"By accepting the sufferings ‘offered’ by life and allowed by God for our progress and purification, we spare ourselves much harder ones. We need to develop this kind of realism and, once and for all, stop dreaming of a life without suffering or conflict. That is the life of heaven, not earth. We must take up our cross and follow Christ courageously every day; the bitterness of that cross will sooner or later be transformed into sweetness" (Fr. Jacques Philippe).

 

Welcome to Allyson; Ersilia; Heather; Maria; Susan; Robyn; Mary; and Julie, Bible Study Evangelista's newest friends of the show!

Study Audio

Action Items
As you work your way through your "stripes" with Jesus:

Pray the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary for your stripes.
Identify two or three of your major eruptions from the last couple of years and how they are related to your predominant fault.
Connect your eruption(s) to a memory and process that with God in prayer.
Ask your guardian angel to alert you to pop quizzes before they overtake you.
Practice STOP (Ps 4:4), and talk to God about your pop quizzes.

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 a Franciscan* personality approach.

Listen (Receive the Word.)

Isa 53:5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed.

Observe (Connect the passage to recent events.)

This week, I'd like you to pray the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary specifically for your predominant fault. As you pray, ask God to reveal ways in which this fault interferes with your spiritual growth and causes destruction in your relationships and circumstances. What provokes your predominant fault? How have your most destructive eruptions been related to particular memories? What are those memories? Have you talked to God about those?

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 answers, and what you believe the Holy Spirit is saying to you through the mystery of Jesus' Scourging at the Pillar.

Entrust (May it be done to me according to your word!)

Abba, Father, lead me not into temptation, for my spirit is willing, but my flesh is weak.

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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
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
"Then Pilate took Jesus and scourged him. And the soldiers plaited a crown of thorns, and put it on his head, and arrayed him in a purple robe; they came up to him, saying, 'Hail, King of the Jews!' and struck him with their hands" (Jn 19:1-3).

"But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed" (Is 53:5).

"Jesus' sufferings took their historical, concrete form from the fact that he was 'rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes' (Mk 8:31 ), who 'handed him to the Gentiles to be mocked and scourged and crucified' (Mt 20:19)...