Secret of Holiness and Spiritual Perfection

10 religious articles of mine can be found here in manuscript format: Please Click Here - https://mothermary.website/CatholicInspirationsManuscript.pdf

Recommendations in the Spiritual Life:

Our Lord Jesus: “Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect.”
Deuteronomy: “Thou shalt be perfect, and without spot before the Lord thy God.”

Our purpose in life is to know, love and serve God in this life so that we can be eternally Happy with God in the next life.

Remember, Holiness is not anything you do. To clarify, Holiness is the state of the soul in sanctifying grace, the supernatural life of Christ within the soul, and the degree of that grace, furthermore, the participation in the Divine life increased by the sacraments as well as actual grace through prayer and good works fostering greater participation in the Divine life.

DO ALL IN THE SPIRIT OF HUMILITY, always recognizing that all good we have and do originates from God as the source of all goodness, virtue, merit and value. Any merit or value of our good works and virtues originated in and from the infinite merit that Our Lord won for us on the Cross, as Head of His Mystical Body. We should recognize that any knowledge and understanding we may have, God already possessed it perfectly long before He gave it to us. We must have appreciation of Who and What God IS and what we are not. Fear and reverence of God is the beginning of Wisdom. We should recognize that we can only attribute, to ourselves, our sins. We truly as miserable wretches approach the infinitely Holy, Supreme and Sovereign God as beggars. (Matthew 15:27-28, Mark 7:28-29)

God is Infinite and we are finite, weak, with many imperfections and limitations, in total need and dependence on God for all our spiritual and corporal needs.

Act as though everything depends upon you and pray as though everything depends upon God. You have to do your part, cooperate with God’s grace and make all the necessary efforts to resist temptation and practice virtue.

All good originates in and from God – and through our good will that begins every good action and thought – and it is the One Triune God's Grace through Mary that moves that will to do good, practice virtue and avoid evil and sin – such that the good we do returns back to God in a beautiful spiritual circle. God helps those who diligently and actively develop the talents and gifts He has given them, and who, also, help themselves and others spiritually or corporeally. God helps us even more when we ask for His help – humbly submitting to Divine Providence.

It is God Who is our strength. Without God we can do nothing. With God we can do all things.

In the Spirit of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus:

Besides frequenting the sacraments and praying the Most Holy Rosary, offering up our most ordinary, mundane and menial tasks is a great way to give glory to Almighty God and be pleasing in His sight. Saint Paul teaches us: "Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or WHATSOEVER else you do, do all to the glory of God." We should offer up whatever we do, even joys and, especially, SUFFERING to God in union with Christ's sacrifice on the cross thereby assisting Our Lord Jesus to save souls, including our own soul. For Christ transformed suffering to have redemptive value.

Sacrifice is one of the foundations of the spiritual life. Sacrifice essentially means "surrender of something for the sake of someone or some thing else" from the Dictionary. In the spiritual life - sacrifice basically means an offering to someone else. The purest form of sacrifice and intention is to give up what we want to do God's will instead - offering to him all of the meritorious value of all our prayers, works, joys and sufferings.

In the spiritual life - when someone sins - they are in debt to God and their sins need atonement – that is the person needs to make up for them – restitution must be made to God - so that justice is applied and the sinner is thus reconciled with God.

Saint Michael firmly reminded the three children of Fatima - to make everything they do a sacrifice. That is - in our morning offering – that we should renew at times during the day - the meritorious value of all our prayers, works, joys and sufferings - offered up and given to God such that the value of those offerings is applied by the Triune God through Our Lady to others in need. Our Lady of Fatima said "Pray, pray a great deal, and make sacrifices for sinners, for many souls go to Hell because they have no one to make sacrifices for them."

We should offer up all of our actions both internal - our thoughts - and external actions in the spirit of sacrifice and love - to God's great glory - and for the love of neighbors and self. We should love one another and treat each other with humble patience as though every soul that God puts in our daily life was Christ Himself, bearing each others wrongs patiently and forgiving one another.

We should also try to make the actions of each and every next moment of our life, actions that would please God glorifying Him in the present moment. We should pray to the Holy Ghost for discernment – plan for the future and determine what is the next course of action we should take in our lives that would be in accordance with God's Will and be in trustful surrender and self–abandonment to God's Merciful Divine Providence.

With each exercise of our will through our conscience and little acts of offerings of love to God, we strengthen both our will united to the One Supreme WILL of God and our conscience to better know, love and serve both God and neighbor. This is the "little way" of Saint Therese of Lisieux. Whether scrubbing a floor, picking a flower, or drinking a cup of tea, out of love for God, she would give great glory to Him, which is the humble, hidden, and little way.

