HOLINESS - Day 12 Healing Journey with Jesus
DAY 12 - HOLINESS
In 2007, I booked a flight to Toulouse, France and boarded a train to Lourdes, France to visit the shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes. I bought 5 plastic containers with Mama Mary’s figure being peddled along the shops right before I reached the shrine. I filled up the bottles with the holy water that flowed through the faucet from the spring and went to the Underground Basilica, the Basilica of St. Pius XM to pray as my eyes feasted at the sanctuary before me. When I saw the image of Our Lady of Lourdes in our parish church during her Feast Day last February 11, 2021, I was transported back in time and felt anew the sacredness of the place. I also remembered that when I got sick with cancer, I took one of those bottles in our altar at home and applied the water on my wound and drank some of it too.
Cancer is not a punishment from God but a wake-up call. God wants you to value the life that He has given you because you have been created in His own image and likeness. He wants you to be holy because He is holy.
Cancer happens when normal cells become damaged due to repeated oxidative stress or chronic inflammation. To restore the body to its normal state, these cells are killed through hara-kiri (apoptosis) or cannibalism (autophagy). Some cells become bigger, irregular in shape, and encroach into adjacent cells.
You are given the ability to heal yourself or you may have to be pruned through other means like surgery, radiation, or chemotherapy. Look at your suffering as a means to be closer to God and join Jesus in his suffering. Mary did the same even when she saw her Son on the cross to save us from sin because she chose to do God’s will.
PAUSE
From 1 Peter 1:14-16, "Like obedient children, do not act in compliance with the desires of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in every aspect of your conduct, for it is written, "Be holy because I am holy."
PRAY
Lord Jesus, grant me the grace to be truly sorry for my sins. I aspire to be holy so I can be closer to you. I consecrate myself to you through Mary. May I be meek but active and rustic but youthful just like Her. In Jesus Name. AMEN. .
PERFORM
Emulate the ways of Mama Mary today by being meek but active as well as rustic and youthful to be holy.