In the Garden 

In my meditation Jesus led me, with His other disciples, into the Garden of Gethsemane. Along with Peter, James, and John, He led me closer to the place where He had come to pray. Before going apart to pray, He looked at me and said, 

 “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with Me.” (Matthew 26:28) 

I was very tired, and I wanted to escape from the pain and weariness of the day, and so I went to sleep and was awakened again by Jesus' sorrowful words: 

 “So, could you not watch with me one hour?  Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit indeed is willing,but the flesh is weak.” (verse 40) 

When the soldiers come to arrest Jesus, He is betrayed with a kiss by Judas, seized, and led away to Caiphas. 

I am left, my heart ashamed and sorrowful, knowing that I had abandoned my Lord, refusing through my sleep to give Him a little comfort in His Agony, concerned more for my physical comfort. 

Recently, I have been weeping at times from my knowledge that I often abandon the Lord when He calls me to leave the comfort of my bed to give Him the comfort of my presence with Him, especially in the morning, when I hear His call to get up, to be with Him, and to pray with Him. I have been unfaithful to Him when I remain in my home, afraid to irritate my husband if I go to Adoration. I have even passed up opportunities to stop in our parish church to visit the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament for a few minutes. 

At my last confession, I told the priest that I adore the Lord in my home, and he said, "That's good, but it cannot replace Eucharistic Adoration." Amen! His counsel pierced my heart, and I have made a firm resolution to go once a week to give a little more of myself to the Lord. He has given all of Himself to me and to all of His beloved disciples. 

At Adoration yesterday, I was weeping a little with true contrition for the way that I have neglected Jesus, and He said, "Do what you can do, and I will supply the rest." Jesus is the best of Fathers (from Divine Mercy in My Soul by St. Faustina). And He is also like the most loving of mothers, tenderly forgiving our shortcomings. I knew He wasn't saying that I should give up my efforts to give Him more of myself. He was offering His mercy yet again, as He does daily.

He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption..."

(1 Corinthians 1:30) 

I want to console You for the ingratitude of the wicked and I beg You to take away my freedom to displease You. If through weakness I sometimes fall, may Your Divine Glance cleanse my soul immediately, consuming all my imperfections like the fire that transforms everything into itself.

(from Act of Oblation to Merciful Love by St. Therese of Lisieux)

 

Questions for meditation: What is Jesus calling me to do in the garden? Is He calling me to hear His voice or my own? Does He want me to draw closer to His healing Sacred Heart? Is Jesus calling me to surrender to His love and not my pain? 

Cami little handmaid

February 10, 2021

 

 

 

 

The Blood of Christ and the Handmaid of the Lord 

As I pondered the beautiful black marble Church in my dream, which I shared with you in my first meditation entitled To Work for the Glory of Holy Church, I noticed that there wasn't a statue of Mary in the Church. There was no statue of her--that's true, but I knew she was present. But where?

And then the Holy Spirit showed me that she was down on her hands and knees, cleaning the floor of the Church beside me. She is the handmaid of the Lord, and I am her daughter, her little handmaid, helping her to clean the Church. 

Some would say that that's not a very dignified image of Mary, but still it is a true image, perhaps truer than many conventional images of her. I did a search on the internet and found one image of Mary cleaning a floor. It is in the movie The Passion of the Christ, the scene in which Mary, with Mary Magdalene beside her, both on their hands and knees,  using the fine linen cloths that Pilate's wife had brought to her, to wipe up the Blood of Jesus from the floor where He was just scourged and dragged to the dungeon where He was shackled. 

 

I am your little handmaid, Mother. I want to be your Mary Magdalene, beside you to accompany and honor Jesus in His Passion, and to receive and carry His Precious Blood, to save souls on earth and liberate those suffering in purgatory. 

O my God! Most Blessed Trinity! I desire to love You and to make You loved; to work for the glory of Holy Church by saving souls on earth

and liberating those suffering in purgatory.

(Act of Oblation to Merciful Love of St. Therese of Lisieux) 

In Jesus' Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night that He was arrested, He sweated drops of Blood, so great was His grief at the thought of the souls who would reject the salvation that He would obtain for them through the pouring out of His Precious Blood. 

And being in an agony He prayed more earnestly; and His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down upon the ground. (Luke 22:44) 

In my dream, Mary, who could not be seen, was soaking up Jesus' Precious Blood with the linen cloths of Her Immaculate and Sorrowful Heart. Who inflicted the wounds upon Our Lord's Body, which caused His Blood to be spilled out upon the floor of the Church, wasted? In my dream there were little groups of people standing around after Mass, chatting as if at a cocktail party. 

