Day 6: The fruit of worry is nothing

On the sixth day of the Surrender Novena, Don Dolindo confronts the soul with the practical fruit of its worry. Worry has been carried for years, decades, a lifetime, and what has it produced? The Lord asks the question directly today, because the answer is part of the medicine.

Today's meditation

"You suffer so much! And after you have suffered, you turn back to Me, and you find no peace because you have not reached the point of true abandonment. How much you lose, how much you tire yourself out, and meanwhile, I am ready to give you the grace to rest in Me. Why do you confuse yourselves so? Let Me work. Throw all your anxiety on Me, all of it, with full trust in My power."

The question what have you gained from worry? is a question every Catholic carrying a heavy cross will, in honesty, answer the same way. Worry has not added a single hour to the life of the loved one. Worry has not changed the diagnosis. Worry has not paid the bill. What worry has done is consume the soul that carried it. Don Dolindo names this directly, not to shame the worried soul but to free it.

The act of surrender

Today, before the ten repetitions, conduct a brief honest examination. Ask: What has my worry over this matter actually produced over the past months or years? If the answer is, Nothing but exhaustion, accept that as the truth and bring it to Jesus. Then pray, ten times:

O Jesus, I surrender myself to You, take care of everything.

The relinquishment today is the relinquishment of a habit that has cost the soul much and gained it nothing.

Reflection

The Catholic spiritual tradition recognizes worry as a peculiar form of pride. It is the soul's insistence that it can manage what only God can manage, and the soul's consequent agitation when it discovers it cannot. Saint Augustine, in the Confessions, names this directly: the heart that is not at rest in God is at rest nowhere, because no created good is large enough to bear its weight. "You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in You" (Confessions 1.1).

Don Dolindo's image of throwing all your anxiety on Jesus is taken from the apostolic tradition. "Cast all your anxieties on him, for he cares about you" (1 Peter 5:7). The verb is intentionally physical: cast, throw, hurl. The anxiety is treated as an object that can actually be removed from one place (the soul that has been carrying it) and deposited in another (the heart of Christ). The realism of Saint Peter's instruction is preserved exactly in Don Dolindo's words six days into the novena.

The novena is now past its midpoint. The soul that has prayed faithfully on Days 1-5 has begun to notice a real change: the anxiety still returns, but it returns with less weight, because surrender has begun to do its work. Today the Lord asks for one more relinquishment, the relinquishment of the habit of worry itself, in addition to the surrender of the particular burden.

Closing prayers

Conclude with the Our Father, the Hail Mary, and the Glory Be, then the Marian closing:

Mother, I am Yours now and forever. Through You and with You I always want to belong completely to Jesus.

Tomorrow on Day 7: I do miracles in proportion to your full abandonment. The promise of the second half of the novena begins to take its shape.