Lent Archives

SM6 – To Fast, Part One – Season of Mercy: Lent and Easter by Servant of God Catherine Doherty – Discerning Hearts Podcast

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SM6 – To Fast, Part One – Season of Mercy: Lent and Easter by Servant of God Catherine Doherty

An excerpt from Season of Mercy: Lent and Easter:

To Fast, Part One

“Often during Lent, my mind turns to the reading from the prophet Isaiah that ends with the simple question: “Is this not the sort of fast that pleases me?” (Isaiah, ch 58) God evidently wants a broken, humble heart, because he says, “Rend your hearts and not your garments.” God wants not so much a giving up as a simple giving. In order to really have an open and humble heart, to give lavishly of food, love, shelter, tenderness and compassion because of this humble heart, one must give up oneself. To fast the way the Lord wants means a total surrender of self to the other and for the other.

The Lenten season is a good time to examine ourselves. Perhaps food is not our god, yet we can worship our will, which feeds our ego out of all proportion. Perhaps in the depths of our souls we might be unforgiving, hostile, angry. These are shameful things, if directed toward our neighbor. Maybe I am not too concerned with things of the world, but very much with “my thing”, my desires, and very little concerned with other people’s needs. Lent is the time to find out, because when we have broken and opened our hearts, God comes.”

Doherty, Catherine. Season of Mercy: Lent and Easter (Seasonal Customs Vol. 2) (p. 42). Madonna House Publications. Kindle Edition.

Catherine Doherty was born into an aristocratic family in Russia in 1896, and baptized in the Russian Orthodox Church. Because of her father’s work, she grew up in Ukraine, Egypt, and Paris. Many different strands of Christianity were woven into the spiritual fabric of her family background, but it was from the liturgy of the Russian Orthodox Church, the living faith of her father and mother, and the earthy piety of the Russian people themselves that Catherine received the powerful spiritual traditions and symbols of the Christian East. Catherine fled to England during the Russian Revolution, and was received into the Catholic Church in 1919. The cause for her canonization has been officially opened in the Catholic Church. More information about Catherine’s life, works, and the progress of her cause can be found at: www.catherinedoherty.org and www.madonnahouse.org.

Discerning Hearts is grateful to Madonna House Publications whose permission was obtained to record these audio selections from this published work.

TOR3 – Beauty and Penance – A Time of Renewal: Daily Reflections for the Lenten Season by Mother Mary Francis, P.C.C. – Discerning Hearts Podcast

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Beauty and Penance – A Time of Renewal Daily Reflections for the Lenten Season

An excerpt from A Time of Renewal: Daily Reflections for the Lenten Season :

Beauty and Penance

“When we examine the Church’s liturgy, the idea of blossoming beauty is very evident everywhere in this season of penance. It neither begins nor ends with anything severe, even though we are told to set ourselves to work, which will inevitably involve suffering and pain since we are so disjointed. We are so unbeautiful sometimes. The Lenten liturgy is one of hope and of restoration that speaks of a great blossoming that is to come, that is to be accomplished during these days. Holy Church tells us that it is not in vain that we keep vigil, and that a crown is promised to those who watch. She tells us that our penance is not without purpose.

We might stop to reflect there for just a minute. In our time the Church has lifted so much of what was mandatory in penitential practices, thereby placing great trust in us. She has not changed anything about her concept of penance or understanding of the need for penance, she has merely removed penalties. She has tried to show us a greater trust. If the Church is aware that penance had been done for the wrong reason, she is now asking us to do it for the right reason, without penalty.”

Mother Mary Francis. A Time of Renewal: Daily Reflections for the Lenten Season . Ignatius Press. Kindle Edition.

From the book’s description:

Mother Mary Francis, abbess of a Poor Clare Monastery for over forty years, left an enduring legacy in her writings and in the conferences she gave to her spiritual daughters. In this work she presents beautiful meditations on the liturgical season of Lent, revealing the treasures of the liturgy to Christians in all walks of life. Her insight into Holy Scripture and her poet’s heart engendered reflections that illuminate the daily Mass readings in a fresh and attractive way.

These meditations enlighten the reader to see conversion as positive and enriching, and help us to understand that the generous embrace of Lenten penance has a purpose and brings a wondrous reward: deeper union with God. She was a true daughter of Saint Francis of Assisi, who found perfect joy by turning away from self to God.

As a spiritual guide, Mother Mary Francis excels in the art of persuasion, aware that the human heart cannot be forced but only gently led to holiness. She makes this goal attractive and desirable by tirelessly explaining why striving for holiness is the happiest and wisest way to live. This book provides a wealth of material for plundering the riches of the Lenten season and for deepening one’s spiritual life. Her meditations are profound and timeless, not changing from year to year, thus providing a lifetime of Lenten meditations in this one volume.

