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Theme for the Week:
Knowledge Of Jesus Christ
During this period
we shall apply ourselves to the study of Jesus Christ. What is to be studied
in Christ? First the God-Man, His grace and glory; then His rights to sovereign
dominion over us; since, after having renounced Satan and the world, we have
taken Jesus Christ for our Lord. What next shall be the object of our study?
His exterior actions and also His interior life; namely, the virtues and
acts of His Sacred Heart; His association with Mary in the mysteries of the
Annunciation and Incarnation, during His infancy and hidden life, at the
feast of Cana and on Calvary.
From True Devotion
To the Blessed Virgin Mary, Nos. 61-62
61. Jesus, our
Saviour, true God and true man must be the ultimate end of all our other
devotions; otherwise they would be false and misleading. He is the Alpha
and the Omega, the beginning and end of everything. "We labour," says St.
Paul, "only to make all men perfect in Jesus Christ." For in him alone dwells
the entire fullness of the divinity and the complete fullness of grace, virtue
and perfection. In him alone we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing;
he is the only teacher from whom we must learn; the only Lord on whom we
should depend; the only Head to whom we should be united and the only model
that we should imitate. He is the only Physician that can heal us; the only
Shepherd that can feed us; the only Way that can lead us; the only Truth
that we can believe; the only Life that can animate us. He alone is everything
to us and he alone can satisfy all our desires. We are given no other name
under heaven by which we can be saved. God has laid no other foundation for
our salvation, perfection and glory than Jesus. Every edifice which is not
built on that firm rock, is founded upon shifting sands and will certainly
fall sooner or later. Through him, with him and in him, we can do all things
and render all honour and glory to the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit;
we can make ourselves perfect and be for our neighbour a fragrance of eternal
life.
62. If then we are establishing sound devotion to our Blessed Lady, it is
only in order to establish devotion to our Lord more perfectly, by providing
a smooth but certain way of reaching Jesus Christ. If devotion to our Lady
distracted us from our Lord, we would have to reject it as an illusion of
the devil. But this is far from being the case. As I have already shown and
will show again later on, this devotion is necessary, simply and solely because
it is a way of reaching Jesus perfectly, loving him tenderly, and serving
him faithfully.
Prayers
for the Third Week |
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