Today as we also celebrate the Feast day of the Holy Family, Jesus, Mary and Joseph are the perfect models of complete abandonment to Divine Providence. Whether it be in hardships and difficulties that beset them throughout their lives, be it at the moment of our Lord’s birth in the stable at Bethlehem or during their exile in the land of Egypt, we can contemplate and marvel at their perfect resignation to the will of God. Abandonment to Divine Providence was also dear to Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and I would like to share with you below a beautiful sermon of the Archbishop which he gave at Econe, Switzerland on the occasion of his 70th birthday. “ I am very moved by the thoughtfulness of my fellow priests in asking me to celebrate a solemn high mass on the occasion of my seventieth birthday. And since this occasion gives me the opportunity to speak a few words especially to you, my dear friends, instead of recounting the various phases of my life (which is not appropriate in the chapel) I prefer to encourage you, to give you some advice based on the experience gained during these years God has given me, years of priesthood, years of episcopacy, years of apostolate.” “It seems to me that what matters concerning the time God gives us on earth is not to live for forty, fifty, sixty, seventy years, but to live these years well, to make them a hymn to God’s glory, the fulfillment of God’s will for us, so that one day we may have a share in eternal life. This is what counts in the use of the years God gives us. One may , in fact, compare them to a music score: the staff is a symbol of law in general - natural law, the precepts of the Church, the supernatural laws that our Lord Jesus Christ, through Revelation, brought us - which points out the direction we are to take. A road has thus been completely marked out for us. However, on this road it is God Himself who must write the notes and we to stay in key. We should not sing a wrong note. The whole series of notes, then, from the most pleasant to the most serious, indicates what our life is made up of: trials, joys, difficulties. We have to allow God to act in us, not intervening in our own behalf to the detriment of the harmony He wants to give our life. Herein lies the whole problem of our existence.” “For this, there is a road to follow, a road that I certainly do not claim to have followed myself, but one which I have at least taken as my life’s ideal: Self-abandonment to God’s will, to Divine Providence, counting on God, on our Lord Jesus Christ, on His grace, counting particularly on the practice of our Faith, on the supernatural life, and not on natural means, on our own possibilities, on our own abilities, or on our own gifts either. To enable God to act through us, as He wants, as He desires, as He intends, we must practice self-renunciation, self-abandonment in trials as well as in joys. We also have to become indifferent to this world’s goods, to riches, to poverty, so that we might be able to say, Like St. Paul, that it makes no difference to us whether we live in prosperity or in poverty.” “We should go even deeper in self-abandonment, in detachment, not only giving up this world’s goods, but even being willing to give up a natural good that is precious to us - our reputation. This applies particularly to our times, to the period in which we live with all its means of social communication, with the media that delights in passing sentence (as it knows how to do, obviously in a biased manner) on our Society. We must consequently be able to give up even our reputation. We are told that we are disobedient, whereas God knows if there is one thing that is especially important to us, it is precisely that practice of self-abandonment to God’s will, an entire submission to His desires. To be disobedient means to oppose not only our superiors here on earth but even God. Now this is inconceivable.” “That is why we have chosen the difficult and unpleasant road of the loss of our good reputation in the world’s eyes rather than in God’s eyes - for that is what matters and the rest is unimportant. “We must likewise practice self-abandonment in spiritual difficulties that strike at what is dearest to us, our union with God, our union with our Lord Jesus Christ, in prayer, in mental prayer, in our love for our Lord Jesus Christ: so many obstacles, difficulties, trials. Throughout our whole life, God is pleased to send difficulties, trials, dryness. We have to be ready to offer all this to Him, to abandon ourselves to Him in order to become more attached to Him. He is the one who gives us this cross, who puts us on the cross so that we may become more united to Him, so that we may love Him more and follow Him more closely.” “...Therefore let us not hesitate to accept the trials God gives us; to be detached thereby from all things in order to be fully abandoned to His Holy will. This is what matters, this is what will bring forth fruit in us and in others. We will bring forth fruit through the peace and serenity that come from putting everything in God’s hands. Can we yield to worry? Can we waver in our confidence in Him? God who loves us, well knows how to protect our life, our spiritual life, our apostolate. This will consequently give us an interior peace that is so necessary, so indispensable for keeping us in the truth, for keeping us in charity, in hope.” “This will likewise be the best way of carrying out our apostolate. Through our self-abandonment, God will permit the fruits of our apostolate to be abundant, whether we are aware of them or not. What maters is that through our self-abandonment in God’s hands, we are convinced that God distributes His graces through our mediation and particularly through the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, through the sacraments. The only thing we seek is that God may distribute His graces, that souls may be transformed by Him and become more united to Him.” “That is why the difficulties we have to bear in life, difficulties we never thought we would have to face, well, it is in maintaining our firm determination to be completely abandoned to God’s will that he will show us the road to take even if, for sometime, we seem to be walking in obscurity, even if we walk without clearly seeing where God is leading us. We have to realize that God often lead us in darkness, through difficulties! He is under no obligation to tell us beforehand where He is leading us. Providence does not usually do this. God shows us the road to take one day at a time:’Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof,’ our Lord said. Consequently, we are not to worry about tomorrow. If we truly live with God, if we are truly abandoned to Him, He will show us from day to day the way to follow; the way may become clear to us perhaps only twenty-four hours beforehand, perhaps forty-eight hours beforehand, perhaps two hours beforehand, we don’t know. Let us stay in God’s hands and then we are sure of being His children, children who are obedient and entirely united to Him.” Let us pray to the Blessed Virgin to ask her to always, be like her, abandoned to God’s will. May our love be for her divine Son, may our only will be to do her divine Son’s will that then will we be more certain of obtaining an eternal reward at the end of our life.
In J+M+J. |
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AuthorAn artist, entrepreneur, a loving family man, 30 years a Catholic traditionalist upholding traditions for the love of God. Shop for Catholic giftsArchives
January 2024
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