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.”
