| +
J.M.J August 20, 2012 St. Bernard of Clairvaux Dear Family of Mary! "Dear Children! Also today in a special way I call you to pray for my priests - my beloved ones, pray for bishops and for the Holy Father. Pray, dear children, for my shepherds. Pray more than ever before! Your Mother is praying together with you, and she is with you, therefore persevere (rise up) in prayer and pray together with me, for my intentions. Thank you, dear children, that today you have responded to my call." (Message through Ivan at the Blue Cross, 08/17/12) Ivan told the people present last Friday, "This evening Our Lady came to us full of joy and happiness..." I think we can sometimes overlook this description of Our Lady. We might think, "Well, I would come with great joy too, if I lived in heaven." And yes, it is true, she lives in eternal beatitude. Why wouldn't she be joyful and happy? But we know that she compassionates with us, and she does sometimes come in sorrow, even with tears. And so her coming on Friday, in joy, was on purpose. She was communicating to us something important, I think. She wants us to respond to her call for prayer with joy. When we pray for our Pope, the Bishops and priests, we need to pray with joy, with hearts full of love, and with an attitude of hope and confidence. Our Lady is with us, to pray with us, to lead us in this prayer. We have an important job to do. Through our prayer we are to support our leaders in this spiritual battle for souls being waged today throughout the whole world. The battle we are in is getting more and more intense. Denis mentioned on the Rosary for Sunday, that it reminds him of the Civil War in the U.S. That war could have been over very quickly if the Union army had pursued the Confederate army, relentlessly finishing them off after their first battle. But General McClellan sat back enjoying the momentary victory and let the Confederates retreat and regroup. This mistake and his subsequent lack of action allowed that terrible war to go on for years. Denis suggested that we may be in a similar situation today, in the spiritual battle. We need leaders who are ready to stand up and attack our enemy, the devil. We need generals who are willing to rise up and lead us forward into holiness and truth. Our Lady wants us to pray for them to be strong men, strong leaders, holy examples for the Church. They need our prayers. Martha Daufenbach is part of a prayer group in Kalamazoo. Her group has begun to pray for priests this year. She describes how they pray: Earlier this year when I was reading Our Lady's messages I saw that for years now every month she was asking for prayers for our priests (second of the month messages) So I went to my pastor and asked for a list of priests in our diocese. Our prayer group now reads the names out loud during our rosary together. We say all four sets of mysteries and for each decade we name 5 priests from the list and then toward the Glorious mysteries we add our seminarians. ( Our diocese is blessed with 16!!!) Anyway I hope to encourage others to obtain a list of your priests - it is easily printed off from the diocesan site. It has also been a good reminder for us NOT to talk about them or judge them; we instead thank God for each of them. I hope this will help other prayer groups find a way to answer Her call for prayers. Love You! Martha This is a lovely way to intercede for the priests in our dioceses. It is powerful to pray together, to pray the Rosary with a strong intention. We can be a strong support for our leaders through such prayer. They need us, and we need them. Our Lady is with us, to pray with us so that the day will be ours, the battle will be won, the Church will prevail! "Your Mother is praying together with you, and she is with you, therefore persevere (rise up) in prayer and pray together with me, for my intentions." In Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Cathy Nolan ©Mary TV 2012 PS. Don't forget Fruit of Medjugorje! Tonight, Monday, August 20, 2012, 8:00 pm EDT!! www.marytv.tv |
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please no anonymous comments. I require at least some way for people to address each other personally and courteously. Having some name or handle helps.
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.