Please join us in praying a novena to Our Lady Of Trust. Our own Anne Zugelder has suggested some scripture and questions for meditation as we prepare to enter into the season of Lent. Each day we will meditate on the scriptures and corresponding questions provided and conclude by praying the prayer to Our Lady of Trust. Please post your comments and reflections here so we can grow together on our journey toward holiness and trust.
Drawn by the need of your help in the many trials that
engulf us in this life, we come to your feet, O Virgin of Trust, to pour out to
the heart of a mother our wishes and failings.
Although it is our duty to strive for perfection, it is also true that our
mortal body makes the path difficult, and the enemies of our soul cease not
from their attacks, while everywhere we are enticed to leave the difficult and
straight way known by only a few travelers.
And all the while, our suffering along the way, our own interior weakness and
temptations press heavily to torment us and produce in our souls a feeling of
faintness and sadness, which means only one thing: distrust, in ourselves, in
our ideal, in the means to attain it.
But your motherly look which follows us, and your Immaculate Heart, which your
Son points out to us, open our souls to a new feeling – the assurance of your
help. And we want it, O Mary. We ask it of you, we beg for it, O loving
Mother.
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 leaves us weary, whisper a word of help, O Mary – trust!
If we will listen to this word of yours, the way will be easier, the goal
closer, and our confidence more certain that we shall reach sanctity.
So repeat this word often – trust. Repeat it to us and to everybody, O
Mary, because all people must become saints. Amen.
Bishop Guglielmo Giaquinta
*****
Day One
Ps. 31:14-17
14 I hear the whispers of the crowd; terrors are all around me. They
conspire together against me; they plot to take my life. 15 But
I trust in you, LORD; I say, “You are my
God.” 16 My destiny is in your hands; rescue me from my
enemies, from the hands of my pursuers. 17 Let your face
shine on your servant; save me in your mercy.
When have you put your
trust in God in a difficult situation? How does Mary model this for you?
Our Lady of Trust Novena 2013 Day One
Man is at the center of the universe. The whole world has a reason to be; it exists and has meaning inasmuch as there is man giving meaning to it. Therefore, creatures are many steps that bring man to God; they are an external reality that give glory to God through man who is the cantor of the universe. I ask myself: why did God create man who is a spiritual and theological center of the cosmic reality? Because He loves him and because He wants man to love Him in return. (Charity)
Speaking of “piety” and “spiritual brotherhood” does not mean being content with beautiful phrases or cultivating a pious but sterile sentiment of affection toward God and our brothers. Love, and so also holiness, is tremendously concrete and practical; it must be rooted in reality. The lives of the saints show this to us. It would be absurd to think the duty of sanctity can be left to personal and individual good will, without trying to check to see if, in fact, it can really be lived in the social context in which we are immersed. (Love is Revolution)
Who is the saint? Every person who with all the sincerity and passion of which he is capable tries decisively to reach the fullness of love is a saint. (Love is Revolution)
Lord, for too long we were accustomed to thinking of Mary as a limitless reality, transcending our faculties. We might even say we thought of her as almost infinite, even if that is not so… Lord, You have taught us that it is not so. Mary is great; Mary is the Immaculate; Mary is Your mother in order to be our mother and our model of holiness. Mary’s Immaculate Conception is not meant to alienate us from her; instead it calls us closer to her so that we may reach You with her, despite our poor, meager state of holiness, of purity, and
Christ suffered for us, giving us an example so that we could follow in His footsteps. As Christ led a life of oblation to the Father and His brothers and sisters, and did not look after Himself but emptied Himself and denied Himself, in the same way he who wants to follow Him as a disciple must take up his cross every day and deny himself. This is Christianity. (The Covenant)
We have to personally experience our poverty in the awareness of our sin, though without neglecting our duty to be light for our brothers and sisters. We have a mission to accomplish for them, not because of our own merits or because we are wealthy, but because we have been chosen to be a light that is not placed under bushel basket, a city that shines from the heights of the mountaintop. We have been chosen to be a light that enlightens and a force that attracts and polarizes. (The Covenant)
The God of mercy is always waiting. He is the father of the prodigal son, the one at home who wastes no time even trying to imagine the sins or missteps of his son; he simply hopes that his son matures and returns home. This manifests and helps us understand God’s goodness and His capacity to wait. We instead want to see people grow quickly and do not have the patience to wait for their growth. Moreover, we often disrupt the process of growth with our hasty actions because we want to see quick results. God is not in a hurry in
under-valued: God wants to bind us to Himself with bonds of love; we must feel the personal
November 4, 2013
of the Father. The call to holiness has already become for us the light that illumines our way and the ideal toward which we want to journey. Give us the strength to overcome the difficulties that
