ARE YOU A WORRY WART?


 

Do you worry?   About the future, do you worry?   Your health and what is next, do worries assault you? Your economic situation, the bills to pay, the rent to complete, the insurance down-payment, three months late—is worrying your lot and choice? Your children, being brought up in a very unstable and precarious state, where it seems that due to tension between nations, a war is just beyond the horizon—are you filled with worries?  Your past worries you; your present fills you with doubts, and your future fills you with nervous tension, anxiety and worries?

To make things worse, your family members have no end to worrying about their lives, your relatives suffer from nervous tension and worry; still more, your best friends call you to tell you about their worries, on the phone and to your face!

Is your hair turning gray, your stomach filled with acid and ulcers and nightmares come to torment you—all of this is due to worry, worry, and still more worries!!!!

Are you a type of person that when a day passes without a problem, trial or contradiction, you feel something is just plain wrong?

There are people that dig themselves into a rut and an early grave due to the phenomenon of worry.   These people we title with the term WORRY WARTS!  Are you one of them?

This short article will propose five clear and practical ways to overcome the “Worry wart” complex!   Read, meditate, pray and apply these simple principles and you will be able to experience a peace that maybe you have never experienced before in your life!

 


1.    Mt. 6:25-34.   In the very heart of the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord Jesus challenges us not to worry!!!!   Jesus gives examples from nature and the bird kingdom. The flowers of the field are more beautiful than Solomon and his regal garments, but they do not worry.  Birds chirp and sing their songs and they do not worry about their sustenance nor living arrangements.  The human person has much more value than the entire created universe; your soul was saved and redeemed by the Blood of the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Therefore, if God provides for the lilies of the field and the birds of the air, will He not provide for us, we of so little faith? We should not worry about our food or our clothing, but rather, this is the key to overcoming worry: “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and everything else will come.”(Mt. 6:33)  Five times in these few verses Jesus commands us not to worry or be anxious!
                       
2.    PSALM 23.    Read and pray over the most famous Psalm in the world—the Psalm of the Good Shepherd.   This Psalm prayed with faith, fervor, confidence and trust can reduce your worries to ashes and stubble.   The first verse in the Psalm sums it all up:  “The Lord is my Shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.”   If we are that sheep, cuddling in the arms or resting peacefully on the shoulders of the Good Shepherd then there is no reason to worry, but live constantly in loving trust!

3.     DIARY OF MERCY IN MY SOUL: ST FAUSTINA MARIA KOWALSKA (# 2).  One of the key messages in this modern spiritual masterpiece is the challenge to the whole world and large as well as every individual soul to place a limitless TRUST in Jesus.   Jesus stated clearly that the greatest of all sins was a lack of TRUST in His love and mercy.  The greatest sinners can become the greatest saints under one condition:  TRUST!!!! Read and meditate prayerfully this powerful passage which is a challenge to TRUST and not to worry!

 

“O my God, when I look into the future, I am frightened, but why plunge into the future?   Only the present moment is precious to me, as the future may never enter my soul at all?

It is no longer in my power, to change, correct or add to the past; for neither sages nor prophets could do that. And so, what the past has embraced I must entrust to God.

O present moment, you belong to me, whole and entire. I desire to use you the best I can. And although I am weak and small, you grant me the grace of your Omnipotence.

And so, trusting in your mercy, I walk through life like a little child, offering you each day this heart burning with love for your greater glory.”

 


4.     JESUS I TRUST IN YOU!   In the painting of the image of Divine Mercy, Jesus explicitly told Saint Faustina that He wanted inscribed in the painting itself these words: JESUS I TRUST IN YOU!     Why not purchase a beautiful image of Divine Mercy, enthrone in in your home, placing it in a prominent place where it can be seen and venerated.   Every day pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy; it can be prayed at the mercy hour (3:00 p.m.) or at any hour, because God is never too busy for us!   Then after completing the Chaplet, why not cast the biggest worry you have in the depths of your heart and soul, into the merciful Heart of Jesus and pray with great fervor and faith, ten times: JESUS I TRUST IN YOU!   If this practice is carried out on a constant basis your worries will melt like the dew on the morning grass exposed to the summer sun!  Evaporation!
             
5.    MARY: OUR LADY OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. There is an interesting anecdote in the life of St. Joseph Cottolegno, a man who totally trusted in Divine Providence and the intercession of Mary. Cottolegno, inspired by the Holy Spirit, established an enormous home for the abandoned in Turin, Italy. The condition of this home was run on divine providence, daily donations. On one occasion, the saint was broke.  He told a helper to go to purchase bread for the poor, but the person complained that she had nothing to pay for the bread. St. Joseph told her to go anyway. On the way the woman met up with a beautiful majestic woman who gave her a sizable sum of money which was enough to pay for the expenses of the institution and just enough to buy the bread for that day.  That majestic woman was the Blessed Virgin Mary--- MOTHER OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE!  When we are being assaulted with worries, fears, anxieties, insecurities about the past, the present, and the future, why not turn to Mary under the title of MOTHER OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE.  Why not pray that beautiful prayer attributed to Saint Bernard, the Memorare:  “Remember o most gracious Virgin Mary that never was it known that anyone who turned to you was left unaided…”