What is Total Consecration?
Total Consecration to Jesus through Mary is a 33-day course that builds on True Devotion to Mary according to St. Louis Marie de Montfort. It’s an amazing way to grow deeper in your faith and draw closer to Jesus through Mary. Each of the 33 days includes a short video, some written reflections, and prayer time. Join us!
First 12 days: Reflection, Day 3
Continuing on our first 12 days preparation, we are now on our third day. My name is Br. Julian Mary, from the Knights of the Holy Eucharist and thank you for joining with us. Let us be reminded of the theme renouncement of the spirit of the world, looking at every possible angle to have a deeper understanding of the worldly spirit through our daily spiritual readings.
Our Lord gives us some additional warnings: judging others and desecration of Sacred things. Judgment is not ours, it belongs to the Just Judge. Personal judgments without virtues enlightened by the gifts and graces from the Holy Spirit fall short of its purpose of establishing the whole truth. And so, a warning and at the same time, a reminder straight from Our Lord, “Do not judge and you will not be judged because the judgments you give will be the judgment you will get.” In short, God is the Final Judge and when He judges nothing escapes even the least sin we did, everyone will receive its due.
Warning number 2 from this reading is a desecration of sacred things which is so common to people who are living the spirit of the world. Holy things remind us of the holiness of God and our vocation to holiness. They are from God entrusted to His Church for man’s holiness. They can not be given to dogs or pigs. So also, on our part, we can not and we are not supposed to lower our dignity and vocation to the level of dogs and pigs. By our humble service, by doing good, we raise ourselves from the level of creature to the level of Creator. We are children of God by adoption and our end is so high to be with God. So sublime, so holy is the purpose of life that often times we could not fully grasp, because our minds are flooded with the spirit of the world. And so, God knowing the profundity of our vocation and the heights which He Himself predestined us; Our Lord teaches us, to ask, seek and knock the door. As if he was saying, have faith in asking; have hope in searching; and if you knock at the door of my Sacred Heart, I assure you, I will open it for you, with all the treasures of my divine love. To conquer the spirit of the world, God gives us “the golden rule” not to expect from other people to do exactly what we did to them, but doing the good, with the motives of love which comes from God who is love Himself.
We are created in the image of God who is love; we are created because of love, and our purpose in life is to love. Another lesson Our Lord is telling us in the gospel and for us to attain our purpose in life and to despise the spirit of the world is the “two ways” with a clear emphasis to enter the narrow rather than the wide and spacious gate. It is because at one hand, human psychology tends toward easy things, easy life and comfort, and on the other hand our repugnant towards pains, sorrows, trials, hardships, and sufferings. Though pains both interior and exterior can not be avoided, because of our wounded human nature, God uses all of these: difficulties, sorrows, and pains towards good and raising it to a higher level and purpose putting into them salvific and redemptive values. God himself illustrated the redemptive value of sufferings throughout His life beginning at Bethlehem and explicitly in his supreme and redemptive sacrifice on the Cross. So, start cultivating the virtue of seriousness, choose and enter the narrow gate despising the spirit of the world. The virtue of seriousness doesn’t allow mediocrity. There is no “in between” either you chose one and despise the other.
Readings and Prayers for Day 3 of 33
Spiritual Exercises: Examine your conscience, pray, practice renouncement, mortification, purity of heart; this purity is an indispensable condition for contemplating God in heaven, to see Him on earth and to know Him by the light of faith.
Matthew 7:1-14
Judging Others.
1 “Judge not, that you be not judged.
2 For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get.
3 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?
4 Or how can you say to your brother, `Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye?
5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.
Pearls Before Swine.
6 “Do not give dogs what is holy; and do not throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under foot and turn to attack you.
The Answer to Prayers.
7 “Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
8 For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.
9 Or what man of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone?
10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent?
11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!
The Golden Rule.
12 So whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them; for this is the law and the prophets.
The Narrow Gate.
13 “Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.
14 For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few.
Veni, Creator Spiritus (Come Holy Spirit, Creator Blest)
Come, O Creator Spirit blest!
And in our souls take up Thy rest;
Come with Thy grace and heavenly aid,
To fill the hearts which Thou hast made.
Great Paraclete! To Thee we cry,
O highest gift of God most high!
O font of life! O fire of love!
And sweet anointing from above.
Thou in Thy sevenfold gifts art known,
The finger of God’s hand we own;
The promise of the Father, Thou!
Who dost the tongue with power endow.
Kindle our senses from above,
And make our hearts overflow with love;
With patience firm and virtue high
The weakness of our flesh supply.
Far from us drive the foe we dread,
And grant us Thy true peace instead;
So shall we not, with Thee for guide,
Turn from the path of life aside.
Oh, may Thy grace on us bestow
The Father and the Son to know,
And Thee, through endless times confessed,
Of both, the eternal Spirit blest.
All glory while the ages run
Be to the Father and the Son
Who rose from death; the same to Thee,
O Holy Ghost, eternally. Amen.
Ave Maris Stella
Hail, bright star of ocean,
God’s own Mother blest,
Ever sinless Virgin,
Gate of heavenly rest.
Taking that sweet Ave
Which from Gabriel came,
Peace confirm within us,
Changing Eva’s name.
Break the captives’ fetters,
Light on blindness pour,
All our ills expelling,
Every bliss implore.
Show thyself a Mother;
May the Word Divine,
Born for us thy Infant,
Hear our prayers through thine.
Virgin all excelling,
Mildest of the mild,
Freed from guilt, preserve us,
Pure and undefiled.
Keep our life all spotless,
Make our way secure,
Till we find in Jesus,
Joy forevermore.
Through the highest Heaven
To the Almighty Three,
Father, Son and Spirit,
One same glory be. Amen.
Magnificat – English
My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed:
the Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.
He has mercy on those who fear him
in every generation.
He has shown the strength of his arm,
he has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel
for he remembered his promise of mercy,
the promise he made to our fathers,
to Abraham and his children forever.
Magnificat – Latin
Magnificat anima mea Dominum;
Et exultavit spiritus meus in Deo salutari meo,
Quia respexit humilitatem ancillae suae; ecce enim ex hoc beatam me dicent omnes generationes.
Quia fecit mihi magna qui potens est, et sanctum nomen ejus, Et misericordia ejus a progenie in progenies timentibus eum.
Fecit potentiam brachio suo;
Dispersit superbos mente cordis sui.
Deposuit potentes de sede, et exaltavit humiles.
Esurientes implevit bonis, et divites dimisit inanes.
Sucepit Israel, puerum suum, recordatus misericordiae suae, Sicut locutus est ad patres nostros, Abraham et semeni ejus in saecula.
Glory Be – English
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Glory Be – Latin
GLORIA PATRI, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto. Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.
