Rogation Wednesday

Petitions of a Contrite Heart.

Preparation. - God readily accepts the prayer of the contrite. But what should such a one pray for? For what the penitent king David implored: first, a pure heart and an upright mind, and secondly, the grace not to be rejected from God’s presence, or deprived of the guidance of His holy Spirit. That we may be properly prepared for the feast of the Ascension, let us implore these favors with feelings of humility and compunction, for “O God, Thou wilt not despise a contrite and humble heart.” (Ps. 50. 19).

I. We Ought to Pray for a Pure Heart and an Upright Mind.

The royal prophet, enlightened by God, understands the deep defilement caused in his soul by his sins, a defilement all the tears in the world cannot efface. Hence he beseeches Him, who endowed Adam with original justice, to create a clean heart in him. Knowing, moreover, that by offending the supreme Good, our reason turns out of its way, seeking the creature instead of the Creator, the penitent king asks of God an upright mind, like that of our first parents before their fall: “Renew the right spirit within my bowels” (Ps. 50. 12). How precious are these two graces, how worthy they are to excite our desires! A heart is pure when it is penetrated with horror at the slightest faults, corrects its defects, combats it imperfections, and lives constantly disengaged from the earth and itself, in order to aspire to the possession of the infinite and eternal Good. Thence arises that uprightness, so noble and meritorious, which induces us to consider God alone in all our actions.

According to St. Augustine, the Lord gave us two feet to remind us that we have to walk on earth in two ways; in the one to flee the world, and in the other to proceed to our last end. He gave us two hands, because of our duties towards God and towards our neighbor. But why, asks the saint, did God give us but one heart? Because the supreme Good wishes to be alone loved above all and undividedly. To love God otherwise, says Tertullian, is a kind of idolatry, for it is doing homage to and bestowing one’s affection on creatures as on God or even more so.

O my God, how many idols still defile my heart! How many vices, defects, evil propensities rule over me! By how many worldly maxims and prejudices am I influenced? How much envy, vanity and hypocrisy are mingled with my pious exercises, not to mention the aversions, rash suspicions and judgments, backbiting and criticism in the discharge of the duties of my state, to the detriment of Thy glory and of the love due to Thee!

Lord God almighty, deign to create in me a pure heart and to renew in my interior the spirit of innocence and uprightness. I will thereby seek Thee sincerely, unselfishly and without attachment to creatures. Thou shalt then be the sole object of my thoughts, of my intentions, projects and desires. In Thee alone will I place all my rest, all my glory, all my hopes and all my happiness. Be Thou, then, ever my only good, my only love. “Create a clean heart in me, O God, and renew the right spirit within my bowels.”

II. We Ought to Fear Being Rejected by God and Deprived of His Holy Spirit.

When Saul, by his duplicity and disobedience, had sinned against God, “the Lord hath rejected thee,” said Samuel to him (I Kings 15. 23). And Lord said: “I removed him from before my face” (2 Kings 7. 15). What was the result? “The Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him” (I Kings 16. 14). And can we, after this, be astonished to hear David, after his sin, expressing his fears lest this two-fold punishment should befall him? “Cast me not away from Thy face,” he prayed, “and take not Thy holy Spirit from me.” (Ps. 50. 13).

The face of God is His Word, the image of His substance, in whom is every good. To be cast away from God’s face is to be deprived of participation in the merits of Jesus, such as are given to His friends. To be forsaken by the Holy Ghost, is no longer to experience the effects of His presence, nor to receive His special inspirations, or the graces of sanctification granted by Him to holy souls. How sad and dangerous is such a state! Holy Scripture calls it a divine abandonment, a vomiting, for disgusted with a cowardly, tepid and faithless soul, God can no longer bear with it. This is sometimes a foreboding of damnation.

O my God, I say to Thee with the royal prophet, cast me not away from Thy face, from the eternal Word, by whom all things were created, from the Incarnate Word, who restored every thing in heaven and on earth. Deprive me not of the happiness of sharing in the graces every Christian derives from prayer and the sacraments.

And Thou, Consoling Spirit, whom Jesus deigned to send us after His Ascension, do not refuse me Thy bright light, Thy gifts so precious, Thy consolations so sweet, Thy attractions so powerful and so efficacious. Deign to impart to me first, the gift of fear, to inspire me with horror for all that displeases Thee; secondly, the gift of fortitude, to help me to overcome temptations and to bear adversity, and thirdly, the gift of piety to bind me to God and my neighbor by the strongest ties of a disinterested charity. And thou, O Mary, Spouse of the Holy Ghost and Mother of the Incarnate Word, help me to be faithful to my Creator and supreme Good, so that He may never cast me away from my Savior and the Spirit of love, but that He may closely unite me to His infinite Goodness, by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, and the sanctifying influence of the divine Paraclete. “Cast me not away from Thy face, and take not Thy holy Spirit from me.”

