6. “Pray to thy Father in secret.”

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6. “But when thou prayest, go into thy room, and closing thy door, pray to thy Father in secret;” (Mt 6:6a).

 While we cannot always physically enter a private room to pray, we can always enter our hearts and privately meet the Lord there.  To do this we must first enter that interior space, then shut the door of our intellect to our myriad preoccupations, and recall the secret Presence of our Heavenly Father.  We must learn to love silence; otherwise the door will be open and distractions will rush in to invade our private prayer.  St. Ignatius used to counsel his Jesuit brothers to begin their daily examen by taking a moment to become aware of the Father’s personal Love for them.  This is very important; otherwise we will be tempted to try to earn His Love by reminding Him of our various accomplishments or the prayers we have prayed, etc.  We cannot earn His Love; it is a Gift.  Awareness of the Father is the beginning of prayer.  We are sons in the Son.  “And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying,  ‘Abba, Father’” (Gal 4:6).

5. “Thy Father Who sees in secret”

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5. (Mt 6:4) “But when thou givest alms, do not let thy left hand know what thy right hand is doing, so that they alms may be given in secret; and thy Father, who sees in secret, will reward thee.”

 Everything we have to give as alms, and even the urge to give alms are gifts from our Heavenly Father.  But we are still hiding from Our Father “among the trees” (Gen 3:8) and trying to cover our nakedness with fig leaves (Gen 3:7).  Because we are made in His Image, we are inclined to imitate Our Father (Who is Self-Giving Love) by giving alms.  But we have forgotten Our Source because acknowledging Him requires acknowledging our nakedness and dependence on Him.  So we want our action of giving alms to make us appear beautifully clothed, godlike, and independent in the eyes of other people.  Part of this charade is convincing ourselves of our own independent goodness which is why Jesus says, “Do not let thy left hand know what thy right hand is doing” (Mt 6:3).  Rather than acting “in order to be seen” (Mt 6:1) by others, we should act to be seen by Our Heavenly Father “Who sees in secret” (Mt 6:6) and Who loves us totally despite our naked sinfulness.  He has prepared new “garments of skin” (Gen 3:21) for us, desiring to clothe us in His Beloved Son, Jesus (Gal 3:27) and “with Power from on High” (Lk 24:49).

4. “Reward with Your Father in Heaven”

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4. (Mt 6:1) “Take heed not to do your good before men, in order to be seen by them; otherwise you shall have no reward with your Father in heaven.”

 Earlier in the same Sermon on the Mount, Jesus had said, “Let your light shine before men, in order that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in Heaven” (Mt 5:14).  The difference is in the motive and in the result.  In both cases good works are being done openly, but we have a choice to do our good works to glorify the Father (since we are unable to do anything good except by His Gift), or to glorify ourselves (by trying to get other people to notice our goodness).

The fact is that just as we frequently misjudge the motives of others, so they frequently misjudge ours.  Even if it were possible to get people to notice and think that we are good, it is very silly to try to do so, because we have no goodness either in being or action except what we have received from Our Father.  So glorifying ourselves is a form of lying which leaves us sad and disconnected.  On the other hand if we do good in order to praise Our Father and to lead others to recognize His Goodness, then we are filled with joy because “One there is Who is good, and He is God” (Mt 19:16).  This joy is the “reward that we receive from Our Father in Heaven” (Mt 6:1) because when we let our light shine before men in order to glorify Him, our souls also are illuminated with a deeper awareness of the Father and His magnificent Love (which is the origin and goal of our existence).

 

3. “Be perfect, even as Your Heavenly Father is perfect.”

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3.  “You therefore are to be perfect, even as your Heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48).

 According to Father Michael Ciccone, OP, in the original language the word which in this verse is translated into English as “perfect” has the meaning of total self- giving love.  This total self-giving love is our vocation as masculine and feminine persons created in God’s image.

To love our enemies is above our nature–it requires grace; but we do not like to be vulnerable and dependent on grace.  And yet we need to receive a continual flow of God’s grace into our souls if we are going to continue to love our enemies.  It’s clear that to be perfect as Our Heavenly Father is perfect requires us to become ever more vulnerable to God’s grace and ever more dependent on His Fatherhood.

Here is where Our Lady can help us.  If we consecrate ourselves to Her Immaculate Heart, then from within this Sanctuary of the Holy Spirit we can pray, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word” (Lk 1:38).  She who was “clothed with power from on high (Lk 24:49) at the Annunciation (Lk 1:35) and again at Pentecost (Acts 2:1-4), like the good Mother who She is, desires to clothe us in Her own vulnerability and receptivity to the Word.

2. (Mt 5:45) Be children of Your Father in Heaven

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2. “But I say to you, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who persecute and calumniate you, so that you may be children of Your Father in Heaven, who makes His sun to rise on the good and the evil, and sends rain on the just and the unjust” (Mt 5:44-45).

 The Father desires to Gift each person with His Eternal Son and the refreshing Reign of His Holy Spirit.  Our supernatural lives depend on our opening to receive these Gifts, just as our natural lives depend on the sun and the rain.  If we who have received the Son and the Spirit through our Baptism refuse to love our enemies, then we cut ourselves off from Our Father Who is Love (1 Jn 4:8), and we close the Door of Love that the Father wanted to open to our enemies.  We hold the key to this Door which opens through the astonishment which occurs when our enemies realize that we love them no matter what they do to us.

 

1. Mt 5:16 “Give glory to your Father in heaven.”

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1. “Even so let your light shine before men, in order that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven” (Mt 5:16).

