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J.M.J September 21, 2012 Dear Family of Mary! "Dear children! Today I call you to prayer. I am with you and I love you all. I am your Mother and I wish that your hearts be similar to my heart. Little children, without prayer you cannot live and say that you are mine. Prayer is joy. Prayer is what the human heart desires. Therefore, get closer, little children, to my Immaculate Heart and you will discover God. Thank you for having responded to my call." (November 25, 1994) Our Lady has been with us so long, over 31 years now. She has given messages all these years, messages designed to teach us about God, His love for us, His plans for us, and His gifts and graces waiting to be given to us. Her messages are her school. We are her pupils. If we listen to and try to live her messages we will become new people. I believe we will be people who have new hearts. These hearts will be "similar to" Our Lady's heart! They will be hearts that know how to say "yes"! Fr. Slavko gave fasting retreats in Medjugorje for pilgrims. One of his retreats was recorded and transcribed and made into a book, Be Similar to My Heart. Now that he is in heaven with Our Lady, aren't we grateful that this book was produced! Here is an excerpt from one of his teachings on that retreat. It speaks to the things that stop our hearts from being similar to Our Lady's heart: We must have the inner strength and courage of Our Lady to say, "Yes, I am Your servant, Thy will be done." Saying 'yes' is the beginning of our similarity to Her. Fears are the foremost reason why we do not say 'yes'. Most fears we try to justify. Fears come because we think that we may be punished. Fears are inborn. We must overcome them to stay on the right path. Fears do not come from God or Our Lady, they come from our bad experiences with others. When we say 'yes' to a person and he then cheats or abuses us, we then have the fear of saying 'yes' to God. We distrust God because of these fears and then close ourselves to Him. This is a very deep wound in all of us. We must not flee from people to God, but go from God to the people. It is good to continually look at what kind of impact people have on us or how their experiences make us react. Then we are aware of how closed we are toward them and thus also to God. With all these experiences with people, it is often difficult for us to remain open to God. Our Lady did have some fear in Her heart when She saw the angel. She was afraid, but this fear did not change Her existing state of mind. When we see Jesus on the Cross, the fear we have is fine, but only as long as we do not remain in this condition. In many situations we remain in this fear because we are not ready to share in the joy. Jesus is our salvation. We must move on from this fear and not go back to our wounds because if we do, we cannot move ahead. Our Lady moved on from the fear by being strong and forgiving those people who crucified Her Son. With this forgiveness, She then became their mother. (Fr. Slavko Barbaric. Be Similar to My Heart. p. 62) Our Lady wants us to have hearts that do not fear, hearts that forgive, hearts that know the joy of prayer, the joy of love, the joy of saying 'yes' to God! She wants us to have Magnificat Hearts! This weekend, let's recite with joy the "Magnificat" of Our Lady (Luke 1: 46-55) and let her make our Hearts like hers! In Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Cathy Nolan ©Mary TV 2012 PS. Don't' forget Vienna on September 25, 2012!!! At www.marytv.tv !!
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