'O my Jesus, Thou who art very Love, enkindle in my heart that divine fire which consumes the Saints and transforms them into Thee. O Lord our God, we offer Thee our hearts united in the strongest and most sincere love of brotherhood; we pray that Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament may be the daily food of our souls and bodies; that Jesus may be established as the center of our affections, even as He was for Mary and Joseph. Finally, O Lord, may sin never disturb our union on earth; and may we be eternally united in heaven with Thee and Mary and Joseph and with all Thy Saints. Amen.' Where did you find this prayer, Padraig. It's wonderful! Safe in the flames of the Sacred Heart!
Well I hope on my death bed I can still say I am in the process of conversion. Really I think the story of grace in a soul is truly marvellous. That God expends more energy and effort in the work of our Redemption that He did in making all the stars and planets combined!! I find it astonishing when the Holy Spirit points out whole great areas of sin in my life of which I was barely aware. How could I have been so ignorant? But isn't it true we are always the last to know....THis is because we are like raging tigers when people try to tell us. We are afraid to face each other with the truth. So it is left up to God and poor God, even He has to give us a very gentle tap on the shoulder. I have been thining and thinking about a remark someone made on the forum (I forget who); but she said that the Ilkumination Of Conscience for some people might be already starting... I wonder if this could be so? Anyway I feel very,very humbled indeed already. I honestly never knew... But I am not crushed. THe greater the sins the greater the graces. My hope is in the Lord my God who made heaven and Earth. As the song says, I am going to brush myself down, get myself up and start all over again!!
I have to say the Illumination of Conscience will not be easy for any of us. A great grace but not easy.
When you feel like "unleashing," just remember that it's better to empower than to overpower (a situation). To overpower -- to run over "enemies," to force through a point of view, to ramrod what we want -- is an urge that frequently comes from the ego. It is pride that often makes us want to bowl folks over. Often, we want to do it for the right reasons. We want to correct through brute strength. But being right is not always "right," when we handle it wrongly. The peace of life comes when we dispense with pride and self-centeredness, which is what ego is, and consider ourselves beneath others and at their service. That doesn't mean cow-towing to what is wrong, nor relinquishing one's rights. It means letting the Holy Spirit infuse a situation and guide what you do or say. Even, your thoughts. Be not "double-minded" -- humble outwardly, prideful within; nice outwardly, nasty inside; spiritual and worldly at the same time. A double-minded man is "unstable in all his ways" (James 1). One mind, one spirit. When the Spirit moves, each word is then immensely effective in Godly fashion with a powerful result born of prayer. The Flame of His love must burn away our falsity. It is the only way to get to our true self. When what we have is taken away many will wonder who they are. It is always taken away, all material, at death. We prepare when we dispense of egoism and all pride well before. "Let us approach with a sincere heart and in absolute trust, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed in pure water," says Hebrews 10. In this way do we find our true selves, while those who cloak themselves with what the world offers find that when they lose everything which we all do upon death they gravitate to an area of fog. Only God allows us to know ourselves. "I am He Who also suddenly illuminates and lifts up a humble soul, so that it can take and receive in short time the true reason of the wisdom of God more perfectly than another who studies ten years in the schools and lacks humility. I teach without sound of words, without diversity of opinions, without desire for honor, and without strife and arguments. I am He Who teaches all the people to despise earthly things, to loathe things that are present, to seek and savor eternal things, to flee honors, to bear patiently all evil words, to put their trust wholly in Me, to desire nothing without Me, and above all things fervently to love Me," said Jesus in His classic locution to Thomas á Kempis in The Imitation of Christ. [resources: A Life of Blessings and Confession; Michael Brown retreat in Baton Rouge, Louisiana]
From MS7: We prepare when we dispense of egoism and all pride well before. "Let us approach with a sincere heart and in absolute trust, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed in pure water," says Hebrews 10. Safe in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary!
I guess when it comes to the Illumination, I am a doubting Thomas. Maybe I just don't understand the idea of the Illumination. I wonder where this idea came from?
Primarily Garabandal http://www.garabandal.us/prph_warn.html But then it is nothing knew as it is in the Bible too Acts 9 1.Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. He went to the high priest2 and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem.3 As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him.4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”
Thank you, Garabandal. Now I understand where it came from. This is what I did not understand. I was not speaking about what happened to Paul because his vision of Jesus was not prophesied. I get it now.
