Lord, today I am renouncing love of the material world. Please help me have the virtue of inner love of the spiritual. Love of the material world is a constant struggle for me. I desire success, to be accepted by others and be known for my abilities and the things that I do. I want so many things in life. Sometimes I imagine myself being praised because I want to be appreciated. I want others to look up to me. These things give me pleasure and I use them to measure my self-worth. I long to be accepted and loved by others. I don’t want to be despised, or rejected, or found lacking in anything.
Jesus, you know these faults that I have. I want true freedom from these attachments so that my self-worth is no longer attached to my successes and failures in my life. Lord, if you give me inner love of the spiritual and help me overcome my love of the material world, I can start seeing myself through your eyes rather than my own. Help me see myself as a person destined for eternal life with you so that I view my life in the right light.
The deeper I come to understand your love for me, the more I am aware I need an inner love of the spiritual in my life. I have so many hidden sins. You see them all, and you know my heart. You know everything I lack. Not one desire or thought escapes your knowledge.
I know that you love me and if I ask for the grace to change you will give it to me. In every failing I have ever had in this life you have been there for me. You have never betrayed me or forsaken me. Please, Lord, increase in me the virtue of inner love of the spiritual so that I might overcome my love of the material world.
AMEN.
“Christ's disciples are to conform themselves to him until he is formed in them.”
Renouncing Love of the Material World
Man is Dear to God
by St. Hildegard von Bingen
Man is thus exceedingly dear to God, Who made him truly in His own image and likeness; he was to exercise all the virtues in the perfection of holiness, as indeed God formed all creatures to do, and to work in humble obedience to do acts of virtue, and so to fulfill the function of praise among the more glorious orders of angels. And thus, in this height of blessedness he was to augment the praise of the heavenly spirits who praise God with assiduous devotion, and so fill up the place left empty by the lost angel who fell in his presumption.
Scivias, Book 3 Vision Two Paragraph 19
Week 1 of the Virtue Meditations Series
Renouncing Love of the Material World
Reflection:
What is the virtue of inner love of the spiritual? How can I turn away from my love of the material world and more closely imitate you, Jesus?
An outer love of the material world is a destructive mindset. The soul with this vice will care more about life’s externals: a career; an unholy attachment to someone or something; an obsession with looking young, healthy, strong, rich, good-looking, etc. An outer love of the material world makes the soul care more about external things than his relationship with God. Love of the material world makes the soul enter into selfishness and self-gratification. This soul forgets about loving God and cannot properly love others through the life God has given him. This mindset causes a soul to lack faith in God. Sometimes it causes souls to lack the desire to have a spiritual life at all.
When the soul doesn’t focus on the inner love of the spiritual that soul will experience emptiness. We are wired to know and love God, so this vice creates an empty void in a soul’s life. A soul with love of the material world who lacks inner love of the spiritual is filled with anxieties and insecurities. Without God at the helm, man becomes his own god, and his struggle to remain on top in all things will exhaust him. When a soul focuses only on love of the material world he is no longer looking at his life in truth. He is not living as God has created him to live. This vice causes a soul to lack fulfillment and purpose in life.
Immersion in selfish worldly wants surrounds us with darkness. St. Hildegard writes about this, saying the Lord told her those who love the material world have no light and are surrounded by a black fog. The Lord tells her interiorly that those who live this way, “live only a moment and you dry up right away like the hay, and thus you fall into the lake of perdition.”
When we love the inner life of the spiritual we understand that this earthly life is very short. Eternal life with God is the ultimate goal and when we orient our lives toward this ultimate goal, we see things differently. Our thoughts, our words, and our deeds begin to take on a cosmic meaning, an eternal and communal one. We grow to understand that what we do in our individual lives not only has personal eternal consequences but will also affect the spiritual realm all around us. We profess this belief in the invisible when we recite the Nicene Creed, “I believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible.”
