Mary TV Daily Reflection 2/19/2014

 

 (c)Mary TV 2014

     

J.M.J

February 19, 2014

Dear Family of Mary!

I have transcribed the talk Ivan Dragicevic gave in Medjugorje on New Year's Eve, 2013, which was recorded by Mary TV and presented as "Fruit of Medjugorje, Episode 103". It is a beautiful talk, worth reading over. But you will also enjoy watching the recording on our website, www.marytv.tv !

Ivan Dragicevic at St. James, New Year's Eve, 2013:

Our Lady comes to her children when her children need her the most. She comes to her children when her children find themselves in difficulties and afflictions. She desires to raise us all and to give us her motherly hand. She desires to bring us all to her Son. She desires that we put God in the first place in our lives. Mother loves us. That is how great the Mother's love for her children is.

In one of her messages Our Lady says: "Dear children, my Son has permitted me to be with you for so long. I desire to lead you. I desire to teach you." Mother comes to us as the best teacher and educator. Jesus says in the Gospel, "Come to me all of you who are overburdened and tired. I will give you rest. I will give you strength. We all have come here to the source of the spring. We have come to Mother. So that she may strengthen and encourage us. We have come to place ourselves in her motherly embrace, to find certainty and protection in her. We come to her to present to her our families, our difficulties, our problems. We have come to her to ask her, "Mother pray for us and intercede for us to you Son." She as a mother prays and intercedes for all of us. She knows our hearts. She knows why we have come and what we desire to tell her. She is a mother who intercedes for us. She is an Advocate between us and her Son.

Dear friends, 32 years of grace. It is hard to describe all of that in words. But in a special way in my own life... Do you think that it is easy, simple to see Our Lady, and to be with her every day, and after that to live in this world after Our Lady's apparition? It is not easy. It is not easy to be in the light of heaven, and then from that light, that beauty, to come back to this world. That is why; do not look at me as someone like a saint. Because I am not. I am trying to be better. To be holier, that is my wish, imprinted deep within my heart. I did not convert overnight because I saw Our Lady. I know that my conversion is a process, a program for my life. I have to decide for that, to persevere for that and I have to change every day in that program. Every day I have to leave sin and evil, and in peace, to be open to the Holy Spirit, to be open to the grace, to accept Christ's word of the Gospel and live it in my life. In such a way I may grow in holiness.

But one question, through these 32 years I have always asked myself: That question is, "Mother, why me? Mother weren't there better ones than me. Mother will I be able to do everything you ask of me, the way you ask of me? Mother, are you content with me?" There is not a day in my life these 32 years that I have not asked this question of myself. One day when I was with her alone, I ask her, "Mother, why me? Why did you choose me?" She smiled as she replied, "Dear children I always do not choose the best ones." Well, 32 years ago, Our Lady chose me, to be her instrument, in her and in God's hands. I always ask, "Mother, why don't you appear to everybody? Everyone would believe in you for sure, I would not have to talk to you here today if that happened. I would have more privacy!" For sure we cannot enter into all God's plans, what God plans for every one of us. But we have to be open to God's plans. We have to know how to recognize and accept them. Not to reject but to accept. We all have to be happy because Mother is with us. Although you do not see, because it is said in the Gospel, Blessed are they who do not see but believe. Truly it is not easy to be with Our Lady every day and then to come back to earth to live. If you could see Our Lady even one second, I do not know your life after that one second on earth would be the same.

What is the most important messages Our Lady invites us to?

You know that through these 32 years Our Lady gave so many messages. But if we focus on the most important messages, I would especially like to pick out these few messages that Our Lady leads us with: Peace, Conversion, Return to God, Prayer with the heart, Penance and Fasting, Strong Faith, Love, Forgiveness, Eucharist, Reading Holy Scripture, and the Message of Hope.

You see these are the most important central messages that Our Lady has been giving us. Every one of these messages that I emphasize, Our Lady has simplified, so that we can put them into practice and live them better. At the very beginning of the apparitions, 1981, I was a child. I was 16 years old. Until that age, I could never even imagine that Our Lady could appear. I never heard of Lourdes, Fatima. I never had any special devotion to Our Lady. I was a practical believer. At the very beginning of the apparitions, the 2nd day, we were kneeling before her and the question we asked, "Who are you, what is your name." She replied, "I am the Queen of Peace. I am coming my dear children because my Son as commanded me to. My dear children, peace, peace, and only peace. May peace rule in the world. Dear children, peace must reign between God and man, between people. My dear children, this world is facing a great danger. It is threatening to destroy itself."

