Day 6
Kids do some interesting things. They sometimes pretend to be superheroes. They put on the capes, the masks and the tights. They then go around acting like superheroes. It is one thing for them to pretend and another to believe that they are actually superheroes. If they believe they are something they aren’t and then jump off the top of the roof, they are going to quickly and painfully learn that they are not superheroes. Still, sometimes we can believe that we are something that we aren’t.
For some of us we can put on a front that on the outside: we look like we are devout toward God and on the inside we aren’t at all. We look the part of holiness. We may look like lambs, but on the inside we are ravenous wolves. We are false devotees of God and our Lady. “These [people] hide their sins and evil habits under the mantle of the Blessed Virgin so as to appear to their fellow men different from what they are” (Preparation for Total Consecration, 31). What we are doing when we do this is putting on a front and a façade. There is a smokescreen going on because we are not truly totally consecrated to God, rather we are just trying to look God.
Another way that we live in this smokescreen is by the attitude: what is in it for me? That is, many times when we go to God in prayer, we may be asking a Saint to intercede as this point, we truly only want to use God to get what we want. What we are doing is trying to manipulate God. God is our ever present fulfiller of needs in this viewpoint. We only than go to God when there are things that we want that need to be done. “Except when in need they never think of [Mary]” (Preparation for Total Consecration). This is a worldly attitude!
Both of these are instances where we believe that we are being faithful to God and Mary, but we are not. “Such people are acceptable neither to God nor his Mother” (Preparation for Total Consecration, 31). We can’t believe something that isn’t true otherwise we would be delusional. Well, the worldly are delusional; they have not even begun to live the life that God is calling them too. We better take off our false superheroes costumes and put on the truth of Jesus Christ.