Mother Mary Francis, P.C.C., (1921-2006) was for more than forty years the abbess of the Poor Clare Monastery of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Roswell, New Mexico. She became recognized as an authoritative voice for the renewal of religious life through her many books, including A Right to Be Merry, But I Have Called You Friends, and Anima Christi. To learn more about Mother Mary Francis and the Poor Clare Nuns of Roswell, NM visit their website at https://poorclares-roswell.org

SM5 – Repentance and Forgiveness – Season of Mercy: Lent and Easter by Servant of God Catherine Doherty – Discerning Hearts Podcast

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SM5 – Repentance and Forgiveness – Season of Mercy: Lent and Easter by Servant of God Catherine Doherty

An excerpt from Season of Mercy: Lent and Easter:

Repentance and Forgiveness

Repentance is a powerful word. We should use it not only in Lent but constantly, because daily we commit acts, say words, have inward movements, that we are sorry for, wish we had not said or done, and in some way wish to atone for.

That is good. It is also good to know that sin is not the immediate cause of this or that calamity. Sometimes God sends us sorrow, trials, sadness so that we repent, do penance, and turn our face to him. At times it is very hard to understand that those calamities and tragedies can make us understand the love of God, and his tenderness and mercy shine with a new shine, better than ever. Let us be reassured and let us open ourselves to whatever God sends us. A supposed calamity changes into a benediction, into something we could offer to God. Let us look at things that way; it takes faith, but you pray for faith.

Doherty, Catherine. Season of Mercy: Lent and Easter (Seasonal Customs Vol. 2) (pp. 33-34). Madonna House Publications. Kindle Edition.

Discerning Hearts is grateful to Madonna House Publications whose permission was obtained to record these audio selections from this published work.

SM4 – The Sea of God’s Mercy – Season of Mercy: Lent and Easter by Servant of God Catherine Doherty – Discerning Hearts Podcast

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SM4 – The Sea of God’s Mercy – Season of Mercy: Lent and Easter by Servant of God Catherine Doherty

An excerpt from Season of Mercy: Lent and Easter:

The Sea of God’s Mercy

It came to me that Lent is a sort of sea of God’s mercy. In my imagination, it was warm and quiet, and inviting for us to swim in. If we did, we would be not only refreshed but cleansed, for God’s mercy cleanses as nothing else does.

Then I thought of our reticence. I do not know if it is reticence, or fear to really plunge into God’s mercy. We really want to be washed clean; we want to be forgiven. But these desires meet with something else inside. I say to myself that if I enter into that sea of mercy I will be healed, and then I will be bound to practice what Christ preaches, practice his law of love. And that law of love is painful, so terribly painful. There by that sea I stand and think. If I seek mercy, I have to dish out mercy, I have to be merciful to others. What does it mean to be merciful to others? It means to open my own heart, like a little sea, for people to swim in.

If we stand before God’s mercy and drink of it, that means the Our Father is a reality and not just a prayer that I say.

Doherty, Catherine. Season of Mercy: Lent and Easter (Seasonal Customs Vol. 2) (pp. 28-29). Madonna House Publications. Kindle Edition.

Discerning Hearts is grateful to Madonna House Publications whose permission was obtained to record these audio selections from this published work.

SM3 – Learning to Love – Season of Mercy: Lent and Easter by Servant of God Catherine Doherty – Discerning Hearts Podcast

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SM3 – Learning to Love – Season of Mercy: Lent and Easter by Servant of God Catherine Doherty

An excerpt from Season of Mercy: Lent and Easter:

Learning to Love

The fall of Adam was a felix culpa, as the Latin used to say, a “happy fault”, for it brought us Christ. Christ has come to take our sins away and reconcile us to his Father. We have a “door” and we have a “way”, and if we pass through that door and we walk along that way, we shall see the Father. Christ is our brother; he is the brother of everybody, and so that makes us all brothers and sisters. Jesus Christ made us brothers and sisters of one another and that is the tremendous essence of this thing called Christianity—we are followers of Christ, baptized into his death and resurrection. We preach the Gospel with our lives, or should, if we are Christian. (We can also preach it with our mouth, but the best way of preaching is with our lives.)

What is that Gospel? To love God with our whole mind, heart, soul, and strength; to love our neighbor as ourselves. Do not ever forget the “ourselves’’ business. You cannot love me unless you love yourself. If you despise yourself, if you do not care for yourself, you despise God’s creature. You cannot love God either, if you do not love yourself. To put it another way, if you cannot love God and yourself, then how can you love me, your neighbor?

