A Profound Reform of Heart in the School of Mary

The Aspirations of the Heart

MARY: A soldier who wants to keep himself really faithful to his duty should not be one who serves under constraint; he should have an ideal toward which he aspires. In moments of danger in which it seems as if life is slipping away, in which he feels the full impact of the adversary, the soldier takes up his arms and at the outcry of his ideal, he musters all of his energy and wins.

Look for a moment at your heart, my child, and study it with regard to its supreme aspirations …

You gaze on me, your eyes contemplate the immaculate candour of my soul and you sense all the beauty of purity.

You see me in profound recollection; in my countenance you read the life of infinite Love which attracts me and you want to fly, fly, like a little bird that flutters anxiously when it sees the magnificent flight of its mother! …

You see me with downcast countenance … desolate from the bitter grief of Calvary. Expand your heart and cry out: Mother, grant me to weep with you!

You, therefore, must aspire to innocence, to the infinite, to the sacrifice which will lead you to these two harbors of true happiness!

I saw you so many times involved in worldly affairs, but you were not happy with them and you remember now with regret. As you advance in years, you perceive in life something more elevated than what appears … you want God! Nothing satisfies you; nothing consoles you; all of your castles in the air begin to crumble and collapse; you desire God! Only his charity convinces you; only his love satisfies you; only his friendship gives you peace!

Lift yourself up, then, in great purity of heart: “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.” Jealously preserve the innocence which Jesus has given you back in the Baptism of his blood when he received the tears of your repentance and purified you. Flee the frivolous company of creatures because you will not find God in the hubbub of human affairs.

Recollect yourself in your nothingness because God only stoops down to holy humility, as he lowered himself even to me, because he looked upon me in my interior annihilation.

Don’t flee the cross, rather carry it willingly close to Jesus. It is the key of heaven; it is the door that introduces you into the kingdom of the eternal aspirations of your soul …

The little human things will soon pass away; they will fall into oblivion … I will garner you like a lily of the valleys to adorn the heavenly garden.

ASPIRATION: O Jesus, may your kingdom come soon!

LITTLE WORK: Avoid saying useless words in order to maintain the holy recollection of the soul.

A Month with Mary

A Profound Reform of Heart in the School of Mary

The Misery of Human Judgment

MARY: You are so afraid of human judgment and so many times you betray God in order not to contradict a poor creature, But what is man, what value has his scornful word or his threats? You fall with regard to human respect not only out of cowardice, but also because of self-interest and you dissemble or betray your faith for fear of being taken amiss by men.

But what is man? Is he perhaps the master or arbitrator of the world? Have you so little faith in the goodness and providence of God to believe that he abandons you when you endanger your own situation for love of him? How many times do you not try to win human benevolence by pretending to be without faith, impartial and free! …

Fool! in reality you do nothing then but entrust yourself to men of the earth who are deceitful, egotists and traitors! And are you not ashamed to put yourself in such a cowardly way under the most degraded and vile men of the earth? What is man in his judgments? The history of human knowledge tells you: man despises today what he applauded yesterday; he affirms and denies, he contradicts himself, lies or feels his way along in the darkness of doubt.

Who are they who discredit your faith? They are those who do not know it; weak and cowardly souls who are ironically called strong souls; impure people who don’t see the truth because their god is their belly, because they love pleasure and orgies of the passions. And you would fear the judgment of these poor unfortunates?

The wisdom of God on the contrary, like a brilliant star, rises ever alive and immortal in the midst of men and you must fear only the judgment of God. Don’t worry about men, then; they can’t do you any harm because God alone is the master of all. Fear God and trust in him with firm confidence. Do all that you are supposed to.

Even if accomplishing it should cost you your life, before you there have been millions of glorious martyrs who give you the example of the most perfect and Christian self-denial. The form of this world soon passes, illusions fall, sham human power comes tumbling down … blessed are you if you can present yourself in the sight of God clothed in his glory, cloaked in his justice and in his charity!

ASPIRATION: O Jesus, make me appreciate your greatness and despise the world.

LITTLE WORK: Rather than fear human judgment, seek to bring back to the faith with great charity those who despise it.

