Transcription
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Let's take, as we normally do, just a few minutes to quieten our minds and our hearts so that we can be more attentive to the voice of the Lord, as Pope Leo has been encouraging us to learn to be listeners, to listen. And as Jesus said in chapter five of John's gospel, that we heard last week at weekday Mass: "Everything I see my Father do, those things I do." So we fuse ourselves into the divine will so that we listen with His ears and speak the words He wishes us to speak, so that teaching us more about the mysteries and the kingdom, that we then are able to operate this gift, and especially at this time, Holy Week, to come to the Paschal Mysteries with our hearts made pure and our minds made clean.
So, as I said last week, I'm going to talk a little bit about mystery, because most important things that are happening this week take place in the liturgy. It's this solemn part of the year that we call Holy Week, culminating in the Triduum, the three days of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday, preparing us for the mystery of the resurrection. We must remember that mysteries are things that are both revealed and made clear, but also veiled. Mystery was a word that the early Christians, especially Paul, had to come up with to enable them to explain and teach and preach what was dramatically new, something which had been prepared for in vagueness by pagan religions, then more fully in type by the Jewish, but pointing forward to the reality.
So, first of all, we must remember what we mean by mystery, what we're entering into this week. So, I'm going to give you three things to think about, and these all tie in with the divine will, because this is how God willed His mystery to be communicated.
First thing, we have to remember that this week we're entering sacred time. This is so important. If we'd lived in Europe, let's say up until maybe the 17th, 18th century, but particularly if we say go back to England in, say, the 14th, 15th centuries, these two weeks of Holy Week and Easter Week, they so recognized that they are outside of what we call profane time. What does profane time mean? The secular time. These were days apart. So, for example, no courts met, prisoners were set free, wars were not fought, relationships were healed. Everything was recognized that nothing took priority over this, because they had in them this profound sense that the time they were entering into was no longer governed simply by measuring the passing of what we could call natural time.
That sacred time is something that takes us out. It breaks the temporal dimension. In other words, although we will be continuing this week with our duties of state, many will be working, and such is the state of our world that many will have to work through these sacred days. But wherever we are, whatever we're doing, we must remember time, as it were, has now stopped. The clocks may tick. We still continue to act. But we are taken up. It is as if the sacred has pierced the human. Just as we will see that when Jesus comes to rise from the dead, we have in His risen body this mystery of the eternal and the now. And because we call it sacred time, it's not something we can just put into a box. But this was common to all faiths and religions. But what Christ did is He radically altered this sense. The historical and the eternal now in Him become joined. For the Greeks, and to the Jews to a certain extent, time was circular. History repeated itself. But Christ, when the Son took flesh, entered into time and therefore completely changed our perspective of it. It is now subservient to the mystery of God. Which is why we've talked regarding time of the symbols of the renewal of the earth every 2,000 years, of the seventh millennium. These are not just coincidences. These are built into the very fabric that we are living in. And sacred time, which will tie in with the divine will, we could say, is a regeneration by going back to the origins. So sacred time is a regeneration, a rebringing to life by a return to the origins.
Now, the Jews had this when they celebrated the Passover. I may have mentioned this already, that the younger son, I think it was, asks the question, "What are we doing? What is the Passover? What's happening?" And the father replied, "On this night, we were taken out of Egypt." Now, notice the father says, "On this night." So, to the Jews, there's this concept that somehow the mystery of the Passover of the Exodus is made present. But that is simply a sign of what Christ is now doing. Christ, as St. John Chrysostom says, when He ascended into heaven, entered into the mysteries. It's a beautiful phrase: "Christ ascended into heaven and entered into the mysteries." So by our participation, particularly in the next two weeks, by a ritual, which is what liturgy is, we become contemporary with that time. So I don't know whether you've noticed now, but in England, with the change of translation, we've recovered that little phrase, "in illo tempore," "at that time," which, when we hear, reminds us that the liturgy brings these mysteries to us.
