MARY, OUR MOTHER

Our Lady appeared to
11-year-old Mariette Becco

NIGHT REFLECTION

Message #69 is titled, 'The Joy of Making You Grow.'

Fr. Gobbi is visiting Banneux, Belgium, where Our Lady had appeared on a Sunday night, January 15, 1933 as the "Virgin of the Poor", an approved apparition! She's wondering why he is so troubled and has no peace of mind. She's really talking to him as a mother to a child and helping him to "grow" in his detachment from the world!

Little by little Our Lady arranges things for us, even some trials and tribulations! After we have made our consecration to Her Immaculate Heart, our human nature starts to look for those people who think like we do. We want friends and companions on our spiritual journey. We start depending on them for advice, especially if we see that they are close to Mother Mary.

But this is where She steps in. Our Lady wants us detached even from this! All She wants is from your friends is prayer! We pray, suffer and love them, and they pray, suffer and love us! That's sufficient, She says! Anything else is not from Her; all else is vain and superfluous; a waste of time!

But we all have ties, ties to self, to other persons, to our activities, ideas, feelings. We have defects too, and we fall sometimes. But Mary says that this is a great gift for us because it helps us realize how little we are and how much we need Our Blessed Mother! I once asked my confessor why I did the same sins again and again? His answer was to make me more humble and ask for forgiveness!

I read once that there are different levels of Purgatory, and the top level, those closest to God, cannot be released from there until they are fully detached from the world. Maybe Our Lady is preparing us for Heaven, and by being detached here and now, we can avoid that purgation!
Think about it!
Roman Deacon