One of the keys to the spiritual life is to be in the state of constant and total union and communication/prayer with the Holy Trinity, The Blessed Mother, the holy Angels and the Saints. “Rejoice always, PRAY UNCEASINGLY, give thanks in all circumstances”. (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18) This can simply be done with constant short ejaculatory prayers through out the day. These short ejaculatory prayers are very efficacious in fostering a greater participation in the Divine life and without distraction since they are so short and sweet before Our Lord and Our Lady. This is the answer and the "little way" of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus and of the little flower. By this humble and "little way", we can make everything we do a prayer. Also, an excellent and good short prayer is a Spiritual Communion.

Personal prayer as well as of course, the official prayers of the Church to God, Mother Mary, the holy Angels and the Saints brings us closer to God and to Heaven. We should pray in the spirit of adoration/worship, contrition, thanksgiving and petition. One of the best ways to personally pray is through our Guardian Angel who sees us now and beholds the face of God at the same time. Our Guardian Angels inspire us to do good and practice virtue, avoid sin and evil, and inspire us with good thoughts as well sending us consolations and encouragement when we need it. What a privilege for us! We should have great devotion to him [our Guardian Angel] and frequently ask for his help during times of battles and struggles with temptations and thank him during times of peace – and never do anything to grieve him or make him sad. Our personal relationship and friendship with the triune God through Mary can be more developed through personal prayer to our Guardian Angel, as though we were talking to a friend. We should be attentive to our Guardian Angel through frequent prayer to him.

Frequent spiritual meditation and contemplation through prayer – (the lifting up of our hearts and minds to God and constant communication with Him and what pertains to Him) – of Our Lord, Our Lady, Saint Joseph, the Holy Angels – and all that pertains to the Holy Catholic Faith is a form of zeal and fervor.

Saint Paul teaches us to “work out your salvation with fear and trembling”, that is, to consider it a tragedy to offend God through sin. Love God by keeping His commandments and avoiding what the commandments of God and His Church forbid. Practice virtue frequently in the spirit of sacrifice and love; for the love of God, neighbors and self.

In the Spirit of Saint Teresa of Avila:

Unite and offer back to God all talents and gifts received from Him and acknowledge Him as their source. Develop talents and gifts from God to better serve Him and reflect them back to their author as a mirror reflects an image back to its source. Recall to mind that we were created in the image and likeness of God primarily in the soul and that God possesses and owns all that He merely lent us for His service. Our body and soul are on loan by God to be judged by Him at death on how well we knew, loved and served Him in this life. We must give back to God what is already His. We should consider it a great honor and privilege that God created us from nothing – removed the defect of non-existence – in the first place, underwent excruciating suffering and died on the Cross for us and is the means of any sanctification and love we can have.

In the Spirit of Saint Mary Magdalene (One of, if not Our Lord’s favorite Saint - “Wherefore, I say to thee: Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much. But to whom less is forgiven, he loveth less.”):

Do all in the spirit of faith, hope, charity, sorrow for sin, repentance, penance and mortification along with the other pious dispositions. Imitate the perfectly, undivided, focused, steadfast and constant burning Heart of Charity of Mary Magdalene patterned and molded after the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Burning Heart of Charity, Mirror of Penance who regained thy Holy Innocence, encouragement and inspiration to us all - Saint Mary Magdalene, pray for us! Note: It is also good for us to make perfect acts of contrition – a prayer of having contrition and sorrow for having offended God greater than the fear of punishment and having a firm purpose of amendment of not sinning again.

Diligently perform your duties in your state in life all in the Spirit of Saint Joseph who is the Foster and Virginal father of Jesus Christ, "Co-Father" with God the Father of Jesus, "Co-Father" with God the Father of us all, a Perpetual Virgin, Head of the Holy Family, a "JUST MAN", who was ALWAYS faithful to God and Mary and who perfectly responded to all the graces God bestowed upon him, "dispenser of the treasures of the Sacred Heart of Jesus" and Mother Mary providentially, blessed the world with the Child Jesus, both tracing the Sign of the Cross with their hands, at Fatima on October 13, 1917, (the miracle of the sun), “Mirror of Patience”, "Terror of demons", "Conqueror of Hell", Patron of the Universal Church, that he is an efficacious means of salvation, in whom we are to go to in all our needs: "ite ad Ioseph et quicquid vobis dixerit facite" ("Go to Joseph and do all that he shall say to you") who is capable of answering any need and is the Patron of a Happy death and of every need.