And a beautiful book by Mircea Eliade, if I can find the quote. I have written down the wrong year. Here we go. "Christianity goes even further in strengthening and making complete historical time. Since God was incarnated, that is, since He took on a historically conditioned human existence, history acquires the possibility of being sanctified. The time evoked by the Gospels is a clearly defined historical time, but it was sanctified by the presence of Christ. For the Christian too, the sacred calendar indefinitely rehearses the same events of the existence of Christ. But these events took place in history. They are no longer facts that happened at the origin of time, in the beginning." So what he is saying there is that with Christ coming into time, the Son made Man, He can sanctify time.
And why am I saying all this? Because we must remember that primarily, what is going to happen this week takes place through the liturgy. In other words, the events, if we take just the Great Triduum, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday, the liturgies of those days, being in sacred time, take us and make us at the same time that they're taking place, that we walk in that time. Historically, of course, it happened once. It won't be, as the book of Hebrews says, repeated. But in mystery, we can go back to it, because the time, the sacred time, is elastic, elastic. It is the way because God is one and eternal. He can take us up into that mystery that St. Paul talks about in the Ephesians. And particularly, if you think about it, it's part of a cycle. These mysteries we renew each year.
Let's take, for example, the Mass itself as an example. How that the Mass, always being one, nevertheless has degrees of importance. Every Mass celebrated is sacred liturgy. But as the Church has been constantly calling our mind to, and why she tells her children they must attend Mass on Sunday, which includes, after First Vespers, the Vigil, because the Sunday celebration marks a more profound entering into the sacred mystery of Christ's resurrection. So you've got two cycles so far: the daily cycle of the Mass, the weekly cycle centering around the liturgy of the Sunday, and then the yearly cycle of Easter Sunday, which is the great day. Now, the Easter Sunday Mass is, of course, the same as the weekly Mass that is separated throughout the year, but because it's different in relation to sacred time, it has a different significance. It acquires a more concentrated importance, if those words make sense. So when we attend the liturgies, we are then being taken up into that mystery of sacred time, which, of course, reaches its climax in Easter Week.
And this is something again that so often can be forgotten. Holy Week has that drama that we could say drains us. I don't know of anybody that reaches and someone will probably put their hand up and correct me, but I don't know anybody that reaches Easter Sunday that hasn't felt that they've gone through a huge drama. And even every way I've ever tried to limit energy and expenditure, I always end up Easter Sunday with that slightly dazed feeling, which I think we're meant to have, because the drama and the way the Church presents the drama. Take, for example, one of my most moving events of the Church year, the stripping of the altars after Maundy Thursday and the bareness of the Church. One cannot observe that without feeling that something dramatic which happened in that time is now present to us, symbolized by this.
But in Easter, we meet this mystery of the number eight. That seven, the Hebrew seven, meaning to swear an oath, has a great significance, the seven days of creation. And we've talked a lot about the day of seven, the day of rest. But in the number eight, the Church is taking us out of time. It's like saying to her children, "You are no longer part of all that you see around us. That is passing." The eight days from Easter Sunday to Divine Mercy Sunday are one event, one liturgy. And so the danger is that people live Holy Week, they celebrate Easter Sunday, and then they feel that's it. The hard work's done. We celebrate Easter Sunday and we can relax for another year till Lent comes around again. But we're meant to live Easter Week. That's what it's all about. That's the reward. That's the joy. St. Augustine said that although we all live in this time of pilgrimage, nevertheless, he saw the days of Easter as being part of heaven. It got him closest to the idea of heaven, because Augustine could see and live the mystery.
What is difficult for us in entering into this is that the world intentionally has tried to deprive us of this sense. Has tried to get us and make things material, measurable. And that's always the danger of technology, which, although it can be very useful, think of the advances in medicine, in science, but if not left unchecked, can mean the grasp of mystery becomes more difficult.
The second point, before we move on to some more concrete relations with Holy Week, is that we also have sacred place. We have just talked about sacred time, but there is a sacred place. A place which gives us a fixed point. If you remember, the clearest indication of this in the Old Testament is when God said to the Jewish people, "You will worship at the place I point out to you." The temple for the Jews was far more than simply a place where sacrifice took place, important as that was. It was for them a place where the sacred broke out of the temporal. Do you remember the beautiful quote in Genesis 28? If you look it up later, verses 12 to 19, when Jacob has the dream and sees the ladder and the angels ascending and descending, and what does he say? He says, "This is a terrible, this is an awesome place, a house of God, the gate of heaven." And he built, he took the stone that his head was resting on and built an altar. So we see there clearly, there's a sense in which certain places become sacred.
