12 days ‒ Emptying oneself of the spirit of the world - Day 4

Discover the grace of repentance and devotion of your life to the Lord

Prayer to the Holy Spirit

O Holy Spirit, inspire me. God’s love, engulf me. Holy Mary, my Mother, guide me in the right ways, look at me, and together with Jesus, bless me. Keep me from all evil, from all delusions and all threats. Mary, The Spouse of the Holy Spirit, obtain for me the grace of repentance and devotion of my life to the Lord. Amen!

The Word of God 

“Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, all of you according to your ways, says the Lord God. Repent and turn from all your transgressions; otherwise iniquity will be your ruin. Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed against me, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, says the Lord God. Turn, then, and live” (Ezek 18:30‒32).

Meditation 

For the first three days, we reflected on how much God has loved us and how sin destroys us, and we looked at Jesus, who is the Saviour conquering sin, death and Satan. From this point of view, we see that the victory of Jesus is a great gift for us, an invitation to which we may respond.

Today is the time to make the second decision. What are you going to do with it? You are free, and you may decide. It will have consequences in your life and eternity. It is essential to realize it well.

Why am I to change anything? The struggle takes place within us. When we start reading the Book of Genesis, paying special attention to the story of sin, we will notice which areas within us are infected by Satan: Adam and Eve were persuaded to the disobedience, Kain to the envy, the builders of the Tower of Babel to the temptation of self-sufficiency and independence from God, and people in Noah’s days to the passivity—to not doing anything, not taking any decisions, explaining that “it’s like that nowadays,” “everyone does it like that,” “it’s not possible to do it otherwise,” “I still have time.”

Today’s decision is about moving from religiousness to faith. What does it mean? Religiousness is a way of experiencing my relationship with God, where I make a list of all the things I want to ask for so that God blesses me in them. This is an attitude where I need God only to meet my intentions and desires, which are often apparently very pious. Faith is the relation where I give God a blank page; I sign it with my name and say: fill it in as You wish; I trust that You will guide me through all of it. It can be said that religiousness is a dead faith. What does it look like? One of its manifestations is being so-called “traditional Catholic,” i.e., I adopted faith from my parents, but it wasn’t my personal choice. Another manifestation of dead faith is “Catholicism according to the rules,” where the most important thing is to obey the commandments, rules and regulations, which are, in fact, often burdensome, but obeying them is, for me, a sort of pride. Yet another sign of dead faith is a belief that it is enough to be a good man, to do the right things, to help others, and to do charity work. Well, I haven’t killed anybody, haven’t robbed anyone, so I am a good man

Today is the time to get out of the travesty of faith and enter the life-giving relationship with God, who has the power to 36 EMPTYING ONESELF OF THE SPIRIT OF THE WORLD revive all that died in your life and fill you with real life. Jesus said: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (Jn 14:6). To truly live means to live in relationship with Him. This relation is called living faith.

Jesus conquered death, sin and Satan, and He reigns over everything. Everything is subjected to Him. Also these things that we lost control over. He doesn’t lose control of anything. He is the Lord of the material and spiritual world. He rules over an evil spirit, diseases, fears and anxieties.

God shows us the dynamics of devotion. First, He created the world and people, gave them His love, and bestowed upon them a variety of goods. “God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good” (Gen 1:31). Later, when the painful truth came out and it turned out that we could destroy even the greatest God’s gifts through our sin, and when by the disobedience to God we surrendered into devil’s slavery, the Lord gave us Himself through Mary, and everything that we surrendered into the slavery of evil, Christ redeemed through His blood. When He was dying on the Cross, He gave us His last will: “Here is your mother” (Jn 19:27). He gave us Mary so that, like Saint John the Apostle, we could take her into our lives. She was the one who got to know Him best and spent with Him the most time; thus she can teach us real life devoted to God and His closeness. God asks you today to make this decision to invite Mary to your heart, to take her into your home, and to have a relationship with living God through the Blessed Mother.

This is the grace of faith through which you may connect with living God. God really wants to meet with you and have a living bond with you. God is looking for you on the paths of your life through different situations and events. Do you notice it? The Scripture says: “We love because he first loved us” (1 Jn 4:19), “I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God” (Gal 2:20‒21). D 4 37 We cannot earn for the gift of salvation. We just got it for free, out of God’s kindness and generosity. What will be my decision today?

Spiritual reading 

“Eternal Wisdom was deeply moved by the plight of Adam and all his descendants. He was profoundly distressed at seeing his vessel of honour shattered, his image torn to pieces, his masterpiece destroyed, his representative in this world overthrown. He listened tenderly to man’s sighs and entreaties and he was moved with compassion when he saw the sweat of his brow, the tears in his eyes, the fatigue of his arms, his sadness of heart, his affliction of soul.

I seem to see this lovable Sovereign convoking and assembling the most holy Trinity, a second time, so to speak, for the purpose of rehabilitating man in the state he formerly created him (cf. Gen. 1:26). We can picture a kind of contest going on in this grand council between eternal Wisdom and God’s justice.

I seem to hear eternal Wisdom, in his plea on behalf of man, admit that because of his sin man and all his descendants deserve to be condemned and to spend all eternity with the rebel angels. Still, man should be pitied because he sinned more through ignorance and weakness than through malice. He points out that it would be a pity if such an exquisite masterpiece were to become the slave of the devil for ever, and millions upon millions of men were to be lost eternally, through the sin of only one man. Besides, eternal Wisdom draws attention to the places left vacant by the fall of the apostate angels. Would it not be fitting to fill these places? And would not God receive great glory in time and in eternity if man were saved?”

St. Louis de Montfort, The Love of Eternal Wisdom, 41‒43

Homework 

I will live through this day, trusting that God wants to guide me through everything that will happen today, whatever it will be. 

Prayer of consecration 

I am all Yours, and all that I have is Yours, O most loving Christ, through Mary, Your most holy Mother. Amen!