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A SPECIAL LENTEN MESSAGE
HELP TO MAKE YOUR LENT THE VERY BEST IT CAN BE
THE CRUCIFIED SAVIOR WAITS FOR YOUR HEART
I thought it would be appropriate to share with you some
reflective insights for this oncoming Lent. We are all given
this grace of Lent to make it the very best we can.
Love was never meant to remain still.
Herein are some points of meditations for these special days
of grace.
Lent is for each of us to make a sincere and honest journey within.
Do not be afraid to meet the stranger within. Welcome your imprisoned stranger which / whom we have stifled and hidden. Bring it out during
this Lent.
Say “Hello” to it, and analyze it in faith, hope and love -- but only after
you have psychologically recognized its causes. Do not say
“goodbye” to your imperfections or even sins, just simply turn them into stepping stones to personal victory and sanctity just as Jesus did
with Mary Magdalene. Each soul has a story -- all its own -- to tell. Become fearlessly intimate friends with yourself. You will be surprised how a stranger can become a friend!
PRAYER:
O Jesus, I place myself at the foot of the Cross; stay close to me,
and help me to understand how necessary it is to suffer in order
to resemble You.
1- Lent offers each of us some earthly time to be with JESUS CRUCIFIED.
Any soul who aspires to union with God through penance
( going into self-knowledge ) is not only a means of subjecting
the flesh ( our human nature ) to the spirit, but it also offers
a means of being assimilated to Christ Crucified which is
to be identified / Baptism in the Spirit
with Our Blessed Savior Crucified, so as
to reproduce and prolong His Passion in its own body.
2- Love makes equality and similitude.
If one really and truly loves, then one has a spontaneous
desire to share in the sufferings of the loved one; and this
is the same with lovers of the Crucified.
3- The ashes which the priest sacramentally places upon our
foreheads today has no substance; the lightest breath will
disperse it. It tells us that it reminds us that it is a good representation of
man and woman’s nothingness.
The Psalm 38:6 substantiates this when it says: “O Lord, my substance is
as nothing before
You."
4- These words spoken for the first time by God to
Adam after he had committed sin, are repeated today
by the Church to every Christian. Why? In order to remind
us of two fundamental truths -- our nothingness and
the reality of our death.
5- Today’s liturgy is an invitation to penance
-- a cleanup job!
Remember that you have only one soul: that you only have
one death to die... then there will be many things about which
you care nothing about. This means that you will have
to give up many things about which you no longer care for as
then they being nothing; that is, you will give up everything that has
no eternal value.
Only love and fidelity to God are of value for eternity.
IN THE EVENING OF LIFE, YOU WILL BE JUDGED ON LOVE
SOME POINTS OF BENEFICIAL REFLECTIVE TOPICS FOR LENT:
1- The reality of death.
2- Returning Love for Love
3- The Proof of Love
4- The Spirit of Mortification and self- abnegation
5- The Great Combat -- self and others, the evil one
6- Conversion -- the chance to return to love
7- The Reality of sin and its destructions
8- The Examination of Conscience ( Inner Healing )
9- The Transfiguration - the chance to start over again
a- Humility
b- Confidence
c- Faith
d- To be hidden from myself
e- To be hidden with Christ
f- True Glory - the only honest victory
g- The value of holy obedience
h- Come and follow Our Lord
i- The sacrifice of liberty
j- Life and its daily crosses
k- Suffering and abandonment
l- The value of suffering -- not wasting pain
m- Our Lady and her seven sorrows
n- Love of the Cross
o- The supper at Bethany
p- The triumph of Jesus ( Palm Sunday )
q- The Man of Sorrows
r- The Gift of Love from the Cross
s- The Mystery of the Cross
t- The Victory of the Cross
Blessing you all, +
Father Ralph