Sorrowful Mysteries for Holy Week

J.M.J.

I am taking these last few days of Lent to continue to examine my heart, to pray, and to love Christ Crucified.  I invite you to read the following articles I have written on the Sorrowful Mysteries.

Bless you all!

The Agony in the Garden for Contrition

The Agony in the Garden for Obedience

The Scouraging at the Pillar for a Spirit of Mortification

The Crowning With Thorns for Contempt of This World

The Carrying of the Cross for Patience

The Crucifixion

To Pray Always

J.M.J.

Somewhere along the way, even among the suffering within these walls where we temporarily live and on a larger scale, the suffering endured in the hospital, I have forgotten to pray.  How can this even be possible?  We are in the middle of Lent, both literally and spiritually, and yet I have started most of my days without any time on my knees at all.  Most evenings are also without much in the ways of recited prayer.  Why am I failing so miserably?

I wasn't always like this.  In the beginning, I was praying constantly.  I offered every breath Fulton breathed to Our Lord as a silent prayer of thanksgiving for saving my child.  Every flutter or pain in my own chest was offered in reparation for my own sins and used as a reminder of how greatly I needed a conversion of heart.  Hours of "Venerable Fulton Sheen, please heal my son" have been sent above, begging him to ask Our Lord to grant Fulton a miraculous heaing.  Every kiss and caress was not only for my son but for the Divine Face of God as well.  I had long, penitential and heartfelt conversations with Our Lady, St. Joseph, Ven. Fulton Sheen and of course My Lord Himself.  And I frequently wept out of sheer love of God.

But the last two weeks have been quite dry overall. 

My mother came to visit for about a week, and then my family came.  Perhaps it was the change of pace and change of routine that snapped me into an 'all business' mode.  I suddenly had other people around me and others to consider.  I had a house that seemed to get a lot messier in no time at all, a 21 month old baby to fret over, constant conversations, questions to answer and piles of laundry to wash.  I suddenly was worried about dishes being broken, spots on the upholstery, and rented towels with stains on them.  Food was sparse due to not being able to go shopping, so we left the house a lot to either go out to eat or run the errands I have not been able to do in a month or more.

And then there was the string of little excursions with everyone.  The aquarium, NASA, ferry boat rides, trips to the beach.  Absolutely, it was wonderful to be reunited with my family and to breathe fresh air.  It was good to get away for awhile with Fulton and do something 'normal' for once.  Yes, very good indeed.  But why was I so quickly able to set Our Lord aside? 

Perhaps it is because I have given up on a big miracle.  I have accepted the small steps forward as all He was going to do for us, and moved on.  Like St. Bernadette, I accepted that perhaps my role in all of this was to suffer as best I could, to prepare Fulton for his own road of suffering, and offer encouragement to others whenever I could.  Miracles, I decided, are for other people.  Whether we are unworthy of such a kiss from God, or because more grace would come to us through the daily suffering, I suppose it really does not matter.  Maybe it was a mix of both thoughts that changed my outlook.  I don't know.

I feel so ungrateful.  Even though there have been no miracles to amaze the doctors, the very fact that Fulton still lives is proof enough of God's love and that perhaps He wills something greater for my son.  And obviously I am comfortable with His decision.  But what rattles me is that despite all He had graced me with, all He had done for us, and all He still has in store for us, I behaved as one of the ungrateful lepers who was healed and disappeared.

Please Lord, please.  Do not let me wander so far from Your Cross again.  I return to you, contrite and humbled once again, but trusting You will not abandon me so long as my soul continues to long for You.  Strengthen my love I have for you in Your Holy Face, that I may once again at every moment offer my care and caresses I lovingly apply to my son's face to Your face as well.  Accept these physical acts as loving prayers to You, so that when my mind wanders or becomes forgetful, You will remember the tenderness of my touch.  Amen

"I firmly wish that my face reflecting the intimate pains
of my soul, the suffering and love of my heart, be more
honoured! Whoever gazes upon me already consoles me."
(Our Lord Jesus Christ to Sister Pierina)

St Patrick's Day

J.M.J.

And on the lighter side:  Happy St. Patrick’s Day!  Usually I tend to get a little giddy on this day, but this year I celebrate it with a sense of mourning.  Loss.  And a deep sense of grief.  For this is the first St. Patrick's Day I have ever had WITHOUT my precious green Hostess Sno-Ball.  (What does Walmart have against green Sno-balls, anyway??)   And so I leave you to review my musings of happier days in my childhood - days of grassy green smiles and coconut dreams:

When we were kids, my sisters and I could hardly wait for March. Not because spring was coming, mind you. Oh no. We were excited because we would get to eat Sno-balls! Those cream filled, coconut and marshmallow covered chocolate cake treats were cherished among my sisters and I. They were better than a pot of gold.

