When sin entices us, stay with us and be our strength. When mediocrity absorbs us, do not leave us. When the ascent to the perfection of the Father makes us weary, whisper a word of help, O Mary: trust! (W. Giaquina)
“When we love ‘with our whole heart’, our daily life, our activities, even the most trivial, and our small and hidden sacrifices…, become a part of the ‘burdensome daily living’, which, when peacefully accepted, ‘frees us from the impurities of our mediocrity’ (P.S. Prayer) and renders us ever more perfected. Today we see the ‘measure of Christian life’ realized in Mary of Trust, ‘true model of holiness’. In Mary’s maternity we find the incentive, the support, and the encouragement we need to fulfill our journey ‘to Jesus, through Mary.’ She entrusts us to Jesus - this is Mary’s most meaningful gesture on this Feast of Trust before we begin the intense Lenten Season.”
“Jesus waits to get in-step with us and so walk with us the path to conversion; Mary, his mother and our mother, takes us to the threshold at the encounter with Him and tells us to ‘do whatever he tells you’ (Jn 2:5). She suggests this to us with sweetness and firmness at the same time, because she wants us to understand the importance of conversion as the necessary step to enter into communion with Christ; for it is impossible to respond to our specific vocation to holiness without walking on the footsteps of Jesus’ pierced feet…in imitation of the Eucharistic sacrifice, or without casting behind our shoulders all projects, expectations, opinion, or desires that do not correspond to Christ’s sentiments.” (Giuliana Spigone, Feb 2002)
A Closer Look at Our Lady of Trust: You wonder, “Why this preference for the Immaculate Heart of Mary of Trust?” There is a basic reason: as members of the Pro Sanctity Family, as people devoted to maximal love, as consecrated or committed members, we try to see the core of matters, to go deep into matters, to avoid remaining at the surface. We celebrate the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary on the Sunday preceding Ash Wednesday.” “Saturday is the priestly celebration of our Lady of Trust; Sunday is the celebration of the people of God, a priestly people, too, born from the ordained priesthood.” “Thank you, Jesus, for helping us understand it. Give us an intense love for Y
ou and for Your Mother; grant this love to us priests and to those who are born from our priesthood.” (Giaquinta, 1993)Bishop Giaquinta's prayer for priests: Grant us the joy and the peace of Christ, Your Son. In hours of sadness and loneliness, teach us, as You taught John, to lay our head on the Heart of the Master. Raise up among us people who listen to Your word, and make all -- priests and faithful -- a family of love striving for holiness. May Mary, Mother of Christ and of the Church, unite our hearts, and may You, Father, teach us to invoke her with the confidence of sons: Mary, Mother of priests, pray for us. Amen.
Please pray for priests today!
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