12 days ‒ Emptying oneself of the spirit of the world - Day 6
Blessed are those who mourn
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 blessed sadness/grief. Amen!
The Word of God
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted” (Matt 5:4).
Meditation
God created us for the fullness of life and joy. However, sin caused the original harmony between us and God to be lost. The sadness that has appeared in us since that time always talks about some loss. And every loss we experience refers finally to the first loss that was the cause of all the subsequent losses: the loss of God. Being an exile in the world, a man had to cope somehow with the sadness that he bore within him. One of the inappropriate ways of dealing with sadness is denial and oblivion. The spirit of the world says that I have to be constantly happy. All the time, on the screens of television, computers and phones, we see smiling people, satisfied with life. It is a silent lesson of this world: you will be happy if you smile all the time.
And what is the truth? Can we live our lives without sadness and distress? If someone believes in the false picture that happiness = a smile, how will they react to sadness? Maybe they will put on some masks then to pretend they are somebody else, or they will escape into alcohol, drugs, music, toxic relationships, or whatever else, only to put the sadness out of their minds. Whether we want it or not, sadness is inscribed into our lives. In this blessing, Christ says that sadness and mourning are the spaces where we can meet Him and feel His presence, love, tenderness and consolation. The world we live in shows us either the sadness lived out in loneliness, which is depressing, or the sadness with the cheap consolation of other people, which won’t give us anything since everyone has to cope with it on their own. Any attempts to escape it or to drown it out won’t help. It will come back anyway. It is not possible to sweep it under the rug. That’s how the road to depression starts: I am alone, I feel sad, nobody will help me, and I cannot deal with it on my own.
In the eyes of this world, sadness is something unpleasant, so it is at odds with enjoying your life. Therefore, one should get rid of sadness, avoid it or pretend that it doesn’t exist.
Sadness appears when I lose what I cared about, something that was valuable to me. It means that sadness is an important lodestar in life because it shows me what I really care about.
Sadness is also the area where we can join with God and be with Him beyond words, at the level of emotions that are hard to pronounce. Experiencing sadness with love, e.g. over one’s sin, is the beginning of repentance.
The sadness may come from God. If I am not satisfied with my current state of the soul and yearn for something better, then I can be already grateful to God. Suppose such sadness increases my humble recognition that I am dependent on God and doesn’t bring grief or some inner confusion to my spirit, then this dissatisfaction is a sign of some inner craving for God who doesn’t let me settle for the current state but ignites my desire of living God. D 6 45 I want to crave you more, God! On the one hand, there is the desire to become a saint and great gratitude to God for the grace He gives me, and on the other hand, there is the shame that while receiving so much from God, I interact with His grace so little.
Mary’s sadness in Magnificat: “and a sword will pierce your own soul too” (Lk 2:35), “for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed” (Lk 1:48). Mary’s example shows that sadness doesn’t have the last word. Sadness may introduce the soul into anticipation of God’s consolation. Whenever we stay humble before God, and the sadness is undoubtedly such a situation, we also expect a blessing and elevation. During her apparitions in Fatima, the Blessed Mother reveals the soreness and sadness of her heart and invites us to be next to her. This sadness opens, not closes up. This is her reaction to the evil she sees in the world. How do I react to the evil I do and witness around me?
The struggle of standing up to evil: what does it consist in? The inner struggle in our life is to admit the truth about our sadness, and its stake is our blessing. The point is not to deny the sadness, not to escape it, and not to succumb to inner confusion due to it, not to lose hope, not to enter negative thinking or not to give up on the spiritual resolutions you made.
Spiritual reading
“This does not mean that one who has discovered Mary through a genuine devotion is exempt from crosses and sufferings. Far from it! One is tried even more than others, because Mary, as Mother of the living, gives to all her children splinters of the tree of life, which is the Cross of Jesus. But while meting out crosses to them she gives the grace to bear them with patience, and even with joy. In this way, the crosses she sends to those who trust themselves to her are rather like sweetmeats, i.e. ‘sweetened’ crosses rather than ‘bitter’ ones. If from time to time they do taste the bitterness of 46 EMPTYING ONESELF OF THE SPIRIT OF THE WORLD the chalice from which we must drink to become proven friends of God, the consolation and joy which their Mother sends in the wake of their sorrows creates in them a strong desire to carry even heavier and still more bitter crosses.”
St. Louis de Montfort, The Secret of Mary, 22
“Why are you consumed with foolish sorrow? Why are you wearied with unnecessary care? Be resigned to My will and you will suffer no loss. If you seek this or that, if you wish to be in this place or that place, to have more ease and pleasure, you will never rest or be free from care, for some defect is found in everything and everywhere someone will vex you.”
Thomas à Kempis, The imitation of Christ, chapter 27, 2
Homework
I will ask Mary to teach me to stand before God with my sadness.
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!