Remember Me - Wednesday after the Second Sunday in Lent

May you hope to receive temporal blessings from God? Yes, in the degree in which they are connected with your sanctification and salvation. It is plain that in themselves such gains cannot be the object of supernatural desires; they may, however, become one in any way by which they are more or less directly connected with our end. That is why, when He engages solemnly to hear our prayers, our Lord makes no categorical reserve. He says, ‘'All that you ask shall be granted you, or, all that you desire you shall see accomplished.'' And indeed in the sublime and universal prayer He taught us Himself, and which obviously is the guide for our hopes, no less than four of the seven petitions composing it regard temporal or earthly gifts. The remark is St. Augustine's. But be careful to observe that these good things have never more than a relative value for Christians, and that to consider them inside this connection is to be the victim of an illusion.

To desire and demand them for their own sake, is to set your foot on an insecure and perilous track; and even those who desire them in relation to a higher object, are bound invariably to keep in mind the character of superfluity attributed to earthly gifts by our Lord in the Gospel. They are thrown into the bargain, so to speak, when God grants them, and we should realize this as well as the fact that He gives them as necessary or useful adjuncts only. So while we ask for them with humble simplicity, we at the same time leave ourselves entirely to Him in the matter, without any shadow of disquietude.

                                                                                                                                                                 - Msgr. Gay