Showing posts with label Little. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Little. Show all posts

Friday, April 13, 2012

Wanted: Little children consecrated to Mary who will form her "heel"



Our world is in a mess isn't it?  We need holy men and women who are on fire for the Lord Jesus and who recognize their poverty, their smallness. What we need is children of Mary - the same children (despised by this proud world) whom Saint Louis de Montfort says, "..will become, in Mary's powerful hands, like sharp arrows, with which she will transfix her enemies." (True Devotion, No. 56), It is such prayer-warriors who "..will be like thunder-clouds flying through the air at the slightest breath of the Holy Spirit. Attached to nothing, surprised at nothing, troubled at nothing, they will shower down the rain of God's word and of eternal life. They will thunder against sin, they will storm against the world, they will strike down the devil and his followers and for life and for death, they will pierce through and through with the two-edged sword of God's word all those against whom they are sent by almighty God." (True Devotion, No. 57).


This isn't a time for hand-wringing. Neither is it a time to look to so-called "experts," intellectual frauds who rely on their own intelligence. Fools. Now is the time to have recourse to Mary. The victory has been promised to the simple sandalled maiden. This is something the proud cannot understand or accept. Our Lady will crush the Devil's head - the seat of his intellect - and she will accomplish this without an academic degree or countless meetings. She will accomplish what the proud cannot. And she will do this through her children, her heel, those little souls consecrated to her who are despised by the world.

And so, remembering the words of the Cure of Ars St. Jean Vianney (the Patron Saint of parish priests): "Humility is to the various virtues what the chain is to the Rosary; take away the chain and the beads are scattered, remove humility and all virtues vanish," we pray:


O Lord,

all our powers of body and spirit,

every gift both natural and supernatural,

outward and inward,

comes as a blessing from You

and reveals Your goodness,

generosity, and love,

for You have given us all that is good.

You know what is best to give each one;

and since it is clear

to You what each one's merits are,

it is for You and not for us to decide

why one has less and another more.

And so, O Lord God,

I can even consider it a great blessing

if I do not have much to bring me

praise and glory from man;

for when one does not have much,

he can look at his poverty and worthlessness,

and far from being burdened and sorrowful and dejected,

he can feel comforted and glad,

for it is the poor and humble

and despised in the eyes of the world

that You have chosen,

O god, to be familiar members

of Your household.


For when I am weak, it is then that I am strong.  We must not rely on ourselves.  When David and Goliath faced off in battle, Goliath relied on his strength and his natural abilities.  David relied on God; on His supernatural strength.  The rest is history.

Won't you join me in offering a Rosary and intercessory prayer each and every day for the needs of the Church and for our broken, hurting world - a world crippled by sin?

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another...

"Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for 'God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.' Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that in due time He may exalt you." (1 Peter 5:5-6).

A few years ago, another Catholic Blogger (who would routinely refer to His Eminence Sean Cardinal O'Malley as "Sean" - while accusing him of heresy) wrote me an email in which she referred to my Blog as "small potatos." It must have shocked this woman when I sincerely agreed with her. I'll go further. Not only is this Blog small potatos. But I am also small. In fact, my very name is from the Latin Paulus meaning "little" or "small."

We quickly forget that Jesus can do much with our little. Wasn't that really the point He was trying to make when He multiplied the bread and fishes and fed so many with so little? Humility (which is really only the truth) is so important to the spiritual life because it keeps us from falling into pride, which is one of the Seven Deadly Sins. It was pride that caused the fall of Lucifer, one of the greatest of the angels. And it is pride which goes before every fall. So important is humility to the spiritual life that St. Jean Vianney said, "Humility is to the various virtues what the chain is to the Rosary; take away the chain and the beads are scattered, remove humility and all virtues vanish." St. John Chrysostom said that, "Humility is the mother, root, nurse, foundation, and center of all other virtues."

It's okay to be "small" and "little." How easily we forget this. The Little Flower taught that even picking up a pencil for the love of God can be a great thing, precisely because it is done out of love. In Philippians 2: 3-11, St. Paul exhorts us to, "Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vainglory; rather, humbly regard others as more important than yourselves, each looking out not for his own interests, but (also) everyone for those of others. Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus, Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Because of this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

There is no shame in weakness. Although the world would have you believe otherwise. But we don't follow the world or its asinine maxims do we? We follow the Apostle Paul who said, "For when I am weak, it is then that I am strong." When we humbly acknowledge our weakness, our poverty, then - AND ONLY THEN - can God fill us with His strength.
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