A Brief Reflection - A Call to Surrender and to Consecrate

Click for their website

As I read the final lines of the newsletter of the Benedictine Monks of Norcia (subscribe here), I was struck by one of the realities which we are experiencing in this global pandemic.

The final paragraph reads:

It becomes clearer every day that we will all be suffering with the physical, economic, psychological and spiritual consequences of the coronavirus for some time. We should be willing to learn the lessons God wants to teach us. A great temptation is to demand that God return what we have lost. In the field of tragedy, God sows seeds of new life. We all must water them with our prayers (both seen and unseen), our sacrifices and, perhaps, even our lives. But death does not have the last word.

What struck me was the following line:

"A great temptation is to demand that God return what we have lost."

Truly, if we love Our Lord, we will surrender, and consecrate, everything we have and everything we are, to Him that He may do with it what He pleases.  For we are the Lord's - we come from Him, belong to Him, and will return to Him as will all things that He has brought into existence.

For all who have lived a decent length of time on this earth, we know that Our Lord, through His mysterious ways of Providence, often prunes us, like branches growing on the vine, that we may bear fruit.  Even those who live in opposition to Him, by their habits of sin or resistance to the truths He reveals through His Church, are still attended to by Him and pruned that they might abandon their wicked ways and return to Him.

In this pandemic, which the Church in her liturgy notes to be an expression of Our Lord's anger at our sins, all are being pruned, the good and the evil, the just and the unjust, His children and those who have turned their backs to Him.

For all of us, we might already be in the midst of the temptation named by the holy monks of Norcia - to demand of God, even in the silent movements of our hearts, that He return to us all that we are losing or might be losing as a result of this pandemic and the many foreseen and unforeseen changes that it will bring to our world and our individual lives.

This temptation springs from our pride and will be played on by the Devil in this time of upheaval.  What Our Lord is calling us to do is to let Him love us and, by accepting this purifying love, make us holy.

As we stare, apparently helpless, at the grand scope of the pandemic's impact, many will be tempted to fear, to desire to escape from this reality, and to be angry with God.

Instead, surrender.

Instead, with a firm act of the will, consecrate everything that you hold dear to Our Lord, giving Him permission to do with it as He deems best.

Consecrate your:
- health
- wealth
- job
- income
- home
- possessions
- access to entertainment and technology
- earthly life

Begin now, if you are not already, to kneel before Our Lord at least once every day and raise before Him, as an offering of trust and surrender, all that you have and all that you are.

Tell Him that you trust Him - and then trust Him.  

Then, when you have set aside your earthly crown, your desire to be master over your life and possessions, you will begin to prepare your head for the crown of grace and glory, which Our Lord is preparing for those who love Him.

Brought to you by the author of the best-selling book: Slaying Dragons: What Exorcists See & What We Should Know

Please share!