Take Moses and the burning bush. When he approaches the burning bush, God says to him, "Moses, take off your sandals. You are on holy ground." In our church, we have that still with some of the Indian and Pakistani who will take their shoes off in the church, especially if they're coming onto the sanctuary to read. There's that idea that a sacred place requires something for us to keep it sacred. So, one of the problems when they did away with communion rails was that the sanctuary, the holy place that coincides with the Jewish Holy of Holies, the idea of sacred place became lost. That the church has three ascending ideas of sacredness: one, the narthex as you come in; two, the body of the church; and three, the sanctuary.
So when Jesus comes to Jerusalem and when He dies on Calvary, we must remember that He is dying at the sacred place. The place where Adam and Eve were buried, the place where Abraham was going to sacrifice Isaac, and the place where they considered is the entry into the underworld. So when Jesus says to Peter, "You have the keys to bind and unlock," there's also this idea of this stone that's padlocked up, as it were, that guards the entrance below. So Jesus, in dying on Calvary, is giving to that place now a sacredness. And we have that, of course, most clearly in our churches. But even if we think about it in our homes, it used to be the tradition, never having been married, I've never carried this out, but I think there was the tradition that the husband carried the wife across the threshold. Why? Because the threshold marks an entry into a home, and as the Romans would call it, also the entry into the place where the hearth is, the sacred place of the home. That's why in certain places in Spain, you are buried in the home. Sounds strange to us, but that was a tradition that you were buried in the home.
So all the events that are going on are combining both sacred time and sacred place. So that to enter into this, we simply have to allow ourselves to be caught up in the mysteries. And we could say that the mystery has three elements to it. Three elements to it. I'm getting, I'll soon take any questions. I'm soon getting to the end before we then tie it in. But these points are important.
First of all, as St. Paul says, well, sorry, as the Bible says, the first and greatest and central mystery is that of God in Himself. So the first mystery to which all others must return is the mystery of God Himself. Three persons in one God. All God, all equal, but one God. A God that's distant, holy, unapproachable. So when this all-holy Trinity reveals Himself to us in mystery, it will by nature hide itself from the profane world because it is separate from it. That's why so many do not see the truth of this, because if you live in a profane world, the mystery is difficult to penetrate, except by a great grace. So even in the past, even in the ancient world, there was that idea that the world is a reflection of this mystery. And you can see now, bit by bit, how the divine will ties in with this. Because this mystery is how God has willed His revelation to be communicated through sacredness, through time, through space, because we are created with a body. We are not pure spirit. Hence, the mysterium that Paul talks about has to enter what we are used to: time and space.
The second mystery, that I'm not going to spend much time on, is the mystery of Christ. The Son of God that takes flesh is the mystery, as Paul says in chapter one of the Ephesians, that is now proclaimed, now taught, now revealed. But remember that mystery can only be seen in light of its relationship with the mystery of God. Hence, last week, all those beautiful readings from chapter 5 and chapter 7 of John were giving to us this whole sense of the mystery of Christ, who sees everything that Father does and carries it out.
But the mystery I prefer to dwell on here is the third, which is that when Christ became no longer visible, we meet His person, His deeds, and of course, the divine will, which He, with His human will, was always completely one with, in the mysteries, in the sacraments, the liturgy, so that everything we're going through this week is enabling us to meet Christ's sacred teaching, but above all, His sacred actions. Have you noticed that as His public ministry continues, He speaks less? And through the Passion, for example, I was reading the part of the priest, as you'd expect, in Matthew's Passion, and if you remember, the first couple of pages, Jesus speaks, and it gets less and less, less and less, until He only speaks twice in the second half of the Passion, because it's as if Jesus is saying, "Look and observe my actions." It is by His sacred actions that we are redeemed. So that mystery, that mystery of Christ, is something that is revealed, hidden, mysterious, and that can never be exhausting.