This first mention of the Father by Name in the New Testament shows us how Jesus came to reverse the effects of original sin.

Jesus, later in the same Sermon on the Mount, will say that, “Every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit” (Mt 7:17).  People seeing the good fruit in our lives are attracted to the tree.  Unlike the fruit of the” tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Gen 3:9), which also appeared good, but led to the glorification of man in place of God (i.e. death), the fruit of those who do good works so that the Father may be glorified always leads to life.   When our Good Father is known and glorified in His True Nature then we find again the purpose of our existence as His beloved sons and daughters.  This is the Light that “the Light of the World” (Jn 8:12) came to bring to us so that we could in turn spread its radiance everywhere.

INTRO to blog: “So as to give light to all in the house” (Mt 5:15).

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“Even so let your light shine before men, in order that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven” (Mt 5:16).

August 7, 2014

Today is one of two dates that God the Father suggested to Mother Eugenia Ravasio (in a Church approved private revelation),  be celebrated at the Feast of God the Father of Mankind.  Before I remembered that today was one of those two dates (The other suggestion was the first Sunday in August.), I had the inspiration during my morning prayer to start using this blog to honor God the Father.  I have been counting the times that the Father is mentioned by Name in the Gospels.  In the Gospel of St. Matthew alone, Jesus mentions the Father by Name forty two times!  In St. Mark the Father is mentioned five times; in St. Luke He is mentioned fifteen times.  And most astonishing of all is that in the Gospel of St. John the Father is mentioned by Name one hundred twenty one times!!

Since everlasting life depends on knowing the Father and Him Whom He has sent (John 17:3), it seems that these blogposts could serve no greater purpose than that of making our Heavenly Father known, loved, and honored.

For this reason I hope to write a series of blogposts that will be meditations on all the Gospel references to the Father, one mention for each blogpost.  The purpose of doing this is “so as to give light to all in the house” (Mt 5:15).

Come Holy Spirit

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The Rosary of the Holy Spirit

In her book, As By a New Pentecost, Patti Gallagher Mansfield recounts the beginning of the charismatic renewal in the Catholic Church. Sister Elena Guerra (1835-1914) who was later beatified by Pope John XXIII as the “Apostle of the Holy Spirit,” wrote several letters to Pope Leo XIII urging him to promote increased devotion to the Holy Spirit. It was at her urging that he opened the 20th century on January 1, 1901 with the singing of the Veni Creator. On this same day, after many days of incessant prayer, to receive the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, the first person in what would later be called the Pentecostal movement, received this gift. Later it would be through the intercession of the Pentecostals that Catholics would receive this gift.

Blessed Elena Guerra founded the Oblate Sisters of the Holy Spirit with five other nuns in Lucca, Italy on the feast of St. Charles Borromeo, November 4, 1882. She wished that the “Come Holy Spirit” would become as common in the Church as the “Hail Mary.”

As we prepare for Pentecost 2014 let’s begin to pray Rosaries to the Holy Spirit like this:

Start the Rosary of the Holy Spirit as usual with the Sign of the Cross and the Apostles’ Creed, followed by one Our Father, three Hail Marys, and the Glory Be. Then begin each decade with the Our Father but instead of following with ten Hail Marys, pray instead: “Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Your well Beloved Spouse.”

There are so many Mysteries of the Holy Spirit that we can choose to meditate on for the decades. It seems that to begin with some of these mysteries could be:

1. The Holy Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son as the Love between Them.
2. The Holy Spirit stirs above the waters at creation (Genesis 1:2);
3. The Holy Spirit breathes into man the breath of life (Genesis 2:7);
4. The Holy Spirit creates woman and the first communion of human persons from the side of the man;
5. The Holy Spirit renews the earth at the time of the great flood (Genesis 7-9);

6. The Holy Spirit calls Abraham, our father in faith (Genesis 12:1-3);
7. The Holy Spirit receives the gift of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice even his beloved son and returns an eternal blessing to the human race (Genesis 22);

Lifeline Against Suicide Team (LAST)

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The Daughters of Mary, Mother of Healing Love have started the Lifeline Against Suicide Team (LAST) to invite people from all over the world to join us in praying:

for those who are tempted to commit suicide;

for those who have committed suicide;

and for their grieving families.

.small LAST

You Are the Father’s Beloved.

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You are the Father’s Beloved.

No matter what anguish you are experiencing;

No matter how many sins you have committed;

No matter how many times you have turned away from Him;

No matter what horrible things have happened to you;

No matter if you are very angry with Him for allowing terrible things to happen;

No matter that it seems like your life is totally messed up;

You are and always have been the Father’s Beloved Child.

The Father has created you to be a unique, irreplaceable image of Himself.  No one can take your place.  The Father desires that you enter into a union with His Beloved Son Jesus and His Holy Spirit that will make you unimaginably happy forever.

Today (August 7) is a day that God the Father in an approved private revelation to Mother Eugenia Ravasio in 1932 suggested be established as a feast in His Honor. You can read the whole message at: http://www.theworkofgod.org/God.htm

Up to this point (2013) God the Father has no feast day.  If one is established by the Church it will open up a floodgate of blessings as more and more of God’s beloved children come to realize that they have an Infinite Loving Father Who desires to be known, honored, and loved by them in order to draw them into the happiness He created them to experience.  You can read another article about this on today’s Spirit Daily website: http://www.spiritdaily.com/GodtheFather.htm

 

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