He is so in love with us!!
A SACRAMENTAL CONFESSION
Saturday it was time once again to make a sacramental confession. The soul determines this with the help of God, not on its own. That is why so many people do not go at all, or do not go often. They make the decision on their own and leave God out of it.
God wants us to make sacramental confessions; that is why He instituted Sacramental Confessions on Easter Sunday night.
Receiving this powerful and vital sacrament is inseparable from receiving the Blessed Sacrament!
So many people say little or nothing about it because they know little or nothing about it.
And so the devil is our only educator, and he appeals to our fallen human natures in so many clever ways and insists that we not go, and/or that we can just apologize to God directly instead, as if that is the same thing as doing what God said we should do!
How tragic that any of us would ever settle for so little.
One of the things we must always confess is pride. The devil appeals to us through our pride. He appeals to us as if he loves us like God does, pretending he has our best interests mind. But never forget that he is a liar, a manipulator, a stingy thief, and a killer. The devil is full of empty promises and his goal is to keep each one of us company in hell, forever.
How often he tries to trick us through our intellect. The devil tells us we do not need to go to Holy Mass, it is no different than any other service being offered by any other denomination, he whispers into our ears that nothing special happens, that it is boring, and we should find our faith in things that are really fun. "Don't go to confession," he says to each one of us. "It doesn't matter. You don't really have to go. Nothing special happens. Why should you have to confess to a priest?" How quickly and easily we can be convinced to disregard the teaching of Christ's Church, perhaps we never even made a point to know it, and in so doing we disregard Christ Himself.
The devil's great weapon against humanity.
The easier road is never the Way of the Cross, and that is the Way we must travel to get to heaven.
Remember where pride got Lucifer, that majestic and beautiful, highly intelligent angel. Think about what our pride does to us.
This is how we conquer it, pride, a hard-fought battle worth fighting and winning. We step on to the
There, in the presence of our angel guardian, Blessed Mother, our crucified Lord, the entire Blessed Trinity, and perhaps some saints, we admit our faults, our faults and not others' faults, sincerely and with sorrow. We conquer our pride by choosing to be humble and to submit to God's authority, when we acknowledge our place, which must always be lower than last place, for that is the place Jesus gave to Himself.
There can be no precious fruit without labor, without great effort, without bending, without suffering.
THE CONFESSION
Note the highlighted text of the examination of conscience, which was conducted with the aid of the Holy Spirit, and the fact that it has to do with the soul's petition that it not block the Lord's action within and through it. This is a very important detail and its purpose will be clear to you by the end of the story.
The sign of the Cross.
Please bless me, Father, for I have sinned. My last confession was about a week and a
half ago.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy
Spirit!
Most loving Lord, I have come today because I love you in
return, and kneel at the foot of the Cross to plead for your mercy and pardon,
so grateful to you for Your patience with me, and for Your love and generosity. I apologize for the times my failures have
hurt You, have hurt others, and have blocked Your most perfect plans from
coming to fruition through me.
Please help me so that this never happens, Lord.
I apologize for my worldly, prideful, self serving, and
pleasure seeking nature, my lack of self mastery, and the times I lacked
fraternal charity and became frustrated with the behavior of others; truly, mankind has become disfigured by its
own hand, but You are the answer to everything, Lord, have given us what we
need in the Devotion to Your holy and disfigured Face which reflects what we
have become, and I trust in You!
I apologize for the several times that I have spoken to my
children harshly, eaten food I am not supposed to have, for turning impatiently
yesterday which may have scared another driver, and even though that was not my
intention it was the result of impatience, and even worse I was on my way to
see You. These recurring weaknesses of
mine are always fueled by great physical and mental fatigue, but knowing that You
have a plan, I ask not for more energy but ask for greater patience, the
patience of a saint!
I apologize for the bitterness I was holding in my heart
yesterday toward a very difficult person and for speaking to him with a hard
heart. In truth he is an incredible
instrument in Your hands and great good is being accomplished through Him
because that’s the way You are, and so I please ask you Lord to forgive me for
my hardness of heart and please let me always be kind and forgiving, especially
to this person. Please free us all from the demons that grip us; so often because we
have invited them to join us...
Jesus please heal the hearts of all those whom I have harmed
throughout the course of my entire life, in so many various ways, sometimes
intentionally, and sometimes out of ignorance.
Please heal the wounds of all of humanity so that we may be able to
better serve you and one another as whole people, with You always present in
our restored hearts.
I apologize to You for the times I have set a bad example
for anyone. Please help me to love
everyone as You love them, and always see You in them. Please make of me Your
mirror, a living representation of the Devotion to Your Holy Face.
Please grant me the strength to be very careful when eating,
and speaking, and help me to always be kind and generous like You. Thank You for your great love and mercy,
Lord! I give myself entirely to You, and
promise to love and honor You, all the days of my life.
An act of contrition, absolution, and then liberation!
