Dear Friends and Readers,
at the beginning of summer 2024 we take the liberty of offering you three pieces of advice that complement the training and information articles usually offered.
We have always told you that we live in times of enormous confusion, well in recent times this fact seems not only confirmed but extended. If training (philosophical, doctrinal, historical, etc.) is and remains fundamental, it alone cannot be enough. Without a life of prayer everything becomes sterile and fragile: the best intellectual foundations, if not strengthened by prayer, remain inert and degenerate into a cold and inconsistent intellectualism.
In giving you this advice we consider some knowledge already acquired. That is, that you have understood that the Mass to follow is the same as always (see here), that a “traditional Mass” is not generally enough if the Catholic Faith is not correctly professed in it, that true Christian devotion cannot be given without true Marian devotion, that daily prayer is indispensable (Three Hail Marys, morning and evening prayer, Angelus, etc.), that confession – made by a truly Catholic priest – does not have an optional or trivially routine role.
These facts, repeated in summary, we take for granted. So what is your advice?
- We ask everyone to establish or reinvigorate the practice of the daily Holy Rosary (at least a crown of 5 mysteries, but with a little effort you can do even more: why not try to say all 15 mysteries daily during the summer rest period? ). As you know, Radio Spada is not at all insistent in asking for offerings and offerings, but a dedicated intention in a decade of the Holy Rosary would be welcome.
- Ignatian spiritual exercises according to Father Vallet’s “5 days” method, approved by the Church. They are fundamental: they must be done (or at least tried once in a lifetime), it is a time that must be found. The fruits you will receive will be numerous. We are available to suggest safe places to do them: in many places, behind a Catholic facade and with a “traditional” flavor, you can find bitter surprises.
- We also very strongly recommend making the Consecration to the Eternal Wisdom through the hands of Mary, proposed by Saint Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort. It is found in Treatise on True Devotion and it is good to do it with the appropriate preparation indicated in the book (the version published by Edizioni Radio Spada is in the Golden Book of the Holy Mary, but it is not necessary for that to be the reference text; in any case we include an extract under*). To best arrive at the Consecration there is also, for those who can, the opportunity of “Marian exercises” based on Montfortian spirituality: since it is a retreat in a religious house, what has already been said in the previous point applies.
Who is this advice aimed at? We repeat: to everyone. They are certainly valid in a very particular way for the most active collaborators and militants, then for the most assiduous readers and friends. But no one is excluded.
Oremus ad invicem!
*[…] Those who want to enter into this particular devotion […] after employingtwelve days at least to empty themselves of the spirit of the world contrary to that of Jesus Christ, they will take three weeks to fill themselves with Jesus Christ through the most holy Virgin. Here is the order they can follow:
During the First week they will use all their prayers and works of piety to ask for knowledge of themselves and contrition for their sins: and they will do everything in a spirit of humility. For this reason they will be able, if they want, to meditate on what I said about our bad fund and consider themselves, in the six days of this week, as snails, snails, frogs, pigs, snakes And goats; or these three words of St. Bernard: «Think of what you were, corrupt seed; to what you are, a vessel of dung; to what you will be, food for worms», Cogita quid fueris, semen putridum; quid sis, vas stercorum; quid futurus sis, bait vermium. They will pray to Our Lord and the Holy Spirit to enlighten them, with these words: Domine, ut videam; Noverim me; Come, Sancte Spiritus. And they will say it every day litanies of the Holy Spirit. They will have recourse to the most holy Virgin and will ask her for this great grace, which must be the foundation of the others, and for this reason they will say theHail Maris Stella and his litanies.
During the second week they will apply themselves, in all their prayers and works of the day, to knowing the most holy Virgin. They will ask the Holy Spirit for this knowledge. They will be able to read and meditate on what we have said about her. They will recite, like the first week, the litanies of the Holy Spirit and theHail Maris Stellaand also a Rosary every day, or at least the third partwith this intention.
