Sunday, November 03, 2013

Mary TV Daily Reflection 11/4/2013


Friend of my soul

(c)Mary TV 2013


J.M.J.
November 4, 2013
St. Charles Borromeo

Dear Family of Mary!

"Dear children; anew, in a motherly way, I am calling you to love, to continually pray for the gift of love, to love the Heavenly Father above everything. When you love Him you will love yourself and your neighbor. This cannot be separated. The Heavenly Father is in each person. He loves each person and calls each person by name. Therefore, my children, through prayer hearken to the will of the Heavenly Father. Converse with Him. Have a personal relationship with the Father, which will deepen even more your relationship as a community of my children - my apostles. As a mother I desire that through the love for the Heavenly Father, you may be raised above earthly vanities, and may help others to gradually come to know, and come closer to the Heavenly Father. My children, pray, pray, pray for the gift of love because 'love' is my Son. Pray for your shepherds that they may always have love for you as my Son had, and showed by giving His life for your salvation. Thank you." (November 2, 2013)

Our Lady has been so consistent. Over these 32 years she has given us messages on a regular basis, so much so that we probably take them quite for granted. Surely there will be a message on the 25th! Surely she will give us a message on the 2nd! She doesn't fail us. Her regular messages convey wise counsel and words of encouragement. But the messages have an even deeper effect upon us. They are demonstrations of Our Lady's love for us. Out of love for us, she speaks to us through the visionaries. It is her motherly presence that is conveyed in the messages. She is with us.

In "Tea with Rosie" for October 30, 2013 (found on our home page) Rosie interviews a beautiful priest from Ireland, Fr. Ruairi O'Domhnaill. Fr. Ruairi shares his testimony, and at the end he speaks about Our Lady's messages and what they mean for him. Here is his insight:

Fr. Ruairi: So over the years (I am from a family of seven children) all of my family have come here. It has been very significant in all of their lives. And very significant in my journey to the priesthood as well. Everyone who knows me knows that Medjugorje has a very, very special place in my heart.

Rosie: And for you, these messages that we have each month, how do you interpret that into your own priesthood?

Fr. Ruairi: The messages are very important for me because the messages are about the interior life, and they are about prayer from the heart. And I think that we misunderstand the message from Our Lady when Our Lady says to pray from the heart, thinking that she means that we should pray with great enthusiasm and great fervor. But I don't think that is what it means. I think praying with the heart means knowing what is in your heart. Sometimes what is in your heart is shame. And sometimes it is embarrassment and sometimes it is anger. But praying with your heart means bringing that to God sometimes. So the messages are a very important part of my spiritual life. And Our Lady is so gentle. I was very touched that for the October message Our Lady repeated that line that "Prayer works miracles in you and through you", because she also said that in her September message. I felt that Our Lady was gently chiding us, saying, "You didn't hear it properly the first time."

So the messages, especially the messages on the 2nd, they are usually longer...are very important for me. I love to hear them. I wait for them every month. They are very, very significant.

Many priests no longer have the confidence to teach their people how to pray. And yet people expect us to be men of prayer. They expect us to be, dare I say, experts in the science of prayer. And Our Lady, through the messages, is teaching us how to pray in a very deep way. She is teaching us every month.

You know there was a beautiful practice in the early Irish church of spiritual direction. And in Irish the words for "spiritual director" is "anam cara"which means "the friend of my soul". And the practice was that you went to your "anam cara" once a month. And I think that in Our Lady's messages, Our Lady is very much showing herself as "the friend of our soul", the "anam cara", by coming each month and sharing these messages.

Rosie: That's really beautiful!!
Fr. Ruairi: It is really beautiful!

Amen! It is really beautiful!! "The friend of my soul"...Don't we feel this so deeply. Our Lady loves us so much that she wants us to be in heaven with her forever. That is being a friend of the soul. She loves us with our ultimate end in mind and will do whatever it takes to help us reach that ultimate end, union with God. We can rest in the knowledge that our "Anam Cara" is with us to help us. We will never be alone.

In Jesus, Mary and Joseph!
Cathy Nolan
© Mary TV 2013

PS. You can still catch Fr. Ruairi's sharing on Tea with Rosie at www.marytv.tv 
PPS. There will be a new "Fruit of Medjugorje" show tonight at 8:00 pm EDT. Be there!!









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