These were the first words that Our Lady transmitted to the world. From these words we can see what is Our Lady's greatest desire...peace. Our Lady desires that peace to grow as a living tree. Peace is so important today. It is very important that peace reign in the heart of a person, without peace in the human heart there cannot be peace in the world. How much the world misses peace today. There is such shortage of peace in families, in our marriages, in the youth, shortage of peace in church, and we are that living church. Our Lady says, "Dear children, you are my living church. If you are strong, the church will be strong. If you are weak, the church will be weak." Mother comes to us and desires to encourage us and console us, to help us truly. Today we live in very hard times. Today's mankind is at a turning point, a cross road. Should we accept the way the world offers us? The world of modernism, materialism, or the way of God? Let us decide for God. Together with him to face the future! Our Lady invites us to decide for God, to decide for that way, because Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.

Today's world is not capable to give us peace. Mother comes to us and she says in one of her messages, "Dear children, Today's world is going through a major crisis. The greatest crisis is faith in God, because with distance from God, from prayer, then children distance themselves from parents, parents distance themselves from children. Dear children, today's world is facing a future without God. Dear children, that is why I invite you to bring back prayer into your families, so that with prayer you may bring back peace." Today in this time we live in, we truly have to create a new communion in the family. Today's family has to be the basis of the new world. The youth of today have to be a role model of the new world. That is why Our Lady invites spiritual renewal in our families. That is why we have to bring back prayer to our families. We will have less separation and divorce, more fellowship and communion in families. More love in families. Today, love has vanished from our families. Why did love vanish? Because we threw God away from our families. God is love. He is love. Without His love, it is impossible to have love in the family. That is why Our Lady invites us so much.

Our Lady also invites us to Holy Mass. "Dear children, may Mass be the center of your life. Mass has to be the center of your life." During an apparition, Our Lady said to all 6 visionaries, "Dear children, if you have to choose tomorrow let's say, to come to me to meet me, or to go to Holy Mass. No, do not come to me, go to Holy Mass. Holy Mass must be the center. To go to Holy Mass means to go to Jesus, who offers himself as a gift in Holy Mass, to surrender to Him, to go to Him, to talk to him, to receive Him."

Our Lady also invites us to pray with the heart, not with the lips. Not to pray out of tradition, mechanically, looking at the time so you can stop as soon as possible. Our Lady desires that we separate time for God so that our prayer may be a true meeting with Jesus, a conversation with Him, a dialogue with Him, which means first of all to pray out of love, with love, to pray with our entire being. Our Lady says, "Dear children, may prayer be a joy for you. Pray with joy. The one who prays is not to be afraid of the future." Our Lady knows we are not perfect, but she has been teaching us. She teaches us to build up in perseverance in prayer. She invites us to the school of prayer. She says, "Dear children, if you want to go to the school of prayer, you have to know that there is no weekend, no rest. We have to go to the school of prayer every day. She says, "Dear children, if you want to pray better, you always have to pray more, because to pray more is a personal decision, but to pray better is a grace give to those who pray more."

Our Lady also invites us to monthly Confession, to Veneration of the Cross, and Adoration of the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar. In a special way she asks the priests to organize in their parishes Adoration. Our Lady invites us to pray the Rosary in our families, to read the Holy Scripture in our families. Dear Children, may the bible be in a visible spot in the family. Read the Scripture.

Forgive each other. Our Lady invites us so much through these years to forgiveness. Forgive yourself, forgive others, so that in such a way you open a way for the Holy Spirit to come in our heart. Without forgiveness we cannot be healed, neither spiritually, physically nor emotionally. We truly have to forgive. For our forgiveness to be holy and perfect, Our Lady invites us to prayer. Persevere in prayer. Very often we say we have to pray, but we have to time for prayer. We always say we work too much, we are busy. Always when it is time to pray, the problem is the time. And our lady is simple in answering our questions. Our Lady says, Dear children, do not always say that you do not have time. Dear children the problem is not time. Dear children the problem is love. Because dear children, when one loves someone or something one always finds the time. When someone doesn't love something, he never has time for it. If there is love then everything is possible. There is time.

Our Lady invites us to be decisive, determined. Even tonight when Our Lady appears, I will recommend all of you, your needs, your families, those who are sick, all of you present, Priests. I hope we will all respond to Our Lady's call. We will be co-creators of a better world, a world worthy of the children of God. I hope that your coming here is going to plant a new seed. I hope that the seed you plant here will fall on fertile soil, and it will bear good fruit. This time we live in is a time of responsibility. That is why let us accept what Mother calls us to with responsibility. Let us pray with her for the revitalization of the family and the world. Don't look for external signs. Let us be the sign. Let us be the living sign. The sign of living faith. Dear friends, may it be so. Thank you. (Prayer...)

In Jesus, Mary and Joseph!

Cathy Nolan

©Mary TV 2014

 

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