Meditating Mother, Queen of heaven,
In whose hands the treasures of the King are found,
Turn your merciful eyes upon me today.
I entrust into your holy hands this knot in my life,
And all the rancor and resentment it has caused.
I ask Your forgiveness, God the Father, for my sin.
Help me now to forgive all the persons who consciously or unconsciously provoke this knot.
Grant me the grace to forgive myself for provoking this knot.
Only in this way can You undo it.
Before You, dearest Mother, and in the name of Your Son Jesus, my Savior, who has suffered so many offenses,
I lay my burdens before thee, accepting forgiveness, accepting myself,
Granted forgiveness, I forgive those individuals and myself.
Thank you, Mary, Undoer of Knots for undoing the knot of rancor in my heart.
Amen.

Yesterday was day one of fasting, a Master Cleanse engaged for the healing of the body.  I, also, purchased an elliptical machine allowing convenient exercise.  Mind, body, and spirit mortified.  Yesterday’s Gospel reading, a portion.

But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them,
and then they will fast on that day.
No one sews a piece of unshrunken cloth on an old cloak.
If he does, its fullness pulls away,
the new from the old, and the tear gets worse.
Likewise, no one pours new wine into old wineskins.
Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins,
and both the wine and the skins are ruined.
Rather, new wine is poured into fresh wineskins”

Gospel of Mark chapter 2

“I see that child who lay upon her bosom and who bore my name, a man winning his way up in that path of life which once was mine. I see him winning it so well, that my name is made illustrious there by the light of his. I see the blots I threw upon it, faded away. I see him, fore-most of just judges and honoured men, bringing a boy of my name, with a forehead that I know and golden hair, to this place—then fair to look upon, with not a trace of this day’s disfigurement—and I hear him tell the child my story, with a tender and a faltering voice.

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.” –Charles Dickens ‘A Tale of Two Cities’

With man…all the efforts of his nature cannot enable him to do one act above his nature; all his intelligence, courage, and determination will not enable him to pass one step beyond into the kingdom of Heaven.  “Flesh and blood cannot possess the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 15:50).  This is the work of that new life (contemplative life in Christ), that transforming force which, like a seed, has been planted in him.

It is his work henceforth to remove every obstacle to the operation of this seed, to surrender himself and all his powers to its molding hand, to die out of the lower kingdom up into the higher Kingdom, into which this gift would transplant him.  Henceforth, his life must be one of mortification, dying that he may live, a yielding of nature to grace, a surrender of the things of earth to the powers of Heaven, a constant mingling of the sadness of earthily surrender with the divine gladness of heavenly attainment.  –Father Basil W. Maturin ‘Christian Self-Mastery: How to Govern Your Thoughts, Discipline Your Will, and Achieve Balance in Your Spiritual Life’

Mary set out in those days and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah, where she entered the house of Zachariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, “Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy.  Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.” Gospel of Luke

One who thinks too much, and one innocent, experience and being.

Dear little friends, this beautiful rosebud is for you; it is one of the beads of your Rosary, and it may seem to you to be such a tiny thing. But if you only knew how precious this bead is! This wonderful bud will open out into a gorgeous rose if you say your Hail Mary really well. Of course it would be too much to expect you to say the whole fifteen mysteries every day, but do say at least five mysteries, and say them properly with love and devotion. This Rosary will be your little wreath of roses, your crown for Jesus and Mary. Please pay attention... –St Louis de Montfort

Poor men and women who are sinners, I (St Louis de Montfort), a greater sinner than you, wish to give you this rose, a crimson one, because the precious blood of our Lord has fallen upon it. Please God that it may bring true fragrance into your lives, but above all, may it save you from the danger that you are in. Every day unbelievers and unrepentant sinners cry, “Let us crown ourselves roses.” But our cry should be, “Let us crown ourselves with the roses of the holy Rosary.” How different are theirs from ours! Their roses are pleasures of the flesh, worldly honors and passing riches which wilt and decay in no time, but ours, which are the Our Father and Hail Mary which we have said devoutly over and over again, and to which we have added good penitential acts, will never wilt or die, and they will be just as exquisite thousands of years from now as they are today. On the contrary, sinners’ roses only look like roses, while in point of fact they are cruel thorns which prick them during life by giving them pangs of conscience, at their death they pierce them with bitter regret and, still worse, in eternity they turn to burning shafts of anger and despair. But if our roses have thorns, they are the thorns of Jesus Christ, who changes them into roses. If our roses prick us, it is only for a short time, and only in order to cure the illness of sin and to save our souls. So by all means we should eagerly crown ourselves with these roses from heaven, and recite the entire Rosary every day, that is to say, three rosaries each of five decades, which are like three little wreaths or crowns of flowers. There are two reasons for doing this: first of all, to honor the three crowns of Jesus and Mary. Jesus’ crown of grace at the time of his Incarnation, his crown of thorns during his passion, and his crown of glory in heaven, and of course the three-fold crown which the Blessed Trinity gave Mary in heaven. Secondly, we should do this so that we ourselves may receive three crowns from Jesus and Mary, the first a crown of merit during our lifetime; the second, a crown of peace at our death; and the third, a crown of glory in heaven. If you say the Rosary faithfully until death, I do assure you that, in spite of the gravity of your sins “you shall receive a never-fading crown of glory.” Even if you are on the brink of damnation, even if you have one foot in hell, even if you have sold your soul to the devil as sorcerers do who practice black magic, and even if you are a heretic as obstinate as a devil, sooner or later you will be converted and will amend your life and save your soul, if – and mark well what I say – if you say the Rosary devoutly every day until death for the purpose of knowing the truth and obtaining contrition and pardon for your sins.  –‘Secrets of the Rosary’