In today’s liturgy is the Blessing and Procession of the Palms, in which everything overflows with a holy joy which enables us, after twenty centuries, to revive the spirit of the magnificent scene of Our Lord’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem.
At Jerusalem, in the fourth century, on the very spot where the event took place, there was read the Gospel narrative in which we see Christ, hailed as King of Israel and taking possession of His capital, Jerusalem, which is really no more than the type of Jerusalem above. After this, a bishop mounted on an donkey, rode up to the Church of the Resurrection on the summit of the Mount of Olives, surrounded by a multitude carrying palms and singing anthems and hymns. This ceremony was preceded by the solemn reading of the passage from the Exodus in which the Flight from Egypt is related. God’s people were encamped under the shadow of palm trees, near the twelve fountains where Moses promised them the manna of the Eucharist. The Church of Rome adopted this practice about the ninth century and added to it the rite for the Blessing of the Palms, which has given to to this Sunday the name of Palm Sunday.
Volume 4; March 31, 1901
Inconstancy and volubility.
This morning, feeling all embittered, I saw myself still so bad, that I almost did not dare to go in search of my highest and only Good. But the Lord, looking not at my miseries, still deigned to come, telling me: “My daughter, is it Me that you want? Well then, I have come to cheer you – let us be together, but let us remain in silence.”
After staying for some time, He transported me outside of myself, and I saw that the Church was celebrating the Day of the Palms; and Jesus, breaking the silence, told me: “How much volubility, how much inconstancy! Just as today they cried out ‘Hosanna!’, proclaiming Me as their King, another day they cried out ‘Crucify Him! Crucify Him!’ My daughter, the thing that displeases Me the most is inconstancy and volubility, because this is the sign that the truth has not taken possession of these souls. Even in things of Religion, it may be that they find their satisfaction, their own convenience and interest, or that they just find themselves in that party; but tomorrow these things may be missing, or they may find themselves involved in other parties – and here is how they deviate from Religion, and with no regret they give themselves to other sects. Indeed, when the True Light of Truth enters a soul and takes possession of a heart, she is not subject to inconstancy. On the contrary, she sacrifices everything for Love of It and to let herself be mastered by It alone; and with unconquered heart she despises everything else which does not belong to the Truth.” And while saying this, He cried over the condition of the present generation, worse than in those times, subject to inconstancy according to wherever the winds blow.
Volume 6; April 16, 1905
Suffering is reigning.
Continuing in my usual state, my lovable Jesus made Himself seen for a little, with a nail inside His Heart; and drawing near my heart He would touch it with that nail, and I would feel mortal pains. Then He said to me: “My daughter, it is the world that drives this nail deep inside My Heart, giving Me a continuous death. So, by Justice, just as they give Me continuous death, I will allow that they give death among themselves, killing one another like many dogs.” And while saying this, He made me hear the screams of the rioters, to the point that I remained deafened for four or five days. Then, as I was very much in suffering, He came back a little later and told me: “Today is the Day of the Palms in which I was proclaimed King. All must aspire to a kingdom, but in order to acquire the eternal kingdom it is necessary for the creature to acquire the regimen of herself through the dominion of her passions. The only means is suffering, because suffering is Reigning; that is, through patience, man puts himself in his place, becoming king of himself and of the Eternal Kingdom.”
Lent forms a proximate preparation for Easter. Its last two weeks, known as Passiontide, are an immediate preparation for the Feast of Easter.
During this time we reflect on how the hatred of Christ’s enemies grows day by day. That hatred is about to break out, and on Good Friday we will be reminded of the most frightful of all crimes, the bloody drama of Calvary, foretold by the prophets and by Our Lord Himself.
