The Sunflower of Faith ~ Father Lasance

This is very beautiful. We are very blessed to belong to the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church!  May we never take it for granted, but nurture  our love for it each day!

A Maiden’s Wreath Begins With the Sunflower of Faith – Catholic Girl’s Guide

The Sunflower— Faith

There is a flower which possesses this peculiarity, that it turns constantly to the sun, following it in its course; on this account it is called the sunflower.

Our faith may be compared to this flower, since its gaze is ever fixed above, and turned toward the glorious sun of divine truth. The first flower in the maiden’s blooming garland of virtues is and ought to be the faith of which we speak.

For this faith, a clear, living, steadfast, unalterable faith is supremely necessary and all important for the maiden, especially in the present day. Therefore, make it the subject of your present meditation, my child, and consider first how great a blessing it is to possess the one true, Catholic faith.

Our Lord said upon one occasion: “Blessed are they that have not seen and have believed.” Why did He thus speak? Why are those blessed who possess the true faith?

The first reason is this: by faith we please God. The desire for happiness is deeply implanted in every human breast, and the history of mankind is merely the recital of a ceaseless search for happiness. But where is man to find happiness, and where alone? The following lines will tell you:

Would you be happy, this is the way: Please God and do His will day by day; Saint-like your duty do; fervently pray.

Note well that we must strive to be pleasing to God, and it is only by believing in Him that we can please Him. This is so true that the Apostle Paul says expressly: ” Without faith it is impossible to please God.”

And if you wish to understand the matter more clearly, reflect upon the relation in which you stand to your earthly father. When do you please him best, when do you honor him most? Is it not when you believe in him most firmly, and show a childlike confidence in him?

And how much more is this the case in regard to your heavenly Father, our Lord and God. For it is the will of the eternal Father that we should believe what He once taught and commanded us by the voice of His Son, and now continues to teach us by the voice of holy Church.

And if St. Paul says: “This is the will of God, your sanctification,” it is also the will of God that we should believe in Him, for faith is the beginning, foundation, and root of all righteousness. Therefore when we believe in God we do His will, and by so doing we please Him, and are ourselves rendered happy.

Our holy Catholic faith is the source of our greatest happiness even while we are yet on earth. Simply reflect upon a few ordinary events of life. What is the brightest and happiest day of one’s – life?

You know quite well; for you are reminded of it every year, when you see a procession of children entering the church, their heads adorned with wreaths, their faces beaming with joy.

Do you not feel deeply, yet not without a certain tinge of melancholy, that the day of your first communion was the brightest and happiest day of your life? Yet would the external solemnity, the magnificent ceremonial of Catholic worship alone make so deep an impression upon the heart?

Is it not rather our holy Catholic faith, which enables us to appreciate the beauty, and understand the happiness of the pure and innocent soul of the girl, who is privileged to enter, for the first time, into the closest union with the Author of life, with the supreme Good, with the Source of all happiness, that is, with God Himself?

We will take another example. Have you perhaps beheld a pious and believing Catholic mother at the moment of her greatest happiness, her highest joy, a moment when her heart would adopt as its own the language of the Magnificat, and her eyes weep tears of joy? But when and where was this?

Was it perhaps on the day when her child approached for the first time the table of the Lord with a pure and innocent soul, and a heart filled with the love of God? No, it was not then. Was it on the wedding day of her son or daughter?

It was not on this occasion either. There is yet another day which comprises in itself the happiness of both the others. The greatest joy, the highest happiness of the pious Catholic mother, is experienced on the day when the bells ring out from the church tower with gladsome yet solemn voice, calling the faithful to enter the sacred edifice, whither a devout and expectant throng is hastening, and where her son, the most promising of all her children, is about to ascend the steps of the altar, in order to offer for the first time the spotless Lamb of God to the Eternal Father.

What is the source of this happiness and joy? In the heart of a pious Mother, it can be nothing but the holy Catholic faith, which teaches her that her son is now the representative of Christ, and that he can win so many souls for heaven and save so many poor sinners from hell.

But this happiness is vouchsafed only to a few mortals. If it is true that sorrow and suffering enter into the life of every child of man, and if it is equally true that the poor human heart needs some solid consolation amid grief and tribulation, in this case also it is the Catholic faith which is able to supply this consolation, and which can impart peace of mind under every form of sorrow and suffering.

You, my daughter, know as yet but little of sorrow and suffering. But ask those — and their number is large indeed — who have often and painfully felt that this world is a valley of tears, ask them what has sustained them in their darkest hours of sorrow and suffering, what has poured the healing balm of consolation into their wounded hearts, and even enabled them to rejoice in tribulation. Ask them, and they will tell you that it is faith which has done all this.

And what will faith do in the decisive moment, the supreme and terrible moment of death? When the mother of Melancthon was lying on her death-bed, she suddenly opened her eyes and asked her son, who was standing beside her, whether she should keep to the ancient Catholic faith or embrace the new one, that of Martin Luther, as he had done.

With deep emotion Melancthon, though himself an apostate, replied as follows: “Dear mother, keep to your ancient, Catholic faith. The new faith is indeed easier to live by, but the old faith is easier and happier to die by.”

Listen attentively to this, my daughter, and never forget that the Catholic faith renders death easier and happier. Cling therefore closely to this holy faith, never relinquish it, but prize it highly, prize it above everything else, as your happiness and consolation both in life and in death.

“Your work as parents, therefore, is a holy and religious work. You may produce doctors, lawyers, scientists. But to the extent that your children do not reach heaven or are given every opportunity to do so, you have not succeeded….”