Mary TV Daily Reflection 10/23/2014

(c)Mary TV 2014 

     

J.M.J

October 23, 2014

St. John of Capistrano

Dear Family of Mary!

 "Dear Children! Today I invite you to fall in love with the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar. Adore Him, little children, in your Parishes and in this way you will be united with the entire world. Jesus will become your friend and you will not talk of Him like someone whom you barely know. Unity with Him will be a joy for you and you will become witnesses to the love of Jesus that He has for every creature. Little children, when you adore Jesus you are also close to me. Thank you for having responded to my call."  September 25, 1995

Many people have contacted me, hoping to be able to access the English Mass of October 20, 2014 and so while we are working on the archive, I have transcribed the homily. It is very inspiring!

October 20, 2014 English Holy Mass at St. James Church. Homily given by Fr. Hugh Cummins.

"My name is Fr. Hugh Cummins. I am a Redemptorist Priest from Australia. The group that will be reading and taking part are from Australia, except for the song leader, Steven, who is from Medjugorje!

Yesterday when I was hearing confessions for three hours, the vast majority of those who came were either Canadians or from the United States. So I have decided to celebrate Mass especially for them, for their matters.

In the first reading we had words that I consider really powerful words. "We hold this treasure in earthen vessels that the surpassing power may be of God and not of us." That is in evidence in places like Medjugorje. The Lord chose children who were at that time when Our Lady first appeared, ordinary children, not different from the others, so that the surpassing power of what has happened here is God and not man.

Now two of us Australian priests, Fr. Jack Harris and myself, nine years ago we were invited to go to a city in Indonesia, named Surabaya, with the object of helping them to begin Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration. First of all to give a retreat to the priests of the diocese and then to talk to the people. Well it was certainly a case of earthen vessels. We had never heard of the city of Surabaya, even though there are six million people there. And we didn't know a single word of their language or have any knowledge of that country. And yet immense power of God was at work.

First of all among the priests and during the retreat we spoke of especially the messages of Pope St. John Paul II, and his emphasis on the Eucharist. And all night the last night, they had Adoration, when God certainly touched many of those priests, as the future was to show. Then we went to what is called the World Trade Center. Fifteen hundred people were gathered there for two full days. The translator that we had for both for both events, within three months became a bishop for the diocese. He still is. So God was secretly working in amazing ways. He (the translator) fully embraced and was so enthusiastic about this message of Adoration.

Then another remarkable thing was that the chapel for Perpetual Adoration was not yet ready, and so supposedly temporarily we had to begin the Adoration in the chapel of a hospital run by the Holy Spirit nuns. This hospital was a big one, 2,200 patients and staff, 90% of whom were Muslims. So Adoration began, and we had 1500 people so it was very easy to cover all the hours with several adorers, day and night, right through the week. So this Adoration began, and being a hospital, the sick started coming to pray there. They felt it a comforting and beautiful place. But it is dangerous to let Jesus near the sick! Could you imagine what He might do? He started to heal them!! And you might be surprised, but most of those who were healed were actually Muslim people.

But the word spread, and therefore, this apostolate never stopped. The last nine years we have been going back once or twice a year giving retreats to the priests. That is so important. Start with the priests. Giving that retreat to the priests, and during that last night when they are at Adoration, amazing conversions have happened among those priests. And then they give the retreat to the people and it is normal to get a 1000 people on retreat in Indonesia. I am afraid in Australia...one year I came back from the weekend when I was giving a retreat to 1500 people, and the next weekend I was giving a retreat to 12 people in Hobarth, Tasmania. So it is a bit different in the secular western countries than in the very religious country of Indonesia, the beautiful religious family in Indonesia.

Now since then, 45 chapels of Adoration have been established in Indonesia. And almost 40 of them are perpetual, meaning that there are always people adoring in them. So surely God used earthen vessels, very inadequate, very limited vessels, and He showed that the power was through Him. Wonderful things have happened.