So when you are journeying in the divine will, and this is why it is so dangerous when you hear teaching about along the lines of that the sacraments are no longer needed if you live in God's will. [clears throat] You no longer need confession or the Eucharist or the Mass. It's complete rubbish and heresy, because the very will of God ordained the fact that because we live in history and in eternity, He communicates Himself to us through the mysteries. The divine will, of course, the gift is going to extend the mysteries through the gift. So the gift flows, flows from the mysteries. So we must participate to the fullest at this time.
I'm going to take a pause there, because the second half, we're going to tie that more clearly in with some looking at what form and shape that can take place for us in Holy Week. So if anyone's got a question, testimony, anything they want to add, please unmute yourself or send me a message in the chat. Give me a little chance to drink some water. Good. No questions.
Okay, we will move on now to look at Palm Sunday, the events of today.
>> Sorry, is that >> Okay? The mystery of Palm Sunday should make us very excited because it is all to do with the entrance of a King and His institution of a kingdom. The whole thing is so symbolic and so full of meaning. Luke's gospel makes it clear that Jesus is on a journey, both physical and, of course, spiritual. If you remember, He says, "I must go up to Jerusalem," also that has both a physical and a spiritual significance. He sets His face resolutely to Jerusalem in Luke chapter 9, verse 51. But remember, Galilee is, I can't remember the exact figures, something like 600 feet below sea level, and Jerusalem is something like 2,000 feet above sea level. So when Jesus is journeying to Jerusalem physically, He's going uphill, which is why they would have chanted when they were getting near to Jerusalem those Psalms of Ascent, which are Psalms 120 to Psalm 134. Those were all the idea of the pilgrim now coming in to this sacred time and this sacred place of Jerusalem.
So Jesus makes it absolutely clear by everything He does that He is a King. He says that in the parables, in the fig tree, but above all by entering Jerusalem on a donkey, which was the royal sign of a king of the Jews, that Solomon had done, and that's narrated in the book of Kings, the first book of Kings. So when they spread their garments, there is no doubt, and the cry of "Hosanna, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord," that they realize He's a King. And "Hosanna," which originally was in meaning a cry for help, now is a cry for rejoicing because the King has come to establish His kingdom. The fact that many will reject it and the city itself would reject it is of no consequence. It's going to be established, and the city will be judged because it didn't know the time of its visitation.
So how can we best, then, knowing that the kingdom Jesus has come to found, to establish by His death and then His resurrection? What couple of things might we concentrate on during this time? The first, I would say, carrying on from what I was mentioning last week with Lazarus, is to allow Jesus to become close. A friend of mine in Australia writes, she writes some Lenten reflections, and last week they were very, I think, interesting, because if you think about it, the last readings before we enter Holy Week were all about the rejection of Jesus, and that Jesus has to hide Himself. Now, do they reject Him because they don't think He is the Messiah? Or is it rather that actually, deep down, they know? But the truth is that if they acknowledge that, they would have to change their lives. In other words, Caiaphas was no fool. This is what makes the evil greater. Do not think for a moment that these people were not learned. But like Herod the Great at the time of Jesus's birth, Jesus's coming upset everything. And Herod the Great was afraid, hence his command to kill the infants. And therefore, the rejection of Jesus is because such is their blindness that they think He comes to threaten their position. So it's not so much their rejection because of a lack of evidence, because Lazarus is there for all to see, but because of its implications. The implications being that my life has to change.
So for us, the implications of the teaching of the divine will is that my will has to die. I can't keep the teaching and the gift without, if Jesus comes close, having to allow my human will to be put to death. And so the first thing I would say about this week, which is very simple, allow Jesus to come close. Allow Jesus to come close. Allow Him to come and change us and heal us. Allow Him into the mess. Allow Him especially into what those aspects of our human will that still remain. And I would say, in this sense, there is a gift to ask Him as He comes close, which is not to think of ourselves anymore.