You see, growing up, I never got the kinds of lunches other kids got. While they brought peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on Wonder Bread, with bags of chips and Twinkies, we were stuck with liverwurst sandwiches on whole wheat with a hard-boiled egg and carrot. We longed for the treats other kids ate and would sometimes lament out loud our culinary woes. My mother would listen with a sympathetic ear, and sometimes she would bake wheat berry cookies, but overall, there was no reason for morale to improve.

Don’t misunderstand me. My mother loved us, and she did the best she could on the income we had. Every bite of food was packed full of vitamins, fiber and minerals. We simply ate to live – we certainly did not live to eat. And that was why St. Patrick’s Day was so special. Because on St. Patrick’s Day, we got to eat Sno-balls!

If there is nothing else my mother taught us as children, she made sure we knew that we had Irish blood in us. She taught us her version of the Irish jig. We actually loved corned beef and cabbage (OK, not technically a traditional Irish feast, but hey - there's cabbage and potatoes). And we learned to never, NEVER call anyone super! (Actually, the word was ‘souper’, but to a child they sounded the same, so super was not in our vocabulary.) We knew the real story behind the potato famine by the time we were in first grade.

And did I mention that we got to eat Sno-balls on St. Patrick’s Day?

On the morning of St. Patty’s Day, the Sno-ball effect would begin. 

We prepared for school like an Olympic athlete prepares for competition.
Get dressed in an all green outfit, braid hair with green ribbons, and straighten ‘Kiss Me I’m Irish’ pin.
March downstairs and eat green oatmeal and drink green milk, all the while focusing on the green-gold prize: the Sno-ball.
Wait for Dad to play Irish Night at the Pops and dance the Irish jig for Mother.
Polite, Vaseline teeth smiles, arms motionless at our sides as our feet flew wildly to and fro to music only a leprechaun should dance to.

Sno-balls.

Sno-balls.

Sweat pouring off our brow, green ribbons flying.

Sno-balls.

Sno-balls.

At last, the school bus would come and we flew out the door, never looking back, always looking forward. 

Looking forward. 

To lunch.

We soon found that other kids in our classes looked forward to our St. Patrick’s Day lunch as well. During the rest of the year, they usually glanced at out lunches and rolled their eyes or snorted as they scooted a few scoots away (liverwurst, eggs and milk do not make for the best breath, after all). But, on St. Patty’s Day, they would actually crowd around us to gaze at our green feast. A can of Green River soda, a green apple, a few slices of green pepper and celery sticks with peanut butter. And then, there it was – a very special, just for St. Patrick’s Day glistening green Sno-ball.

As I ate this lunch, the kids would ask why my family was so weird on St. Patrick’s Day. I would then begin to happily babble, between bites of cake and coconut, about St. Patrick, how one day I would live in Ireland, and about the plight of the Catholics during the potato famine.

“Famine? What’s a famine?” an older boy once asked as I licked the last of the green coconut flakes from my fingers.

Satiated, I sighed and turned to the poor, uneducated child before me. “A famine is when there is nothing good to eat for anyone. Sometimes people get so desperate that they eat strange things, just to stay alive. In Ireland, they had nothing good to eat and many people died of a disease called green mouth because all they could eat was grass.”

Looking closely at my green coconut speckled mouth and the careless remains of my lunch on the table, he snorted, “Yeah. I’ve seen that before.” And he wandered off to recess.

We laugh at the stories now, but I can also appreciate their underlying theme. We were taught about our Irish heritage in a way that made my sisters and I fiercely proud of who we are. Our passion for our history was stronger than our worries of what others thought of us, and this same passion allowed us, one day a year, to boldly bring our Catholic faith to others around us. I pray that I am able to pass along this same passion for our faith to my children as well.

Your assignment: Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day!

 
Learn the Irish jig and eat green pizza. 

Tape a shamrock on every part of your child that is mentioned in St. Patrick’s Prayer. 

Discuss the Trinity. 

One year we had a Conversion Hunt: I hid 200 popsicle sticks in our yard and 12 kids hunted for them like Easer eggs. Each stick was a person they found and “converted”, just as St. Patrick did.   

**There was an added urgency to finding all the people to convert, as Dad was going to mow the lawn later that day...

Celebrate this day while instilling in your children a strong connection to and pride for their Catholic heritage – no matter what nationality they may be!

And remember to get excited about your faith yourself. Enthusiasm, after all, has a “snowball” effect on everyone!

Mother's Prayer For Her Sick Child

J.M.J.

O Heart of Jesus, merciful and compassionate Heart, look with an eye of pity upon my sick son. 