A Month with Mary

A Profound Reform of Heart in the School of Mary

Human Respect

MARY: Among the enemies you must fight against, my child, there is one which is small, wretched, foolish, but which can paralyze you. This enemy seems to be outside of you, but in reality is none other than yourself. Babies go near the mirror, look at themselves, get frightened at seeing a being that moves, become timid or want to play with it, but … that being which frightens them or fascinates them is none other than their own image.

You do the same when you allow yourself to be vanquished by human respect: it seems to you that the others assault you, that they are playing tricks on you, that they persecute you, but in reality it is you who are so weak in your faith that you believe that this can manage to cause you dishonour or damage. What a shame for you, who are so ennobled by the profession of your faith, to hide it or disparage such greatness for fear of stupid and vile raillery!

When you are seized by an idea, when you believe that something will glorify you, you don’t fear any jesting and, if they jeer at you, you not only don’t accept it, you disdain it.

Are you ashamed of elegant clothing because someone teases you? No, in fact you’re proud of it, you show it off because you are convinced that it is refined; if you were convinced of the contrary, you would be embarrassed to go out dressed like that and it would seem to you that you were the butt of everyone’s gossip. If, then, you are embarrassed to be seen as Christian, it is because in reality you are not, you don’t feel it, you don’t live it and your faith is like clothing that barely covers the miserable rags of the world that you haven’t yet thrown away!

But, tell me, isn’t Jesus your glory, your life, your strength? Are you not convinced that his wisdom vanquishes all human wisdom and that his principles are truth, justice and good? So why do you fear the evil eye of the world and fraternize with it?

In reality, my child, the world laughs at false piety and false faith; even while it fights against a Christian, the world admires him, and if it saw in you a real Christian, the world would not make fun of you. Children do not sneer at a lady who wears an elegant hat, they rather jeer at the lady who wears a hat while wearing a shabby, worn out dress. It’s the same for you.

But even if the world ridicules you, what’s that to you? Must the world judge you? What will you respond to the eternal Judge, if he protests that he will be ashamed of whoever is ashamed of him? So lift up your countenance from the abjection into which you have fallen. Remove from your life, from your thoughts, from your practices, from your words all that is not Christian and show before the world with deeds that you love and esteem God above all things.

ASPIRATION: O Jesus, O Jesus, you alone above all things.

LITTLE WORK: If in conversation God is offended by complaining or worse by speaking badly of the faith, of the Pope, of priests, of one’s neighbour, intervene energetically and protest or break off the conversation and move away.

A Month with Mary

A Profound Reform of Heart in the School of Mary

Spiritual Combat

MARY: The life of man is warfare on the earth. He, like a soldier, does not have a fixed home, but a provisional one and must go where the will of God calls him. Your first combat must be that undertaken for the defense of the faith. You will often find yourself among people who do not believe or who are so weak in the faith that they give way at the smallest obstacle, often even at the ridicule of fools. You must counter, manifesting your unlimited submission to the wisdom of God, who is the supreme and only Truth, esteeming and appreciating it above all human theories.

If you allow yourself to be carried away or vacillate when some puny scientist of the earth contradicts the eternal Truth, you are not a soldier of Jesus Christ; you are guilty of desertion. The faith is the greatest science; it is not blind or traditional assent to things incomprehensible, but it is the superior revelation of the highest truths which you admit because God has revealed them to you, God who deserves more faith than any scientist of the earth. Therefore you must affirm your faith against all of the snares and contrary affirmations of pathetic earthly wisdom, apostatized from God. Affirming your faith, you must of necessity show yourself a child of the Catholic Church which possesses the sacred deposit of revealed truths; you must, therefore, fight boldly against every current that would pull you out of the Church and affirm your submission to its authority, to the Pope, to the bishops, to the priests.

You must fight against distrust and show that you trust in God and adore his dispositions, conforming yourself to his divine will. One is not worthy of God who is excessively preoccupied with earthly things, who despairs, who puts his faith back in men, forgetting God. You must fight against the delusions of the world and show yourself a Christian in life; you will never follow what is opposed to the will of God; you will not follow the customs and fashions of the world, even at the cost of being mocked, even at the cost of suffering and martyrdom.

