Thursday, December 19, 2013

Mary TV Daily Reflection 12/19/2013

  
 
Comforting Jesus
(c) Mary TV 2013


J.M.J.
December 19, 2013

Dear Family of Mary!


"Dear children! Today I call all of you to prayer. Open the doors of your heart profoundly to prayer, little children, to prayer with the heart; and then the Most High will be able to act upon your freedom and conversion will begin. Your faith will become firm so that you will be able to say with all your heart: 'My God, my all.' You will comprehend, little children, that here on earth everything is passing. Thank you for having responded to my call."  (November 25, 2013) 

Yesterday I shared the transcript of Fr. Maximilian Dalvai's homily on December 10. It was a homily on the parable of the shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine in search of one lost sheep. Fr. Maximilian used this opportunity to talk about the greatness of God's love for us. And I was struck by one point he made. He talked about the power of our faith. Here is the comment:

With eyes full of goodness, He [Jesus] follows each one of our steps. We should recognize that in our faith. Sometimes we might get the feeling... here in Medjugorje we feel it. We come and wow! Mary is there. I feel free, and I feel everything, but what about back home, when the work is there, and heavy days come...believe it in faith, and give Jesus the joy, the consolation of your belief. In our first reading we hear consolation..."Comfort, give comfort to your people." But we should also give comfort to Jesus. How can we do that? Believe in His love. More we cannot do, but we can believe. We can abandon ourselves.

What Father Maximilian said really stayed with me. He points out that we are sometimes given an experience of God's infinite love. Many people report such experiences when they go on pilgrimage to Medjugorje. We feel deep peace in Medjugorje, which I believe is the effect of Our Lady's presence. She is like an open door to heaven, and when we are near her, we feel the powerful love of God coursing over us. We feel His deep acceptance of us. We feel His "eyes full of goodness" following each of our steps there. Somehow we come in contact with His Heart of love, and we are at peace.

But when we go home, that experience may wane. Usually it does. Trials come. Daily life returns like the tide, bringing with it boredom, anxiety, fatigue. We just don't feel God with us as much. And it is then that we can do something special. "Comfort, give comfort to your people"... As Father Maximilian said, when we don't feel God's love, when we don't feel Jesus' presence, and things are tough, we can make an act of faith in His love. We can believe without seeing or feeling it. And in this way we can comfort Jesus.  

Jesus said once in the Gospel, "Nevertheless, when the Son of man comes, will he find faith on earth?" (Lk 18:8). I think He was sharing an ache in His Heart with these words. For after all He was about to do for us in His Passion and Death, He was still faced with the fact that many of us would not believe in His love, even then. And that was a deep wound for Him, maybe the worst wound.

And so, we can make an act of faith, as Our Lady tells us in the November 25 message: "Your faith will become firm so that you will be able to say with all your heart: 'My God, my all.'" Through intense prayer with the heart we can choose to believe in God's love, and give ourselves totally to Him at each moment. In doing this, we will comfort Jesus.

What a gift we can give Him this Christmas. We can believe in His love. And our belief will be the best Christmas Gift we could give our Savior.

Yes, Lord, I believe in Your love for me. I abandon myself to Your love. I accept it, even though I may not feel it right now. I trust in Your Sacred Heart, full of tender love for me. Thank you, dearest Lord, for loving me!

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



Once again (It is such a wonderful time of prayer, and I feel like I am back in Medjugorje!):

Christmas Novena of St. James Parish, Medjugorje!
St. James Parish will climb Apparition Hill, praying the Rosary, for nine days before Christmas. 
The novena began on December 15, and will end on December 23.
Mary TV will stream the novena - live - starting Monday, December 16,
 2:00 pm Medjugorje time (8:00 am EST).
Join the parish in this wonderful novena in preparation for the coming of Baby Jesus at Christmas!







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 "Medjugorje is the spiritual center of the world!"   
Blessed John Paul II  -
Be connected! 
 

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