O You, Who endured upon earth all that was most painful, relieve his sufferings!  In memory of the bitter desolation You endured in teh Garden of Olives, console him in his misery.  For the sake of Your cruel scourging and frightful crowning with thorns, grant him patience in his tribulations.  By Your most wearisome carrying of Your cross, grant him unshaken constancy in this trial and perfect resignation to God's holy will.  By Your cruel death, grant him a calm and peaceful departure from this life, if so it is best for his eternal welfare. 

But if, O Sacred Heart, it be not opposed to Your greater honor, grant him a prolongation fo life and restoration to perfect health.  I beg this of You by Your own infinite goodness and mercy.  It was for his welfare that You cast him upon this bed of sickness.  Give him light to discern Your loving designs and, with great ardor, to seek the salvation of his soul.  Take from him his former tepidity in Your service and fill him with a loving zeal for Your honor.  Grant that in this present tribulation he may understand how insignificant and transitory are all earthly joys.  Strengthen his heart to live henceforth solely for You and heaven, O God; and when You have given health to his soul, restore likewise the strength of body.  O Jesus, You Who healed so many sick, heal him also, that he may gratefully magnify Your name and, after a long life of piety and good works, depart happily in You, O Lord, to love You and praise You and glorify You forever adn ever!
Amen.

Prayer for a Sick Infant

J.M.J.

I received 2 amazing prayers in the mail from a friend the other day.  Both are prayers from a mother asking for healing on behalf of her sick child.  The mother's pleas so perfectly express where I am at right now, I thought I should post them here for any other parent suffering for their child. 

The first prayer is for a sick infant, still in baptismal innocence.  The second is a prayer for an older child no longer in baptismal innocence.  Since only Our Lord knows which of these my son falls under, I have both of these prayers at my bedisde.  But be warned:  these prayers are not for the faint of heart and take on a tone unfamiliar to most people these days.  Yet despite the 'harshness', I can't help but think that such prayer, when prayed sincerely, must be very pleasing to God.

A Mother's Prayer For Her Sick Infant

 

O ininitely merciful God, with contrite hearts we acknowledge before You that we have deserved not only this but far more grievous suffering!  My family and I have often and deeply offended Your infinite justice and holiness.  It is right that we should be chastised.  But, notwithstanding, we fly to Your paternal Heart to implore Your mercy, to beg for a remission of our indebtedness. 

Behold this innocent child, Yours by far stronger claims than ours!  Release him from suffering.  He could not yet offend You.  Ah, free him from pain!  The grace of Holy Baptism is still all his own.  O bless Your tenderly loved child!  With the blood of Your Son he was dearly purchased.  O then, for Jesus' sake, take pity on him.  He is the pure and unprofaned temple of Your Holy Spirit.  We are firmly resolved never to commit sin and, for the rest of our life, we will serve You with fidelity and gratitude.

 

Have mercy, good Father, on my poor sick child, and restore him to health!  You can do all things.  If You will it, this sickness will disappear.  One word from You, and health will be restored.  I promise to train him carefully to the utmost of my ability, to use every means to make him know, love, and serve You.  Assist me by Your grace to preserve him in his innocence, to fortify him in all virtues.  But if O Heavenly Father, You forsee that he will ever deviate from Your Commandments and lose his precious soul, rather take him at once to Yourself in heaven.  I could far rather see him die in his innocence than behold him a victim of sin and eternal damnation.

 

Amen

My apologies, as I do not have the information about the book from which the prayers came, but if anyone recognizes them, please let me know!  I will be posting the other prayer tomorrow.

The Face of God

J.M.J.

This Lent I have decided to meditate on the face of Our Lord.  As I have witnessed the profound changes that have taken place on Fulton's face, and placed myself at the foot of Our Lord's Cross, it seems as though this devotion is very fitting for me this year.  Soon after the accident happened, I came across the following prayer, penned by St Therese of Liseaux.  It struck such a deep chord within my heart, I had decided to pray this prayer on the evenings when I needed to focus on the larger picture of God's holy will instead of the heartbreaking changes taking place on my child's face.

With each passing day, Fulton's scars are thickening and becoming more distorted and I no longer can recall what he used to look like. Even with the help of photographs, I cannot see any similarities beyond perhaps the structure of his nose. In some ways I still grieve the loss of that sweet face, the squinty eyes and beaming smile, but I have already moved on and have come to love the new peaks and valleys and contours of his face as if they had always been there, and see God's great designs as He transforms my son.  I cherish this little face and kiss it daily, loving not only my son, but the God who gave him to me and the One Who chose this path to Calvary for us.  And as I ponder the faces of Fulton and Our Lord in agony yet so loved, I pray the Little Flower's prayer:

 

"O Jesus, Who in Thy cruel Passion didst become the "Reproach of men and the Man of Sorrows," I worship Thy Divine Face. Once it shone with the beauty and sweetness of the Divinity: now for my sake it is become as the face of a leper. Yet in that disfigured Countenance I recognize Thy infinite Love, and I am consumed with the desire of loving Thee and of making Thee loved by all mankind. The tears that streamed in such abundance from Thy Eyes are to me as precious pearls which I delight to gather, that with their infinite worth I may ransom the souls of poor sinners.