A Christian fights energetically when he lives as a Christian, when he shows himself to be living according to the law of God and of the Church, when he is zealous for the salvation of his own brothers. Life itself is the most beautiful battle and therefore your life is a warfare here on earth. And the weapon of your spiritual combat is prayer. Pray because you must fight not only to destroy evil, but also to spread the good; pray because in order to fight you must first conquer yourself and live totally united to God.

As a Christian you must nourish your soul with the sacraments, you must enlighten it with knowledge of and meditation on the eternal truths, you must enliven it with constant union with God, fleeing from sin as from death itself, and humbling yourself in his presence.

ASPIRATION: O Jesus, give me the grace to bear witness before men so that you will then receive me on the day of judgment.

LITTLE WORK: Repeat the act of faith at least three times during the day.

A Month with Mary

A Profound Reform of Heart in the School of Mary

Soldier of Jesus Christ

THE SOUL: I was signed with holy Chrism, O Jesus, I girded myself with a mystical sword and solemnly said: I will do combat for your glory!

It was a solemn day for me: the Bishop, vested with the holy stole, invoked the Holy Spirit upon me; he extended his hands over my head to proclaim the dominion of God over me, he anointed me with oil to consecrate me to him and to fortify me and then he made me repeat the profession of faith in order to  initiate me into the spiritual combat. I arose happy and found next to me a dear person who was committed to help me in this battle …

You smiled on me, O Jesus, because I felt my soul full of peace and you awaited from me an authentic and strong testimony before the lying and faithless world.

The sword which you gave me was beautiful. You signed me with the sign of the cross to tell me that you must be my strength, that you must be my confidence, that you must be my glory.

That cross, signed on my forehead with oil, disappeared, but it was to remain in my works, in my life, in my soul; I myself was to be like a triumphant cross, a glorious trophy of your redemption!

Thus you set me apart for yourself, I was much more yours and I confirmed at your feet the solemn promise of my Baptism, while you confirmed me in your mercy!

O how great are your sacraments, O Jesus!

How many battles I’ve had since I’ve been confirmed; I should have fought and in the meantime I’ve been defeated because I’ve rendered your so many mercies and helps vain! O Jesus, I am covered with disgrace, and here I am wounded at your feet! Please forgive me! Let the grace of the Sacrament of Confirmation be revived in me; make me strong; make me faithful to your love.

Love is the most beautiful characteristic of your soldier and for this the eternal love of God descended on me … O Jesus, detach me from all; inflame me with your love so that, loving you, I will defend you and will not be unfaithful to you.

ASPIRATION: God the Holy Spirit, inflame me with love.

LITTLE WORK: Perform some act of zeal to repair for all of the cowardice which you’ve been guilty of in the divine service.

A Month with Mary

A Profound Reform of Heart in the School of Mary

My Miseries

THE SOUL: At your feet, O Mary, I want to consider once again the miseries of my nothingness in order to appreciate better the solemn renunciation which I made in holy Baptism. My renunciation was not a concession, a gift which I made to God, rather it was a great grace which he conceded to me so that my renunciation of self is really equivalent to my liberation from all that lowers and dishonours me. With this renunciation I abandoned the mire for infinite richness and I raised myself to Jesus in order to become a living member of his body, I who was a poor cursed atom! …

O Mary, how good Jesus has been to me and how little I have recognized and appreciated him! The sacrifices which even now he asks of me are really only the great benefits of his love!

What am I? I am a mass of miseries! God only asks me to rid myself of these miseries and to me it seems an act of generosity not to give myself to him.

What am I? While I lift myself up to God I feel a force in me that presses me down into the most vile desires. God asks of me nothing other than to renounce this baseness.

I lose myself in so many castles in the air and in the whirlwind of my dreams. God only asks me to renounce these vain and tormenting dreams in order to breathe in reality.

The satisfactions of the flesh are so thorny … every gratification is in reality an abyss into which I fall, in the bottom of which I then become agitated and take pleasure. God only asks me to emerge from the abyss to live in the fragrant heights of the perennial spring of life. Yet, I’m so ungrateful to the Lord that every fleeting image throws me off balance and I flee further away from him, attracted by the gauche mirages of this world!

O Mary, break these chains which still bind me to myself and to the world, and, since God looks upon the renunciation of so many miseries as an act of generosity worthy of the eternal reward — and because these attract me, make me generous with God, so that I may be less unworthy of your so many mercies.