So again, as normal, I didn't get the volume, but I'm sure someone will put it into the chat. This is from June the 22nd, 1920. Remember what He's talking about here will be accomplished through the mysteries. Louisa says, "I was bringing the whole human family to my sweet Jesus according to my usual way, praying, repairing, substituting in the name of all." So that again gives us a nice little summary of what Louisa did with her time: praying, repairing, substituting in the name of all, what each one is obliged to do. But while I was doing this, a thought told me, "Think and pray for yourself. Don't you see in what a pitiful state you have reduced yourself?" And I was almost about to do so, when my sweet Jesus, moving in my interior and pulling Himself to me, said, "My daughter, why do you want to move away from My likeness? I never thought about Myself. The sanctity of My humanity was complete absence of self-interest. I did nothing for Myself, but I did and suffered everything for creatures. My love can be called true because it is marked by disinterest for My own self. Wherever there is interest, it cannot be said that there is a fountain of truth. On the other hand, the soul with no self-interest is the one who comes forward the most. And as she comes forward, the sea of My grace takes her from behind, inundating her in such a way as to make her remain completely submerged without her thinking about it."
So Jesus is saying there that this is so important, the forgetting of self. Remember when He says, "Do not think about self, be disinterested." He is not saying that there won't be times when we have to do things either for ourselves or for others, but the key word is it's not out of self-interest. So think about it, Jesus throughout His life never ever considered Himself. Now, this is a grace. This is a grace, but it's a grace, as it were, that comes with the gift. Because in other places, Jesus says, in the kingdom of the divine will, it is so powerful that it allows no foreign element into it. So that's a great reason for always praying to enter the kingdom, because the kingdom will make sure that self-interest cannot enter into it. On the contrary, He continues, "one who thinks about herself is last. The sea of My grace is in front of her, and she is the one who has to cross the sea by armstrokes, if she manages it at all. In fact, the thought of herself will create many obstacles for her, such as to strike into her the fear of diving into My sea, and she runs the risk of remaining on the shore."
So it's a bit like the image, say, if you're going out to surf. When you are swimming against the tide, it is a great effort. When you then come back with the wave, the wave keeps pushing us forward. So a tip here, at least others may have more experience, but a tip that I have is just try it. In other words, think of an example where self-interest comes in, and then put it aside and turn one's thought back to God. So, for example, with me, it was the thought that the Palm Sunday Masses are long Masses, and there's not much gap in between them. So the thought was, well, it would be better if between the Masses I just got some water or something, or a little bit of food to sustain me. And that was a strong pull. But then it came to me, there are probably people that might want con, might want confession, even though we have the procession and everything. So I didn't think it would be likely, but it turned out there was. But the grace of doing that only comes from when you ask Christ to help you conquer your self-interest, to think about His glory. And it's a battle. It's one we constantly have to remember.
Living in the divine will, or partly using the gift, doesn't mean we won't have temptations to self-interest. But don't let the devil get you with the trick of saying, "You're not totally devoid of self-interest, therefore you're hopeless and not achieved anything," because it's only a grace that eventually gets rid of that last bit of self-interest. And it's only accomplishable now, as Jesus says, because the saints always had to fight against that. When we receive the gift, finally, then it becomes possible.
So the first thing I'm saying is this comes by allowing Christ to come close, inviting Him into the mess, and allowing, through prayer and through the mysteries, through the liturgy, to make us in His likeness. The catechism points something very important out with this, and we can often get it wrong, mostly by inattention. In the book of Genesis, one of the most commented sentences is, "Man was made in God's image and likeness." After the fall, the catechism reminds us, we are made in His image, but we have to regain His likeness. We're made in His image, but through the sacraments and through prayer, we have to regain for ourselves His image. So that's the first little point is to, through this week, keep that in the back of your mind. Say, "Lord, Lord, I want to come to the renewal of my baptismal vows, which are at the center of the mystery, baptism and the forgiveness of sins. So please help me to lose self-interest. In fact, Lord, I'm going to hand it over to You at the beginning of the week, and I'm not going to think about it again, and I'm just going to leave it in Your hands, and I'm going to concentrate on what I can do for You." So those two things go together: allow Christ to come close to cure our self-interest by by giving us the grace to concentrate on what Christ says. Okay, that's the key that we concentrate on Him, keeping Him company, being attentive to what He's doing, and He then takes care. But He's going to especially take care through the mysteries, through the liturgies of these days.
