Entrustment to Mary = Letting God Love Me This Lent

I was introduced to the idea of spiritual direction about 15 years ago.  I had been grieving over miscarriage after miscarriage, begging God for a child, frustrated with my lack of control over my greatest desire - to be a mother.  I did not ask for spiritual direction.  I did not seek it.  It was a gift.  My mother arranged a meeting with a certain priest for confession, and encouraged me to be open as this priest was known for adding spiritual direction within the Sacrament.  It was the beginning of a transformation, as I have been blessed with this priest as my spiritual director for all these years. 

God knew what my soul needed before I did.  He generously provided and continues to provide His grace through His instrument (the priest), surprising me with His wisdom and helping me to look at the events of my life through His eyes.  Trusting that this priest is an instrument of Christ Himself, I find myself pouring out in great detail my struggles, my fears, my joys, my frustrations, my questions.  I am honestly surprised with some of the answers I receive and the answers bring me such joy, reminding me that God’s ways are not my ways. The direction reminds me to take a rest from over-analyzing my ways. I am continually shown how when I do not discern His will, I can be an obstacle to God using me to share His love.  Thanks to God's grace, I can stand in truth in the Sacrament of Reconciliation with someone who knows my soul.  It’s funny, I can spend so much time talking with this priest while confessing my sins, seeking guidance, asking questions, only to discover I have nothing much to say when we walk out of the reconciliation room.  I really trust that it is Christ reaching out to me in those moments, that the priest is truly His instrument.

I am a shy and introverted person, and many times spiritual direction is provided on the phone.  I put off scheduling meeting times for various reasons: I don’t want to bother the priest, I haven’t made any “progress” since our last talk, I don’t know what to talk about.  But I find that God continues to seek me out, as many times, the priest will email me, asking how I’m doing.  Or he’ll happen to be in town.  Or my mom will suggest calling him about a certain issue I may be struggling with.  I truly believe Christ is expressing His great love for me when He is present in the guidance I receive.  I feel so humbled that this gift was provided for me by God Himself.  I know many search for a spiritual director and are unable to find one.  God shows His love, as He searches me out.

As a Control Freak struggling against tendencies toward perfectionism, I am tempted to distrust God’s love for me.  And I am finding out that the less I accept God’s love for me, the less I am able to share it with my loved ones.  I find myself loving so conditionally, criticizing weaknesses of my loved ones, holding them to high standards.  I find myself dissatisfied with myself, and so I know that God uses spiritual direction to remind me of His great Love for me.  A favorite Scripture verse of mine is 1 Jn 4:19 – “We love because He first loved us.”  I tend to ignore Him, reject Him, distrust Him.  This Lent, my hope is that I will allow God to love me.  Within the arms of my Blessed Mama, I ask for Her grace to help me accept God’s pure Love for me.  God recently arranged a phone call with my spiritual director, and I discussed my thoughts about what I could be doing for Lent – giving up sugar, praying more, going to more daily Masses…etc.  He reminded me that Lent meant “slow down”.  Instead of my grandiose plans, he suggested that I be more present to Jesus loving me, pouring His mercy upon me.  This Lent, I can ask myself, to where am I rushing and why? Instead of rushing I can think of ways to slow down.  I am reminded to relate everything to Redeeming Love.  Quite simply, I can SIMPLIFY this Lent.   

I cannot give what I haven’t accepted.  So, in the arms of Our Mother, I ask Her to help me let God love me (as I am).

Entrustment To Mary= A "Good" Lent

So here we are - we have made the journey through Lent and are ready to rejoice and sing Alleluia to our resurrected Lord. As most of my Lenten seasons go, I tried to carry out my sacrifices on my own, which led me to see a lot of my misery and come once again to the same conclusion that I can do nothing without Jesus - my Savior.

This year it was interesting how I was handed two temptations in the realm of my chosen fasting foods and on both occasions I failed - at least in the world's eyes. First, when I ordered a taco from a food cart I asked the server not to give me the chips that came with the meal. When my dinner basket arrived it included the chips. I looked at them as a special gift from God, and started to munch away. Then when I contemplated what had happened, I realized it could have been a good opportunity for me to ask Jesus to help me refrain from eating them.

Second, a patient's wife bought for me a big delicious looking peanut-butter cookie. Not wanting to hurt her feelings by refusing it, I gobbled it up. Then I reflected on how much I worry about offending humans over offending my God. Surprisingly for me, in both instances, with grace, I did not walk away sad, which usually my bruised pride prompts me to do. But instead, with my Blessed Mother, WE asked for mercy on my self-centered soul, and thanked God for his unconditional love.

