Author: Essy Dias

The Bible says of Christ, “Son though he was, he learned the meaning of obedience through all he suffered” (Heb 5:8). Jesus came to do the will of God; and to be obedient to the will of God is to suffer. But where does that suffering lead? It certainly doesn’t lead to depression. No. It leads to joy, to love, to faith. Pain is the chalice of love. I hope that we will understand why Christ gives us a share of his pain; it is so that we may imitate him and be led by him to his Father.

Grace in Every Season (March 14)

The point of our crosses is for us to die to self, and more easily be led to the Father and be able to embrace His will more fully. Less of us, more of Him. If however we are unwilling to move on, and prefer to just hang there wallowing in our suffering (some people like that kind of thing, I guess), then we won’t experience all that is meant for us and through us.

This is why docility and humility are so key in the life of the Spirit. We need to be able to abandon self will and move on, even from good things when there are better things in store for us, things that we can only see through the eyes of faith.

It is this seeing through the eyes of faith that instills so much joy, love, and yes…even excitement, when everyone else around us is wailing, shaking in their boots, and bored to tears with their life.

When we got home, mother asked me to get the baby’s little potty, fill it with water, and bring it to her. While I did so, she gathered a bunch of beautiful white lilies from the garden. When I arrived with the potty, she put the bouquet into the potty and said, “Look at that. The white lilies don’t change, though they sit in a potty instead of in a beautiful vase. Always remember that, Catherine. The potty might be the priest. The white lily is Christ, the Christ who never changes, the Christ who is in the priest in a special way. Yes, the priest might be the potty, but the Christ in him always remains just like those lilies. Never in your life make the mistake of mixing the two together!”

Grace in Every Season (March 13)

In Back to Virtue , Peter Kreeft mentions how God sometimes allows priests (and us) to stumble and fall into sins that are more easily seen by others such as alcoholism and gluttony, in order to prevent the greater sin of pride.

This becoming ‘littler, ever littler’ mentioned in the above Blue Book passage sometimes includes allowing such humiliating means, among others. But it’s always with the objective of purification and sanctification.

So we must look beyond the falling place and see with God’s eyes, the final destination.

On a side note, Today is Pope Francis’ 10th anniversary… please pray for him.

The way to treat a priest is with respectful informality, and the accent is on the word respectful. I remember one time a priest arrived here at Madonna House and he was very drunk, so I put him to bed to “sleep it off”. In the morning I brought him some coffee. He was bleary-eyed, and sort of “lost”, I knelt by his bed and asked him to bless me. He looked at me and said, “Do you realize who I am and what I did? Do you realize that I am a bum?” I answered, “Yes, but you are a priest also and I ask for your blessing, for it is Christ’s blessing!” He blessed me, and then he started to cry.

Grace in Every Season (March 12)

It doesn’t matter who the priest is, could be the pope himself. By merits of his priesthood, he deserves our love and respect. We don’t need to pretend that what he is doing and saying is right… we are to be respectful not deaf and blind. But we are called to look at them with God’s eyes, even when they can’t.

Often we judge priests by human appraisal (their winning smile, their great knowledge, their savvy about one thing or another). All this is a lot of baloney if I may say so! We should not judge a priest by his good looks, education, and so forth. We should just look at him and say to ourselves, “Thanks be to God he is here,” because he is one of the greatest signs of God’s love for us.

Grace in Every Season (March 11)

With the rise of social media there is an abundance of high profile celebrity priests that come on the scene quickly, and sometimes fall just as quickly.

We need to re-evaluate what is happening, why is God allowing it. What is our part in it.

Their great love and our great love should be One and the same! Jesus! At times this isn’t so clear. Worldly pursuits and attractions can get us all. Priests are human and are given to the same temptations we all are. So when they put anything ahead of their vocation…even if it’s very good causes… something will have to give. The same holds true for each of us too.

I don’t believe I have any priests that read my blog, so I’m not going to address them. But for the rest of us… we need to go beyond their social media influencer status and go deeper to see God in them…all of them. If God allows them to go through some painful detachment process, pray for them but don’t get too involved in the divisive mayhem.

Support the good, humble priests who are tirelessly working at their vocation (of which there are many) and trust that God is in control of the situation and that knows all that we don’t and will work it all out for the good.

After yesterday’s thoughts on priesthood, you might say, “What of the priest who is sinful and unholy, who marries without dispensation, etc.?” You ask this because, in North America, you haven’t been given the full knowledge of what priesthood really is. Therefore you don’t realize that the seal of priesthood has been etched in the soul of this poor, sinful man. It has been placed there by the fire of the Holy Spirit and the touch of the Father’s hand, and he can never lose that gift.

Grace in Every Season (March 10)

God wants to reclaim His fallen sons, and Our Blessed Mother is the one who has been put in charge of this. Through the Marian Movement of Priests, she wants all her beloved sons beautifully purified and ready for action. By God’s grace, they will be the strongest of all… they will have a true understanding of how little they are on their own, and how great their calling truly is.

