DAILY MARIAN DEVOTIONAL

The Imitation of Mary | 1768 | ALEXANDER DE ROUVILLE

[markomalley]

Book I

CHAPTER 5

WE MUST GIVE OURSELVES TO GOD WHILE ON EARTH

LISTEN, my daughter, with care to what I shall say to you: Forget your people and your father's house (Ps 45:11), and you shall win the heart of the king which you have touched. That king is your God.

During her life on earth Mary listened to the voice of God that called her into solitude; from her earliest years she left her father's house and consecrated herself to God in the temple. Nothing could hold her back: not youthfulness nor bodily weakness nor love of parents.

Everything that delays the sacrifice of a heart which seeks and loves God alone, afflicts that heart, for it also delays its happiness.

Once she became an inhabitant of the temple, Mary fulfilled in the most perfect way possible the duties that were entrusted to her in accordance with her age and strength.

She devoted to prayer and meditation the lime left to her; that is how she prepared herself for the very special graces God was to give her.

O daughter of heaven's king, how noble and splendid are the first steps you take! (Song 7:2).

Others will follow your example. "In your train countless virgins will joyfully consecrate themselves in the temple of the king of kings." The offering they will make to the God of their youth, their heart, their freedom, their entire self, will be an act of perfect homage to His majesty; and the homage will be a source of blessings which He shall heap upon them throughout their lives.

What self-deception to think that the young are not capable of virtue!

Mary and the Saints have shown us how profitable it is for a man to have carried the yoke of the Lord from his very youth (Lam 3:27).

Do we treat God as God when we give Him only the shabby remnants of a life that was given us that we might spend it wholly in His service? What kind of a sacrifice are we offering to God when we wait to commit ourselves to His service until, by worldly standards, we have neither strength nor means left?

Do not wait until old age to give yourself to God. By that time we are exhausted from the world's yoke and have no strength left to carry God's yoke.

You say you will give yourself to God when you are older. But when will that day corne? And when it comes, will you succeed in turning to God as easily as you think?

Experience teaches us that mature years bring knowledge but not necessarily wisdom.

Lord! Lord! Open the door for us! (Mt 25:11), cried the foolish virgins but they came too late and knocked on the door in vain.

Experience teaches us that maturer years make us ready to enter the presence of the supreme judge, Who asks an account of one's whole life!

The man who does not consecrate to God the early years of his life may well fear that to punish him God may allow his life to be long drawn out.

My God, how many know You but do not love You! I should be inconsolable at the thought. But, if I am easily consoled, can I at least say that I have at last begun to love You?

If I were only a child once again! I would want mind and heart, thoughts and affections, everything in me, to be given to You.

Thank You for Your great mercy in preserving my life while I spent it in offending You.

I beg for Your grace! May it help me to serve You until my dying breath, and to serve You all the more faithfully as I have begun so late to be Your servant.

[markomalley]

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[markomalley]

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[markomalley]

From The Glories Of Mary, by Saint Alphonsus de Liguori:

Most Holy Mary, Mother all-good and all-loving, when I remember my sins and think of the moment of death, I tremble and scarcely know where to turn. But my hope is in the Blood of Jesus Christ and thy powerful intercession, O my loving Mother.

Comforter of the afflicted, be with me in that hour, console me in that great affliction. If even now the remorse over my sins, the uncertainty of pardon, the danger of relapse, and the rigor of Divine Justice so frighten me, how will it be with me then?

Ah my Lady, obtain for me before death comes a deep sorrow for my sins, true amendment, and fidelity to God for the remainder of my days.

And when at last the hour of death arrives, O Mary my hope, help me in that terrible anguish in which I will find myself. Strengthen me against despair over the remembrance of my sins, which the devil will call up before me.

Obtain for me the grace to call upon thee over and over in that dread hour, so that I may die with thy name and the name of thy most holy Son on my lips.Thou hast granted this grace to so many of thy clients. I too desire it and hope for it.
Amen.

[PatriotGirl827]

Thank you!