In the life of Job we see the virtue of inner love of the spiritual. He exhibited this virtue throughout his life. Despite losing everything, his house and his children, Job remained faithful to the Lord. He fell to the ground and worshipped at the terrible news, saying, “Naked I came forth from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I go back there. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD!” (Job 1:21). His friends chastised him and tried to make him feel like his misfortune was his fault, but he stayed close to the Lord and never wavered in his faith.
Going Further:
Job is a wonderful book to meditate on this week in your daily prayer. If you want to do ‘extra’ you may spend some time reading the Book of Job and writing some prayerful thoughts to the Lord about what touched your heart. If you do this, be sure to give the Lord time to respond to you by offering time to listen in silence.
Let us Pray:
Now that we understand the virtue of inner love of the spiritual, let’s begin with a prayer of petition for it.
Virtue of Inner Love of the Spiritual
Prayer of Petition
Eternal Father, I am the work of your creation, made in your image and likeness but too weak to conquer the devil by my own power. I ask you for the grace to grow in virtue, surrendering all my thoughts, words, and deeds to you. Please help me resist the devil and all his tricks. Jesus says that whoever believes in him will do the works that he does and that whatever we ask in Jesus’ name he will do so that You may be glorified. Heavenly Father, you sent us your Son to show us what it means to have perfect virtue in life. Jesus is fully human and fully divine and has perfect virtue. Father, have mercy on me and please give me the grace I need to grow in the virtue of inner love of the spiritual so that I might grow in holiness and imitate Christ in my thoughts, words, and deeds. AMEN.
Now let’s contemplate the Lord by listening to him speak to us in the Gospels. Slowly meditate on the following passage, reflecting on his virtue of inner love of the spiritual. Take your time. Pause over a word or phrase that speaks to your heart. Reread the passage again, and then ask Jesus to show you how you can imitate him in his inner love of the spiritual and better overcome your love of the material world and the worldly attachments you struggle with. Choose a word or phrase from this passage to write in your journal, and add your thoughts. Go back and prayerfully re-read it throughout the week.
Virtue of Inner Love of the Spiritual
The Prayer of Jesus
from the Gospel of John Chapter 17
When Jesus had said this, he raised his eyes to heaven and said,
“Father, the hour has come. Give glory to your son, so that your son may glorify you, just as you gave him authority over all people, so that he may give eternal life to all you gave him. Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.
I glorified you on earth by accomplishing the work that you gave me to do. Now glorify me, Father, with you, with the glory that I had with you before the world began. I revealed your name to those whom you gave me out of the world. They belonged to you, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you gave me is from you, because the words you gave to me I have given to them, and they accepted them and truly understood that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me.
I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for the ones you have given me, because they are yours, and everything of mine is yours and everything of yours is mine, and I have been glorified in them. And now I will no longer be in the world, but they are in the world, while I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are. When I was with them I protected them in your name that you gave me, and I guarded them, and none of them was lost except the son of destruction, in order that the scripture might be fulfilled.
But now I am coming to you. I speak this in the world so that they may share my joy completely. I gave them your word, and the world hated them, because they do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the evil one.
They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world. And I consecrate myself for them, so that they also may be consecrated in truth. I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me. And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be brought to perfection as one, that the world may know that you sent me, and that you loved them even as you loved me.
Father, they are your gift to me. I wish that where I am they also may be with me, that they may see my glory that you gave me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world. Righteous Father, the world also does not know you, but I know you, and they know that you sent me. I made known to them your name and I will make it known, that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them.”
Let us Pray:
Jesus, you raised your eyes to heaven. The love you have for the Father is complete. My love for you is incomplete. I am distracted and I find myself doing things without raising my eyes to heaven. How often do I do this when I am on the verge of an important task? Please, Lord, remind me to pray. Protect me from the vice of having a distracted, worldly mind.
Jesus, keep me in your name. Protect me and guard me from the vice of love of the world. Do not let me be lost. Do not let me be like the son of destruction. Please protect me from this world. Give me a pure heart, mind, and eyes that look to heaven daily. Help me imitate you in the way you prayed in this scripture passage. I want to be one with God in my heart, mind, and through my actions.
