7 thoughts on “Assignment 20: Diary Entries 408 & 445”

  1. Hello again,

    #408
    Just when I think I have read the most powerful, meaningful note she could have written, another one comes along. This reading has such depth of sadness that my mind & heart can hardly “comprehend it.” The line, “Who can comprehend Him…comprehend His suffering?”, made me realize that any suffering I have felt or feel is a drop in the lake of suffering in which He endured for all mankind. The last line also touched me, “Where does such malice in men come from? It is caused by sin. Love & sin have met.” How profound!

    #445
    I can only imagine what it was like for St. Faustina to see His agony & feel it! When Jesus mentioned that He suffered even greater pain than this & He was referring to the sins of impurity, I could only think of what is in our world today. We are inundated with impurity in movies, TV, music, books, etc.. How easy it is for any of us to become numb to impurity. The lack of gratitude to such a gift from God, Himself, to our wretched state is something to meditate on, during this coming Lent.

    God bless, love, cocoa43

  2. Peace,

    I prayed for help so I could meditate more deeply on His Passion and these two readings helped me paint a picture in my mind that literally makes me weep. My prayers were answered. cocoa43 I agree, … “How Profound”!

    I thought about #445 and the “impurity” statement. Although, I agree this includes moral impurity but, may I add, purity of intent (the lack of it) – example – a child asks for a drink of water purely because he is thirsty – I on the other hand may have ulterior motive for any thing I ask or do etc…. I thought about this for a couple of days trying to be able to explain my thoughts and then I read Diary entry 484 (not assigned) but look at it and see if you see where I’m coming from.

    God’s Love,
    UB/BB/FB

  3. 408/445: I remember sobbing as a child watching Jesus of Nazarath
    when Jesus went through all that pain & suffering. Reading this
    brings back that pain in my heart-thankfully. Lent is such a
    prayerful/reflective time. We witness malice & cruelty all too
    often-sometimes w/in ourselves, people we are close to, or others
    around us. Its horrifying knowing what we are capable of in our
    humanity. Constantly battling our own original sin.

  4. I don’t think I’ll ever reach a point in my life where I fully appreciate the gravity of my sins. I know intellectually that the things I do are wrong, and I know that they hurt Jesus, but it’s very hard for me to make that knowledge enough to stop me from doing the stupid, sinful things that I do. And I don’t think often enough about the hurt it causes Him when I sin. I think maybe I’m too comfortable with my sins, too used to them. Maybe if I spend more time meditating on His Passion I can be better motivated to change. Or at least to hate my sins more. I think I will make that a goal during this Lenten season!

  5. 408/445. The Scourging at the Pillar and moral purity. Recently while on a week’s retreat in Omaha there was on display a life size statue of Our Lord having just been scourged; His wounds were many, bloody and gaping with flesh having been torn from His body. Add to this the graphic and heart wrenching descriptions of St. Faustina’s 408 & 445 and we get a glimpse of the depths of Our Lord’s redemptive suffering for us individually and for redeeming all of humankind.

    “… He subjected Himself to the scourging: these are the sins of impurity.” And, “Look and see the human race in its present condition.” This was in the 1930s. Our Lord must have had a premonition of what was to come in the next 80 years. That’s about my age. The 30s, 40s, and 50s seemed to be relatively innocent compared to today. This is not to say that there were not sins against purity back then. But, Impurity (Or Lust as one of the 7 Capital Sins the good Sisters taught us about) seems to have started to be magnified with Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Philosophy around 1954; then the televised gyrations of Elvis Presley and subsequent suggestive lyrics and videos like on MTV; the discovery of The Pill in 1958; Univ. of Wisconsin (Racine) textbook in 1962 glorifying the “F” word “that will change the world”; the 60s sexual revolution on university campuses; the rejection of Pope Paul VI’s 1968 Encyclical, “Humanae Vitae”; the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision to legalize abortion with now more than 50,000,000 babies aborted in the U.S. alone; sex education in our public schools with now 5th graders being taught “the pleasures of sex;” no fault divorce; cohabitation; the promulgation of homosexuality to the point of legalizing “gay” marriage; the priests’ sex scandal; the total immersion of our culture in sexual enticements; rampant pornography readily available on the Net; two of our own Durand High School teachers arrested for sexual perversions: Judge Bork wondered about this in his book, “Slouching to Gommorah.” And John Paul II in his “Theology of the Body.”

    Suffice it to say when I meditate on the Scourging at the Pillar in the future I will be thinking about these thoughts.

  6. The descriptions of the sufferings of Christ in 408/445 bring to mind a particular piece of religious art, the name of which I do not know, nor the artist. It is of the head of Christ suffering. Most of the picture is shades of red, the background color too, (I think.) What I most remember is the Lord’s eyes—so blood-shot and weeping. His crown of thorns also weeps blood. His eyes are piercing—To me they are saying, “Why are you doing this to me? Do you not know what you are doing?”

    This painting hangs in the adoration chapel at Holy Cross Church in Batavia, IL diocese of Rockford. They observe Divine Mercy Sunday in a big way. The Church is full with penitents and confessions go on for a couple of hours to a number of priests dispersed throughout the very large Church. This is then followed by Mass, the Divine Mercy Chaplet and the Apostolic Blessing.

    St. Faustina refers to the sins against purity. They are occasioned everywhere today especially among the young who claim to see no sin in it or in living together without marriage. God have mercy on our grandchildren. Bonnie.

  7. I have been a bit overwhelmed with the extent of my own sin and self deception. This is my first Lent as a Catholic and the blessed Holy Spirit had been answering my prayers for healing and the more He does the more I am faced with what St Faustina calls “my ocean of misery”.

    Suffice it to say that as an on again, off again Protestant Evangelical who honestly believed the ‘once saved, always saved’ heresy, I am now coming to grips with the realization that I spent most of my life destined for Hell. I have plumbed the depths of impurity and to now read about and begin to meditate on His passion and to know that it was me spitting in His face and pounding the reed on His ‘crowned’ head and gripping the end of the scourge as I swung it with all my might…….

    St Faustina was the very first saint I learned about on my journey home to Rome – I have sensed her support and love greatly as I continue to not just learn about but experience the “Communion of Saints”.

    in Jesus and Mary,
    Mike

Leave a Reply to Bonnie Cancel Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to Top