Day 9
I like to drink water. I especially like to drink clean drinking water. Sometimes though the water has a fishy taste to it, or it has lots of iron in it so it has a strong flavor. What I really want is just too able to drink good tasting and pure water. It is that simple.
In order to get this nice tasting water, it can take quite a process. The water might need to be boiled first and then put into a purification system. This takes time to do. It isn’t magic and it isn’t easy. Even when we use our simple water purifiers, they take a little longer than just turning on the tap. But it is well worth it to purify water because it tastes better and it is healthier for us. When I was in Kenya, we had to purify our water to drink, otherwise we would pick up the bacteria of the area and get really, really sick.
Mary, our Mother, is pure water, we are not. Putting on the virtues helps to purify us to be more like Mary. Mary lived these virtues naturally; we have to work at them with God’s help. The process for us takes time and effort and sometimes we will muddy up the waters. Still, the virtues are needed. We should long to be pure and holy like Mary because Mary avoided sin. “[Mary’s] ten principal virtues are: deep humility, lively faith, blind obedience, unceasing prayer, constant self-denial, surpassing purity, ardent love, heroic patience, angelic kindness and heavenly wisdom” (Preparation for Total Consecration, 36). We need all of these virtues to be fully the Lord’s. Take the time to work on one virtue at a time, this will help to purify things and it is much easier to work on one thing at a time rather than to try to fix it all at once. This process is well worth it because we will be imitating a SAINT in doing it!!!! Thus we will be working on being holy.