Doherty, Catherine. Season of Mercy: Lent and Easter (Seasonal Customs Vol. 2) (pp. 15-16). Madonna House Publications. Kindle Edition.

Discerning Hearts is grateful to Madonna House Publications whose permission was obtained to record these audio selections from this published work.

TOR2 – Amendment and Penance – A Time of Renewal: Daily Reflections for the Lenten Season by Mother Mary Francis, P.C.C. – Discerning Hearts Podcast

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First Friday of Lent: Amendment and Penance – A Time of Renewal Daily Reflections for the Lenten Season

An excerpt from A Time of Renewal: Daily Reflections for the Lenten Season:

Amendment and Penance

“It is of great spiritual benefit to avail ourselves of the Sacrament of Reconciliation often during this holy season, and so let us continue our consideration of this great gift ministered to us through our Holy Church. Just as there is no sacramental absolution without contrition and without the actual confession, so the Sacrament of Reconciliation is not valid unless we are determined to do penance and to amend our lives. To whom do we confess? To Almighty God. But we never sincerely confess to God what we have not first confessed to ourselves. The first confession is confessing to myself in true confrontation that I am guilty, I have sinned, I am at fault. If we do not have that first confession in the truth, that cleansing self-confrontation, we will not rightly confess to God. We cannot tell God anything he does not know, and we cannot rightly express to God what we have not expressed in truth to ourselves. “

Mother Mary Francis. A Time of Renewal: Daily Reflections for the Lenten Season . Ignatius Press. Kindle Edition.

From the book’s description:

SM2 – Seek God’s Will – Season of Mercy: Lent and Easter by Servant of God Catherine Doherty – Discerning Hearts Podcast

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SM2 – Seek God’s Will – Season of Mercy: Lent and Easter by Servant of God Catherine Doherty

An excerpt from Season of Mercy: Lent and Easter:

Seek God’s Will

“God speaks to us through the Bible. If you are humble, simple, and direct, and love the Scriptures as something that really comes from the mind of God to bring you to his heart, then the Holy Spirit teaches you to read them. A whole new vista, a new dimension opens before you, and you enter into a world that heals you, cleanses you, washes you, makes you whole.

In repeating the Word of God and praying with it, even when it seems monotonous, there is tremendous light. We are always attracted to something that is exotic, interesting; we do not want to dwell on something that we may not understand, or which bores us. And so we pass by a whole dimension of our own life. We are willing to absorb the Scriptures if they are put before us in a pleasant way. If not, we sometimes go to sleep, don’t we? But man’s heart cannot live in a void. As you are faithful to what at first appears to be a monotony, the Holy Spirit comes and you are silently visited by the Trinity, and they become your teachers of theology—teachers about themselves, that is. For who knows more about himself than God does?”

Doherty, Catherine. Season of Mercy: Lent and Easter (Seasonal Customs Vol. 2) (pp. 12-13). Madonna House Publications. Kindle Edition.

Discerning Hearts is grateful to Madonna House Publications whose permission was obtained to record these audio selections from this published work.

“Repent” – St. Clement from the Office of Readings

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From a letter to the Corinthians by Saint Clement, pope

(Cap. 7,7-8,3; 8,5-9,1;13,1-4;19,2: Funk 1, 71-73,77-78)

Repent

Let us fix our attention on the blood of Christ and recognize how precious it is to God his Father, since it was shed for our salvation and brought the grace of repentance to all the world.

If we review the various ages of history, we will see that in every generation the Lord has offered the opportunity of repentance to any who were willing to turn to him. When Noah preached God’s message of repentance, all who listened to him were saved. Jonah told the Ninevites they were going to be destroyed, but when they repented, their prayers gained God’s forgiveness for their sins, and they were saved, even though they were not of God’s people.

Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the ministers of God’s grace have spoken of repentance; indeed, the Master of the whole universe himself spoke of repentance with an oath: As I live, says the Lord, I do not wish the death of the sinner but his repentance. He added this evidence of his goodness: House of Israel, repent of your wickedness. Tell the sons of my people: If their sins should reach from earth to heaven, if they are brighter than scarlet and blacker than sackcloth, you need only turn to me with your whole heart and say, “Father”, and I will listen to you as a holy people.

In other words, God wanted all his beloved ones to have the opportunity to repent and he confirmed this desire by his own almighty will. That is why we should obey his sovereign and glorious will and prayerfully entreat his mercy and kindness. We should be suppliant before him and turn to his compassion, rejecting empty works and quarrelling and jealousy which only lead to death.