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THE CONFRONTATION
After confession, I moved from the chapel to the church to pray before the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Right after kneeling in church to pray, I was confronted in a major and quite unexpected way by my defiant nature. The experience was unprecedented; the presentation before me of my defiant nature came to me from Jesus on the Cross above the altar, and it was enormous. The expression of this defiance seemed to fill the entire space between Jesus above the altar and me in the back.
THE DEFIANCE
He was giving me information that I needed, and also the means to fix it.
At first it was surprising, since this has never happened to me before, and because at the time I was expecting to feel more a sense of relief after having been forgiven of my sins. This is a reminder not to allow our feelings to deter us from accomplishing God's will.
The Lord granted a tremendous grace, the precious fruit of having received the Sacrament of Reconciliation, the Sacrament of Divine Intimacy.
But that was not all.
A REQUEST FROM OUR CRUCIFIED LORD
From the beginning of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, it was clear that everyone present was standing in the presence of our Crucified Lord on Calvary. The Lord inspired me to SHOUT to Him there on the Cross, to shout above the crowd (an action of thought) and beg Him to rid me of this defiance. Beg probably isn’t the best word but it makes the point; I was to purposefully petition our Lord and insist He change this defiance, and it seemed crucial that it be done right away.
When we don't ask the Lord then we are left to wonder how many things we do and are block God from acting within us, when He wants not only to have us ascend to greater heights of sanctity but to use us as tremendous channels of grace for the massive conversion of sinners.
I was shown this as an action similar to the moment when the Good Thief accepted Christ’s magnificent offer of salvation and sanctification. The Lord wants us to do this, to petition Him on Calvary as He hangs crucified on the Cross, for the things we are in need of, specifically the things
The Lord wants each one of us to benefit from His Sacrifice, and so many people are not benefiting.
How is it possible, for us to benefit in this way? When we assist at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, we are there for the re-presentation of Christ's passion, crucifixion, and our redemption. These moments are of tremendous value to us, and also to others through us.
To fight we must first surrender; to advance we must first retreat.
So there on Calvary during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, I shouted toward Jesus on the Cross (silently, in a deliberate action of thought), and begged Him with serious purpose to change my defiant nature and transform me into His likeness.
I asked Him to fix this and also anything within me that is blocking His will from being accomplished within me and through me.
The power of His Sacrifice, of His Sacred Blood, can do this. Just one drop of Christ's Precious Blood was enough to redeem the entire human race! And during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass we receive Christ's Body and Blood in such abundant measure, and we are mystically covered with His Precious Blood during the Sacrifice of the Mass, during our Sacramental Confessions, when we pray with Jesus in the Garden of Sorrows, and when we accompany Him along the Way of Sacrificial Love when praying the Stations/Way of the Cross, meditating on His Passion, praying the Holy Rosary or the Chaplet of Divine Mercy...
The Lord wants every person to petition Him in this way.
He wants us to ask ourselves while standing among the crowd on Calvary, “What do I shout out to our Crucified Lord?” Are we saying anything. Do we want to know anything.
CHRIST APPEARS AGAIN IN A SIMILAR WAY
The next afternoon, I returned to the chapel before Holy Mass to pray a Holy Hour before the Blessed Sacrament, by the confessionals and next to a replica of our gentle and humble Lord after He had been beaten, scourged, and crowned with thorns.
While praying the final Sorrowful Mystery, the Crucifixion, Christ presented Himself once again. He was crucified on the Cross, and He was much, much closer to me than the day before. He was so battered, and His suffering was indescribable, but my attention was immediately directed to the fact that Jesus' thoughts were not on Himself, they were on us.
He said, "Come to Me with what you need."
Really think about that for a moment. Our Lord is suspended on the Cross in absolute agony, He is battered beyond recognition, surrounded by His executioners, still being mocked, scorned, and rejected, and He says to us, "Come to Me with what you need."
What is your reaction to that.
I cried, and with gratitude and humility inspired by an immeasurably loving Heart torn open by a spear, the great instrument of Divine Providence which opened for us the gateway to God, said to Jesus, "I should be asking what it is I can do for You."
Accept God's magnificent offers of salvation and sanctification, and then love Him and honor Him, all the days of your life.
"Trust all things to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and to Mary, Help of Christians,
and you will see what miracles are."
~ Saint John Bosco
Discover and then keep rediscovering the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic, and Pro-Life Church, and the majestic full expression of Christianity as established by its very Founder, Jesus Christ.
How is God at work in you?
Four minutes of PROFOUNDLY CATHOLIC audio to help you start seeing no more with the eyes of the flesh. Prepare to be AMAZED, for God is so in love with you!!
Images taken at Ss. Cyril and Methodius Slovak Catholic Church,
Sterling Heights, Michigan, U.S.A.
Parish Website
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THE POWERFUL DEVOTION TO THE HOLY FACE OF JESUS
To learn more about the Work of Reparation through the Devotion to the Holy Face,
which our Lord, Jesus Christ called "the most beautiful work under the sun,"
Please share the information with others.
God is at work in you!!
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