I have totally lost where I was at in this, but I waas writing about the Dark Night and so wil lgo back to when i first got hit with it in the monastery.. So I thought at first I was imagining it . That things were fine and if I just carried on the boat would get back on an even keel. But it was pretty dire. God wasn't there, nowhere. I loved particulary Eucharistic Adoration and ever since I was a kid going into a chapel I could sense the whole place lit up with light and love but now, it might as well have been a public toilet. Whereas before the hours sped by now they seemed endless. Its hard todescribe the pain, but if you get used to constantly talking to God without ceasing and suddenly it stops , wel lthe closer you are the more painful it is when it ceases. A bit like being on the line of the phone and realsieing no ne is listening. Of couyrse God is stil lthere, He is still listening , still loving stil ltalking but in a new more radical way. Its a bit like starring at the sun, if you look at the light directly enough all wil lturn black because not that you have seen too little but because you see too much. Its a new language, a language of dark. And if you think about ti this si the purest language of love. For God is so holy He is beyond concepts. Only in darkness can we experience the fullness of the light. Of course I write this now over thirty years later and it seems so easy and right, but that comes with experience. At the time I wondered if I was nots, if I was imagining it, if I had done something awful, if it was just a phase and so on and on and on like the tossing and turning of a washing machine. I sued to walk the sheepdogs every morning and I recall them turning in fear from me and I relised it was becuase I was crying so hard. Happily the Night was not always as intense as this but it was pretty bad. Especially at first. TOgther with this inside stuff it is very like the Book of Job says. Not only does everything cave in on the inside it caves in on the outside too. I had to leave the monastery, I had no job, I went to live in a bed sit with a moster for a land lord. I had no dough , I ahd turned my back on my old frineds...and on and on... But you know I praying and praying al lthe time and going to mass every day. My Fiath hadn't collapsed at all, it jsut seemed like it had; I felt a toal failure but in fact still keeping the faith when nothing was being fired back (apparently) was really the correct way to go.
This testing goes back to the fact that much of my previous prayer was in fact selfish in nature. I was enjoying myself tremendously , raptures, ecstasies, overwhelming joy and so on , great lights. Now to paraphrase President Kennedy it was not about what I could do for my God could do for me, but more and more about what I could do for my God. There is nothing extraordinary about this. Look at a little child or baby , it smiles, it runs to its parents, but the loving fire ignited in the childs heart is placed there by the loving kindness of its parent. Only as the years roll on does it stand up on its two feet and (hopefully) start to love selflessly back, However I do not believe to put it in human terms God is setting out to 'try' us no it is that God ,as we go forward is talking in the pure language of love and in order to understand and to 'speak' back we too, must speak in pure language of love. If we do not speak thins language of love all is dark. It will remain dark until the, 'Morning star' rises in our minds and so the darkness turns luminous.
Satan when he regards Our Blessed Lady is baffled and confused by her, she is a darkness to him in her simplicity and humilty. In a similiar way, we who experince this pray at first only experience darkness for it is a prayer of the most profound simplicity, like a breath , a heart beat, the beatings of a butterfiles wings and we who our complicated and prud cannot see the simple little flower that lies at our feet. Like Satn we are too complicated, we want big things and what God has given us is very small indeed , so small only the littlest of children can see it and we have not yet returned to childhood. Returned to the place where we first began and understanding it for the first time.
Padraig, thanks for sharing. I can only imagine that you felt like Job completely abandoned by God. This purifying experience sounds like purgatory of the soul so at least you will avoid the worst of purgatory in the next life Purgatory - must be pretty full so we need to pray for these poor souls.
I think Bobby these is the Cross. But then again there are times of the crux of the Cross when suffering reaches so deeply into the soul it shakes us to our very foundations. When the metal of our souls melts and is remade in the lava of anguish. THis is surely the very centre of our Faith; The Cross! The great book of the soul. THe book which we read with the eyes of our life as we walk with blood marked foot prints in the very footsteps of our earthly pilgrimage. But for those who do not follow Christ the Cross iis foolishness and a barrier. 1 Corinthians [18] For the word of the cross, to them indeed that perish, is foolishness; but to them that are saved, that is, to us, it is the power of God. [19] For it is written: I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the prudence of the prudent I will reject. [20] Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
I have had to remove the last photgraph of Our Lady at the bottom of the post for copyright infringement after a complaint by its owner M Erfrig. If a photo has the owners name and especially a little c with a circle round it , it should not be posted without the owners permission, it is copyright breach. It is the kind of mistake I might make myself as I am always copying photos but where you see a it branded like this it is best to leave pictures alone without permission I have apologised to the owner.
The following message has been sent from michele erdvig <irelandexpert@hotmail.com> via the contact form at Mother of God. Copyright Infringement This page of your site uses my photo (bottom of page) without permission: http://motheofgod.com/threads/the-seven-gardens-of-prayer.2187/page-3 That is copyright infringement. This is my original image: http://irelandyes.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/shrine-1-afc-web.jpg Please remove my photo from your website.
The following message has been sent from michele erdvig <irelandexpert@hotmail.com> via the contact form at Mother of God. Copyright Infringement This page of your site uses my photo (bottom of page) without permission: http://motheofgod.com/threads/the-seven-gardens-of-prayer.2187/page-3 That is copyright infringement. This is my original image: http://irelandyes.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/shrine-1-afc-web.jpg Please remove my photo from your website.
I am stupid I posted a picture that was copyright infringement I have removed it........ aggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh
