May 6 – Catholic Faith

The Lily

After the rose all the great family of lilies occupy a preferential place in our gardens, and from them we take that which stand out all of them. The lily stands erect towards the sun and inclines it head when it passes. Its color is pure white and its fragrance so strong that its excess almost hurts the weak and sick sense of smell.

The Catholic faith

The lily is the emblem, figure and image of purity of the soul. Understand that it is purity, not chastity that results from the union of the soul with God. The soul is pure as much as it unites intensively with the purity, that is God, and since this union is founded on faith, hope and love; faith is the beginning of her purity: Fide purificans corda eorum.

Faith makes the soul ascend and elevates it to God; it ascends rectified by the contemplation of the eternal truth; it looks at it and, in its presence, covers its face and bows its head.

God, who is infinitely perfect, infinitely beautiful, attracts and draws the spiritual sight of the soul; and the immense fragrance of his attributes and perfections, makes the human heart feel and experience the kind influence of his presence.

What is faith? Believe and you will know it. It is a supernatural virtue infused in the soul by the Holy Spirit, by means of which the mind is disposed, healed, strengthened and fortified by the gift of understanding perceives the eternal truth in themselves, look at them, and contemplate them, distinguish truth from error, the beautiful from the ugly; what is revealed from what is not, and adhere firmly and unite itself with God, the Supreme Beauty, who is presented to it clothed with greatness, splendor and magnificence bestowed by his infinite perfection.

Do you want to know what faith is? Love the eternal truth, search for it and discover it, and unite yourself to it, and once you have it, the inestimable, priceless, rare, precious and lusty scent of his beautiful rose will tell you what it is; it will teach you to practice and experience and then you would understand its definition. Who do not love God, the eternal truth? Whatever definition of this excellent virtue is presented to you will remain obscure.

Faith in Mary

Mary had faith in the highest degree than all the Patriarchs and Prophets: She believed in God the Savior, and her faith saved the whole lineage of Adam denounced and condemned by sin.

The lily in the hands of Mary

How is faith in your soul? What did you do to form in yourself the true idea of God? How do you think of God? When do you think of God? How do you look at God? Oh, take good care of this flower, take it and put it in the hands of our mystic gardener who knows perfectly its nature and say to her:

Mother of all the believers, help me in my unbelief.

I believe all that our Holy Mother Church believes and commands us to believe.

I oblige and commit myself in fomenting and cultivating this flower with holy meditations:

I intend to study and meditate the mysteries and the truths that Religion proposes to me.

I promise to live firmly in the catholic faith and to keep pure until death.

Receive, oh Lady, these intentions of mine;

accept this flower and present it to God your Son, eternal truth.