Daily Meditation
May 16, 2021 – Consecrated in Truth: Authentic Love
Father Walter Schu, LC
John 17:11b-19
Lifting up his eyes to heaven, Jesus prayed, saying: “Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are one. When I was with them I protected them in your name that you gave me, and I guarded them, and none of them was lost except the son of destruction, in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you. I speak this in the world so that they may share my joy completely. I gave them your word, and the world hated them, because they do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world. And I consecrate myself for them, so that they also may be consecrated in truth.”
Introductory Prayer: Lord, I believe in you and all that you have revealed for our salvation. I hope in you because of your overflowing mercy. Every single act of yours on this earth demonstrated your love for us. Your ascent into heaven before the eyes of the Apostles inspires my hope of one day joining you there. I love you and wish you to be the center of my life.
Petition: Mary, help me to be an ardent witness to the truth of Christian love.
- “So I Sent Them into the World”: Jesus has ascended into heaven. In today’s Gospel, from the Last Supper, he transmits his mission to his Apostles—and to each one of us. Just how transcendent is this undertaking which Christ places in our hands? It is nothing less than the eternal salvation of souls. Real, concrete persons’ eternal destinies are linked to our faithfulness to Christ, to our Christian witness. Does not such a responsibility make us tremble in our weakness and sinfulness? How can we hope to live up to such a mission? Yet Christ invites us to share his joy completely. He does not abandon us in his ascension but promises to consecrate us in the Spirit of Truth—the Holy Spirit, the great advocate in our apostolic mission. May we respond in prayer to the Church’s liturgy this week as she prepares us to receive the Holy Spirit on the great feast of Pentecost.
- “Consecrate Them in the Truth”: Just who is the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Blessed Trinity, the one who desires to become the gentle guest and consoler of our soul? The Holy Spirit is the personal love of the Father and Son for each other. As the liturgy’s second reading reminds us, “God is love” (1 John 4:16). Only the Holy Spirit can enable us to undergo the journey of purifying and disciplining “eros” (human love or the love of attraction—“ascending love”), so that it can be healed and restored to its true grandeur (cf. Deus Caritas Est, nos. 4-5). If we follow this ascetic path of renunciation, then eros will in the end merge with “agape” (Christian love or love which seeks only the good of the other—“descending love”) (cf. no.7). The love of agape, forged within us by the Holy Spirit, will impel us to seek the good of souls without counting the cost.
- “And I Consecrate Myself for Them”: How does Christ consecrate himself? He does so precisely in his passion and cross. That is why Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta’s saying is ever valid: “Love, to be true love, has to hurt.” Pope-Emeritus Benedict XVI directly confronted the question of the renunciation demanded by true love. He asks if the Church doesn’t spoil love. “Doesn’t the Church, with all her commandments and prohibitions, turn to bitterness the most precious thing in life?” (Deus Caritas Est, no.3). The answer, of course, is a resounding “No!” Only the asceticism of Christian chastity purifies and disciplines love so that it rises above the sensual sphere to become a truly personal act of self-giving. It is no coincidence that only natural family planning requires continence, whereas contraception does not. Are we willing to be hated by the world in standing up for this most fundamental of the Church’s teachings to preserve authentic love?
Conversation with Christ: Holy Spirit, you are the source of love in my life because you are love itself. Help me to win all the graces for souls that Christ is asking of me by consecrating myself in truth—the truth of the cross, renunciation and purification—to live true love in self-giving, without counting the cost.
Resolution: I will both practice and defend the Church’s teaching on chastity, especially natural family planning, in order to live authentic Christian love.
