Mary TV Daily Reflection 11/22/2010

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November 22, 2010 St. Cecelia

 

Dear Family of Mary!

"Dear children! Today I am with you and bless you all with my motherly blessing of peace, and I urge you to live your life of faith even more, because you are still weak and are not humble. I urge you, little children, to speak less and to work more on your personal conversion so that your witness may be fruitful. And may your life be unceasing prayer. Thank you for having responded to my call." (September 25, 2010) 

Being humble is very often the focus of the saints.  They seem to understand the greatness of being small and humble.  One such little one was Blessed Charles de Foucauld.  This holy man died, a martyr, on December 1, 1916 in Tamanrasset in the Hoggar at the hands of outlaws. But he lived a life of death to self, in imitation of Jesus in His hidden life of Nazareth.  Blessed Charles chose to live a lowly life, as a workman among the poor, very like Jesus did.  Denis shared with me something beautiful that Blessed Charles wrote about humility.  He wrote this meditation very much in the way that we journal with the Lord, asking Him a question and letting Jesus answer: 

"My Savior Jesus, make this meditation for me.  It was you who said, 'It is not meet that the servant should be above his Master.'  By those words you command that I should not ever be set above you in the eyes of men.  How can I practice this abjection?

" 'First notice that after I had said "the servant must not be above his Master," I added, "but he is perfect who is like to his Master."  So it follows that though I do not expect you to be above what I was, I do not wish you to be lower.  If there are exceptions to this you are certainly not one of them, for I have so often shown you that your vocation is to imitate me.  Try then to be, in the eyes of the world, just what I was at Nazareth, no more and no less.  I was a poor workman, living by the work of my hands.  I seemed to be ignorant, unlettered.  My parents, relations and friends were poor artisans like myself or fishermen.  I spoke with them as an equal, we dressed alike, we lived and ate alike.  Like all poor men I was despised, and because I was, in the eyes of the world, only a "poor Nazarene," I was persecuted and ill-treated in my public life, so that, at my first words in the synagogue at Nazareth, they wanted to turn me out. In Galilee they called me Beelzebub, and in Judea they said I was a devil and possessed.  I was treated as an impostor and a seducer, an ambitious usurper, and I was put to death on a gibbet between two thieves.  Let yourself then, my child, be thought to be ignorant, poor, of low birth; indeed what you really are, without cleverness or talent or virtue; seek the lowest occupations, cultivate your mind in such measure as your director lays down for you, but let it be in secret and unknown to the world.  I had infinite wisdom, but no one knew it.  Fear not to study, it is good for your soul.  Study zealously with the purpose of growing better, of knowing me better and living better, also in order that you may resemble me, the Perfect Knowledge.  Be very ignorant in the eyes of men and very wise in Divine Knowledge at the foot of my Tabernacle.  I was lowly and disdained.  Seek, ask for and love those occupations which degrade you, such as sweeping dung or digging the ground, whatever is most lowly and common; the more you make yourself lowly in these ways, the more you will be like me.  Even if you are thought mad, all the better.  Thank me infinitely.  I was thought mad, that is a point of resemblance between us.  If you should be stoned and reviled and cursed in the streets, all the better.  Thank me, for it is a great grace.  Did they not do the same to me?  You should rejoice that I make you like myself in this.  But you must not bring this treatment upon yourself by eccentricity or strange behavior; I did nothing to be so treated, I did not deserve it in any way, and yet I was so treated; so do nothing to deserve ill treatment, but if I give you the grace to undergo it, thank me for it.  Do nothing to prevent it or to stop it.  Bear all with joy and gratitude that you should be given this gift from my brotherly hand.  Act as I should have done.  Do only good, but give yourself to the lowest, humblest task; show yourself to others, by your dress, your lodging, your friendliness with the humble, to be the equal of the humblest.  Hide carefully all that may exalt you in the eyes of your neighbor.  But before me, in silence and solitude before the Tabernacle, study and read.  You are alone, with door closed, with me and my Holy Parents, with Mary Magdalene.  Unfold your mind and spirit at my feet, and do all that your director may prescribe for you to become better and holier, that you may the better console my Sacred Heart.'" (Charles de Foucauld. Meditations of a Hermit. p. 83-85)

Now, we have to remember that Blessed Charles was given the call to literally live like Jesus in His hidden life of Nazareth.  It was an extreme call.  But there is much we can learn from him. Jesus was Humility in the extreme!  He was God, Almighty!  And yet He chose to become man, and not just any man, but the poorest of men.  He chose poverty and disdain as His daily portion.  Blessed Charles chose to live the same way.  Similarly we can choose to accept the parts of our lives that resemble even a little bit, this deep humility.  If we are young we can choose to obey our parents. If we are employees, we can choose to do our best on the job, even if we are undervalued and under paid.  If we are parishioners, we can choose to serve in lowly jobs, or take the graveyard shift for adoration!  If we are spouses, we can choose to ask forgiveness, and be the first to serve the other.  Well, you get my point.  We can take the low road, like Jesus.  Why?  Because becoming like Jesus is becoming like the master, resembling the best of the best!  It is again, the divine paradox, that in weakness is strength and in folly is wisdom.  Humility makes us like Jesus.

Jesus, divine Master, help us to imitate you in your beautiful humility.  May our hearts become like Nazareth, your home with Mother Mary and St. Joseph, the place where You will choose to live.

In Jesus and Mary!
Cathy Nolan

PS.  Today marks the one year mark for Mary TV's "LIVE" Daily Online Rosary!  It has been one year today since Mary TV began a daily live rosary on our website, via live streaming, in honor of Our Lady of Medjugorje and in order to consecrate the Internet to Our Lady!  We are so excited!  

Tom Matasso told me that in this year we have had 31,104 hours of viewing time by visitors to our website (which includes our recorded rosaries and events as well as the live events)!!  That could be represented as over 3 and 1/2 years of continuous viewing, 24 hours a day!  Praise God for such blessings!  We hope to continue growing, adding new programing and events as the Lord leads! Thank you for joining in.  The live Rosary is at 11:00 am EST at marytv.tv!  

 

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