Brothers, we should be humble in mind, putting aside all arrogance, pride and foolish anger. Rather, we should act in accordance with the Scriptures, as the Holy Spirit says: The wise man must not glory in his wisdom nor the strong man in his strength nor the rich man in his riches. Rather, let him who glories glory in the Lord by seeking him and doing what is right and just. Recall especially what the Lord Jesus said when he taught gentleness and forbearance. Be merciful, he said, so that you may have mercy shown to you. Forgive, so that you may be forgiven. As you treat others, so you will be treated. As you give, so you will receive. As you judge, so you will be judged. As you are kind to others, so you will be treated kindly. The measure of your giving will be the measure of your receiving.

Let these commandments and precepts strengthen us to live in humble obedience to his sacred words. As Scripture asks: Whom shall I look upon with favour except the humble, peaceful man who trembles at my words?

Sharing then in the heritage of so many vast and glorious achievements, let us hasten toward the goal of peace, set before us from the beginning. Let us keep our eyes firmly fixed on the Father and Creator of the whole universe, and hold fast to his splendid and transcendent gifts of peace and all his blessings.

COLLECT
Grant, O Lord, that we may begin with holy fasting
this campaign of Christian service,
so that, as we take up battle against spiritual evils,
we may be armed with weapons of self-restraint.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

TOR1 – Ash Wednesday: A Time of Reflowering – A Time of Renewal: Daily Reflections for the Lenten Season by Mother Mary Francis, P.C.C. – Discerning Hearts Podcast

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Ash Wednesday: A Time of Reflowering – A Time of Renewal Daily Reflections for the Lenten Season

An excerpt from A Time of Renewal: Daily Reflections for the Lenten Season :

A Time of Reflowering

“We have come to the beginning of Lent, and I hope we will not allow ourselves to think of it as “just another Lent”. There is a very deep sense in which there is not another Lent and then another and another after that. This Lent is unlike any other. It is this acceptable time. We do not know if there will be another Lent for us, but we do know God has brought us to this acceptable time, to this prolonged day of salvation. This is the acceptable time, and the Apostle Paul is begging us not to receive the graces of this time in vain (see 2 Cor 6:1). He is also implying that there will be struggle, that this is a great testing ground, and that as we grow in our awareness of our need for redemption and in a very humble attitude toward others, so do we nourish the will to make a sustained effort to do better. By all of these things we enter into the mystery of our communal life in the Church. We are responsible for one another’s holiness. We influence each other all the time, and we should grow in the awareness of this. It simply cannot be denied that we are conditioned and affected by one another. Human beings invariably are. Every Christian has a vocation to holiness. Now as we enter into Lent, I hope we will all be deeply conscious of our involvement in one another’s holiness, of our sharing of penance and of sacrifice, and very especially of our responsibility for one another’s growth in holiness this Lent.”

Mother Mary Francis. A Time of Renewal: Daily Reflections for the Lenten Season . Ignatius Press. Kindle Edition.

From the book’s description:

SM1 – Begin with Desire – Season of Mercy: Lent and Easter by Servant of God Catherine Doherty – Discerning Hearts Podcast

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SM1 – Begin with Desire – Season of Mercy: Lent and Easter by Servant of God Catherine Doherty

An excerpt from Season of Mercy: Lent and Easter:

Begin with Desire

“In Lent we approach a threshold where this preaching will make way for pain and surrender. We approach a reality that he has enunciated to us and that we usually take lightly: “Greater love has no man than he lays down his life for his brother.” We are going to enter the moment in which our brother Jesus Christ has laid down his life for you and me, and every human being who has ever lived in this world—for he is brother to everyone.

Each one of us can enter into his own heart and look for that desire for God. It might be a little flame barely visible, or it might already be a bonfire in us. Be that as it may, we are going to see how God loved us. This is what Lent is all about. Like Zaccheus (Luke 19: 1-10) we are going to climb a big tree of faith so as to watch that no word of those last weeks of Christ’s life passes in one ear and out the other. His every act, his every word, must be enclosed in our desire, for if we are to fulfill our desire to see him when the door of death opens (and even before, for the Kingdom of God begins now) we have to imitate him whom we are going to look at.”

Doherty, Catherine. Season of Mercy: Lent and Easter (Seasonal Customs Vol. 2) (pp. 3-4). Madonna House Publications. Kindle Edition.

Discerning Hearts is grateful to Madonna House Publications whose permission was obtained to record these audio selections from this published work.