As the fatal end approaches the Church’s accents of grief become more and more penetrated with feeling. The thunderbolt of Divine Justice is about to strike the Redeemer who has become man for love of His Father and for us. By reason of the mysterious solidarity existing between all the members of the great human family, Jesus offers Himself as a substitute for His guilty brethren. As the prophet says: “He clothes Himself with our sins as with a garment,” and He was “made sin for us.” (2 Cor. 5:21) that He might bear our sins in His body upon the tree (1 Peter 2:24) and destroy it by His Death. In the Garden of Gethesmane the sins of every age and of all mankind flowed horrible and repulsive into the most pure soul of Jesus. Further, His Father doing violence to the love He bore Him is to treat HIm as being accursed, according to the scripture: “Cursed is He that hangeth upon a tree.” (Galatians 3:13).
For “the work of our Redemption required” (former hymn at morning service Good Friday) that Our Lord should be set as the salvation of the world upon the cross, so that “whence came death, thence might life be restored, and that he who overcame by a tree, might also on a tree be overcome”. (Preface of the Cross). It is an unequal struggle between the Prince of Life and that of death, but Christ triumphs in the very act of His self-immolation. Already on Palm Sunday (next Sunday, April 1st) He advances like a conquerer, sure of Himself, greeted with acclamations and already crowned with palms and laurels.
The purpose of Passiontide, through its close connection with Easter, is to recall to us the memory of our Baptism, when our souls were washed in Our Lord’s Blood, and of our First Communion, when they drank of its healing stream. By the Easter Communion and Confession, survivals of the ancient discipline connected with Baptism and Penance, we are led at this liturgical season to die and rise again once more with Christ.
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BOOK OF HEAVEN
From the writings of the Servant of God, Luisa Piccarreta,
The Little Daughter of the Divine Will
Volume 23 – March 8, 1928
…Love of Jesus for the Writings of the Divine Will, and the Good that They shall do.
…After this, I was feeling worried about these Writings on the Divine Will, and my sweet Jesus made Himself seen in my interior, holding all the Volumes Written on It, taking Them in His hands, one by one, looking at Them with such Loving Tenderness, as if His Sacred Heart were about to Burst. And as He took Them, He placed Them, all ordered, in His Most Holy Heart. I was amazed in seeing with how Much Love He Loved these Writings, and with how much Jealousy He enclosed them in His Sacred Heart in order to keep Them.
And Jesus, in seeing my amazement, told me:
“My daughter, if you knew how much I Love these Writings…. They cost Me More than the very Creation and Redemption. How Much Love and Work I have put into these Writings—they cost Me Very, Very Much; in them there is all the Value of My Divine Will. They are the Manifestation of My Kingdom and the Confirmation that I Want the Kingdom of My Divine Will in the midst of creatures. The Good that they do shall be Great; they shall be like Suns that shall Rise in the midst of the thick darkness of the human will; like lives that shall put to flight death for the poor creatures. They shall be the Triumph of All My Works, the Most Tender, the Most Convincing Narration of how I Loved and do Love man. Therefore, I Love them with Such Jealousy, that I shall keep them in My Divine Heart, nor shall I permit even a single word to be lost.
“What have I, God, not put into these Writings? Everything—Superabundant Grace, Light that Illuminates, Warms, Fecundates; Love that Wounds, Truths that Conquer, Attractions that Enrapture, Lives that shall bring about the Resurrection of the Kingdom of My Divine Will. Therefore, you too, Appreciate Them, and hold Them in that Esteem that They Deserve, and Delight in the Good that They shall do.”…
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BOOK OF HEAVEN
From the writings of the Servant of God, Luisa Piccarreta,
The Little Daughter of the Divine Will
VOLUME 17
July 1, 1924
Laments of the soul. The prayer of Jesus. How one who gives himself to God loses his rights.
