the search for something new to relieve our boredom, as is so often the case in our own day. The newness which God brings into our life is something that actually brings fulfilment, that gives true joy, true serenity, because God loves us and desires only our good. Let us ask ourselves: Are we open to “God’s surprises”? Or are we closed and fearful before the newness of the Holy Spirit? Do we have the courage to strike out along the new paths which God’s newness sets before us, or do we resist, barricaded in transient structures which have lost their capacity for openness to what is new?
--Pope Francis, Homily at Pentecost 2013
http://www.news.va/en/news/pope-at-pentecost-newness-harmony-and-mission

"Some who had been cured of evil spirits" by Fr. de Caussade

The Master always begins by making himself known, loved, and appreciated in a sensible manner. Later he deprives the soul of these consolations in order to withdraw it from the grossness of the senses and to bring it into more excellent, more intimate, and more enduring union with himself in pure faith and pure spirit. To complete this purification, these deprivations must be followed by sufferings (interior if no other), interior rebelliousness, diabolical temptation, distress, helplessness, and distaste for all good, which themselves can sometimes amount to a kind of agony. All these serve admirably to rid the soul of its self-love and to give it certain features of resemblance to its crucified Spouse. All these agonies are so many blows which God levels at us to make us die to ourselves.The more self-love resists this spiritual death, the more savage these blows appear and the more cruel the agonies. The divine love is a double-edged sword that smites self-love until it is completely destroyed. Our pain has its source in that stout resistance offered by this accursed love of ourselves which hates to relinquish the control it has acquired over our heart and to allow the love of God to reign there in peace. If that love of God finds no obstacle to its divine ardors and no foe to resist it, it will make none but sweet and delightful impressions upon the heart.

Father Jean-Pierre de Caussade, S.J. (died 1751) was a French Jesuit, a writer, and a revered spiritual director.

Protecting the Seed, St. Catherine of Siena

Without light you cannot walk along the straight way of the spotless slain Lamb. This is why my soul longs to see you and the others honest and courageous, not whipped about by any wind that might come along. See that you don't turn back, but always go forward, keeping in mind the teaching you have been given. Return every day to the garden of your soul to root out any brambles that might choke the seed, the teaching you were given, and to till the soil. I mean, every day strip your heart clean. You really have to do it continually. I've seen many people who seemed to have been stripped clean, but I've found--more by their actions than by their words--that they are not. It is their actions that show where their heart is, though their words might show the opposite. So I want you truly to strip your heart clean by following Christ crucified... The pain of being deprived of all creaturely consolation has called me [to look at] my lack of virtue, to recognize how imperfect I am and how utterly perfect is the light of gentle Truth, provider and acceptor of holy desires, who plays no favorites. He has not withheld his kindness from me because of my ingratitude or because of my dearth of light and knowledge. No, he has regarded only his own supreme goodness.

St. Catherine of Siena (died 1380), Doctor of the Church, was a Dominican, stigmatist, and papal counselor.

Psalm 39: 8-13

Set me free from all my sins,
do not make me the taunt of the fool.
I was silent, not opening my lips,
because this was all your doing.

Take away your scourge from me.
I am crushed by the blows of your hand.
You punish man's sins and correct him;
like the moth you devour all he treasures.

Mortal man is no more than a breath;
O Lord, hear my prayer.
O Lord, turn your ear to my cry.
Do not be deaf to my tears.

In your house I am a passing guest,
a pilgrim, like all my fathers.
Look away that I may breathe again
before I depart to be no more.

"The Son of Man must suffer" by Father Philipon

In his divine wisdom... God preferred to bestir us rather to a deep and poignant awareness of our vocation as members of a crucified Christ. Hence, our weakness in doing good is intended to throw into sharper relief the sublime power of Christ, a power that enables us to support a life that is divine by grace in a vessel that is fragile, in a body inclined to sin and evil. The root of inclination to evil persists, and this provides us with opportunity for striving and conquering. Furthermore, in Christ lies the clue to the mystery of suffering. The adequate explanation must be sought in the contemplation of Christ crucified; only in the light of his suffering can we find the real meaning of human suffering. Thus, in the first place, according to God's own plan suffering is to be expiation and reparation. It is the way for sinful man to atone for his faults and those of his brothers. Suffering is also to be purification. It weans us from the fleeting and hollow pleasures of sin. A soul lifted by suffering, like Christ on Golgotha, above the things of earth turns to heaven and away from all that is not God. Also, suffering is to be meritorious and co-redeeming. That is why Saint Paul could say: "What is lacking of the sufferings of Christ I fill up in my flesh for his body, which is the Church." When a soul suffers out of pure and disinterested love without regard to itself, it is more useful to the Church militant and to the whole world than when it is engaged in a most brilliant and successful apostolate. Souls are saved by dying for them. It was not by his words, nor by his miracles, that Jesus saved the world, but by giving his life. To add to this, suffering is also to be sanctifying; through it we become like unto Christ in the highest degree possible on earth. God produces saints by conforming souls more and more to Christ crucified. Lastly, suffering makes us more like unto God, more nearly divine... To allow oneself to be crucified by suffering with Christ is to grow in the likeness to God. Who are the saints that regret having suffered? Suffering passes; having suffered, never.

Father Philipon (died 1972) was a twentieth-century French Dominican priest, theologian, and author.

Isaiah 50:4-9

The Lord God opens my ear that I may hear;
and I have not rebelled,
have not turned back.
I gave my back to those who beat me,
my cheeks to those who plucked my beard;
my face I did not shield
from buffets and spitting.

The Lord God is my help,
therefore I am not disgraced;
I have set my face like flint,
knowing that I shall not be put to shame.
He is near who upholds my right;
if anyone wishes to oppose me,
let us appear together.
Who disputes my right?
Let that man confront me.
See, the Lord God is my help;
who will prove me wrong?

How the Humble Are Exalted

The greatest certainty of spiritual safety in this life is to be found in thus utter self-abandonment which... consists in being driven to breaking-point and to an utter despair of oneself so as to have no hope but in God alone... Now God has given you two kinds of grace to bring you to this full self-abandonment: (1) strong inducements to tempt you to put full confidence in his great mercy and goodness; (2) surpassing understanding and penetrating awareness of your wretchedness, weakness, perversity, and general failure to achieve goodness. In effect he says to you: Know that in your present state you neither ought, nor can, in any wise help yourself, nor be helped by anything coming from that pit of corruption which is yourself. By self-abandonment, by renunciation of all recourse to self and by fixing all your thoughts upon me, do you then leave all your burdens to me!... Instead of shaking and undermining the soul's blessed joy, these discoveries inspire it with resolute trust... I have known... souls following this way to be astonished when they behold their trust in God increase proportionately with their increasing perception of their poverty, weakness, and misery. The explanation is that the keener this consciousness of our wretchedness and corruption becomes, the greater grows the self-distrust of those souls possessing it and the greater their corresponding trust in God.

--Father Jean-Pierre de Caussade, S.J. (died 1751) a French Jesuit, a writer, and a revered spiritual director.