Corrine…week 5…pgs. 80 to 106

This is the time period when her life became sedentary and her resolutions included recollectedness, being an apostle by prayer, practice and accept mortifications, let her actions be words and example, “abandonment and full consent to His will in present illness and inactivity”.   She said that “God alone can make of this emptiness (inactivity when ill) …a work of redemption for me and for others”.  She knew she’d have to be on guard for agitation and irritability.  Later she could see that God had been working in her and a “mysterious work of grace” had been taking place in her soul.  Then she even says Thank You!  “Blessed art Thou, O Lord, for all this pain, through which Thou hast allowed me to expiate my faults, draw near to Thy Heart, and also to obtain, I hope, many spiritual graces for souls and for those I love.”  She is certainly an example of how to accept and praise God for illness or suffering or any cross and to work WITH it instead of fighting it.  And she said “let none of this precious grace of suffering be lost to me or to the souls Thou lovest”.  Again Elisabeth said “There are moments in life when we must look neither ahead nor behind nor to the side, but contemplate only the cross God offers us, from which will flow great graces for ourselves and others.”    And she said, “O Lord, I offer Thee all; make of my trials a work of expiation, reparation, and prayer; help me to practice complete renunciation and to preserve peace of heart”.     “I bind these things into a sheaf, Lord, and come humbly behind the shepherds to lay it in the manger…Accept my burden of afflictions and use them for the good of souls and for Thy glory.”  Oh to be recollected like her and to be able to focus on reparation for sin and for the good of souls and God’s glory!

On pg. 95 when she said “I want one thing only: that Thy Will may be done in me and by me. More and more, I seek, and desire to seek, only one end: to promote Thy greater glory by the realization of Thy designs for me.”    This reminded of what I’d read in Navarre Bible commentary concerning Matthew Ch. 2…  I’ll backtrack a bit….    In the beginning of the gospel of Matthew I noticed how many “dreams” affected Joseph’s actions.  When Mary was with child of the Holy Spirit and Joseph considered sending her away quietly….an angel appeared to him in a dream giving him direction.  After the Magi came through and Herod was threatened by a “king” being born….  After the Magi departed, and angel appeared to Joseph in a dream….telling him to take Mary and Jesus and flee to Egypt.  Later, in Egypt, another dream and they were to return to Israel.  Then he was alerted in a dream to not go to Bethlehem for fear of the ruler, so they settled in Nazareth.  Okay….back to the Navarre commentary….Joseph had “learned to work within the divine plan”. Just think how many times “his” plans were changed….and he listened…and he did it right away.  He didn’t mull it over and think about it and……  Sorry so long winded…but when I read Elisabeth’s “realization of Thy designs for me” it reminded me of Joseph following God’s designs for the Holy Family.  How slow I am, mulling things around and looking for excuses!

It was something to think about when Elisabeth meditated on the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves.  “Jesus Christ takes this lifeless thing, this tiny, coarse object, this bread, and by His blessing, it becomes food and life for the entire crowd. Why should I not be, in these same divine hands, the poor instrument for another such work? Why should I not be given by God to souls to uphold and revive them?...I will let myself be distributed by Him to souls…..Multiply my prayers, sacrifices, and acts of charity! Let these fragments of Thy love in me become warmth and comfort for the spiritually starved, until the blessed time when Thou, the one living Bread, shalt come Thyself to revive and save them.”  We creatures were created in the image and likeness of God.  Just think of the possibilities for us helping the spiritually starved if we would learn to work with in His divine plan.