In the long road to healing, we will experience with Jesus feelings of darkness, abandonment, and of being left unprotected. Where is God when we cry with Him, “My God, my God, what have you forsaken me?”
Welcome Jamie and Stephnie, Bible Study Evangelista’s newest friends of the show, and thank you to Rowena, and MaryKatherine, for the extra love and lift!
Study Audio
Action Items
As you are crucified with Christ:
- Pray the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary for the graces to be crucified with Christ (Gal 2:20).
- If you have not yet asked God where He was present in the time(s) you were wounded, take some time this week to do so, maybe in Adoration, and give Him the silence and solitude necessary for Him to answer you.
LOVE the Word™ is a Bible study method based on Mary’s own practice: lectio without the Latin. This week’s LOVE the Word™ exercise is according to Augustinian and Franciscan* personality approaches.
Listen (Receive the Word.)
Augustinian: 26 When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” 27 Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.
or
Franciscan: Listen to the hymn Stabat Mater. This is a 30 minute exercise. There are lyrics here. Hit play when you have time to sit in meditation; then click on the link with the lyrics and sit in meditation with the lyrics and music.
Observe (Connect the passage to recent events.)
If you are not Catholic, have you considered that Jesus’ mother is also your spiritual mother (Rev 12:17)? What does that mean for you in your woundedness?
If you are Catholic, how does Mary’s title, Stabat Mater speak to you? How does she show you Jesus in your woundedness?
Have you invited the Stabat Mater, our Blessed Mother, into your wounds?
What do you want to say to her about that?
Verbalize (Pray about your thoughts and emotions.)
In your journal or on your journal page (get a free page to the right), write down your thoughts and feelings about this musical composition/ this verse. What’s the main thing God wants you to know? What is the Holy Spirit saying to you about His presence in the mysterious darkness surrounding Jesus at His crucifixion?
Entrust (May it be done to me according to your word!)
Abba, Father, show me what it means to be embraced by a true mother.
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*LOVE the Word™ exercises vary weekly according to the four personalities, or “prayer forms,” explored in Prayer and Temperament, by Chester Michael and Marie Norrisey: Ignatian, Augustinian, Franciscan, and Thomistic. These prayer forms correspond to the Myers-Briggs personality types.
Episode Resources
How to Really Love Your Child, the book I reference in this week’s video
Here’s the private Facebook discussion page for the Healing the Father Wound series, if you want to join in the conversation with a little more privacy, as I do.
What is the Rosary?
JPII’s Encyclical Letter, Dives in Misericordia, on God as Father
References
Ps 27:10, Even if my father and mother abandon me, the LORD will hold me close.
Romans 8:15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father!”
Read the Transcript
You can download a complete, word-for-word transcript here, courtesy of Kristie Hynniman, who does our transcriptions for you.
This Week’s Video, Physiology, Redemption/Healing and Fruit of the Spirit
Photo Credit
Lamentation Over the Dead Christ, Sandro Botticelli