Isaiah, Chapter 7, Verse 3-6
3
Then the LORD said to Isaiah: Go out to meet Ahaz, you and your son
Shear-jashub, at the end of the conduit of the upper
pool, on the highway to the fuller’s field, 4 and
say to him: Take care you remain calm and do not fear; do not let your
courage fail before these two stumps of smoldering brands,
the blazing anger of Rezin and the Arameans and of the son of Remaliah— 5 because Aram, with Ephraim and the son
of Remaliah, has planned evil against you. They say, 6 “Let us go up against Judah, tear it
apart, make it our own by force, and appoint the son of Tabeel
king there.
Today we celebrate the
birth of Abraham Lincoln which was the President that during the Civil War did
take care to remain calm; he did not let his courage fail; He did not fear,
remaining faithful to the end.
John
McCain in his book Character is Destiny[1] describes
the 16th President of the United States as an example of a man who
demonstrates for us the characteristic of RESILIENCE. Resilience is the ability
to become strong, healthy, or successful again after something bad happens.
Abraham
Lincoln had known loss and grief all his life yet rather that than succumb to
defeat; he somehow, always found a way to rise back up. He was inarguably a man
of action. Although he was known to have chronic depression he never yielded
and in some way resurrected from his melancholic states thinking, “To remain as
I am is impossible; I must die or be better.”
Lincoln
rose to the highest office in the land after surviving a hard and poor
childhood in the Indiana wilderness, a harsh father, little education, and deep
loneliness. He survived the death of his brother, a sister, his mother, his
first sweetheart, and his own children and his marriage to Mary Todd was
troubled. As president he was considered dismal by most.
How
did Lincoln persist? He willed it. He was neither swift nor brilliant at work
but he was exhaustive; he continued. His resilience sprang from his deep
conviction that America was, “the last, best hope of earth.”
In
the end he paid for his devotion with his life; so that the government of the
people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.
Seek
good and not evil so that you may live, and the Lord will be with you. (Am. 5:14)
Other
Forms of Asceticism[2]
Since Lent recapitulates time spent
in the desert, other forms of asceticism have accrued to its observance.
Unessential travel and diversion are discouraged. In former times, certain
forms of entertainment, such as live theatre and secular music, were
banned, as was the holding of court. Weddings were also forbidden in the
early Church; even after this changed, the Solemn Nuptial Blessing could not be
given during a Lenten wedding. Finally, married couples were once admonished to
abstain from conjugal relations during this time (as they were
admonished to do during all solemn fasts and feasts). Again, the principle is
the same: withdrawal from the preoccupations of the flesh in order to
focus on the spirit.
Today,
plan to do at least one Novena for the calendar year for yourself and for your
Family. I always plan to do the Divine Mercy Novena by hiking for nine
Saturdays starting on the Saturday before Divine Mercy Sunday.
Novenas[3]
Novenas
are prayers that involve nine steps. It may involve nine prayers or it may
require the same prayer to be repeated nine times either daily or weekly. Devotion
to this type of prayer is linked back to the day of ascension when Jesus stated
to the apostles to initiate nine days of prayer. “While
meeting with them, he enjoined them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait
for “the promise of the Father about which you have heard me speak; for John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be
baptized with the holy Spirit.”
(Acts
1:4-5) After Nine days of prayer the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles at
Pentecost. Why the number nine? Some commentators have suggested that it is one
short of ten, a round number that represents fullness and perfection, so it is
a sign of our human neediness, our imperfection. Pope Leo XIII decreed that
every Catholic parish should observe an annual novena to the Holy Spirit on the
days between Ascension and Pentecost following the model of the Apostles. As we
pray novenas, it is good for us to remember to raise our minds and hearts to
Him; we should during our prayer ask Him for good things but also for our
needs. God sometimes gives us what we want so that we will grow in our trust
and learn to ask him for what we need remembering that prayers are not
incantations to get what we want but submission of our will to His.
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