In the Spirit of Saint Louis Marie de Montfort: Do all for Jesus through Mary. God chose to save and reach the world only through The Blessed Virgin and so in imitation of Our Lord, we can only reach Him by the same means he reached us, that is through the Immaculate Virgin Mary. Every grace, gift and blessing bestowed upon the members of Christ's Mystical Body, the Church, by each Divine Person of the Most Holy Trinity is done so only through the Blessed Virgin Mary. If we are not children of Mary, that is, “the rest of her seed”, who indeed, truly is Our Supernatural Mother in grace, then we can not be considered to “have the testimony of Jesus Christ”, nor can we claim to “keep the commandments of God”. (Apocalypse 12:1,2,5,17) True Devotion to the Blessed Mother consists in imitating the virtues of Jesus and Mary and relying on the Blessed Mother for the graces to do so in childlike dependence.

On Judging Others:

Our Divine Lord Jesus instructed us to not judge lest we be judged and that the measure that we judge is how we will be judged. It is necessary to use our counsel to judge what is good from what is bad and to completely depend on God and His Church for this distinction – as Adam and Eve learned this lesson all to well – after God gave them another chance to do His Will and depend on him for the knowledge of good from evil – that mankind can not possibly know on his own. And so we judge by the use of our counsel what pleases God from what offends Him – but never judging the inner dispositions of persons – for we would probably commit worse sins if we were in the same set of circumstances as others - that we may have judged – if we have not already committed those same sins in our own past - or if we were in a more difficult situation. Instead of judging, we should pray for others who we are about to judge and practice the spiritual and corporal works of mercy – such as sometimes humbly and patiently bearing the weaknesses and wrongs of others, waiting for the conscience of others that may not match our better informed conscience to be strengthened in the true faith as well as humbly, justly and prudently admonishing the sinner – but never judging his inner dispositions – for we do not know what is going on in the inner thoughts and movements of the will in others from their own past.

When does something become a sin?

The answer to this question is actually very comforting. In one sense temptations are necessary for our own good and that of our eternal salvation. You may ask - how can this be? If every choice or option that we have is good then we are not exercising our free-will here on earth. In the Old Testament we are told that nothing and no-one can resist the Infinite Majesty of God. (Esther 4:19) In other words if at the very moment of our creation - we had the Beatific Vision - that is we could see God face-to-face and perceive God as He Is - then we would be no better than an inanimate object or a machine doing only that which is programmed in it to do. And so for mankind on earth to truly exercise free will - the ability to choose between two or more options - it is necessary that one or more of those options be bad and not according to God's Will. You may ask - again - how can that be? Saint Augustine said to the affect - that God created us without our cooperation and He can not save us without our cooperation. And so we see that God placed Adam and Eve in a set of circumstances where eating of the forbidden fruit would be bad and not in accordance to God's Will. What God wants from us is a child-like dependence on Him - and to rely on Him and His Church to know what is good from what is bad.

And so it is clear in the Our Father - that we are to ask God to lead us Not into temptation but deliver us from evil. We should avoid all the near occasions of sin to the best of our ability - by avoiding any person, place or thing that will lead us away from God and sin. Saint Francis of Assisi taught us that temptations not consented to is actually a form of practicing virtue and very pleasing to God. So every temptation that we do not consent to or agree to with our will - actually pleases God, strengthens our conscience and better enables us to know, love and serve God and neighbor here on earth. Only if we fully consent to with our will - to a temptation - is when something becomes a sin. And so - if we immediately or even almost immediately resist and renounce all temptations as those bad thoughts enter our minds - then we have not sinned and have not fully consented to with our will to such temptations. And even if we partially consent to with our will to a temptation - that is a venial sin - and if that happens we ask God to forgive us and grant us grace to move our will and strengthen the faculties of our soul to resist that which is bad and displeasing to God in the future. It is only when we fully consent to a sin and actually commit that sin that it becomes sinful.

One really good way to avoid near occasions of sin, resist temptations and in a certain sense be free from them, is to always keep ourselves occupied in some productive activity or even enjoy a little recreation from time to time. And so - God simply does Not ask the impossible from us - and always gives sufficient grace and a way out of every bad situation over time - as we perseveringly and with patient endurance carry our cross daily and rejoice in the goodness and mercy of the Lord - for He wills what is best for us and keeps us on the straight and narrow in this pilgrimage on earth to Heaven.

The importance of Detachment and being “Poor in Spirit”:

The spiritually poor man is detached from the things of the world and prays to receive spiritual nourishment from God - which one great help to this is to do daily spiritual reading – which is very important in the spiritual life.

Peace and Good Will:

“Glory to God in the highest: and on earth peace to men of good will.” (Luke Chapter 2:14)
Every good action begins with GOOD WILL and makes us friends with God and on our way to Heaven.