Second point is a bit of rejoicing. Then to finish with this. This is taken from the Book of Heaven, 26th of October, 1926. By the way, the first one was Volume 12, June 22nd, 1920, is Volume 12. This one is 26th of October, 1926. It's easy to remember. "My daughter," well, as I can, Louisa said, "As I continue to unite myself with the acts that Jesus did in redemption, my always lovable Jesus told me, 'My daughter, see how all the acts I did in redeeming man.'" So remember, all the acts I did in redeeming man, how were they made present to us? Yes, through our bilocation, through our realms, but primarily through the mysteries. So we could put a little comment: "My daughter, see how all the acts I did in redeeming man made present to us in the mysteries, in the liturgy." "And even the miracles I performed during my public life had no other purpose but to call back the kingdom of the supreme fiat into the midst of creatures. And in the act of doing them, I asked my celestial Father to make it known and to restore it in the midst of the human generations. If I gave sight to the blind, my first act was to put to flight the darkness of the human will, the primary cause of the blindness of the soul and of the body, so that the light of My will might illuminate the souls of many blind, and they may obtain the sight to look at My will in order to love it, and their bodies also might be exempt from losing the sight."
There's an interesting comment there that Jesus is making. He is tying together the physical and the spiritual maladies. Which is why in the kingdom of the divine will and the era of peace, maladies are going to be greatly diminished. Health will be restored. People will live far longer than they imagined. And He is saying this, that My will can so illuminate the souls of many blind that even their bodies might be exempt from losing the sight. So Jesus is given this example. Everything He did, all His acts, His actions, are so that the divine will becomes clear and prepared for.
So He goes on to another example. "If I gave hearing to the deaf, first I asked My Father that they might acquire the hearing to hear the voices, the knowledges, the prodigies of My divine will, so that it might enter into their hearts as the way in order to dominate them, and that there might be no more death in the world, either in the soul or in the body." So it gives us a new way. If you attend a baptism, you know, in the rite of baptism, after the baptism's taken place, there's the white garment, well, the anointing with chrism, the white garment, the candle, and then the priest touches the ears and the mouth so they may be open to hear God's word and to proclaim it. Well, at that moment, we can, of course, pray for that child or adult that they can hear the divine will, they can speak the divine will.
Also, in the dead I resurrected, I asked that souls might rise again in My eternal will, even those which were putrified and made more than cadavers by the human will. We looked at that last week with the raising of Lazarus. And when I took the ropes to drive the profaners out of the temple, this is what we've celebrated today, Palm Sunday. It was the human will that I was driving out so that Mine might enter, reigning and dominating, and they might be truly rich in their souls and no longer subject to natural poverty. So we see here this great mystery again, if we read into it, of Palm Sunday, that He has come to the city to redeem us, but in order that we can then enter into the kingdom of the divine will, and so that everything He does through the Passion, as we know by doing the Hours of the Passion, has a relevance in allowing us to enter into the kingdom.
So, let's pray this week that we're watchful and vigilant, and that we keep the Lord company, but that we bring all souls, especially those in this group, through these sacred two weeks, into the mysteries. Because, of course, the greatest thing that's going to be present in the mysteries, the liturgy, is going to be the King and the kingdom of the divine will. That was Volume 20. By the way, thank you to Helen, who's posted that, and Brunella, who did, and Helen, that did the early one. So anybody that's quite a lot of teaching. If anybody's got any questions or comments, please um go ahead.
Well, Father, thank you very much. You have given me more than I could absorb at this moment. I will have to redo it in the replay, as well as go over the volumes. Thank you very much. Thank you. [snorts] Thank you. Thank you for that.