Lord, my God, receive me as a holocaust, even though I am so miserable; I have nothing to give up to you but my misery, and I burn it on the altar of your divine will. You alone be my hope and my life.

ASPIRATION: O Mary, free me from ingratitude and from my miseries.

LITTLE WORK: Make an act of offering of yourselves to God and resolve to renew it every day.

A Month with Mary

A Profound Reform of Heart in the School of Mary

The Passions and the Flesh

MARY: The demon penetrates into you by means of the passions and, if you do not deny yourself, your battle against the demon is vain and fruitless.

A passion is a disordered movement of your physical being or of your soul which makes you forget the high supernatural end to which you tend and reduces you within yourself.

It is the keen desire for relief, for comfort that you look for in the mire because mire is all you see around you when you lose sight of your ultimate end. It is a reaction to the law of God when you don’t see its beauty and harmony; it is a rebellion against God when you seek pleasure, peace and happiness outside of him. Sometimes deluding poetry dazzles you and you dream of reaching high peaks of glory and pleasure when in reality you are falling into the abyss.

Sometimes you see nothing but this present life and fail to recognize that all is passing … then you concentrate on everything on this earth, on your material well-being and go about seeking the deceptive love of creatures, riches, comfort, applause, pleasures, amusements. The demon is waiting for you at the pass in these dark narrow straits along your way; he presents objects which attract you; he upsets you with images which get you stirred up and thus he catches you in your own snares in order to drag you into his abyss. Don’t deceive yourself; combat your passions as soon as they manifest themselves and fly the occasions which make them take on giant proportions!

If you live in the world and flit around like an inexperienced butterfly around flames, you will get burnt. Close your eyes to the distorted visions of your lower nature, your ears to the vain words of men, your heart to the vain affections of the senses. Nourish your soul on truth, nourish it on Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.

It is in the eternal Truth and eternal Love that the passions drown and die.

The more you know God, the more you live by faith, the more you lift your gaze above, the more you immerse your heart in Jesus, the less you feel the weight of your flesh and the delusions of the false mirages of the passions. Converse with God because in him you will experience the beauty of your final end and the miserable attractions which you feel in yourself will vanish into nothingness.

ASPIRATION: O Mary, give me the grace to seek God and to delve deeply into the beauty of eternal truth.

LITTLE WORK: Deprive yourself for the love of God of some amusement which seems harmless to you. Often an amusement is like the spark that ignites the fire of the passions in the heart.

A Month with Mary

A Profound Reform of Heart in the School of Mary

Renouncing the Demon

THE SOUL: I know that in holy Baptism I renounced the demon and I’m happy with that renunciation. The demon is so repulsive that I really would not want to make friends with him! …

Yet so many times I’ve been overcome by his suggestions and by sinning I’ve preferred him to God himself. How awful is my ingratitude and how revolting is my foolishness!

The demon is a degraded being, … he is a monster, without order, without happiness, without life! In his fall he didn’t lose his natural qualities, but what are they worth? They are also the greatest torment for him.

An angel is a spirit who lives by truth and admirable activities; now the demon lives by lies because he is forever far from the eternal and essential Truth; he lives without real activity, but in toilsome agitation.

No, I will not go near his promptings, never more, and I beg your solid support, O Mary, to overcome him. You are the conqueror of the demon; you crush his head. You have been lifted up as the morning star of the world and your Immaculate Conception represented the most splendid triumph over the demon. Widen your mantle, O Mary, receive me, defend me from the snares of the demon! You are the all-pure, the all-beautiful, the all-gentle, … you are my mother!

Unfortunately so many times, I have made myself the slave of the demon and for this reason I now fear my weakness.

Queen of the angels, protect me, remove far from me the specter of evil, the delusions of my senses, the attractions of pride, the impulses of my corrupt nature.

Go far away from me, Satan, pasture of death, go far away from me. I enjoin this on you in the name of Mary Immaculate, who triumphantly crushed your momentary and disastrous power! Go far away from me because I already belong to my God and I have been purified by his mercy. Go far away from me; I command this of you in the name of Jesus who conquered you with his Blood! In this divine Blood I have found life again and you will no longer have dominion over me!

