March 9, 2012
St. Frances of Rome
Dear Family of Mary!
"Dear children! Through the immeasurable love of God I am coming among you and I am persistently calling you into the arms of my Son. With a motherly heart I am imploring you, my children, but I am also repeatedly warning you, that concern for those who have not come to know my Son be in the first place for you. Do not permit that by looking at you and your life, they are not overcome by a desire to come to know Him. Pray to the Holy Spirit for my Son to be impressed within you. Pray that you can be apostles of the divine light in this time of darkness and hopelessness. This is a time of your trial. With a rosary in hand and love in the heart set out with me. I am leading you towards Easter in my Son. Pray for those whom my Son has chosen that they can always live through Him and in Him - the High Priest. Thank you." (March 2, 2012)
We discussed yesterday what it means to let "concern for those who have not come to know my Son be in the first place for you." If we are concerned for these children not yet united to Jesus, what can we do to help them find Him? Our Lady first asks us to clean up our own lives so that we do not give them scandal. We don't have to be perfect, but we do have to desire to become perfect, and live repentant lives.
But Our Lady continues to advise us. She tells us to pray for certain things. She doesn't expect us to accomplish these things on our own power, but rather to pray for God to give us these gifts that will help us to help her.
What are these gifts we should seek through prayer?
"Pray to the Holy Spirit for my Son to be impressed within you."
And...
"Pray that you can be apostles of the divine light in this time of darkness and hopelessness."
Two very beautiful gifts, to be sure! And to think that we can receive them through prayer!!
The first gift, that Jesus will be impressed within us, is truly awesome. This "impression" upon our souls of the person of Jesus is the goal of our Christian life. We are called to become "like" Jesus. He is our role model, our ideal, our way. And so Our Lady asks us in this message to open ourselves to the process of molding ourselves to Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit.
As I prayed about this process, I realized that Our Lady has given us a very good way to become like Jesus. That way is the Rosary. As we meditate with Mother Mary on the mysteries of the Rosary, we open ourselves to the Holy Spirit's action. Through meditating on Jesus' life, we let the Spirit mold us into the likeness of the One we contemplate.
Pope John Paul II wrote about this process in his Apostolic Letter, On the Most Holy Rosary:
Being conformed to Christ with Mary
15. Christian spirituality is distinguished by the disciple's commitment to become conformed ever more fully to his Master (cf. Rom 8:29; Phil 3:10,12). The outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Baptism grafts the believer like a branch onto the vine which is Christ (cf. Jn 15:5) and makes him a member of Christ's mystical Body (cf.1Cor 12:12; Rom 12:5). This initial unity, however, calls for a growing assimilation which will increasingly shape the conduct of the disciple in accordance with the "mind" of Christ: "Have this mind among yourselves, which was in Christ Jesus" (Phil 2:5). In the words of the Apostle, we are called "to put on the Lord Jesus Christ" (cf. Rom 13:14; Gal 3:27).
In the spiritual journey of the Rosary, based on the constant contemplation - in Mary's company - of the face of Christ, this demanding ideal of being conformed to him is pursued through an association which could be described in terms of friendship. We are thereby enabled to enter naturally into Christ's life and as it were to share his deepest feelings. In this regard Blessed Bartolo Longo has written: "Just as two friends, frequently in each other's company, tend to develop similar habits, so too, by holding familiar converse with Jesus and the Blessed Virgin, by meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary and by living the same life in Holy Communion, we can become, to the extent of our lowliness, similar to them and can learn from these supreme models a life of humility, poverty, hiddenness, patience and perfection".
In this process of being conformed to Christ in the Rosary, we entrust ourselves in a special way to the maternal care of the Blessed Virgin. She who is both the Mother of Christ and a member of the Church, indeed her "pre-eminent and altogether singular member", is at the same time the "Mother of the Church". As such, she continually brings to birth children for the mystical Body of her Son. She does so through her intercession, imploring upon them the inexhaustible outpouring of the Spirit. Mary is the perfect icon of the motherhood of the Church.
The Rosary mystically transports us to Mary's side as she is busy watching over the human growth of Christ in the home of Nazareth. This enables her to train us and to mold us with the same care, until Christ is "fully formed" in us (cf. Gal 4:19). This role of Mary, totally grounded in that of Christ and radically subordinated to it, "in no way obscures or diminishes the unique mediation of Christ, but rather shows its power". This is the luminous principle expressed by the Second Vatican Council which I have so powerfully experienced in my own life and have made the basis of my episcopal motto: Totus Tuus. The motto is of course inspired by the teaching of Saint Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort, who explained in the following words Mary's role in the process of our configuration to Christ: "Our entire perfection consists in being conformed, united and consecrated to Jesus Christ. Hence the most perfect of all devotions is undoubtedly that which conforms, unites and consecrates us most perfectly to Jesus Christ. Now, since Mary is of all creatures the one most conformed to Jesus Christ, it follows that among all devotions that which most consecrates and conforms a soul to our Lord is devotion to Mary, his Holy Mother, and that the more a soul is consecrated to her the more will it be consecrated to Jesus Christ". Never as in the Rosary do the life of Jesus and that of Mary appear so deeply joined. Mary lives only in Christ and for Christ!
(Apostolic Letter of Pope John Paul II - Rosarium Virginis Mariae. n 15)
We can see that it is the Church's desire that we ask for Jesus to be impressed in our hearts, and that it is through the Holy Spirit that this will happen, and happens best when we join with Mary and the mysteries of the Rosary to bring it about. The mysteries of the Rosary bring us into intimate union with Jesus' life, opening up a way for us to be formed into Him.
Well, we can see that Our Lady can help us to do what she asks of us. Yes, it is the Holy Spirit whom we ask, but we know that He will work through Our Lady to accomplish this great gift in us! Those two are inseparable!!
Have a beautiful weekend, filled with peace and prayer. Let the Rosary be in your hand and set out with Our Lady on this beautiful adventure of life!
In Jesus, Mary and Joseph!
Cathy Nolan
©Mary TV 2012
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