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The author of this blog believes if the world would accept and not reject Jesus The Christ, and worhsip the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and devote itself to the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph divorce would end, abortion would end, pornography would end and so much more as a Spirit of Heaven would reign on earth; and this is how we do it – follow the teachings of The Catholic Church through time and millenia regardless of “bad” popes, bishops, priests and other clergy and religious, we follow the teachings and doctrines of the Catholic Church through time and millemia given by the Lord Jesus Himself and handed on to us by the Apostles, and the only way we accomplish this is through love, and what is love? Love is patient, love is kind…See Corinthians 1:13. Furthermore this can only be accomplished through conjugal love, and what is conjugal love? Please go to and read from these links to learn the truth about conjugal love – http://www.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae.html, http://www.beginningcatholic.com/catholic-natural-family-planning#:~:text=Catholic%20natural%20family%20planning%20is%20more%20commonly%20called,natural%2C%20and%20healthy%20approach%20to%20sexuality%20within%20marriage%21, https://catholicinfertility.org/naprotechnology.html#:~:text=NaProTECHNOLOGY%20is%20an%20emerging%20science%20of%20%20women%27s,is%20morally%20acceptable%20to%20people%20of%20all%C2%A0%20faiths, https://www.catholicbible101.com/artificialbirthcontrol.htm#:~:text=Here%20is%20what%20the%20official%20teaching%20of%20the,in%20conformity%20with%20the%20objective%20criteria%20of%20morality.
My first obligation as well as its my biggest desire is to love the Lord my God with all my heart, strength and soul and every fiber in my body and then to love my neighbor as myself; and I train for this daily, even though I am sinful and stumble and fall and continue to fail forward in Christ and love by frequenting the Sacrament of Confession and ask you do the same. And who is my neighbor? Since almighty God made me a father, a biological father through marriage, and blessed me with 4 children my first duty to my neighbor is to love my children, the children God gave me, and I train first for this, and only my children can answer this question and I ask and listen as best I can and as flawed as I am. I am also maritally divorced, and its the greatest wound of my life and I will carry this wound into eternity as Christ carries His wounds into eternity, but its also a wound that only Christ can heal, so I allow Him to as imperfect as I am. So, I also train to love the mother of my children and the woman I married as best I can simply by praying for her and being there when asked. So, I now live or rather train to live celibacy and chastely and flawed at doing so but thankful for our Lord’s Sacraments of Reconciliation and Holy Communion and ask any and all wounded by divorce to do the same and to look into these 3 links below, all of which have helped me, to learn more and to not even think about dating, if you are divorced or romantically involved with a divorced person please for the sake of your own eternal salvation and the other’s please look into this, pray and seek out spiritual direction on this from a trusted person on this matter, it’s a grave matter – http://www.catholicsdivorce.com/, https://www.nonnatus.org/, https://www.anniekarto.com/
Even the single are called to practice what I write above and the married are called to chastity as well loving only his or her spouse in a most chaste way and please adhere to the Church’s teachings, God’s law and complementarity law is that sex is for marriage and marriage is between one man and one woman. Save yourself for marriage, please! It is the better part!
If people could only understand what marriage is, what true marriage is, the world would be transformed. How can we understand what true marriage is? Start by reading from the beginning, chapter one in the book of Genesis and then proceed to the end, the book of Revelation – the wedding feast of the Lamb and read everywhere in between prayerfully and meditatively not rushing, taking years, a lifetime actually.
I realize no one may read this, my blog post. I realize no one may care or act on it. That does not change TRUTH! That does not change LOVE! That does not change The Almighty Lord God of all creation who is unchanging, yesterday, today and forever! We must change, we must transform, we must purify ourselves, body, mind and spirit daily to abide in the love of God.
Christ was rejected by many, if not all, save the Blessed Mother, His own Mother Mary. I expect to be rejected. I expect that true marriage will be rejected. I expect that true love will be rejected. But I still must try and I still must train, until I draw my last breadth, and no matter what the cost! It is better for me to please God then to please man.
So, my prayer is to always remain faithful, hopeful and charitable to God and man, His creation, and to encourage all to do the same.
If we gave everything, our very selves as gift, without tiring, to God, to our spouses, to our children, to our parents, to our friends, and to everyone that crosses our path or even does not cross our path then the world would be transformed from a place of hate to a place of love. TRUE LOVE!
O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to you, and those who do not have recourse to you!!!!
TOTUS TUUS!!!!
DUC IN ALTUM!!!!
DOMINUS VOBISCUM…ET CUM SPIRITU TUO!!!!
DO NOT BE AFRAID!!!!