This Scripture comes to mind: 

Whoever, therefore, eats the Bread or drinks the Cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the Body and Blood of the Lord.  Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the Bread and drink of the Cup.  For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the Body eats and drinks judgment upon himself.. But if we judged ourselves truly, we should not be judged.  But when we are judged by the Lord, we are chastened so that we may not be condemned along with the world. 

(I Cor 11:27-29..31-32) 

In a Pew Survey in 2019, only 31% of Catholics believed that the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Jesus when the priest consecrates them. 63% of Catholics who attend Mass at least once a week believe that the consecrated bread and wine are the Body and Blood of Jesus; 37% of faithful Mass attenders believe it is just a symbol. 

It is the scourging of Our Lord's Eucharistic Heart! Those who receive Holy Communion with mortal sin on their souls eat and drink judgment upon themselves...But when we are judged by the Lord, we are chastened so that that we may not be condemned along with the world. 

Sorrowful Mother, handmaid of the Lord, with you I pray in reparation for the sins of those of my brothers and sisters who profane the Body and Blood of Jesus! I pray that, through you, they will receive the light of the Holy Spirit, to discern the Body of Christ and judge themselves truly. Lord have mercy on us! 

Cami little handmaid

February 1, 2021

 

To Work for the Glory of Holy Church 

In the dream I was down on my hands and knees cleaning the floor of a beautiful church. It was built completely of black marble: floor, walls, ceiling, altar. Like all marble, it had a sheen to it, which gave the black marble a kind of majesty. In the wall near me there was a large rectangle cut out for a window, but it was totally open, the sunlight coming into the sanctuary, which was brightly lit with the natural light. 

I had the sense that Holy Mass had just ended. There were small groups of people standing around chatting, as if at a cocktail party. They were unaware of me, so they didn't move when I got near them, so I just cleaned around their feet 

I had that dream 30 years ago, when I first returned to the Catholic Church. I never gave it a lot of thought at the time, but I knew that it was a call to me to be a servant in and to the Church. 

The Scripture in John 13 of Jesus washing the feet of His Apostles comes to mind: 

He came to Simon Peter; and Peter said to Him, “Lord, do You wash my feet?”  Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not know now, but afterward you will understand.”  Peter said to Him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part in Me.”  Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!”  Jesus said to him, “He who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but he is clean all over; and you are clean, but not all of you.” (vs. 6-10) 

In the Sacrament of Baptism we are bathed of all sin. Baptism is a means to receive the saving grace that Jesus died to give us, through sacramental water and the Holy Spirit. "He who is bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet." 

In Jesus' day the common people used to walk everywhere, even from town to town, many miles, so, with the open sandals that they wore, their feet got dirty and needed washing, even if they had already bathed that day. 

Likewise, even though we have been baptized, once we have reached an age in which we can make informed moral choices throughout our days, even though we have been bathed in the waters of Baptism, we need to have our spiritual feet washed in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. 

Baptism is an essential means of salvation, while the Sacrament of Reconciliation is a path to sanctification.  In an internet article on the Catholic News Agency website entitled Pope Francis: 'Sacramental Confession is the Way of Sanctification, published March 29, 2019, we read that the Holy Father spoke to a group of seminarians and priests and said that the sacrament of penance is "the way of sanctification" in which miraculous conversions occur. 

Only through sanctification can we enter into heaven immediately after our death. If we are not sanctified at the moment of our death, though we die in a state of grace, we must suffer some time in purgatory, being purged of the effects of our sins. 

In the dream I was cleaning the floor of the Church, the hard work of my cleaning representing my working out of my own salvation through prayer, true contrition for my sins, sincere confession, and my daily efforts to live in the will of God, through the grace of Christ.

 

"... work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure." 

(Philippians 2:12-13)

 

We are living stones of the Church built by Christ, and so the condition of our souls affects the condition of the whole Church. 

Come to Him, to that living stone, rejected by men but in God’s sight chosen and precious;  and like living stones be yourselves built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 

For it stands in scripture:

“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and he who believes in Him will not be put to shame.”

(I Peter 2:4-6)

 

As we allow our Lord to wash our souls in the Sacrament of Penance, with fervent desire for conversion and sanctification, we have more and more part in Him.

 

As we are moved by the Holy Spirit on the path of sanctification, the light of Christ shines more and more in and through our hearts and souls.

 

Cami little handmaid   January 23, 2021