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Sunday, August 6, 2017

A Lukewarm Soul

Dear Friends,

Today is the Feast of the Transfiguration: the fourth luminous mystery of the Rosary. The fruit of this mystery is often listed as desire for holiness.  I always love thinking about this fruit. For such a grace to keep striving to move forward toward sanctity is indeed precious. 

As the Feast of the holy St. Jean Vianney was Friday, I thought I would include some portions of a sermon the Holy Cure of Ars gave about lukewarm souls. Please do not think I am preaching by including this here, far from the truth. The words of Jean Vianney challenge all of us. We are constantly battling attachment to the world. 
The sermon is quite lengthy so I will mention portions that drew me to pick up a pen and underline. I will even do a bit more pruning for the purposes of the post and select still fewer parts to share. 
Let us begin with the lukewarm soul. 

Nothing touches this soul: it hears the word of God, yes that is true, but often it just bores it. 

For the last twenty years this soul has been filled with good intentions without doing anything at all to correct its habits.

Yet it does not wish either to leave the world or to go to Heaven, and if it can just manage to pass its time without crosses or difficulties, it would never ask to leave this world at all. In this Matthew 6:24 comes to mind, "You cannot serve two masters either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money." 

If God, in order to force such a a soul to detach itself from temporal things, send it any cross or suffering, it is fretful grieving and abandons itself to grumblings and complaints and often even to despair. It seems as if it does not want to see that God has sent it these trials for its good, to detach it from this world and to draw it towards Himself.

His mind is so wrapped up in the things of the earth that the thought of God has no place in it. 

Reading these words of the Holy Cure one could become discouraged, please do not. The world wants to draw us away. It keeps throwing cords around us...tying us down....distracting us. But there are also cords that Heaven sends down such as the Rosary. They are stronger than the earthly cords. They are made of a material not found on earth so there is no concern they will break at just the wrong time. They have been wrought over centuries through grace within the Church. St Dominic whose Feast we celebrate tomorrow was one such instrument that helped in the forging of the Rosary that we know of today. But do not doubt the strength of the gift we were given from heaven. Faithfulness in prayer will give us the eyes to see and the ears to hear where we have stepped off the narrow path and hasten to get back on it.

Let us keep each other in prayer. I humbly remember all the members of the Children's Rosary in my prayers each day.

Your Friend in Christ,
Blythe

Other Posts You May Enjoy:
"The Greater the Sinner, the Greater the Right He Has to My Mercy"
A Day of Incredible Blessings
How to Start a Children's Rosary
Don't forget to unify prayers with the children during their meetings. A schedule of meetings is present on our website. By clicking "Join in Prayer" you can add your gold flashing light to our View from Heaven map.


For more information about the Children's Rosary visit our website: www.childrensrosary.org
Visite nuestro sitio web en español para obtener más información: www.rosariodeninos.org

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