+J.M.J.+
My husband gave to me a very special prayer this summer, knowing it was at a time I desperately needed it.
I am a worrier by nature. I know there is this great God who loves me beyond all comprehension, yet I often fret and worry about my problems as if He doesn’t love me so.
The Gospel for this past Sunday, the Fourteenth Sunday After Pentecost, read:
Behold the birds of the air; for they neither sow nor do they reap, nor gather into barns, and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are you not of much more value than they?” ~ Matthew 6:26
He knows my needs, and He certainly values me more than the birds who He sees get fed, yet… somehow I feel like He won’t take care of my needs unless I worry about them. Am I the only person who’s struggles with this?
When I was especially worrying about my toddler’s skin issues this summer, I truly was failing to trust in God and to surrender to His will for us. Finally, my husband gave me this novena prayer, spoken by our Lord to the holy mystic Fr. Don Dolindo Routolo. (You can read more about Fr. Ruotolo here, on Rorate Caeli..)
It truly has given me so much peace, helped me to stop uselessly worrying, and replace that worry with surrender and trust.
He was a contemporary of Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, another mystic who bore on his body some of Christ’s wounds from His Holy Passion. Saint Pio said of Fr. Ruotolo, “The whole of paradise is in your soul.”
Our Lord spoke these words to Fr. Rutolo, but they are just as applicable to you and me. I pray someone reading this, struggling with anxiety and worry as I so often do, will be as blessed by this novena as I have been.
Day 1
Why do you confuse yourselves by worrying?
Leave the care of your affairs to Me
and everything will be peaceful.
I say to you in truth that every act of true,
blind, complete surrender to Me
produces the effect that you desire
and resolves all difficult situations.
Repeat 10 times ~ “O Jesus, I surrender myself to You,
take care of everything!”
Day 2
Surrender to Me does not mean to fret,
to be upset, or to lose hope,
nor does it mean offering to Me a worried prayer
asking Me to follow you
and change your worry into prayer.
It is against this surrender,
deeply against it, to worry,
to be nervous
and to desire to think about the consequences of anything.
It is like the confusion that children feel
when they ask their mother to see to their needs,
and then try to take care of those needs for themselves
so that their childlike efforts get in their mother’s way.
Surrender means to placidly close the eyes of the soul,
to turn away from thoughts of tribulation
and to put yourself in My care,
Repeat 10 times ~ “O Jesus, I surrender myself to You,
take care of everything!”
Day 3
How many things I do when the soul,
in so much spiritual and material need turns to Me,
looks at Me and says to Me;
“You take care of it,”
then close its eyes and rests.
In pain you pray for Me to act,
but that I act in the way you want.
You do not turn to Me, instead,
you want Me to adapt to your ideas.
You are not sick people who ask the doctor to cure you,
but rather sick people who tell the doctor how to.
So do not act this way,
but pray as I taught you in the Our Father:
“Hallowed be thy Name”,
that is, be glorified in my need.
“Thy kingdom come”,
that is, let all that is in us
and in the world be in accord with Your kingdom.
“Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven”,
that is, in our need,
decide as You see fit for our temporal and eternal life.
If you say to me truly:
“Thy will be done”
which is the same as saying:
“You take care of it”
I will intervene with all My omnipotence,
and I will resolve the most difficult situations.
Repeat 10 times ~ “O Jesus, I surrender myself to You,
take care of everything!”
Day 4
You see evil growing instead of weakening?
Do not worry,
Close your eyes and say to Me with faith:
“Thy will be done, You take care of it.”
I say to you that I will take care of it,
and that I will intervene as does a doctor
and I will accomplish miracles when they are needed.
Do you see that the sick person is getting worse?
Do not be upset,
but close your eyes and say
“You take care of it.”
I say to you that I will take care of it,
and that there is no medicine
more powerful than My loving intervention.
By My love, I promise this to you.
Repeat 10 times ~ “O Jesus, I surrender myself to You,
take care of everything!”
Day 5
And when I must lead you on a path different from the one you see,
I will prepare you;
I will carry you in My arms;
I will let you find yourself,
like children who have fallen asleep in their mother’s arms,
on the other bank of the river.
What troubles you and hurts you immensely are your reason,
your thoughts and worry,
and your desire at all costs to deal with what afflicts you.
Repeat 10 times ~ “O Jesus, I surrender myself to You,
take care of everything!”
Day 6
You are sleepless;
you want to judge everything,
direct everything and see to everything
and you surrender to human strength,
or worse – to men themselves,
trusting in their intervention,
– this is what hinders My words and My views.
Oh how much I wish from you this surrender,
to help you and how I suffer when I see you so agitated!
Satan tries to do exactly this:
to agitate you and to remove you from My protection
and to throw you into the jaws of human initiative.
So, trust only in Me,
rest in Me,
surrender to Me in everything.
Repeat 10 times ~ “O Jesus, I surrender myself to You,
take care of everything!”
Day 7
I perform miracles in proportion to your full surrender to Me
and to your not thinking of yourselves.
I sow treasure troves of graces
when you are in the deepest poverty.
No person of reason, no thinker,
has ever performed miracles,
not even among the saints.
He does divine works whosoever surrenders to God.
So don’t think about it any more,
because your mind is acute
and for you it is very hard to see evil
and to trust in Me
and to not think of yourself.
Do this for all your needs,
do this all of you
and you will see great continual silent miracles.
I will take care of things,
I promise this to you.
Repeat 10 times ~ “O Jesus, I surrender myself to You,
take care of everything!”
Day 8
Close your eyes and let yourself be carried away
on the flowing current of My grace;
close your eyes and do not think of the present,
turning your thoughts away from the future
just as you would from temptation.
Repose in Me, believing in My goodness,
and I promise you by My love that if you say
“You take care of it,” I will take care of it all;
I will console you,
liberate you and guide you.
Repeat 10 times ~ “O Jesus, I surrender myself to You,
take care of everything!”
Day 9
Pray always in readiness to surrender,
and you will receive from it great peace and great rewards,
even when I confer on you the grace of immolation,
of repentance and of love.
Then what does suffering matter?
It seems impossible to you?
Close your eyes and say with all your soul,
“Jesus, you take care of it.”
Do not be afraid, I will take care of things
and you will bless My name by humbling yourself.
A thousand prayers cannot equal one single act of surrender,
remember this well.
There is no novena more effective than this:
Repeat 10 times ~ “O Jesus, I surrender myself to You,
take care of everything!”
Mother, I am yours now and forever.
Through you and with you
I always want to belong completely to Jesus.
__________________________________________________________
The Natural Catholic Mom 