Read more...

Rogation Tuesday

The Lord’s Prayer. 

Preparation. – After considering for whom we ought to pray, let us meditate on the most beautiful of prayers and we shall see, first, the excellence of the Our Father and the twofold object of the petitions our Lord proposes therein, and secondly, the means He therein indicates to attain this twofold object. As fruit of our meditation we should endeavor to recite this beautiful prayer according to the wishes of our divine Master, laying special stress on the third petition, which includes all our duties: “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

I. The Excellence and Twofold Object of the Our Father.

How greatly should we not value a formula of prayer proceeding from the lips and heart of the Incarnate Word, in whom dwell all the treasures of wisdom and science! The saints were never weary of praising the Lord’s Prayer. St. Cyprian considers it as the abridgment of the Gospel. St. Thomas calls it the expression of our requests and the rule of our desires. The only-begotten Son of God, having become our Brother, taught it to us Himself, for He alone was able to teach us the right and worthy language we should use in addressing the Sovereign Majesty, deigning to listen to our supplications.

“Our Father,” He bids us call God. And is not this proper, since the heavenly Father has adopted us as His children in Jesus Christ? With what respect, confidence and love should not his name, so august and so loving, inspire us! With what charity towards all men, since we pray to Him in union with all! “Our Father, who art in heaven”; in heaven, where Thou reignest and where we are destined one day to contemplate Thee in the heritage of the saints.

But what do we ask of this infinitely rich, infinitely beneficent Father? Nothing less than His glory and our salvation. He created every thing for this twofold object, which should also be ours in all our prayers and actions. “Hallowed be Thy name,” means as if we said: “May Thou, our God and Father, be ever better and better known, loved, served and glorified.” “Thy kingdom come,” that is, “deign to reign over us, in this world by Thy grace, and in the next by the fullness of all the goods of glory.”

What is more worthy of our desires and inquiries? As children of God, is it not our chief duty to seek first the glorification of our Father? And as this duty is inseparable from that of our salvation, we add: “Thy kingdom come.”

O my God, who didst adopt me for Thy child, do not permit me to become a hireling seeking his own interest instead of Thine. Enable me to strive unceasingly to honor and glorify Thee even at the cost of my humiliation, and to seek Thy reign by subjecting myself to Thee. Purify my intentions and detach my heart from created goods. I am resolved, first, to refer to Thy glory all my actions, sufferings and combats, in order to honor Thy infinite perfections, and secondly, constantly to increase in me Thy holy friendship, without which there can be no salvation for me. “Hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come.”

II. The Means Indicated by the Lord’s Prayer to Attain Our Twofold End.

After proposing to us the twofold object to be obtained, our Lord teaches us to ask for the means of so doing. The object to be attained consists in the fulfillment of all our duties and the strength requisite for this. All our duties, whatever they may be, are contained in the divine will, which we should accomplish on earth as the angels and saints do in heaven, that is, most perfectly. “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” But how can we acquit ourselves of these duties, without the soul’s spiritual food and the body’s material nourishment? Our Lord teaches us to ask for them thus: “Give us this day our daily bread,” that is, actual grace, the Blessed Eucharist and corporal food.

Notwithstanding our good will, how many obstacles are there not to our progress in virtue! In the past, the sins we have committed and which prevent our soul from going by an easy way to God. In the present time temptations beset and harass us on our way. In the future, we see the punishments that threaten us and tend to diminish the confidence we so greatly need for our progress.

These three kinds of evils, past, present and future, are comprised in the last three petitions of the Our Father. We seek to be freed therefrom, so as the better to attain our twofold end, the procuring of the heavenly Father’s glory, and our sharing in the next life His endless happiness. O that we were as fervent as the saints when we recite this beautiful prayer! Let us, then, say with St. Francis of Assisi:

“O God, our most holy Father, who art in heaven, in the angels and the blessed! Hallowed be Thy name. Enable us to understand the generosity of Thy benefits, the extent of Thy promises, the sublimity of Thy holy Majesty. Thy kingdom come, so that Thou mayst reign over us by Thy grace, and that we may thus reach the kingdom of Thy elect. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, so that we may thereby love Thee with our whole heart, with our whole soul, with all our mind and all our strength, and our neighbor as ourselves, by drawing him to Thee. Give us this day our daily bread, that is, Thy well-beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Forgive us our trespasses, through Thy unspeakable mercy, the merits of Jesus Christ and the intercession of all the saints. As we forgive those who trespass against us; give us the grace to love our enemies. And lead us not into temptation either hidden or manifest, sudden or importunate. But deliver us from past evil, present evil and future evil. Amen."

Read more...