So, I can say this was a good Lent. Through numerous humiliations, God trusted me to see my weaknesses and gave me the grace not to run away like this Scaredy Cat normally would do. With God's grace along with my entrustment to the Blessed Mother, a small crack has formed in my hardened heart, allowing Divine Mercy rays to penetrate through in order to rescue me. Yes, this was a very good Lent indeed!

If at least a fissure appears in the armor of your distrust, then God, Who is always fighting for you, will try to take advantage of it. He will use this fissure to build an entry way into your firmly fortified world. Your egotistical reign is closed before God because you continually fear that He will diminish the reign of your I and that He will limit your lordship. That is why even the existence of the smallest Divine fissure is important because it can eventually be enlarged so that there will be more and more space in you for the light of Divine grace that saves you. [1]

For the time being, the light is faint. Even this faint light, however, shows us certain fragments of the truth - the truth about ourselves in relationship to God, to ourselves, and to the world. Even though amid shadows one cannot see much, this experience is already shocking and painful. In one's gradual discovery of the difficult truth about himself, one can see God's great gentleness and love for the soul that could otherwise become terrified and rebel. God trusts that we will not run away from this light, but rather accept it as a gift. This gift is difficult to receive, but God must give such a gift in order to rescue the beloved soul from the unconscious lie in which it is living. When we begin to see the truth about ourselves in the Divine light, we will also begin to understand that the perfection, which was the source of our self-satisfaction, was an illusion. [2]

[1] S.C. Biela, Behold I Stand at the Door and Knock, (Ft. Collins, CO: IAMF, 2005), 11.

[2] Ibid, 9.

Entrustment to Mary = Seeing Lies as LIES!

In my last blog I wrote about some lessons I learned at a Lent retreat. That retreat was full of jewels and I want to share some more of what led me into Lent this year.

Lent is usually comprised of three things – praying, fasting and almsgiving. In looking at fasting, the priest gave it a twist I had never thought of. When we think of denying ourselves the priest suggested we deny Satan’s access to our souls – especially when he wants to feed me with the lies that I am not lovable, I am not loved, and I cannot love. This brought tears to my eyes as I remembered the past in which I believed all of these lies. I was a senior in college when the “I am not lovable” tortured me so much I went to the school counselor. I thought I wasn’t lovable because I was immersed in my sins. The counselor tried to convince me that my sins were nothing – that they weren’t even sins. This only compounded my unrest and anxiety. I married right out of college and a few years into my marriage, I remember being convinced “I am not loved.” Once again I ended up in a counselor’s office. I was focused on everything that was “wrong” with my husband. Another counselor, but the same message – my sins were not sins and I just needed to loosen up. Then, when children came along, I was convinced “I cannot love.” The first time my pride was challenged through my eldest, after the first “no” to mama, I saw clearly that parenting was going to be an uphill battle and after reading all the psychology books, I was left with more anxiety, clinical depression, and an unhealthy detachment from my children.

It wasn’t until I started back to the Sacrament of Confession that I learned that, yes, I was immersed in sin, but I was loved no matter what. I had a Savior who already died for these sins, and with and by His grace, I could leave these sins behind. It was through my confessor that I came to know that the Blessed Mother was a real help for me and that Jesus’ dying wish was that I behold Her and that She behold me!

What a turnaround for my life. One by one, my spiritual director is picking apart the lies that have been binding me to my sins for years. The worst of all the lies I've come to recognize I bought into so far is that I believed I would only be loved if I was perfect. I was blind to the amazing presence of my Lord, and Savior. Now,  believing in faith and through faith that I am entrusted to Mary, the lies are losing their power! The focus of my life has been changing from focusing on myself and feeling a victim of my dear ones, to seeing God’s action in every moment.

Entrustment to Mary helps me see lies for what they are – LIES!

Instead of thinking I’m not lovable, I make a conscious effort to remember I am in Mary’s arms.

Instead of thinking my dear one doesn’t love me, I ask myself – what did God want to show me in this event? Remembering that God alone suffices, that He loves me no matter what, that His love is eternal, helps me accept when others don’t love me as I wish they would.

Instead of thinking I cannot love, I beg my Blessed Mother to obtain the graces for me to love as I should. “I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing” (Jn 15:5).

In Mary’s arms, I am glad it is the season of Lent. WE await what God wants to do with my soul by Easter!

