(c) Mary TV 2014
J.M.J
August 18, 2014
Dear Family of Mary!
August 2, 2014
"Dear children, the reason that I am with you, my mission, is to help you for 'good' to win, even though this does not seem possible to you now. I know that you do not understand many things as I also did not understand everything, everything that my Son explained to me while He was growing up alongside me - but I believed Him and followed Him. I ask this of you also, to believe me and to follow me...."
The
beginning of this message touches on something we are all facing in
this day. We live in a time a great evil. There is evil in families,
cities, countries and over the entire world. We all recognize it. We see
the fear of it in the eyes of those we meet each day. It is an
underlying fear, a dismay at the enormity of the problems of our time.
As individuals, we feel helpless. What can be done?
Fr.
Jacques Philippe writes about this fear, the fear of evil, the fear of
suffering, the fear that good will not win. Here is an excerpt from his
book "Searching For and Maintaining Peace."
The
other great obstacle to abandoning oneself to Divine Providence is the
presence of suffering, in our own lives as in the world around us. Even
for those who abandon themselves to Him, God permits suffering; He
leaves them wanting of certain things, in a manner sometimes painful.
Think of the poverty in which the family of young Bernadette of Lourdes
lived. Isn't this a contradiction of the words of the Gospel? No,
because the Lord can leave us wanting relative to certain things
(sometimes judged indispensable in the eyes of the world), but He never
leaves us deprived of what is essential: His presence, His peace and all
that is necessary for the complete fulfillment of our lives, according
to His plans for us. If he permits suffering, then it is our strength to
believe, as Therese of Lisieux says, that "God does not permit
unnecessary suffering."
In
the domain of our personal lives, as in that of the history of the
world, we must be convinced, if we want to go to the limits of our
Christian faith, that God is sufficiently good and powerful to use
whatever evil there may be, as well as any suffering however absurd and
unnecessary it may appear to be, in our favor. We cannot have any
mathematical or philosophical certitude of this; it can only be an act
of faith. But it is precisely to this act of faith that we are invited
by the proclamation of the resurrection of Jesus, understood and
received as the definitive victory of God over evil.
Evil
is a mystery, a scandal and it will always be so. It is necessary to do
what one can to eliminate it, to relieve suffering, but it always
remains present in our personal lives, as well as in the world. Its
place in the economy of redemption reveals the wisdom of God, which is
not the wisdom of man; it always retains something
incomprehensible...."For My thoughts are not your thoughts, not are your
ways My ways, says the Lord. As high as the heavens are above the
earth, so high are My ways above your ways and My thoughts above your
thoughts" (Is. 55:8-9)
At
certain moments in life, a Christian is necessarily invited to believe
in the contradiction of appearances and to "hope against all hope" (Rom 4:18).
There are inevitably circumstances where we cannot understand the "Why"
of God's activity because it is no longer the wisdom of man, a wisdom
within our capacity to understand and explain by human intelligence.
Rather it is divine Wisdom, mysterious and incomprehensible, that thus
intervenes.
And
happily we cannot always understand! Otherwise, how would it be
possible to allow the Wisdom of God to freely work according to His
designs? Where would there be room for confidence? It is true that for
many things we would not act as God would act! We would not have chosen
the folly of the cross as a means of redemption! But fortunately it is
the Wisdom of God and not ours that rules all things, because it is
infinitely more powerful and more loving and, above all, more merciful
than ours.
While
the Wisdom of God is incomprehensible in its ways, in the sometimes
baffling manner in which it acts in us, then let us say that the Wisdom
of God will also be incomprehensible in those things that it prepares
for those who put their hope in it. For that which it prepares
surpasses infinitely in glory and beauty that which we can imagine or
conceive; "What eye has not seen nor ear heard, what the human heart has
not conceived, what God has prepared for those who love Him, this God
has revealed to us through His Spirit" (1 Cor 2:9).
The
wisdom of man can only produce works on a human level. Only the Wisdom
of God can realize things divine, and it is to divine heights that it
destines us.
This
is consequently what must be our strength when faced with the question
of evil: not a philosophical response, but the confidence of a child in
God, in His Love and in His Wisdom. The certitude that 'Now we know that
God works in every way for the good of those who love Him and are
called in accordance with His plan (Rom 8:28) and "The sufferings of the present time simply don't compare with the glory to come that will be revealed to us (Rom 8:18).
"I
know that you do not understand many things as I also did not
understand everything, everything that my Son explained to me while He
was growing up alongside me - but I believed Him and followed Him."
We must believe Jesus and follow Him. And Our Lady is with us to help
us, if we believe her and follow her! We may not understand, but in our
hearts we will know that God is good, and no evil can overcome Him.
In Jesus, Mary and Jospeh!
Cathy Nolan
©Mary TV 2014
PS. "Fruit of Medjugorje!" TONIGHT!!! 8:00 pm EDT!!
PPS. "Searching for and Maintaining Peace" by Father Jacques Philippe. www.scepterpublishers.org
"Medjugorje is the spiritual center of the world."
Saint John Paul II
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