Oh how powerful they will be in reaching poor sinful souls, this holds true for laicized priests as well. As with any Christian, God’s mission for them stays intact until their last breath. Let’s keep praying.

FYI:

When a priest is laicized, he is dismissed from a clerical state it does not mean that the priest is no longer a priest. Instead, it means that he can no longer conduct Mass, hear confessions or administer sacraments such as the Eucharist. Additionally, the priest is no longer required to recite the Liturgy of the Hours (a set of prayers marking each hour) nor obey his bishop.

Christ comes to us, therefore, in such tremendous simplicity of love that our breath should be taken away. He comes to us in the guise of a priest!

So then, approach a priest with the understanding that he has God in him in a special manner through his ordination. Approach him as you would approach Christ.

Grace in Every Season (March 9)

Satan attacks that which is the most precious to God…always has, always will. With that being said, God can use it all for His purposes. The priesthood has undergone severe attacks and crucifixion… it is now time for a resurrection.

We need a purified priesthood now more than ever! A remnant of holy men who are unafraid of the cross, zealous for souls, able to hear God’s voice and eager to do His will, and as a true father will have a heart for serving and protecting those who have been entrusted to them. It will be through these men, in persona Christi, that the church will be saved!

When we are silent and recollected, we are mysteriously visited. That is the moment when Christ reveals himself to us. And then he tells us about himself, his Father, and the Holy Spirit. Then we receive our knowledge from God himself because we have broken our heart open, and we have interiorized ourselves. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit have entered into us, and dwell there. And we have prostrated ourselves before the Trinitarian God that dwells within us. In recollection, we listen, and God comes. And that is when we can begin to be a person of peace.

As Matthew 12:36-37 says, we shall be judged by our words. Lent is a time when we must think about what God’s words in the Bible say. And out of this thinking, we must speak words of ten-derness, love, pity, compassion, and gentleness, because we are men and women of faith; we are Christians.

Grace in Every Season (March 8)

I felt called to start writing down my morning reflections a while back when I restarted the Blue Book. Blogging is simply my way of doing this in a more organized fashion, where I can look things up later if need be. If in the process those few that come across these writings and are on the same learning path as myself, get anything from it, that’s frosting on the cake.

These insights that I receive each morning are simply my own ‘marching orders’, my lesson for the day that gets more developed as the day progresses and I stay focused on it. So I don’t just publish this and forget about it, I stay attentive to God’s promptings in this specific area. And thereby, my day comes alive!

Here are some of your weapons against his temptations:

Be open to your spiritual director.

Sprinkle holy water on yourself, and especially on your bed, and your place of work.

Use common sense, together with a sense of humor and the ability to laugh at yourself.

With regard to personality clashes, ask yourself, “If so-and-so is such a pill to me, maybe I’m more of a pill to him or her.”

Grace in Every Season (March 7)

In 1 Peter 5:8 we hear “Have sound judgment. Be alert. Your adversary, the Devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.”

We don’t have to cower in fear, but we do need to be prepared and stay alert (in a state of grace…sin makes us drowsy). This is not a time for naïveté.

Our eyes (and feet) need to stay on the path that has been assigned to us. Once we’re prepared, the blinders need to come on to everything and everyone but God’s will or we WILL be swept away.

There’s a Netflix movie called ‘Bird Box’, starring Sandra Bullock. Where monsters (evil spirits?) of some sort take over the world and whoever looks at them goes mad and dies. So in order to get through to their final destination…a refuge, they need to keep their windows covered and wear blinders whenever out doors. hmm. Sounds like a spiritual allegory to me representing these current times. Also very similar in nature to the prophecy of the three days of darkness.

We have to get busy. We have to do little things exceedingly well for the love of God. We have to open our hearts to people, because they are still closed. So bit by bit, they must become open. For you see, Christ comes into our hearts with each person who comes in. Remember, we are to share his pain. That’s why we will share his joy, because to those who share his pain, he will give infinite joy.

Grace in Every Season ( March 6)

If prayer is this intimate communication between ourselves and God, then it can be accomplished in a myriad of ways not simply words. We probably communicate most clearly through our actions. In our marriages, we can say I love you until we are blue in the face, but if our actions don’t reflect it, our spouse will not believe us.

These actions don’t need to be extraordinary, they simply need to be faithful. Small, every day actions done according to God’s will for our state in life are more meaningful than grand gestures performed by our own design.

These small everyday sufferings are our very own personal crosses, because they get to the heart of exactly what we need for our spiritual growth and as we offer them up, they become efficacious for our loved ones’ salvation as well. Oh what joy!

If we wish to get rid of loneliness, we have to make contact with others, and also with God through prayer.

Grace in Every Season (March 5)

Jesus had told us to pray always, so prayer has always been important for us, but in these uncertain days, it has become even more so. If we believe what He tells us, that He is the vine and we are the branches, then prayer is the life blood that keeps the branches intact and productive.

Prayer is not for the appeasement of a strange and angry God, but for intimacy with a loving and intelligent One. It’s how we were created to function…to pray and obey!