Contrition – the first pillar of interior life – is born on the foundation of truth. Only in the light of the truth that you discover about Love, who embraces you, do you see sin as it really is: sin. This happens because you sin “in front of Him,” in the face of Love. You must stand completely naked before God and realize that your sin – your unfaithfulness – is always before Him. You must realize that you sin against God; you sin in the face of the One before whom you are standing at the moment of your unfaithfulness. Yet, God gives you grace, the action of which is itself the desire to be sorrowful. God gives you the light of truth, which allows you to see the distance that separates you from Him. Additionally, He gives you the light to see that, due to this same grace, this distance is overcome. You perceive that the smallest response, a crumb of contrition, suffices to close the gap, such that this distance between God and you no longer exists. (S.C. Biela, TheTwo Pillars, [Ft.Collins, CO: IAMF, 2006], 3-4.)

Entrustment to Mary = Seeing God in Passive Mortification

I went on a Lent retreat last weekend and would love to share a couple of the jewels I received. Like the advice given to Scaredy Cat, focusing on humble means was the theme of the retreat.  What are these humble means?

At the retreat we learned about active mortification verses passive mortification. In Lent, we usually lean toward active mortification. The “what should I do or not do?” mortification. Should I give up coffee or TV or Facebook? Should I say a rosary every day or some other pious activity? Usually, the goal in what I choose is to pick something I can be successful in doing. But, does this keep my focus on what Jesus Christ did for me on Calvary? If I am successful in my Lenten practices, do I come to know I need a Savior? Do I experience the desire to follow Christ to the end because I have been amazed by His tremendous love for me? We were encouraged to think about this. I was motivated to choose something that I know there is no way for me to accomplish, so that when I fail, I can remember I need a Savior. On the other hand, if I succeed in this impossible Lenten sacrifice, I will be convinced that it was only by Grace that I did!

When seeking the humble means, though, I find passive mortification is more valuable. The priest shared how the road to Calvary for Christ was a road of passive mortification. He did not choose what was to happen to Him, it was chosen for Him. He was condemned to death. He was scourged. He was made to carry the Cross. He was put to death. Jesus’ response to passive mortification was to say “yes”. He said to the Father: “Not my will, but yours be done” (Lk 42:22). I was encouraged at our retreat to see what God would choose for me this Lent and to try to accept this. In doing so, I might begin to die to myself, to my own will. It was explained to me that my cross was to become more aware about the truth of my being torn. Like the image of Jesus on the Cross – arms outstretched, torn apart – I am torn between what I want to do and what I do. I want to be patient, but I see my impatience. I want to measure up, but I constantly fall short. Then, my entrustment to Mary can be described as dying in Her Arms. She will carry me through the death of the old man in me. It is not always easy to accept what comes my way from God. Like today’s exhaustion when I have so many things to do to get ready for a trip; or yesterday’s experience when the Little One kept asking me to play and I could barely muster a smile; or having to make dinner for the family on a night I am not hungry or could survive on a bowl of cereal.  WE (Blessed Mother with me) try to see in these events God knocking on the door of my heart. WE try to see how He desires to help me through these events. I need the comfort of Mary’s Arms – remembering She loves me as I am. Passive mortification helps me to see God’s action in my life - in every moment.

I want to tell you, Mary, my Mommy, that I am grateful for everything, even though this gratitude is so meager and pathetic that it seems to barely exist within me. …

I am grateful for this ongoing interior war, for the never-ending battle in me between the old man and the new, because it constantly weakens me so that You may be my strength.

I am grateful for the unceasing tension. Because of it, when I feel like God, I immediately fall apart, and You can piece me back together the right way. But this does not last for too long because this story of my departures and returns never ends. (S.C. Biela, The Two Pillars, [Ft.Collins, CO: IAMF, 2006], 122.)

Every moment of our lives is permeated with the Presence that loves and bestows. To live in faith means to be able to see this loving and constantly bestowing Presence. Because of faith, Christ gradually becomes a light that shines through a person’s whole life and that shines through the world. He becomes a living, active presence in the life of his disciples. Every moment of our lives brings us His presence. Time is the Presence written with a capital “P.” It is the presence of Christ in our lives. It is the personal presence of God, revealing Himself as the One who expects something from us. God reveals Himself to us through His will. But what is His will? It is always that which is best for us because God is Love. Every moment of your life is a moment of meeting with the Presence that is loving you. (Tadeusz Dajczer, TheGift of Faith, 3rd. ed. [Ft. Collins, CO: IAMF, 2012], 5-6.)

Entrustment to Mary = Choosing the Humble Means

After I shared with my spiritual director my ideas of fasting, prayer, and almsgiving for the next 40 days, he suggested I reread the chapter in The Gift of Faith on humble means. He proposed that I “fast” from my pedestal – meaning my desire to be acknowledged, admired, and esteemed. {And I thought candy, cookies, and chips would be hard to give up!} He recommended I go to my adoration time in the arms of the Blessed Mother, and keep the posture of the tax collector not the Pharisee during the 10 minutes I had decided I could try to allot each day. He didn’t specifically address my idea of thoroughly cleaning my house during Lent, but I am guessing that would go under fasting from my pedestal; for knowing my personality, if I end Lent with a clean sparkling home, I am sure I will take all the credit and bask in the glory of a job well done.