I do not want to belong to this world. Consecrate me in the truth. Send me, Lord, into the world and help me be one with the Holy Trinity and one with my brothers and sisters in Christ.
Jesus, you are a gift to me. Thank you for being present to me. Give me the grace to be present to you and to grow in the virtue of inner love of the spiritual. AMEN.
Virtue of Inner Love of the Spiritual
A Prayer for an Increase in Virtue for Others
Lord Jesus Christ, you say that when two or more are gathered in your name, you are with us. Jesus, in your name I lift up every person who has joined this prayer challenge or will join it in the future. I ask you to give us all the grace we need to grow in virtue and holiness so that we may love and serve you in our lives and through the people we love and care for. Help us in our thoughts, our words, and our actions. Guide us all by your Holy Spirit and give us the strength to overcome every temptation from the evil one. We ask all this in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, AMEN.
Together as a group we will pray for each other and strive to make good resolutions and keep them. Remember, it’s your heart that God wants to capture. Your efforts are out of love for him and a desire to imitate him as best you can in holiness.
If you fail, do not quit trying. Be merciful to yourself and learn to love the process of striving to be more like Jesus every day. Just take it one day at a time, and stay in the present moment with Jesus, especially in the moment you are tempted, and if you fail, immediately afterward. Keep your gaze on Jesus. When you confess your sins he forgives you, so be merciful to yourself and forgive yourself of every sin you have already confessed and immediately after you commit a new one. Being virtuous is a process. No one is perfect, so just start anew every time you fail.
How do I Practice Virtue?
You’ve learned about the 1st Virtue, and you’ve prayed for God to give you grace. Now what? Let’s take a look at the Catechism for some guidance on how we can make Week 1 a successful effort.
“A virtue is a habitual and firm disposition to do the good. It allows the person not only to perform good acts, but to give the best of himself. The virtuous person tends toward the good with all his sensory and spiritual powers; he pursues the good and chooses it in concrete actions. The goal of a virtuous life is to become like God. The virtuous man is he who freely practices the good. The moral virtues are acquired by human effort. They are the fruit and seed of morally good acts; they dispose all the powers of the human being for communion with divine love.”
Making Resolutions
Take a moment to reflect on the virtue of inner love of the spiritual. What are the ways you can freely practice this virtue this week? Ask the Lord to give you opportunities, and when you feel the Holy Spirit prompting you, take action. Write down your resolutions for this coming week in your prayer journal. Remind yourself to complete these resolutions daily for this entire week, and as the Spirit prompts you, feel free to write about your experiences with this virtue throughout the week.
In My Thoughts:
Jesus, this week I promise to take time daily to conform my thoughts by… (make your intention).
In My Words:
Jesus, this week I promise to take time daily to conform my words by… (make your intention).
In My Actions:
Jesus, this week I promise to take time daily to conform my actions by… (make your intention).
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Week 2 Mental Prayer Meditation
I Need Discipline to Overcome My Irrational Exuberance
“I Need Discipline to Overcome My Irrational Exuberance”- Join us for our second meditation on the 35 virtues of St. Hildegard of Bingen.
4 Responses
The lord leads the way and brought me to you
Thank you amen
I began these reflections, but got really unwell and couldn’t keep up with them. But now 26rth October I’ve decided to begin at the beginning again and endeavour to follow them consistently . I see the value in what you have prepared in all these meditations but haven’t been able to them justice , by the grace of God I can now begin again and grow in virtue which I am sadly lacking
Thank you Margaret. I plan to go back and do them again after finishing all 35. I lack virtue too, and although I keep up every week with the meditations, I find myself ‘forgetting’ past virtues and falling back into bad habits, too. I think this is part of being human and having fallen natures. God loves us so much and I know it pleases him to see us strive to become more like him. When we pray for virtue, he is very generous with his grace. At least this is what I have experienced so far this year. I am sorry to hear that you have been unwell. Please know that the community is praying for you and for everyone who starts these meditations. I will also lift you up in my private prayer as well. May God continue to bless you and keep you close to his heart.
Im Grateful I have found this sight . The timing does not feel like a coincidence, Thank You