Category Archives: Love Crucified

Unite ALL Your Sufferings as a Gift to the Christ Child

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Christ is Born….
Without Jesus you cannot carry your own cross, it is only through Him, with Him, and in Him that you are able to carry your own cross and unite it to Him. This is grace, remain close to HIM.

Reflection received on this 3rd day of Christmas after watching “The Song of Bernadette”. December 27, 2021

Watch “Embrace Our Sacrifices – Sep 12 – Homily – Fr Dominic” on YouTube

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I found myself praying the Chaplet of Hannah’s Tears on Saturday and actually reflecting on my inability to embrace my cross ✝ . Without those times of prayer, in times of suffering don’t forget to quiet yourself in prayer with Christ. He will prepare you and me as Father has reiterated in the homily above. God bless you today as we unite our ✝ with the Cross of Christ Jesus.

In the Hearts of the Holy Family,

Therese

Union with God

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Intimate Union with God in the Eucharist
In “The Q&A Guide to Mental Prayer,” Connie Rossini writes, “Blessed Marie-Eugène, OCD, says that there are three ways to intimate union with God. The first (in hierarchical order) is the Eucharist, the second is contemplation, and the third is supernatural obedience (obeying authority with the motive of obeying Christ himself).
Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange describes this union with God when we receive the Blessed Sacrament:
“Communion is, therefore, the most perfect act of the interior life, and if we prepare ourselves for it with humility, zeal, and meekness, we shall find there the most efficacious means for union with God. While our body receives the body of Christ, our soul is united to His soul, our intelligence to His light, our heart to the everburning sun of His love. Our Lord unites Himself to us to assimilate us to Himself, to make of us other Christs. Every Communion that is not sacrilegious and sterile increases the degree of charity in us. Who then can measure the effects of daily Communion, above all of fervent daily Communion?”(From “Knowing the Love of God,” Chapter 18)
Fr Kieran Kavanaugh explains in his commentary on The Way of Perfection that, “On account of the presence, St. Teresa prizes the time after Communion as a privileged time for the prayer of recollection.”
If you are not yet receiving infused contemplation, take heart that with each Communion, you are experiencing the highest union with God available in this life. Don’t miss the great gift of prayer after receiving the Eucharist. Be recollected and converse lovingly with Him after Communion.
Daily mental prayer disposes you to have more fervent Communions, and each fervent Communion, in turn, helps to deepen your mental prayer.
Connie continues, “Jesus reserves nothing from you in the Blessed Sacrament. He gives himself fully. If you fully gave yourself to him in preparation for the reception of the Eucharist, you could theoretically become a saint through one Communion. However, very few people would be able to prepare themselves so perfectly without having a deep prayer life, usually one that includes contemplation. More frequently, your reception of the Eucharist becomes more efficacious as your prayer deepens.”

Shared from Facebook group: Authentic Contemplative Prayer

The Foot of the Cross

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Although not reflective perhaps of the season, the following passage from Fr. Faber from one of his works that I have been reading speaks beautifully of the unity and alliance of the two Hearts, the Sacred Heart of our Lord and the Immaculate Heart of Mary; two hearts joined so completely in God the Father’s design and in our redemption.
“God vouchsafed to select the very things about Him which are most incommunicable, and in a most mysteriously real way communicate them to her. See how He had already mixed her up with the eternal designs of creation, making her almost a partial cause and partial model of it. Our Lady’s co-operation in the redemption of the world gives us a fresh view of her magnificence. Neither the Immaculate Conception nor the Assumption will give us a higher idea of Mary’s exaltation than the title of co-redemptress. Her sorrows were not necessary for the redemption of the world, but in the counsels of God they were inseparable from it. They belong to the integrity of the divine plan. Are not Mary’s mysteries Jesus’ mysteries, and His mysteries hers? The truth appears to be that all the mysteries of Jesus and Mary were in God’s design as one mystery. Jesus Himself was Mary’s sorrow, seven times repeated, aggravated sevenfold. During the hours of the Passion, the offering of Jesus and the offering of Mary were tied in one. They kept pace together; they were made of the same materials; they were perfumed with kindred fragrance; they were lighted with the same fire; they were offered with kindred dispositions. The two things were one simultaneous oblation, interwoven each moment through the thickly crowded mysteries of that dread time, unto the eternal Father, out of two sinless hearts, that were the hearts of Son and Mother, for the sins of a guilty world which fell on them contrary to their merits, but according to their own free will.”

— Fr. Frederick Faber, The Foot of the Cross.

Shared from Fr. David Abernathy, Pittsburgh Oratory on Facebook.