What I appreciate about the spirituality of communion with Christ through the Blessed Mother is how it has helped me see how selfish I have been when deciding on what to do for Lent. For example, I like giving up sweets so I can lose a few pounds. The spirituality has also helped me release my narrow perception that fasting is only from food, praying means only rosaries, and almsgiving is only donating to an organization in need. I now realize charitable giving can mean more than dollars donated. It can mean giving a "smile" to a coworker who is having a bad day. Or offering my “time” to listen to a patient explain their ailments. Praying can be continuous, all-day-long, short ejaculations of praise or petitions for souls in need or just a grateful look to heaven for God’s generous bestowals. These are the humble means that cannot be measured and most times not seen so as to gain recognition from others.

I have also learned that before starting any Lenten sacrifices I must first stand in the truth and admit I cannot do them on my own, but only with God’s grace and through my entrustment to the Blessed Mother may I try. And most importantly, God loves me even if I fail.

 

                                               Rich Means vs. Humble Means

Jacques Maritain divides temporal means that may be used for spiritual ends into two categories: rich temporal means and humble temporal means. Those means which are visible and can be statistically analyzed Maritain calls rich means. They are tangible things like organizations, meetings, marches, church architecture and decoration, audio-visual and mass media. A characteristic trait of rich means is their influence on one’s self-love because their effects and results are apparent. This has the danger of our claiming these results and our own and, as a result, adopting an attitude of triumph.

Humble means are marked with the stigma of the Cross and express one of the most profound truths in the Gospel: “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit” (Jn 12:24). In humble means, a true paradox of the dynamism of faith can be observed: the poorer they are – that is, the more destitute, the more insignificant in themselves, and the less visible – the more efficacious they are. As opposed to rich means, these humble means are not dependent on tangible success, and they do not have any internal need for temporal success. Humble means is the acceptance of suffering out of love for God. You encounter such means when your knees hurt during prayer, when you deny yourself something, when you question who you are and, at times, live in great calmness, silence, and contemplation. Nothing much is known about these things; they are invisible means. They cannot be measured by any sociological statistics. However, these are the humble means that, in the light of faith, prove to be the deciding factor in the fate of the world.

Tadeusz Dajczer, The Gift of Faith, 3rd. ed. (Ft. Collins, CO: IAMF, 2012), 147-148,150.

Entrustment to Mary = Fasting During Lent

“In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood.” Hebrews 12:4

I think about this scripture verse frequently during the holy season of Lent. It reminds me of how weak I am when it comes to fasting. For example I do not give up all treats, just my most favorite ones = candy, cookies, and chips. Well soon enough I am replacing these with nuts, sweetened cereal, and popcorn.

Over 15 years ago I went on a pilgrimage to Medjugorje and started the recommended bread and water fasts on Wednesdays and Fridays. The “better” I was in doing the fast the “meaner” I became to my family. During that time I had small children at home, and I was quite the opposite example of a Christian mother on those two days. My hunger had me out of humor and patience. Instead of retreating to prayer begging for emotional strength, I escaped to my bed to sleep away the hours so the fast’s end would come sooner. I was trying to fast all on my own power. 

It was God’s saving grace that led me to the spirituality of the Communion of Life with Christ through Mary. One of the truths I learned is that I cannot fast on my own. It is only God’s grace that sustains my fasting during Lent. When I forget this truth, is when I fall into temptation of thinking I am greater than God. I also have learned that failing at fasting is “ok”. It shows me who I am not, and who God is. It brings to light the words of Jesus who said: “...without me you can do nothing” (Jn 15:5). My pride doesn’t always like this truth, but that is from years of believing that some day on my own I will be perfect in the spiritual life.

With this spirituality and being in Blessed Mom’s arms I am releasing this illusion of perfection. What I must not forget is that even though I am a small “nothing” compared to God, He still wants me to rely on His grace and to desire to follow His will. He also asks me through the Church to try to offer the sacrifices and fasting during Lent, but doing so knowing that He loves me - even when I fail.

Our powerlessness and sense of total dependence on our Creator in all areas of our lives should become a norm for us – when we are completely permeated by the words of Jesus who said: “without me you can do nothing” (Jn 15:5). Nothing – this means not even the smallest thing.                       S.C. Biela, God Alone Suffices, 3rd. ed. (Ft.Collins, CO: IAMF, 2011), 62-63.