I felt very oppressed because of the privation of my adorable Jesus. Oh, how my heart bleeds, as I feel subjected to suffer continuous deaths! I felt I could not go on without Him, and that my martyrdom could not be harder than that. And while I was trying to follow Jesus in the different mysteries of His Passion, I arrived at accompanying Him in the mystery of His painful Scourging. At that moment, He moved in my interior, filling all of myself with His adorable Person. Upon seeing Him, I wanted to tell Him of my hard state, but Jesus, imposing silence on me, told me: “My daughter, let us pray together. There are certain sad times in which my Justice, unable to contain Itself because of the evils of creatures, would want to flood the earth with new scourges; and so prayer in my Will is necessary, which, extending over all, places itself as defense of the creatures, and with its power, prevents my Justice from approaching the creature to strike her.”
How beautiful and touching it was to hear Jesus pray! And since I was accompanying Him in the sorrowful mystery of the Scourging, He made Himself seen pouring out Blood, and I heard Him say: “My Father, I offer You this Blood of Mine. O please, let It cover all the intelligences of creatures, rendering vain all their evil thoughts, dimming the fire of their passions, and making holy intelligences rise again. May this Blood cover their eyes and be a veil to their sight, so that the taste of evil pleasures may not enter them through their eyes, and they may not get dirty with the mud of the earth. May this Blood of Mine cover and fill their mouths, and render their lips dead to blasphemies, to imprecations, to all of their bad words. My Father, may this Blood of Mine cover their hands, and strike terror in man for so many evil actions. May this Blood circulate in Our Eternal Will in order to cover all, to defend all, and to be a defending weapon for the creature before the rights of Our Justice.”
But who can tell of the way Jesus prayed, and of all that He said? Then, He remained silent, and I felt in my interior as if Jesus was taking my little and poor soul in His hands, and He squeezed it, He touched it up, He looked at it; and I said to Him: ‘My Love, what are your doing? Is there anything in me that displeases You?’
And He: “I am working and expanding your soul in my Will. And then, I do not need to give you an account of what I do, because, since you gave yourself completely to Me, you have lost your rights – rights which are already Mine. Do you know what your only right is? That my Will be yours, and that It provide you with all that can make you happy, in time and eternity.”
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March 28, 1994 – Cardinal Felici’s letter from the Sacred Congregation of the Causes of the Saints to His Excellency Archbishop Carmelo Cassati. The letter declared that on the part of the Holy See there was no impediment to opening the Cause for Luisa Piccarreta’s Beatification, and to therefore start the process.
November 20, 1994 – Feast of Christ the King: Archbishop Cassati officially opened the beatification cause of the Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta in the principal church of Corato, in the presence of a huge crowd of people, locals and foreigners.
In October 2005 at the end of the closure of Luisa’s cause by the Archdiocese of Trani, all official documents were packaged and sealed for shipment to Congregation for the Causes of the Saints – The dicastery, or department, of the Roman Curia responsible to the Holy Father for the investigations which lead to the beatification and canonization of holy men and women. On March 7, 2006 those packages were officially opened by the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints. Thus began the “Roman Phase” of Luisa’s Cause.
Roman Phase
The Congregation for the Causes of the Saints appoints a Relator from among its College of Relators. His task is to supervise the writing of the Positio, a complete biography containing the evidence for or against the candidate. When completed the Positio is judged by the Congregation’s consultors, and then by a panel of theologians, whose vote determines whether the Positio is presented to the Cardinals of the Congregation for their vote. If the Cardinals approve, the Cause goes to the Pope, whose positive judgment on the Heroic Virtues of the Servant of God permits the person to be called Venerable. This Decree on the Heroic Virtues, together with a Decree approving a Miracle, permits the person’s Beatification.
On March 7, 2006, three days after the 59th anniversary of Luisa’s passage to Heaven, Luisa’s cause was officially opened in Rome. The official seals on the cases containing the documents from the Archdiocese of Trani were broken and the cases opened by the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints. In attendance were Padre Bernardino Bucci and the Vicar General of Trani Msgr. Savino Giannotti.
Mass Reading for March 7, 2006
Matthew 6: 7 – 15
7 “And in praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that
they will be heard for their many words.
