Posted on 09/18/2003 11:39:03 AM PDT by Hermann the Cherusker
'God Will Act and Will Reign'
By Tony Mullen
Last week, we examined how God can use our imperfections and faults to convert and save souls, and how we must never lose hope. God uses our failures - to overcome our faults and our involuntary lapses - for His glory and the salvation of souls if we trust and let Him act. This is the crucial fifth insight of the Little Way.
The humility of St. Thérèse of Lisieux and the other exemplars of the Little Way resulted in their complete abandonment. They let God act in their humanity in a very real way.
We begin with Sister Mary of the Trinity. Our Lord teaches us through her, "Your value does not lie in your personal capabilities, however brilliant they may be, but in your capacity to receive your Creator and allow Him to live and shine through you ...
"It is because you are nothing that I can take possession of you, substitute Myself for you. Oh, how I thirst for souls - how I long for them to surrender themselves to Me so that I may transform them, for them to surrender their humanity to Me so that I may work in the world! Why do you not hear My call?"
Our Lord then adamantly confirms this truth several more times: "All souls could rapidly attain to the plentitude of their sanctity if they allowed me to act, without resisting. Oh, the unacknowledged reserves of selfishness which paralyze the omnipotence of the Holy Spirit within you!"
"The purpose of your life does not lie in the personal merit due to your generosity; your merit will lie in using all your generosity to allow Me to live in you ...
"Remember this: the value of your existence is not in what you have done, or said, or suffered; it is in the part of your being that you have given to your Savior; in what you have allowed Me do to with you ... The best gift that you can make Me is to receive Me."
At about the same time, our Lord was giving identical counsel through Sister Consolata Betrone: "Let Me do everything! You will see that I will do everything and do it well, and that My little victim will become fruitful in love and in souls! ... I delight to work in a soul ... You see, I love to do everything Myself; and from you I ask only that you love Me ... You see Consolata, sanctity means self-forgetfulness in everything, in thoughts, desires, and words ... Allow me to do it all! I will do everything; but you should, at every moment, give Me what I ask for with much love!"
Our Lord summarizes the essence of the Little Way and further explains to yet another visionary Josef Menendez why the secret of humility is so attractive to Him:
"Souls that see themselves overwhelmed with miseries, attribute nothing good to themselves; and their very abjectness clothes them with a certain humility that they would not have if they saw themselves to be less imperfect.
"When therefore in the course of apostolic work ... or duty, a consciousness of their incapacity is forced upon them ... or when they experience a kind of repugnance to helping souls toward perfection to which they know themselves to be still strangers, such souls are compelled to humble themselves in the dust. If this self-knowledge impels them to My feet, asking pardon for their halting efforts, begging of My Heart the strength and courage they need, it is hardly possible for them to conceive how lovingly My Heart goes out to them and how marvelously fruitful I will make their labors."
Our Lord then makes a crucial distinction for us to learn which defines the Little Way: "... to souls who habitually promise and yet do no violence to themselves nor prove their self-denial and love in any way I say: 'Beware lest all this straw and stubble which you have gathered into your barns take fire or be scattered in an instant by wind!'
"But there are others, and it is of them I now speak, who begin their day with a very good will and desire to prove their love. They pledge themselves to self-denial or generosity in this or that circumstance ... But when the times comes they are prevented by self-love, temperment, health, (or other reasons) from carrying out what a few hours before they quite sincerely proposed to do. "Nevertheless, they speedily acknowledge their weakness and, filled with shame, beg for pardon, humble themselves and renew their promise ... Ah! Let them know that these souls please Me as much as if they had nothing with which to reproach themselves." Finally, for all those who have been converted, renewed or re-energized by Fatima, Lourdes, LaSalette, Betania, Akita and the many other places where our Lady has promised the triumph of her Immaculate Heart and the reign of peace, our Lord confirms this truth as a result of those who practice the Little Way.
The triumph of the Sacred Heart, the Eucharistic Reign, will indeed occur within human history, and then be fully perfected in eternity.
Jesus instructs Menendez: "I want to forgive. I want to reign over souls and pardon all nations. I want to rule souls, nations, the whole world.
"My peace must be extended over the entire universe, but in a special way over ... France where devotion to My Heart first took root (St. Margaret Mary) ... I shall reign! I will shower My mercies on the world to wipe out its ingratitude. To make reparation for its crimes, I will choose victims who will obtain pardon ...
"My appeal is addressed to all: to those consecrated in religion and those living in the world, to the good and to sinners, to the learned and the illiterate, to those in authority and those who obey ... I am Mercy and Love! And I must be sovereign King ... All My longing is to set souls on fire ... those of the entire world ...
"Alas! They turn from the flame, but I shall triumph, they will be Mine and I shall be their King ... This is why I want to make a chain of souls whose hearts will be more and more on fire with love, love that trusts and expects everything from My Heart ... so that they will communicate it to the whole world ...
"That the world may know My clemency, I need apostles who will reveal My Heart ... but first they must know it themselves ... otherwise how can they teach others?
"Unceasingly use My Life, My Blood, My Heart ... confide constantly and without fear in this Heart: this secret is known to few; I want you to know it and profit by it."
Anthony J. Mullen is the director of the Children of the Father Foundation.
Bump & Ping.
To quote another recent article, "Remarkable!"
Why then is Philadelphia lacking in allowing the Latin Mass? There are 2 Masses for this very large metropolitan area, but they are both in inconvenient locations and at unusual times.
There are actually a few more than two Masses. Nobody seems to be demanding more than we currently have though. There is no big campaigns for more Masses. The arrangement of 4 Indult Masses, one SSPX chapel, and two independents seems to make everyone happy, other than the cranks like me.
Our Metropolis stretches to Trenton, Wilmington, and Camden/Atlantic City as well. So we are split between four dioceses. The Archidocese of Philadelphia contains Philadelphia, Delaware, Bucks, Chester, and Montgomery Counties. The Diocese of Camden contains Camden, Gloucester, Salem, Atlantic, Cumberland, and Campe May Counties. The Diocese of Trenton includes Burlington and Mercer Counties in our region. The Diocese of Wilmington includes New Castle County in our region.
The whole list:
Philadelphia Archdiocese
1) Our Lady of Consolation - Philadelphia (Tacony) - 2 pm Sunday. Conveniently right off I 95 and a bridge to New Jersey.
2) St. Francis of Assisi - Norristown, PA - 1:15 pm Sunday
Diocese of Camden
1) Mater Ecclesiae (formerly Most Holy Trinity "Monastery") - Berlin, NJ - 5:30 pm Saturday, 9:00 am, 11:30 am Sunday, Holydays at 7:30 pm, daily Mass also. All traditional Sacraments available, men sponsored to FSSP/ICK seminaries (4 currently).
Diocese of Wilmington
1) St. Patrick Church - Wilmington, DE - 10 am Sunday
Independent
1) St. Jude Church (SSPX) - Eddystone, PA - 5:30 pm Saturdays, 8:00 am, 10:00 am Sundays. All traditional Sacraments available, men sponsored to SSPX seminaries.
2) St. Mary the Virgin Chapel (Thuc Line, "Bishop" Hesson) - Paulsboro, NJ - 9 am Sunday, 7 pm Holydays. All traditional Sacraments available.
3) Our Lady of Fatima Shrine (Independent, Unknown Provenance) - Corbin City, NJ - 10:30 am Sunday
The vast majority (75%+) of our local traditionalists will be found at Mater Ecclesiae and the SSPX.
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