Perfection Series II and Perseverance

I pray and many times it is hard to keep praying. I get tired. Prayer becomes wearisome. I worry that if I say the same things daily, my mind and heart will not be in the prayer, but far away, as I cannot always focus.

Focusing takes practice, but also good health. There are so many people who think that the very sick or those in pain can pray. It is very hard to pray when one is ill and tired.

To teach the young to pray well, when they are healthy and full of energy is an excellent thing. Prayer must be habitual. Yes, sometimes habit becomes boring, but if one is faithful, God will reward persistence.

The message of the chapter on a happy death is one of persistence in prayers and good works. We must never give up the fight.

Remember St. Francis’ comment, “My God never says, ‘Enough’”.

 One of the things I learned from Garrigou-Lagrange, which indeed I have never known before I read Providence, is that one can have Masses said for one’s self to have a happy, holy death. Now, I knew that one could have Masses said for the living and the dead, and for one’s intentions, especially health issues which are serious. But, I did not know that Pope Benedict XV wrote in a letter to the director of the Archconfraternity of Our Lady for a Happy Death that the faithful should have Masses said for a happy death.

“This is indeed the greatest of all graces, the grace of the elect; and if at the last moment we unite ourselves by an intense act of love with Christ’s sacrifice perpetuated on the altar, we may even obtain remission of the temporal punishment due to out sins and thus be saved from purgatory.”

Garrigou-Lagrange writes that we should pray in the Name of Jesus Christ specifically for a happy death; that we should united ourselves with the Eucharistic consecration, “the essence of the sacrifice of the mass, pondering on the four ends of sacrifice: adoration, supplication, reparation, and thanksgiving. Let us bear in mind that in this continuous oblation of Himself, our Lord is offering, as well the whole of His mystical body, especially those who suffer spiritually and thereby share a little in His own suffering. This is a path that will carry us far if only we follow it perseveringly.”

Perseverance cannot be emphasized too much. Persevere in prayer, in attending Mass, in Adoration.

Again, there is great wisdom in one of the footnotes. In a book on the foundress of the Carmelit convent of Fontainebleau, Mere Elizabeth de la Croix, Garrigou-Lagrange found this about her visions of Christ. Christ said to this nun that “The two chief motives that led Me to acquiesce in Pilate’s condemnation of Me were the will and glory of My Father and a hunger for the salvation of men. Your whole life, in its smallest details, should be dominated by these two sentiments. Take upon yourself My own sufferings…”

Are we generous enough to do so?

To be continued…