Some Summer Sunday Relief to Start the Week Off Right

The 13th Sunday after Pentecost in our traditional calendar comes this year with the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. As August winds down, and work continues in easy mode, we've spent time in some of our weekday posts trying to bolster our spiritual life. Instead of the typical relief from the daily grind the natural world affords us, we chose the supernatural alternative. 

A stronger spiritual life ultimately provides the lasting relief we really need. Relief from what? Not just the daily grind of work. That's frankly the easy part. The relief we need comes with our ability to resist the world, the flesh, and the devil - that triumvirate that continually opposes our efforts to grow closer to God by tying us down to this earthly life.

The earthly triumvirate has no chance against the heavenly Trinity. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit win hands down, every time - but only if we let them. They never force themselves on us. If we prefer the earthly triumvirate, God won't like it of course. But He has granted us free will and, consistent with that free and generous gift, He will not be - to use an old phrase - an Indian giver.

While God will never force us to accept the True, the Good, and the Beautiful over the world, the flesh, and the devil, He has stacked the odds in our favor. He does this first and foremost through the intercession of Our Blessed Mother. 

As He hung on the Cross, Our Savior, Jesus, gave us His Mother - definitively and for all time. And today (at least in the traditional calendar) we can bask in this special feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. That Immaculate Heart, always open to our prayers and pleas for help, will never fail to bring us relief - relief from the world, the flesh, and the devil.

If we only spent more time thinking about Mary's solicitation on our behalf, we might not find it so hard to walk away from the earthly triumvirate. Knowing that this Immaculate Heart cares for us so much that she listens to our every prayer and actively seeks what is good for each of us might provide just the boost or inspiration we need to resist. 

After all, each of that infamous triumvirate knows our weaknesses.

The world contains all of God's creatures, good and bad. We may legitimately seek and enjoy the good. But we must be on our guard against the bad, always lurking nearby.

The flesh can serve honorably as the solid foundation of the Temple of the Holy Spirit that our bodies were designed to be. But we all know the temptations that may also spring up from that same flesh due to our fallen human nature.

The devil, as we learn in the Prayer to St. Michael, prowls about the world seeking the ruin of souls. That's basically all he has to do. If we give him an inch, he takes a mile. 

That earthly triumvirate competes for all the attention and devotion that only God deserves. It's as simple as that. When we give our attention elsewhere, we can easily find ourselves subsumed by that daunting fray that aggressively demands our time and attention.

But, thankfully, into that fray comes Our Lady. With her warm and loving Immaculate Heart, and her constant solicitation on our behalf, we can face the buffeting meted out to us daily. We can resist the lures of that earthly triumvirate with the assistance of the graces poured out by Holy Trinity. We can turn from the world, the flesh, and the devil to the True, the Good, the Beautiful.

All of this can be ours. Our Lady wants it to be ours. Acknowledge her today in her beautiful feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. 

Of all the relief we might need or seek on a summer Sunday, nothing can compare to that which comes from Mary's Immaculate Heart.

Happy Sunday!