>> Yeah, Father. Absolutely brilliant teaching. Thank you so much. I've learned so much. Thank you. Right. >> It's really going to enhance these next two weeks. >> So, we will probably meet again on Divine Mercy Sunday. Um, I think Easter Sunday is going to be too busy for all of us um to do that. But again, as some of you do, and and if you're present, I have to apologize. I've got two or three emails that I haven't got round to answering yet. It's been a little bit tricky because as well as preparing for Holy Week and everything, I've also had to sort the handing out of parishes and various things over. So I will get to those emails.
>> Father, >> Yeah, Brunella.
>> Hi. Um, I just wanted to uh say that uh when you read uh volume 12, the entry in volume 12, it uh uh reminded me um an entry in volume two um based on obedience and uh uh on self-denial. And I think it's very important. It's one of the first volumes where it's just the basic, isn't it? It's it's where we go back to the foundation and we see in this volume, I think in in this entry, I think it was 31st of August in volume two. I I know because I just listened to it and read it a few days ago. uh is where the priest uh tells Louisa that uh uh she cannot speak to Jesus and by obedience she had to say to Jesus, "I can't speak to to you and go away." Actually, he has she has to tell "go away" by obedience. And that is a very powerful self-denial because it's the things that she she wants the most. Yet by obedience, she has to deny herself. And I think by entering that understanding that we have to deny ourselves by [snorts] listening to what God wants us to deny in this particular time, then we we we should earn a lot, gain a lot. And yes, I don't know. I I've lost I lost I lost what I was was thinking. But yes, it's about self-denial and obedience and and Louisa did it. It had to do it for the things that she actually uh cared the most. Therefore, yes, we need to go back to the things and understand what is the Lord want us us to deny ourselves. Although sometimes what the Lord tells us is uh uh doesn't sound um obvious to us. Sounds a bit strange, but out of obedience, we need to allow the Lord to change us and prove and give our give Him the the assurance and to trust in us that yes, we do have the courage to deny ourselves something. Okay, I'm going to stop because I'm I'm repeating myself.
>> No, that's very useful. And someone gave the entrance. So the entry that Brunella referred to is the 31st of August 1899, Volume Two.
>> Two.
>> 31st of August 1899, Volume Two. It's interesting you say that because I can't remember. I was just reading an entry recently where Jesus said, "A soul that deprives himself of My presence earns great graces." Now, remember, when we deprive ourselves to obedience of Jesus's presence, we're not saying He's no longer with us. What we're saying is we're depriving Him more of His sensible consolations and presence. Because after all, someone living in the divine will cannot be separated from Jesus. What Louisa is saying is that out of obedience to the priest, the consolation of Jesus's particular presence to her, she deprived herself of, because Jesus in another entry says to her, "Look, Louisa, you could, I can never leave you. I'm bound with you." Um, so, you know, that's um that's important. So thanks, Brunella, for that. And let's, as I said, Jesus, we had that um, you know, that great psalm um, "Here I am, Lord," Psalm 39, Psalm 40, "I come to do Your will." Oh, by the way, this question, yes, I've had from my sister. She's reminding me she'd asked me that. What do we do about First Saturdays on Holy Saturday? I think the answer is it's it's postponed. Obviously, of course, you can bring into that First Saturday those devotions, but as I've said, there's an element in which those days are outside of the normal cycle of times and feasts. So I don't think it would be held against somebody if that Saturday somehow they missed those particular devotions. So one can still, of course, carry them out, but we are focusing so much upon the mystery of Holy Saturday. Um, and by the way, we do the um, tenner, the Office of Readings in the new rite, uh, and Morning Prayer. And I would strongly advise you, even if you're doing it at home, to do those on those particular days, Good Friday or Holy Saturday, because the reading on Holy Saturday is absolutely incredibly moving.
>> Can I just say something on that?
>> Yeah.
