Praying like the saints

Prayer, according to St. Alphonsus de Liguori, is the means to salvation. Here is what the holy Doctor recommends, from his book Preparation for Death:

It is necessary, after rising in the morning, to make the Christian acts of thanksgiving, love, oblation, and a purpose of avoiding sin, along with a prayer
to Jesus and Mary to preserve you from sin during the day. Afterward make your meditation and hear Mass.

During the day you ought to make a spiritual reading, visit the Blessed Sacrament and an image of the Divine Mother.

In the evening, say your Rosary, and make an examination of conscience. Go to Communion several times in the week, according as your director may advise: you should ordinarily go to confession with the same confessor.

It would also be very profitable to make the spiritual exercises in some religious house. It is likewise necessary to honour the most holy Mary by some special devotion, such as by fasting on Saturdays. She is called the Mother of Perseverance, and she promises to obtain it for all who serve her. Ecclus 24:30 They that work by me shall not sin.

Above all, it is necessary to ask of God holy perseverance, and especially in the time of temptation, invoking then more frequently the names of Jesus and Mary as long as the temptation continues. If you act in this manner, you will certainly be saved; if not you will be certainly be lost.

Food for thought, isn't it?

Consider this

Have you ever wondered why God doesn't always answer your prayers? According to St. Augustine, that which God refuses to you in His mercy, he grants to others through wrath. So maybe it is a good thing you didn't win the lottery last night! When we ask God for temporal blessings, we should always add ,"If it be for the greater glory of God and the good of my soul." It is a good practice to ask for temporal blessings on the condition they will profit your soul.
James 4:3 You ask, and receive not; because you ask amiss: that you may consume it on your concupiscences.

Spiritual graces should always be asked for, and asked in confidence of receiving them. Final perseverance, (the preservation of the state of grace till the end of life), is, according to St. Alphonsus Liguori, a grace which is only obtained through continual prayer. On our own, we cannot merit the grace of final perseverance, says St. Augustine, who adds this grace is only obtained through supplication. The Council of Trent confirms this: "The gift of perseverance can come only from Him who has the power to confirm the standing and to raise the fallen".

St Bernard teaches to ask for this grace through Mary, for what Mary asks, she obtains, and her prayers are never fruitless. Make it a daily habit to ask the Blessed Mother to obtain for you the grace of final peseverance; that when you die, God will infuse you with His grace that you may withstand the temptations of the devil, who will surely be trying to snatch your soul.
Luke 21:36 Watch ye, therefore, praying at all times, that you may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that are to come, and to stand before the Son of man.

Numbering your sins

Wisdom 11: 21 ...But thou hast ordered all things in measure, and number, and weight.

Tomorrow on my day off, I have to work an eleven hour shift for free. That's right; I have to get up early, drive to work and put in eleven hours for free. Why? It's some kind of a scheduling anomoly where I was assigned ten hour shifts instead of the usual twelve, (through no fault of my own) so now I have to pay back the hours that I "owe" to my employer. Most of my co-workers show up and then book off sick without ever having to turn a wheel when this happens to them. That way, they still get credited for the "owed" hours, (after all they did show up for the shift). Then they go home and enjoy what was supposed to be their day off to begn with.

I think that is stealing as well as lying, and I will not be following their example. As much as I don't want to work for free for an employer that:
1) claws back seventeen cents on every dollar I make
2) makes me work an eighty hour work week but pays me for only seventy hours
3) claws back a good portion of my overtime earnings (ie. I get paid 1.5% for OT but only see 1.2% of it because they keep the rest in a process they call "factoring"

I still, in spite of the above unfair practices, I will not be "sick" tomorrow. Why not? Sure, it would be a sin, but I could just go to confession after, right? Wrong!

According to Scripture and many of the saints, God has fixed for each of us the number of our days, the degrees of health and talent which will be given to us, and so has He determined the number of sins He will pardon; when this number is completed, He will pardon no more. Citing Scripture, Saint Alphonsus Liguori tells us in his book Preparation for Death that God witheld His vengeance against the Amorrhites (Genesis 15:16) "for as yet the iniquities of the Amorrhites are not at the full ." Saint Alphonsus compares the number of our sins to a harvest, that when it is ripe, God will pluck it. Then the holy Doctor goes on to warn us that one more sin may be the one that causes us to reach that pre-determined limit that God has set upon us and cause God to remove His mercy from us:
Ecclesiasticus 5:4 Say not: I have sinned, and what harm hath befallen me? for the most High is a patient rewarder. 5 Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin upon sin.

It's tough to be Catholic. We always have to take the high road, but that is the surest way to heaven.

The Making of a Saint

Who would think that this picture of a saintly old woman, bowed down with age, was once a beautiful young woman who had everything - wealth, family, admirers, and material possessions; she led a sinful life that had no room for God in it. Here, she is bent not only with old age, but also with sorrow in reparation for her past sins. Note the instruments of the Passion she holds - the Cross, the nails, the lance, the reed and sponge; in her left hand she holds a scourging whip, and in her right, a bundle of scourging rods. It is with these instruments we inflict pain on Christ every time we sin. It is as though we were there at His scourging, holding the whip and lashing Him, torturing Him with our sins, for indeed our sins are the instruments of His Passion.

Here she is again, a beautiful young woman at the moment of her conversion.

Meditate on the difference between the two pictures, and the road in between, from the start of her conversion where she realized her sinfullness, to the long hard way of the Cross that led to Blessed Angela's sanctification and redemption. May we all persevere on that road.

Stairway to Heaven

Here's a little checklist for heaven I came across- by Saint Alphonsus Liquori. Of course, this great Doctor of the Church doesn't call it a checklist; rather, he says these practices are a means of preserving your soul in a state of grace. I tend to think of them as a stairway to heaven, one that takes a lot of practice to climb without falling off.

1. Hearing Mass every day
2. Meditating on the Eternal Truths
3. Frequenting the Sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist at least every eight days
4. Visting the Blessed Sacrament every day
5. Visiting an image of the Blessed Mother daily, with attendance at her Confraternity
6. Daily spiritual reading
7. Daily examination of conscience
8. Having some kind of special devotion to the Blessed Virgin, along with fasting every Saturday in her honour
9. Most importantly, resolve to recommend yourself frequently to God and the Blessed Virgin, and frequently invoke, in times of temptation, the sacred names of Jesus and Mary, for these are the names by which you will secure a happy death and eternal life.

The practice of these devotions will be for you, says the holy Doctor, a sign of your predestination.

Timeless Eternity

I have often heard people wonder if they will get bored in heaven. They argue that an eternity is a very long time, and what will they possibly find to do for all those millenniums? Oh yes, say these "chosen souls", they know they will be joyfully worshiping God and carousing with the angels. But after awhile, won't this get a little repetitious? How can they be expected to do this forever?

First of all, I wonder how anyone actually knows they are going to make it to heaven. That has always been a mystery to me. Even the Church doesn't proclaim a saint while they are still living. Secondly, and according to Saint Alphonsus Liquori, time does not exist in heaven, so if these souls are blessed enough to enter Paradise, they will experience unceasing joy that lasts forever. This joy shall be so great, says the saint, that each moment will appear new. In heaven you have no desires, for your soul is fulfilled by the presence of God.

And what of hell? Saint Alphonsus tells us that just as each moment of joy in heaven is experienced anew, the damned in hell will suffer their pains of torment and despair for all eternity, with each moment of torture always being at its commencement, and the measure of suffering will be gauged by the degree of wickedness in this life on earth.