It was early December when I finally went to see my spiritual director. I had this great need to see him. He could tell that something wasn’t right. He knows me and knew that I wasn’t your anxious type of person. And I was anxious.
I explain to him that for about a month after receiving communion, I would have this deep conversation with Our Lord where he kept telling me to prepare for death, my death. Sometimes, I wouldn’t give much thought to those words, other times as I explain to Father, it consumed me.
There I was crying and asking Father, what does this mean. What do I need to do?
We talk about how maybe it would be a good idea to get a physical and just make sure there isn’t something physically happening that I just didn’t have a clue.
But at the end of our talk, he explains to me that a person searching for holiness is someone who is preparing for death. That Lord is asking me to prepare for my death as a way for me to seek holiness. To remove vices and seek virtue. To seek Him and less me.
At the same time, I started to read the beautiful story of St. Margaret Clitherow. I just had no clue how these beloved faithful Catholics suffered in the 16th century. NO CLUE.
As I kept reading her story, I kept seeing my miserable soul of ungratefulness. I had taken my faith for granted and it was breaking my heart. So much that one Sunday, after I read this section in the book, I had to seek confession and just confess;
Forgive me Father, for I have taken my faith, the mass, the sacraments, you for granted.
The Holy Mass was Margaret Clitherow’s greatest delight, the very center of her life. Her most care, thought, and study was to have God catholicly served, and by all means, his truth known, and him honoured; the amount of vestments found when her house was finally searched was evidence of her zeal to have the Mass said with as much seemliness, if not splendor, as was possible in such cramped conditions.
In all her affairs this was the chief that she card for, to the which as to the end of the Christian life, all her other actions were referred. Fervour overcame all fear, and her inflamed zeal to God’s service consumed all worldly terrors.
This feeling of ungratefulness kept me awake at night. I couldn’t shake the feeling. So I started to attend an extra Mass, I started to make a habit of more confession, I started to go to adoration twice a week or whenever I was close to the Adoration Chapel, I would stop by and just soak His merciful love. Try to show my gratefulness to having Him so close by.
And now, on the Feast of St. Patrick, we got the news of all churches close, no more public mass for a month!
Oh, Dear God forgive me for my ungratefulness. Please forgive me for not seeking you with the same fervor, zeal as St. Margaret.
I knew that night, He has been preparing me for this moment in time. The moment that in all my lifetime, I will not be able to go as I please to see Him. To Receive Him. To be near Him. To seek His mercy on my soul!
I had a dark moment. I sat there in my prayer chair and I beg Him to speak to me through the words of St. Faustina. I needed Him to speak to my dark soul, my broken heart.
And in His goodness, in His merciful for me, He did!
I open the Diary of St. Maria Faustina right to this passage that took my breath away. I hope you see His merciful love in these words for you!
During Vespers, I saw the Lord Jesus, who looked sweetly and profoundly into my soul. My daughter, have patience; it won’t be long now. That profound look and those words filled my soul with strength and power, courage and extraordinary trust that I would carry out everything He was demanding of me, despite such tremendous difficulties, and filled me with a special conviction that the Lord is with me and that with Him I can do all things. All the powers on earth and in hell are as nothing to me. Everything must fall before the power of His Name. I entrust everything into Your hands, O my Lord and God. Sole Commander of my soul, direct me according to Your eternal desires.
So I will march forward, so will you. We will rid ourselves of this lukewarmness in our soul, for now, we have nothing. We can only now desire more and that is Him.
I can see the hope and light in these dark moments, not my hope or light but God’s. He will continue to bring His merciful love in the words of the saints, in Holy Mass online or TV, in the Holy Rosary, 24 Life Adoration Chapels online.
He will continue to do so in each one of us. Now more than ever, God is asking us to put aside “our right” to Him attitude. No, my friends, we have no right to Him. We have no right to communion, no right to the sacraments. We have no right to any of it.
It is only a privilege. It has always been a privilege and we at the moment have lost that privilege. We lost it so that when we do get it back may we NEVER take for it granted again.
May Souls seek His merciful Love.
With the Love of Christ,
Maria Cecilia
Here are some resources for seeking Him. If you have others, please share them in the comments.