They will employ the third week to know Jesus Christ. They will be able to read and meditate on what we have said about him, and say the prayer of Saint Augustine placed towards the beginning of the second part (n. 67). They will be able, with the same saint, to say and repeat a hundred and a hundred times a day: Noverim you, «Lord, may I know you!»; or: Domine, ut videam,«Lord, let me see who you are!». They will recite, as in previous weeks, the litanies of the Holy Spirit and theHail Maris Stellaand they will add every day the Litany of the Name of Jesus.
At the end of these three weeks they will confess and communicate with the intention of giving themselves to Jesus Christ, as slaves of love, through the hands of Mary. And after Communion, which they will try to do according to the method indicated below, they will recite the formula of their consecration, which they will find later; they will need to write it or have it written, if it is not printed, and sign it on the same day they do it.
It will be good if they pay some on that day tribute to Jesus Christ and his holy Mother, both as penance for their past infidelity to their baptismal vows, and to affirm their dependence on the dominion of Jesus and Mary. Now, this tribute will be according to the devotion and possibility of each one: as a fastone mortificationaalmsa candle; even if they only donated one pingood-hearted, is enough for Jesus, who only looks at good will.
Every year at least, on the same day, they will renew the same consecration, observing the same practices for three weeks.
Consecration of oneself to Jesus Christ, Incarnate Wisdom, through the hands of Mary
O Eternal and Incarnate Wisdom! O most lovable and adorable Jesus, true God and true man, Only Begotten of the Eternal Father and of the ever Virgin Mary! I adore you deeply in the bosom and among the splendors of your Father, during eternity, and in the virginal womb of Mary, your most worthy Mother, during the time of your Incarnation. I thank you for wanting to destroy yourself, taking the form of a slave, to free me from the cruel slavery of the devil; I praise and glorify you for having wanted to live submissive in everything to Mary, your holy Mother, in order to make me your faithful slave through her.
But, alas! Ungrateful and unfaithful that I am, I have not kept the vows and promises that I so solemnly made to you at my Baptism, nor have I fulfilled my obligations at all. I do not deserve to be called your son, nor your slave; and, since there is nothing in me that does not deserve your repulsion and your indignation, I no longer dare to approach your most holy and august Majesty on my own. I therefore have recourse to the intercession and mercy of your Most Holy One. Mother, who have given me as Mediator to You; and through her I hope to obtain from You contrition and forgiveness of my sins, the acquisition and preservation of Wisdom.
I greet you, therefore, O Immaculate Mary, living tabernacle of the Divinity, in which hidden Eternal Wisdom wants to be adored by angels and men. Hail, O Queen of heaven and earth, under whose empire all that is beneath God is subject. Hail, O safe Refuge of sinners, whose mercy no one has lacked. Fulfill, I beg you, the desires I have of Divine Wisdom, and receive for this purpose the votes and offers that my littleness presents to you.
I, N., an unfaithful sinner, today renew and ratify in your hands the vows of my Baptism. I renounce Satan forever, his pomp and his works, and I give myself entirely to Jesus Christ, Incarnate Wisdom, to carry my cross behind Him all the days of my life, so that I may be more faithful to him than to the past.
I choose you today, O Mary, in the presence of the entire Celestial Court, for my Mother and Patroness. To You, like a slave, I abandon and consecrate my body and my soul, my internal and external goods and the very value of my past, present and future good works, leaving you an entire and full right to dispose of me and of everything that belongs to me, without exception, to your pleasure, to the greater glory of God, in time and eternity.
Accept, benign Virgin, this small offering of my slavery, in honor and in union with the submission that Eternal Wisdom was pleased to have of your Maternity; in deference to the power you both have over this little worm and miserable sinner; in thanks for the privileges with which the Holy Trinity wanted to endow you. I protest that from now on I want, as your true slave, to seek your honor and obey you in everything.
O admirable Mother, present me to your dear Son as his eternal slave, so that, having redeemed me through you, he may also receive me through you. O Mother of mercy, grant me the grace to obtain the true Wisdom of God, and place me, for this purpose, among those whom You love, instruct, direct, nourish and protect as your children and your slaves. O faithful Virgin, make me in everything such a perfect disciple, imitator and slave of the Incarnate Wisdom, Jesus Christ, your Son, that I may reach, through your intercession and your example, the fullness of my age on earth and of his glory in Heaven. So be it.
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