8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
9 Pray then like this: Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
10 Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done, On earth as It is in heaven.
11 Give us this day our daily bread;
12 And forgive us our debts, As we also have forgiven our debtors;
13 And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil.
14 For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you;
15 but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your
trespasses.
From 3rd to 5th March, on the occasion of the seventieth anniversary of the transit to Heaven of the Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta, coinciding also with the 30th birth anniversary of the Association Luisa Piccarreta Little Children of the Divine Will, the whole city of Corato, and not only, met to celebrate those events.
“THE PRECIOUS PEARL OF THE KINGDOM” was the theme for those three days.
The Kingdom of God is a beautiful reality, it is a good deal. It is the joy that moves us, it is the love that makes everything easier, allowing us to accept every event, every situation from the hand of God. The Kingdom is the joy, the root of our life, which moves, rushes us, makes us decide. Christianity is not renunciation or sacrifice, it is a treasure: God in me, in us, a beautiful life, crystal clear water.
But how can we rejoice in suffering, in sickness, in the difficulties that we live each day? The joy of the Kingdom is something much deeper and we do not necessarily need to feel it, but we must live it. We must put God at the center of our being, so we can witness in joy the beauty that He continually gives us, we can experience the treasure of the Kingdom, the precious pearl.
In those days we remembered and meditated the great gift that Jesus gave to Luisa, and that she welcomed, by being ready to the Will of God, through her Fiat. She lived her “Yes” in obedience, in love for God, when He wanted her to be intimately united to the Passion of the Son in order to collaborate in the Redemption of the whole human race. Luisa is a great and hidden victim of expiation, who reveals the most rewarding joys of the life of the spirit united with God.
God never acts alone, He always joins man. Luisa teaches us that our Fiat is indispensable for the fulfillment of the Divine Will. Jesus became man to reunite the dispersed humanity, but this is not enough, because God needs our “Yes”. Jesus Christ, taking on human nature and making Himself our head, came to reunite the dispersed humanity, and with His obedience to the Volition of the Father, He came to join God and man once again. But this indissoluble union is strengthened more according to our obedience to the Divine Volition. Jesus told Luisa that if His Celestial Mother contributed by giving her blood, she was able to do that because She kept the Divine Will absorbed within Herself, otherwise, She could not contribute in forming the humanity of Jesus.
The Word of God, in incarnating Himself, became the light of souls. And just as the material sun gives light in general and to each one in particular, so much so, that each one can enjoy it as if it were his own, in the same way, the Word, while giving light in general, is Sun for each one in particular; so much so, that each one can have this Divine Sun as if It were for himself alone. The soul possesses this light, it dispels darkness, just as the material sun. If the soul is cold, this divine light warms her; if she is naked of virtues, it fecundates her. This Divine Sun, introducing her into the center of Its sphere, covers the soul with all Its rays and reaches the point of transforming the soul into Its very light.
The reason that made Jesus come from Heaven was love; His birth was the outpouring of love of the Most Holy Trinity toward creatures. In an outpouring of love of His Celestial Mother He was born from Her womb, and in an outpouring of love He is reborn in souls
So, the Incarnation is the supreme act of Mercy, that is, the assumption by Jesus in all things, except sin, of human nature; “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21). What does it mean? To repair the distance between God and the sinning creature. It means that God considered Jesus as the greatest sinner, as the personified sin. The honest person paid for the unrighteous one, He paid on the cross in place of all of us, He has freed us from our sins so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. He made a perfect satisfaction for all the sins. So Mercy and Justice are placed perfectly together in God.
Well, that is not a simple matter, Jesus tells His disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34). It is not easy to live as Christians, it costs! Taking up one’s cross means to pay, that is, to go against the tide especially today, and it costs and at a high price. The way to perfection leads through the cross. There is no holiness without sacrifice and spiritual battle.