Now in Medjugorje Our Lady is also bringing up the power of the Eucharist. We just came from a talk by Vicka, and she emphasized how Our Lady says to put Mass first in our day. But then the Mass continues then through the Adoration in the Adoration Chapel here each afternoon, from 2:00 pm to 5:00 pm, and then on certain nights you have the hour of Adoration with everybody there, out in the open. That is the continuation, as Pope Benedict taught. He taught that if we do not do Adoration, we will not fully and richly participate in the Mass. And Pope Francis of course, spends his last hour of every day in Adoration before the Blessed Sacrament.

But it was particularly Pope John Paul II that inspired us in this. Pope John Paul II has so much emphasized Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration. In 1989 when he went to Korea for the International Eucharistic Congress there and urged the Korean priests to establish Perpetual Adoration in their parishes, there was one chapel of Perpetual Adoration at that time and now there are 77! In 1989 there were only around 20 chapels of Perpetual Adoration in the entire world. Today there are well over 3000! This is the movement of the Holy Spirit in our time. This is what we need today! We need Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration.

Listen to a few words of Pope John Paul II. And very importantly, this is for priests. I thought we were going to have about 20, but we only have a few, so I will really have to hammer the message home to these few!! He said, (this is his Encyclical, Ecclesia Eucharistia) - "It is the responsibility of pastors to encourage the practice of Eucharistic Adoration and also to encourage exposition of the Blessed Sacrament in particular!" And then he gives a little personal testimony, he says, "It is pleasant to spend time with Him, to lie close to His breast like the beloved disciple, and to feel the infinite love present in His heart. How often dear brothers and sisters have I, myself, experienced this, and drawn from it, strength, consolation and support. This practice repeatedly posed and recommended by the Magisterium is supported by the example of many saints (and as a Redemptorist, I love the next little bit, where he says...). Particularly outstanding in this regard was St. Alphonsus Ligouri (He is the founder of my congregation) who wrote of all devotions, that of Adoring Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is the greatest after the Sacraments is the greatest and the one dearest God and the most helpful to us."

So in the Gospel we heard the challenge to go out and preach the Good News, to go out and preach the Good News to the whole world, to make disciples of all nations. Well, this is the time for us to go forth from here, not just bringing something personal for ourselves. Our Lady doesn't invite us here just personally for ourselves only. We are meant to go back and to transform things when we go home. And one of the things we can do is to encourage by our example and by our encouragement, the practice of Eucharistic Adoration.

And particularly the priests! Our ministry in Indonesia has been so effective because we start with the priests, and God touches them in extraordinary ways during that retreat. That is why it is so difficult in Australia. I have been three years now assigned in Sydney. I have been working hard, with the full support of Cardinal Pell, the Archbishop who has been recently removed from there. But we haven't gotten a priest there yet who is willing to offer a church for Perpetual Adoration. We don't have it in that huge city of Sydney. Yet in Indonesia we have been able to establish 45. God is showing us that it is not us, it is His power. It is His power and His timing. But I hope the priests here will take up that challenge to try and set up chapels of Perpetual Adoration. That is what the Spirit is saying today.

And you people, you may not be able to set up a chapel of Perpetual Adoration, but encourage the movement and encourage some hours of Adoration in the parishes where you go. I would love to go on and tell you some of the things that have happened in parishes where Perpetual Adoration has begun. Miracles have happened, transformations have happened. Especially in Indonesia, so you can ask Fr. Harris who will say the Mass tomorrow for some examples. But the effects are powerful and wonderful.

So I pray to the Blessed Mother, the Queen of Peace, that she will draw us all to that Adoration Chapel while we are here in Medjugorje. Go to the Adoration out in the open tomorrow night. And through our encounter with Jesus in this holy place, we will have a thirst and a desire to be with Him often, in His wonderful Eucharistic Presence. Amen

"Dear Children! Today I invite you to fall in love with the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar. Adore Him, little children, in your Parishes and in this way you will be united with the entire world. Jesus will become your friend and you will not talk of Him like someone whom you barely know. Unity with Him will be a joy for you and you will become witnesses to the love of Jesus that He has for every creature. Little children, when you adore Jesus you are also close to me. Thank you for having responded to my call."  September 25, 1995 

In Jesus, Mary and Joseph!

Cathy Nolan

©Mary TV 2014

PS. Today the parish will climb Krizevac, and Mary TV will climb along with them! 8:00 am EDT!

"Medjugorje is the spiritual center of the world."
Saint John Paul II
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