Total Consecration 2014

Last year, I did a Total Consecration to Jesus Through Mary. This was mostly to help prayerfully prepare for my pilgrimage to World Youth Day in Rio De Janeiro. However, it also served as a way to enter into a deeper relationship to Christ through His Blessed Mother.

Making an act of total consecration should be a yearly thing, and for this year I decided to renew my consecration on a different Marian feast day. Last year, I made my act on total consecration on the feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel primarily because it was the major Marian feast day before leaving for Rio. This year, I wanted to switch feast days to align more with one I already have a devotion to and that would be Our Lady of Guadalupe. After all, St. Juan Diego is my patron saint. :-)

For more info on what the Total Consecration to Jesus Through Mary is, you can check out Dr. Taylor Marshall's blog post on it or his podcast.

Like last year, I'll attempt at blogging each day as I'm going through the daily reflections and prayers.

This year, I'll be using Fr. Brian McMaster's book, Totus Tuus. Maybe he was my associate pastor when I was in college, before he went and became vocations director for that diocese. And he's a Fightin' Texas Aggie (WHOOP!).

Ad Jesum per Mariam

- JD

To get your own copy of Fr. Brian's book, click here:

Totus Tuus: A Consecration to Jesus Through Mary with Saint John Paul II

Going To Work On Saturday

I'm going to use this opportunity of going to work on a Saturday to make an analogy for love as I'm on my way to work this morning. Not the warm fuzzy type of love but something that gets to the heart of what authentic, true, genuine, real love is. I've already had a long work week. Yet, here I am again on a Saturday morning about to put in some more hours.

I really don't feel like going to work today because I'm tired, and I can be doing other things.

I'm not getting paid for the hours I'm putting in today so I don't really get anything out of work today aside from productivity.

I wasn't even techically required to go work today. I volunteered.

Perhaps authentic love isn't dependent on what I feel like. 

Perhaps authentic love isn't about what I get out of loving.

Perhaps authentic love isn't such that it is required or forced, but rather a free act  of the will.

I guess I love my job. :-)

-JD

From Graphite to Diamonds

I need to do a better job of reblogging cool blog posts or talking about other cool blog posts. I mean, I read a lot of them! And sometimes it's just nice to sip on some Mystic Monk coffee and catch up on reading. :-)

A good acquaintance from my parish apparently has been in the hospital lately because he had a lung collapse and is potentially on the verge of having both lungs collapse. He has cystic fibrosis so it's been particularly challenging for him having to deal with chronic lung issues. Please pray for him!

In his latest blog post he says, "Having spent 21 days in the hospital and only having left my room about 10 times in that span, I have had a LOT of time to think. If these thoughts seem a little 'off the wall' it’s because my main company for the past three weeks has been the four walls of my room."

He then offers a brief yet profound reflection on Christ's love for us in a way similar to how graphite becomes a diamond.

This particular blog post resonated well with me because lately I've been dealing with a lot of interior turmoil, conflict, selfishness, etc., and all of that has caused me to be rather ungrateful and to lose sight of God's love and mercy for me. While my problems don't (currently) involve physical ailments, my interior  sickness has definitely been something that has been difficult for me to handle. (Don't worry, I'm okay.)

And reading Daniel's blog post helped me refocus and remember that God can transform seemingly dull and ugly things into something brilliant and precious because God knows what I'm going through for He, Himself endured unfathomable suffering for my sake. Daniel's sake. Your sake.

Put in another way, He can redeem suffering because of His Passion, death, and Resurrection. My suffering, especially when united to His cross, has meaning.

In Daniel's words:

I could complain about basically being strapped to a wall for three weeks, and about my increased chances of having another lung collapse. Well, Christ was nailed to his Cross for three hours and he most likely died by a slow and grueling suffocation. So yeah, he knows a little bit about what I am going through.

Read the rest here.

And you can follow Daniel at Thoughts of a Fibro on Wordpress.

“We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures. We are the sum of the Father’s love for us and our real capacity to become the image of his Son.” - Pope Saint John Paul II
- JD

Graphite and diamond // American Physical Society