However this path, this spiritual progress, is directed towards an ever more intimate union with Christ. This union is called “mysticism” because one participates in the mystery of Christ through the sacraments and, in Him, in the mystery of the Holy Trinity. God calls all people to this intimate union with Him, even if only few people are granted special graces or extraordinary signs of this mystical life, in order to show the free gift given to all creatures. In Luisa’s life we can see her vocation as a victim, which in time it is specified in the sacrifice of her own will by participating in the suffering of Jesus.
“Living in the Divine Will” is the center of Luisa’s mystical experience and of each page of her writings. It is wrong toread mysticism as something far from us. Mysticism is a baptismal life, lived intensely. It leads to the union with God, and to live the very communion of the Holy Trinity.
It is a free gift to feel the feeling of love, it is God’s entering in the life of man and it surpasses our understanding. Luisa witnesses the Word that God continues to give to humanity, God continues, He does not finishes with the Son (Redemption), but He continues with us believers, because He continues to listen to the groan of His people. In every stage of history, the Lord has never avoid to call women and men who could become witnesses of God’s Word. The great renewal of the Church have always been produced by the spiritual experiences of the Saints who have expressed their desire to live the Gospel to the letter.
Yes, Father, let my will no longer have life
but only Yours live and reign in me.
May Your Will be the life of my spirit, soul and body;
May It be the life of all my being, my person, my life;
May It be the life of all that I am, of all that I have,
of all that I do.
May Your Will be life of my powers, of my senses, of my limbs.
Fiat!
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BOOK OF HEAVEN
From the writings of the Servant of God, Luisa Piccarrreta,
The Little Daughter of the Divine Will
VOLUME 31; October 21, 1932
The creature, heaven studded with stars. The Creation enclosed within her. How the practice of good forms the life of good in the creature. The sign that Jesus dwells in the soul.
I am always prey to the Divine Fiat. It awaits me in all created things to duplicate the love It had in creating so many things for me. It seems that the Divine Volition longs for the love of Its beloved creature, to be able to find the little prop of love, upon which to lean Its great love. So, heavens, suns, winds, are nothing other than insinuating and continuous calls, to tell us: “I have anticipated you with my love; and you – do not leave Me without yours.” But while I felt that all were calling me to love my Creator, my beloved Jesus, surprising me, told me: “My daughter, just as I created a heaven that extends above your head, studded with stars, in the same way I created a heaven inside of you, and this heaven is your soul, which extends everywhere – from the top of your head down to the bottom of your feet. There is not one part of you to which this heaven does not extend. So, you have a heaven on the outside, and a heaven inside, even more beautiful; and everything that this heaven does by means of your nature – that is, if it thinks, if it speaks, if it operates, if it suffers – is nothing other than most refulgent stars with which this heaven of the soul keeps adorning itself. The sun that shines in it is my Will, the sea that flows is my grace, the wind, my sublime truths that form the flowery fields of the most beautiful virtues – the whole of Creation is enclosed in the creature. It was not of Our Wisdom, or of Our powerful Love, to create the Creation only outside of the creature, leaving the inside, the vital and substantial part of her, without heaven, stars and suns – no, no. When We do a work We fill it inside and out with Our works, and with Our very life – but so much, that there must be not one particle of its being that does not feel Our life and the strength of Our creative works. This is why We love the creature so much – because she is Our work, and We left Our life in her in order to preserve what We Ourselves had done. And this is why, then, if one does not feel within himself the life of my Divine Will, it means that he knows It theoretically, but not in practice, because when one knows a good and practices it, it has the virtue of forming the substance of the life of the good that one knows; otherwise it would remain without practice, like a painted picture which, having no life, does not possess the virtue of forming its life in the one who admires it. My Will is life, Our works are living works, not dead; yet, for one who does not know them, or does not try to know them, or does not put them into practice, they can be dead works for her, and without life. Therefore, it is in the practice that I await the creature, in order to realize, form and grow the life of my Volition, and to render Our works alive for her.”…
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