\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jesus said: (Taken from: Diary of Saint Maria Faustina\nKowalska, 1488) My child, know that the greatest obstacles to holiness are\ndiscouragement and an exaggerated anxiety. These will deprive you of the\nability to practice virtue. All temptations united together ought not disturb\nyour interior peace, not even momentarily. Sensitiveness and discouragement are\nthe fruits of self-love. You should not become discouraged but strive to make\nMy love reign in place of your self-love. Have confidence, My child. Do not\nlose heart in coming for pardon, for I am always ready to forgive you. As often\nas you beg for it, you glorify My mercy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
First we notice that Jesus always gives His blessing, before\nany healing, any teaching or guidance there are His blessings through His love;\nsimple, direct, without division or confusion, he simply says, \u201cmy child.\u201d If\nwe couldn\u2019t wrap our minds around anything else, there would always be His\nauthority and His sovereignty in our lives, made manifest through His love for\nus, His children. Glory and praise to You, our Lord, Christ Jesus. He is God,\nhis name is Lord.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why do I return to the models again and again? Because His\nwords point to His spiritual truth. Whereas, our minds make observations and\ndraw conclusions. His attention is focused on what is spiritual; while our\nminds contend with what is psychological. In His Oneness, everything is\nsingular. In our brokenness everything is dualistic or plural. Christ Jesus\ntells us the greatest obstacles to holiness; holiness being His focus, are two\naspects of our psychological brokenness, one being discouragement and the other\nanxiety. Through our examination we realize what hinders our holiness are not\nspiritual considerations rather psychological ones. In His holiness, His\nOneness, He effortlessly makes the connection between what is spiritual and\nwhat is psychological which points to the correct examination for us. If we are\nlistening, we hear Him tell us; these things of the mind, the discouragement\nand anxiety keep us from the application of His spiritual concern, virtue. Now\nnotice, in His genius, that virtue spans both models, the spiritual and the\npsychological. Because of our experiences in this world of people and ideas we\nare forced to contend with ourselves before entering His domain of holiness.\nSince the Lord knows us better than we know ourselves, he shows us how these\nmodels work without calling attention to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Notice how He returns to the examination again and again.\nNext, He tells us all temptations, even all temptations of the world ought not\ndisturb our interior peace. In this example, the internal peace, is His\npresence. Again, we see the psychological depicted as any and all temptations and\nHis spiritual presence as peace; these models show the singularity of His\ndomain and the duplicity of ours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Lord continues the inquiry for us by demonstrating how\ninterchangeable our fragmented parts and pieces are, by introducing,\nsensitiveness. Here, He shows us how we decide what to consider. In our ego\ndriven world, we take the lead, we pick and choose the obstacles, we decide\nwhat\u2019s bothering us whether it be actual events or displaced energies is not\nimportant, only that we are deciding, holds any weight for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The next step in His carefully structured analysis, is to\nturn our attention to the root cause of our dilemma. He calls this,\n\u201cself-love\u201d; what we might commonly refer to as our pride. Call this feature\nwhat you will, the impact is to show us what happens when we put ourselves\nbefore Him, our Lord. We reinforce our brokenness, fortify our vanity and\nignore the obvious. John the Baptist knew this well when he proclaimed, \u201cI must\ndecrease, and He must increase.\u201d This process is not so simple. On closer examination,\nwe see two words used which points to the spiritual and psychological model.\nChrist Jesus tells us, we \u201cought\u201d to not let the world disturb His presence in\nus. \u201cOught,\u201d is meant to focus our attention on Him in His perfection. \u201cOught,\u201d\nexpresses a condition of being perfect in a world of imperfection. Again, in\nHis genius, He separates what is from what cannot be. Knowing full well we will\nnever live in a world of what \u201cought\u201d to be, He encourages us to \u201cstrive\u201d to\nreplace our human condition with what He has given us as our human nature. This\nnature is the likeness and image of Him, as He created in us and for us. The\nmessage is clear, this nature is unattainable but approachable; a reflection of\nGod Himself being unattainable yet approachable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The final element in my prayerful discernment of this timely\ndiscourse to us is the intensity of mind and spirit with which it demands.\nChrist Jesus tells us His pardon, His forgiveness, His love and His mercy is\nalways available to us, as long as, we beg for it\u2026..for the time for praying\nhas ended, the time for begging has begun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Jesus said: (Taken from: Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska, 1488) My child, know that the greatest obstacles to holiness are discouragement and an exaggerated anxiety. These will deprive you of the ability to practice virtue. All temptations united together ought not disturb your interior peace, not even momentarily. Sensitiveness and discouragement are the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[13,29],"class_list":["post-192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essays","tag-catholic-faith","tag-spirituality"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reflectionsonfaith.net\/reflections\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reflectionsonfaith.net\/reflections\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reflectionsonfaith.net\/reflections\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reflectionsonfaith.net\/reflections\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reflectionsonfaith.net\/reflections\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=192"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.reflectionsonfaith.net\/reflections\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":193,"href":"https:\/\/www.reflectionsonfaith.net\/reflections\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192\/revisions\/193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reflectionsonfaith.net\/reflections\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reflectionsonfaith.net\/reflections\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reflectionsonfaith.net\/reflections\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}