ASPIRATION: You are all-beautiful, O Mary, and there is no stain in you; you are my Mother.

LITTLE WORK: When you are tempted, make the sign of the Cross and call on the names of Jesus and Mary.

A Month with Mary

A Profound Reform of Heart in the School of Mary

The Spirit of Jesus Christ

MARY: Opposed to the spirit of the world, which is a mass of duplicity, resentment, struggles, presumption and degradation, is the spirit of Jesus Christ, who is the way, the truth and the life. Hear his word: “Learn from me for I am meek and humble of heart … Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who weep for they shall be consoled, blessed are those who suffer persecution for justice’ sake …”

These are words which seem audacious and yet in them is hidden the great secret of happiness and of peace.

What good is it to have many riches, if they leave you always unhappy, even more, if they cause you the disquiet of always wanting more? Far more excellent it is to renounce all that is unused and superfluous and to rest in the desire of possessing God.

What good is it to dominate others with the impetuosity of your character? In reality you do not dominate, but you become the object and the target of a thousand battles which embitter the soul. Far more excellent is the humility and the meekness which give you the possession of the hearts of men.

What good is it to laugh and amuse oneself on earth if the laughter is changed into bitter tears? Calm and resigned suffering, on the other hand gives you freedom for the impulses of the spirit, and thus, even while weeping you are consoled. You remain truly consoled because you feel like a pilgrim on the earth; you detach yourself from what oppresses you and you experience God all the more!

What good are the pleasures of the senses? Every pleasure is changed into a thorn and you feel cast into the distressing gloom of remorse … Far more excellent is the purity which brings you peace and allows you to gaze with clear vision into the immensity of God!

Believe in your Blessed Mother, who more than all other creatures lived in the spirit of Jesus Christ; there is nothing more beautiful, more elevated, more agreeable than to live in him. Therefore renounce your whims, your resentments, your disordered desires. Look upon all things in God and live glorifying him, aspiring to your only goal which is the heavenly fatherland.

ASPIRATION: O Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make my heart like unto thine.

LITTLE WORK: When you realize that you are lacking in meekness, perform a little service for the person whom you have displeased.

A Month with Mary

A Profound Reform of Heart in the School of Mary

The Spirit of the World

MARY: You live in the world and you cannot withdraw yourself from it materially, but you must be there without living in its spirit. What a turbulent whirlwind is the world! It lives on egotism because it lives with a fixation on pleasure. No ideal lifts it up beyond that of the material and even when it seems to have an ideal, it seeks only itself in vainglory and applause, in other words in the sensory satisfaction of a passion. From whence is born duplicity, fraud, lies, injustice, showing off, pride, impurity … Hence the world is like a sea during a storm, which knows no peace; he who falls into this sea feels all of the cold of its waves and is knocked around by its swirling motion until it gets smashed against the reefs of sin!

Everything in the world is vile and full of anguish; everything degrades man and makes him a slave, drying up in him the most beautiful life which is the life of the soul: fashions, make-up, vanity, infatuations, entertainments are thorns that prick and miseries that degrade! Here is the one whom you renounced in Baptism. Does it not seem to you a great grace to trample on all the rottenness of the world and to be propelled into the simplicity and peace that lead to God?

It is not a sacrifice for you to renounce the world, but a joy!

To renounce the world you don’t have to enclose yourself in a hermitage, you must only be truly Christian and live as the branch united to the vine, in the intimacy of union with Jesus Christ, into whom you have been incorporated by holy Baptism.

Look at the glorious army of the saints, that is to say those who have renounced the world. You will find them in every condition: there are faithful spouses, upright mothers, innocent virgins, young people who lived in the fresh innocence of their age; there are the little, the humble and also kings and the great. Look at the glory with which they are clothed …

At the same time, look from on high at the world with its lies, its delusions, its forms of slavery, its complications, its struggles and consider how it is for you a great good and a noble thing to renounce the world and to cleave to the truth and to God! … This renunciation is not a sacrifice for you; it is a grace.

ASPIRATION: O Jesus, grant that I may live in you and fly the delusions of the world.

LITTLE WORK: If you encounter some attachment in your life to the trifles of the world, to its fashions, to its vanities, break it immediately and energetically as unworthy of you who are Christians.

A Month with Mary