>> I'm a I'm a coordinator for the communal First Saturday, and Katherine um Katrina Leaden, who is the president of the communal First Saturday, sent out advice on what we should do as they were coinciding. And and and that has the Imprimatur from from the Vatican, the the communal First Saturday. And what we were advised to do is to ask the parish priest if we could meet um in a quiet place in the church and just do the Rosary and the meditation, and outside of that, as a group, just do that as a group. And then the reparation for the the confession and the communion, you can be done in our own time. So he we were told that we could actually use the Vigil Mass to go to to receive our communion at the Vigil Mass, and that would be absolutely fine, or on Easter Sunday morning. Um, and confession, obviously, we can go at any time, as long as it as it is within 8 days of um um of the of the First Saturday. Um, and that advice has gone has gone out very far and wide across Ireland.
>> Yeah. No, that that's obviously it's got Rome's approval, so that's sound advice. I think it depends on what a particular, because for example, I I find through the liturgy, you're so tied up with the mystery of what's happening on Holy Saturday that it's hard to focus on other things. But it naturally fulfills it, because after all, Holy Saturday, we're considering not only the time of waiting and expectation, but we're also with Our Lady in this great time of sorrow. So we're naturally fulfilling reparation because we are keeping her company and praying the Rosary, as she asked, would be a natural part of that. But again, one last thing I would say is I tend also at these times of the year to, I hope I'm not accused of heresy here, but I slightly adapt at times the Rosary. Um, because, for example, on Palm Sunday today, I like to pray a decade of the various aspects of Palm Sunday: the entrance into Jerusalem, the cleansing of the temple. And if you go back to early times, the Carthusians had about 50 or so mysteries of the Rosary they prayed. This is personal, so I'm not, it's I'm only throwing it out. Like at Easter, Easter Sunday, I like doing five decades of the mystery of the resurrection, the appearance to His Mother, the appearance to Mary Magdalene, the appearance. In other words, you've got all those resurrection appearances. It's nice to spend a decade of the Rosary on them. Of course, there's nothing wrong to do it the traditional way: the resurrection, ascension, etc. So remember, all our spiritualities will slightly differ, and that doesn't matter. That's a good thing, because they are all, the main thing is we're doing them all as God's will wishes us to do, and it seems God's will is going to be different. But thanks, that's answered very well my sister's question. So that's good advice on that.
>> May I make a comment please about obedience?
>> Yeah.
>> Well, just in a smaller term of obedience. Louisa was demanded obedience from the priest, you know, like we've just shared. And my, because I'm the sac, parish priest commanded me not to worry about the sanctuary light if it went out and and not to worry about, you know, rushing to to to change it. And that that really thought of, well, I couldn't question him. Then he went away on holiday, and he said, "I only want you to only change the sanctuary on every Friday." And I thought, well, it was on the it was the Monday after he'd gone away, and it'd gone out already. I said, "No, Lord." I said, "I feel so sad. I have to obed, be obedient to my priest. But Lord, um, instead of the sanctuary light, I will dedicate myself and, you know, I enter Mary's heart with her heart. We will both dedicate into every tabernacle in the world, leave our hearts there, and, you know, adore You infinitely throughout all time." uh to make up the fact that the sanctuary light wasn't um I couldn't put it on because I was told not to. And by Wednesday, I just every day I went into church and my heart was going going. So I desired to send my parish priest a text and say, u I know you've told me Father this, but it's it was Monday and it went out, you know, what would you like me to do? And he said, well, you do whatever you feel needs to be done. So I felt that was my my my go-ahead. But I wanted to compassionate the Lord because that gave me pain. >> That was obedience. That obedience struck me to the core. But it it caused me, it enabled me to pray in in a in a passionate way of leaving my heart in every tabernacle. So I'm just putting that out, you know.
>> Great. Thanks, Pat, for that. Good. So let's finish now with a gather together all that's gone on today, because today is one of those days of drama where we have the joy of the entrance, the King, the kingdom, and then the reading of the Passion. So it's a day in which we've all felt that it's been a lot to go through. So let us thank God for all that He did, all the graces He continues to pour out for us. Let's ask for that grace for obedience, for the death of self-interest, for the grace to keep our Lord company, even if at times it's only our desire, because Jesus will make up for the rest. We ask for the grace to be guided through the different mysteries, to and to live far fully, far more fully, the grace of sacred time and sacred space.
So may the Lord grant you a quiet night and a peaceful end. May His blessing come upon you. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. For me.