Mary TV Daily Reflection 7/29/2014

(c) Mary TV 2014         J.M.J July 29, 2014 St. Martha Dear Family of Mary!  "Dear children! You are not aware of the graces that you are living at this time in which the Most High is giving you signs for you to open and convert. Return to God and to prayer, and may prayer begin to reign in your hearts, families and communities, so that the Holy Spirit may lead and inspire you to every day be more open to God's will and to His plan for each of you. I am with you and with the saints and angels intercede for you. Thank you for having responded to my call." (July 25, 2014) Our Lady never leaves the basics when she talks to us. She knows that we are like sheep that wander about. We are sheep who need to be guided and led, or we will get lost in the maze of everyday life. Her most basic call to us is to prayer. She tells us"Return to God and to prayer..." Why? Because we wander off. We get distracted by the things of this life and just wander away from God and prayer. She also tells us that she is interceding for us along with the saints and angels. Whew! That makes me feel safer. And today's saint is someone who can really help us to return to prayer. St. Martha was among Jesus' closest friends. He often stayed with her family, and she hosted him faithfully. But poor Martha, she was once corrected by Jesus, and that correction has remained as an important correction for all of us down to this day. "Now as they went on their way, he entered a village; and a woman named Martha received him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving; and she went to him and said, "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me." But the Lord answered her, "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things; one thing is needful. Mary has chosen the good portion, which shall not be taken away from her." (Luke 10: 38-42) Martha let her work get in the way of her relationship with Jesus. Mary on the other hand, sat at Jesus' feet and listened to him. Mary had learned the essence of prayer, sitting at the Lord's feet. Mary wasn't worried about "doing" for Jesus. She wanted to "be" with him. Fr. Jacque Philippe writes about prayer and "being" with God in this way: Faithfulness to prayer is extremely valuable because it helps us preserve the element of gratuitousness in our lives. As I said earlier, praying means wasting our time for God. Basically this is an attitude of loving freely, and not for our own benefit. This idea of gratuitousness is endangered today, when everything is evaluated by profitability, results, and performance. That ends up by being destructive for human life. True love cannot be reduced to the category of what is useful. In telling of our Lord's instituting the twelve Apostles, the Gospel of Mark says Jesus chose them first of all "to be with him" (Mk 3:14)....To pray is to spend time freely with God just for the joy of being together. It is to love, because giving our time means giving our lives. Love does not mean primarily to do something for the other person, it means being there with them. Prayer trains us to be there with God, in a simple act of loving attention. (Jacques Philippe. "Thirsting for Prayer". Scepter Publishing. P. 11-12) Wasting time with God! When I heard this it immediately diffused a great difficulty I was having in prayer. I, like Martha, get distracted by all of my "duties" and I can wander away from prayer, from sitting at the feet of Jesus. I need to embrace the idea of wasting time on Jesus. Just wasting it, letting it go, giving it to Him. What a relief it is! It must have been a relief for Martha as well!! Here is another message from Our Lady about prayer: "Dear children! Today I invite you to decide to give time patiently for prayer. Little children, you cannot say you are mine and that you have experienced conversion through my messages if you are not ready to give time to God every day. I am close to you and I bless you all. Little children, do not forget that if you do not pray you are not close to me, nor are you close to the Holy Spirit who leads you along the path to holiness. Thank you for having responded to my call."(July 25, 1994) Our Lady understands about duties and work, but she is not fooled into thinking they are more important than patiently giving time to God in prayer! She has patiently been directing us to sit at the feet of her Son for all these years. If we still need to be reminded, she will remind us. Mother, help us to learn to waste time on your Son, Jesus. Pray for us St. Martha that we may learn to sit at the feet of Jesus! In Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Cathy Nolan ©Mary TV 2014 PS. Novena, Day 3 We pray that our dear priests may always feel the blessing of Mary's motherly hands and the support of Her motherly heart. (April 2, 2014) Our Father... Hail Mary... Glory be... Let us pray: O Jesus, our great High Priest, hear my humble prayers on behalf of your priests. Give them a deep faith, a bright and firm hope and a burning love which will ever increase in the course of their priestly life. In their loneliness, comfort them. In their sorrows, strengthen them. In their frustrations, point out to them that it is through suffering that the soul is purified, and show them that they are needed by the Church; they are needed by souls; they are needed for the work of redemption. Amen.

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