The First Meditation-On Our Creation


9: “The First Meditation-On Our Creation”

“Place yourself in the presence of God”. He starts this meditation with a direct order to go to the Lord. It could be interpreted in terms of “imagine” you are in the presence of God…of Jesus. But already De Sales has instructed us of the importance of the Sacrament…the Real Presence of the Lord. For teachers in a Catholic school, it has been said, the most under-used resource we have is the chapel. Specifically, the most under-used resource we have is the Real Presence of the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. We must go to Him and be humble. In our humility, we will receive His Grace and His Love. In this way, we encounter the Love that our students deserve and we can better be the Love of Jesus for them.


St. Teresa's Church Discalced Carmelites. Mary's humility serves as a model for us of how we can let go of our own ego and pride and we can, literally, carry in us the Son of God. We can literally encounter the presence of Jesus, and in so doing, encounter the Love of God. (photo P. Smith)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Tenth Meditation: The Election and Choice the Soul Makes of a Devout Life

Image
18: “The Tenth Meditation: The Election and Choice the Soul Makes of a Devout Life” It is rational to desire Peace and harmony as opposed to discord and brokenness. Heaven, necessarily, is characterized by a unity of Peace that can only be achieved through the transcendent imagination and Love of God. (University of Portland. photo: P. Smith)                 It has been said before that Jesus is a gentleman and would never force Himself upon us in any way. An encounter with Jesus and the devout life will always, at the end, be a choice we make. Otherwise, we cannot “look like” God. God, after all, is rational and free, and if we are “forced” to choose Him, then we lose our rational thinking and free will. De Sales contrasts the pains of hell with the Peace of Heaven. He offers us an image of a rational choice we are free to make. It makes sense to habituate right action in our younger students, but we a...
Read more

Conclusion and Spiritual Bouque

Image
7: “Conclusion and Spiritual Bouquet” The conclusion to a meditation should always be done in humility...in awe of the one Whom you have encountered. (photo. P. Smith)                 These meditations must conclude with “the greatest possible humility”, and De Sales offers us three acts with which we must end and extend our meditation. If the meditation or encounter with Jesus was like a Beautiful garden through which we just walked, we should recall that one never leaves a Beautiful garden without carrying with them a few flowers to share with the world outside. As we leave our meditations, our three acts are thanksgiving, offering, and supplication. That is, we should be ever-thankful for His Grace, we should offer Praise, and we should implore His Mercy. The meditations we do are not simply so we can grow in the devout life; they are for the world to benefit from our transformation. As teachers...
Read more

We Must Purify Ourselves of Affection for Venial Sin”

Image
22: “We Must Purify Ourselves of Affection for Venial Sin”                 De Salles writes that “the inward light of the Holy Spirit brightens our conscience”, and as we let that light guides us, the “more clearly and distinctly we see [our] sins”. Sin disrupts relationship with Self, Other, Nature, and God, and as those relationships are disrupted, we stray from our True image and likeness. That is, as we sin, we look less and less like God who is perfect Loving relationship. We should detest the sins we commit because of the damage they cause, but De Salles recognizes that thought we may never be fully free from sin, we can practice to detest them. We cannot expect our students to be perfect and free from sin, but we can help them to see the damage that sin causes and to let go of any affection for those sins. That may be the beginning of a holy life. Venial Sin tends to be a fixation of a material ...
Read more