 O Jesus, Whose Face is the sole beauty that ravishes my heart, I may not behold here upon earth the sweetness of Thy Glance, nor feel the ineffable tenderness of Thy Kiss. I bow to Thy Will - but I pray Thee to imprint in me Thy Divine Likeness, and I implore Thee so to inflame me with Thy Love, that it may quickly consume me and I may soon reach the Vision of Thy glorious Face in Heaven. Amen."

 

 

Indeed I am not saying my son's face is worthy of worship or veneration of any sort, but there are elements within this prayer that, by changing a few words here and there, certainly speak to the agony I am going through as I watch the changes taking place on his sweet face, and correlating it with the actions of a loving God.  "For in Fulton's disfigured countenance I recognize Thy infinite Love, and I am consumed with the desire of loving Thee and of making Thee loved by all mankind." 

I know this special Lenten journey has just begun for me, this passion of sorts.  And while the details of this journey are shrouded from my eyes -  the insights, the pain and the graces that are in store for me - I know beyond all certainty how it ends:  A merciful Resurrected Lord, a new beginning, a purer soul, and deep gratitude for all My Lord and My God has blessed me with!

It is my Lenten mission to make the love known to anyone who will hear me, to show to them how God's love and mercy are shown most purely through suffering. What a beautiful Lent it will be!

To Suffer Well

J.M.J

(Written February 2)

I have been attending the school of suffering, that I may learn love. 

Not the Hallmark card and a dozen red roses variety of love, but the blood, sweat and tears sort of love presented to us by Our Lord in His Passion.  It is a kind of love that gives little in return on the surface, but strengthens the heart in ways that far outlast the roses.  So many days and nights now, I have sat beside my son's hospital bed, staring at the face of a child in agony, unable to do anything but kiss his feet and make every breath a prayer to God to heal my child and take away his pain. 

I prayed to Our Lady to keep me close to her and to her Son's Cross as she remained there at Calvary when all but Mary Magdalene and St. John remained.  His most devoted followers fled when faced with God's will, unable to withstand the fear and pain brought on by Our Lord's Passion.  There were many times I myself wanted to flee in the face of God's will for my child, myself and for my family.  But there was no one with whom I could share this burden with, and love kept me grounded permenantly at the foot of his bed - the foot of Fulton's cross.  Where else would I go?  And if I did run away, what of my abondoned son?  No.  I remained, and still remain, at the foot of this cross and take on each day as it comes.

Repeatedly I have been told that the Lord does not give to us a cross we are incapable of carrying. Not a single ounce more.  But after pondering this for several nights, I have learned a different lesson.  He has indeed given me a cross beyond my strength.  I have had no prior training for this sort of thing.  No heavenly visions, no inner voices, no miracles or even a track record of perseverance for much at all in my life.  So how is it I can suddenly be strong enough in His eyes to go through such a trial now?  I am weak and willful, and prone to all sorts of selfish defects that continually cause me to stumble.  Indeed I am NOT strong enough for this.  Not alone, anyway.

Without His help, what am I to my son? A whining woman,wanting to have someone by my side to physically help me through this crisis. With His grace, I am able to look beyond myself, and even look beyond my son to see the real message lying beyond:  Love.  It is all love because this cross comes to us by the very hand that was crucified for us.  And who am I to reject the chalice handed to me by my God?  Our hands meet and mingle a moment as He hands me this chalice and I am offered a choice. Do I drink my fill of that which was chosen for me, accepting it as an opportunity to learn to love Him more?  Or do I turn away in disgust or in anger, rejecting the chalice and therefore rejecting my God whose own blood issued forth from the wounds necessary for my salvation? 

Ah - you see?  There really is no choice to make at all.  For I choose Life and all that comes with it, no matter the trials that lay ahead.  And as I learn from this school of suffering, I will be better prepared to help Fulton learn of God's great love.  He has special challenges ahead of him, for obviously this same chalice, this same cross has been offered to him as well, just in a different way. 

Will I learn love well enough to help Fulton embrace this cross with the same loving resignation to God's will?  Or will I give in to its weight and fail to teach him what God wants him to learn?  I pray that when I stumble, He sends me my own personal Simon to help me in those times when it becomes unbearable.  And strengthened by His help, I will ascend Calvary with Him and teach my son the true meaning of love, allowing me to show him the beauty of a life lived with trustful surrender to Divine Providence.  For truly it is a gift and an act of love to be able to suffer for our Lord in the ways He chooses.