Did yesterday sting? Were there parts of the day yesterday that hurt just a little? If so then you are right on. Remember that this is a "Challenge" not a walk in the park. There are parts of ourselves that are keeping us from being saints right now. We have to literally kill them dead.
The only thing that can replace our pride is faith. This is the reason that the amount of pride that we have is directly disproportionaly to the amount of faith that we can have.
Faith is a virtue, a gift freely given by God to those that ask and if you do not have faith, you cannot be sanctified. You cannot be a saint. In order to receive faith, we have to seek it in humility, which means that we cannot be prideful.
Faith itself is a human act which responds to the will which is moved by God. In our faith we consent to the divine truth. Adam and Eve failed and allowed pride to kick God's truth out of their lives. They believed the lie of the Devil.
Faith grows through prayer. Faith grows whenever our pride dies. Therefore if you had a problem with with the challenge yesterday, the easiest solution to curing your problem of pride lies in your ability to acknowledge that you believe the truths of God.
Note that this is not the truths of God as you want them to be. There is nothing in Scriptures about a particular political system or party. God is beyond that and much bigger. Faith calls us to be more than ourselves, more than what we think we should be because we are responding to something that is so much bigger than us.
Faith is active. It is an active movement on our part to God. It is a response to the call of God to leave our pride and to become one with Jesus, who is truth. Faith sheds pretense. Faith sheds our false sense of security. Faith sheds our ideas of what it means to even be a saint. Faith opens us up to a world that is beyond our control because it is beyond our comprehension.
This is why faith can be scary. This is why faith threatens Satan. Faith means that we are not in charge. Faith means that we are not the masters of our own destiny. It is totally and completely God. Faith starts as a wedge in the door and eventually blasts the door open to reveal the complete light that is God and Jesus Christ.
We are at day three and we are about to embark on the most dangerous journey of all. Faith.
When you embrace faith you become a threat to Satan.
When you become a threat to Satan, you put yourself in the crosshairs.
There will be temptation to abandon faith and to embrace pride.
There will be temptation to doubt.
To enter into darkness.
You have entered the trenches with the saints. Welcome to the battle that has already been won.
Questions for Reflection:
- What about God do you have trouble believing in? Is it because of God's limitations or yours? What would be the responsibilities you would face if those aspects of God were true?
- When you have a conflict believing in God or something about God, how do you solve the conflict?
- Is your faith active? A response to God? Do you expect God to do all the work?
- How do you see your faith in relation to your pride? Do you see one affecting the other? Which is winning?
- How does the prayer of Mary from day one help us to build faith? How does pride continue to try to get in the way?
- If faith is the active work of the intellect, write out five ways that you can more fully surrender your intellect to God, five ways that you can more fully give way to the truth of God.
- Record each instance of doubt that you experience about God today. It may be a note, a word, or even sending yourself an email. Reflect on these at the end of the day and recite the prayer of Mary for each instance.
- Faith is something that comes into focus every time we encounter any situation where the truth of God is questioned. How many times do we see the glorification of human pride and the decline of emphais on Faith?
- Every time we sin, we neglect the truth of God for our own pride in ourselves, thinking that we know what is right and wrong. What are your "favorite" sins? How do they reflect the swell of pride and the lack of faith in a certain area?
- Take a teaching of God that you disagree in the most, that you have the most difficulty with, or one that you understand the least. Look in the Catechism to see why God's truth has been revealed in that way. Seek to understand the reasoning for the teaching of God rather than just what the teaching is.
"Lord, let it be done to me according to your Word."
Litany of Humility
Written by Cardinal Merry del Val. He was accustomed to recite this prayer daily after the celebration of Holy Mass.
O Jesus meek and humble of heart, Hear me.
From the desire of being esteemed,
From the desire of being loved,
From the desire of being extolled,
From the desire of being honored,
From the desire of being praised,
From the desire of being preferred to others,
From the desire of being consulted,
From the desire of being approved,
Deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being humiliated,
From the fear of being despised,
From the fear of suffering rebukes,
From the fear of being calumniated,
From the fear of being forgotten,
From the fear of being ridiculed,
From the fear of being wronged,
From the fear of being suspected,
Deliver me, Jesus.
That others may be loved more than I,
That others may be esteemed more than I,
That in the opinion of the world, others may increase, and I may decrease,
That others may be chosen and I set aside,
That others may be praised and I unnoticed,
That others may be preferred to me in everything,
That others may become holier than I, provided that I become as holy as I should,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it. Amen.
Act of Faith
O my God, I firmly believe that you are one God in three divine Persons,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
I believe that your divine Son became man and died for our sins and that he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe these and all the truths which the Holy Catholic Church teaches because you have revealed them who are eternal truth and wisdom,
who can neither deceive nor be deceived.
In this faith I intend to live and die.
Amen.
