Dominant Defect

"We cannot become discouraged at the thought of our faults and failures. The Lord knows full well what we are made of. He relies on time and grace along with our desires to improve.

"According to many authors of spiritual books, progress in our life of piety depends a good deal on our recognition and understanding of our dominant defect.  This is the defect which has the biggest influence on our behavior and thinking.  It typically becomes evident in what we do, what we want, what we think:  it can be vanity, laziness, impatience, pessimism, a critical spirit...Each person has his or her own path to holiness.  Some people require more fortitude.  Others need more hope or joy.  If we think of the interior life as a little fortress, then the dominant defect is the weak point in the wall.  The enemy of souls looks precisely for this area of vulnerability so that he can enter the fortress with relative ease.  As a result, we would do well to know this weakness.  We ought to ask ourselves:  What do we habitually have our hearts set on?  What worries us most?  What leads us to suffer or lose our peace or fall into sadness?  Most of the temptations we experience will be related in some way to this dominant defect.  This strategy is completely logical from the enemy's point of view.

"Progress in the interior life requires knowledge of this defect.  Let us ask God for his grace in overcoming it:  Lord, keep away from me whatever keeps me away from you.  We can repeat this prayer many times a day.  We should build up the firm resolution never to make a compromise with our defects.  The particular examination should be focused on the wearing down of the dominant defect.  In your particular examination you have to go straight toward the acquisition of a definite virtue or toward the rooting out of the defect which is dominating you.  We will find the strength to wage this life-long struggle in personal spiritual direction."  (from In Conversation with God, volume 5, pages 132-133.)

St. Michael, Defend Us

Saint Michael the Archangel,
defend us in battle.
Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray;
and do Thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host,
by the Power of God,
cast into hell, satan and all the evil spirits, who prowl throughout the world seeking the ruin of souls.
Amen.

Prayer to Take Authority

In the name of Jesus I take authority and I bind all powers and forces in the air, in the ground, in the water, in the underground, in the netherworld, in nature and in fire.

You are the Lord over the entire universe and I give you the Glory for your creation.  In your Name I bind all demonic forces that have come against us and our families and I seal all of us in the protection of Your Precious Blood that was shed for us on the Cross.

Mary, our Mother, we seek your protection and Intercession with the Sacred Heart of Jesus for us and our families.  Surround us with your mantle of love to discourage the enemy.

St. Michael and our guardian angels, come defend us and our families in battle against all the evil ones that roam the earth.

In the Name of Jesus I bind and command all the powers and forces of evil to depart right now away from us, our homes and our lands.  And we thank you Lord Jesus for You are a faithful and compassionate God.  Amen.

“Close your ears to the whisperings of hell and bravely oppose its onslaught.”   --- St. Clare (quoted in Magnificat, Sept. 2011 p.303)

“Take Care How You Hear”

“Realize…that it is impossible for us either to learn about or to have the good life, or to be hungry for God’s honor and the salvation of souls, unless we go to the school of the Word, the Lamb slain and abandoned on the cross, because it is there that the true teaching is found.  This is what he said: ‘I a the way and truth and life.’  And no one can go to the Father except through him.  Let your mind’s eye be opened to see, and unplug your ears and listen to the teaching he gives you.  Look at yourselves, for in him you will find yourselves, and in yourselves, him.  What I mean is that you will find yourselves in him in that he is creating you in his own image and likeness – gratuitously, and not because he owes it to you – and within yourselves you will discover God’s boundless goodness in having taken on our likeness by the union the divine nature has effected with our human nature.  Let our hearts explode wide open, then, as we contemplate a flame and fire of love so great that God has engrafted himself into us and us into himself!  Oh, unimaginable love!  It would be enough if we had even appreciated it!  To this wonderful school, then…For this energy and love will lead you on and will be your life!

Open your ears, I tell you, to hear his teaching – and it is this:  voluntary poverty; patience in the face of injury;  returning good to those who do us evil;  being little, humble, oppressed and forsaken in the world';  putting up with ridicule, torment, wrongs, insults, detraction, gossip, difficulties, and harassment from the world,  from devils seen and unseen, and from our own stinking flesh which (rebel that it is) is always wanting to defy its creator and fight against the spirit.  It means suffering with patience and resisting the devils with the weapons of hatred and of love.”

--St. Catherine of Siena, quoted in Magnificat, September 2011, pp. 266-267

Heaven's Love

"God our Father,
hear our morning prayer
and let the radiance of your love
scatter the gloom of our hearts.
The light of heaven's love has restored us to life;
free us from the desires that belong to darkness.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever."
--from Liturgy of the Hours, Morning Prayer

Hope

"Hope is part of the armor of God which we are to put on in order to stand against the attacks of the enemy. 'Having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation.' (IThess. 5:8) The helmet of hope is the protection God has provided for our head, our mind and our thoughts. As we look faithfully at the vision God has placed in our hearts, hope bubbles up and becomes the defense our minds need in spiritual warfare.

"Hope is the by-product of being with Christ. Eph 2:12 says that to be separate from Christ is to be 'without hope and without God in this world.' When I forget to bring Christ into my considerations and calculations, I am without hope. When I do not see Christ in my life and circumstances, I have no hope. But when I am united to Christ, when I see Him working all things after the counsel of His will, when I see Him ruling and reigning in my life, hope is the stimulus that keeps me going."
---from "Counseled by God", by Mark and Patti Virkler

The Exaltation of the Cross

"How radiant is that precious cross which brought us our salvation. In the cross we are victorious, through the cross we shall reign, by the cross all evil is destroyed, alleluia."

"We see Jesus crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, that through God’s gracious will he might taste death for the sake of all men. Indeed, it was fitting that when bringing many sons to glory God, for whom and through whom all things exist, should make their leader in the work of salvation perfect through suffering." Hebrews 2:9-10

--from Liturgy of the Hours, morning prayer

"We are celebrating the feast of the cross which drove away darkness and brought in the light. As we keep this feast, we are lifted up with the crucified Christ, leaving behind us earth and sin so that we may gain the things above. So great and outstanding a possession is the cross that he who wins it has won a treasure. Rightly could I call this treasure the fairest of all fair things and the costliest, in fact as well as in name, for on it and through it and for its sake the riches of salvation that had been lost were restored to us."

--from Office of Readings: From a discourse by Saint Andrew of Crete, bishop

Living a Discerning Life

Fr. Gallagher has begun a series on EWTN teaching the 14 Rules of Discernment.

The first episode was tonight at 8 and will be repeated tomorrow (Monday) at 1:00pm and again on Friday at 5:00 am.