Mary TV Daily Reflection 11/17/2014

 
Cardinal Schönborn - St. Stephen's - 11/15/14

(c)Mary TV 2014

J.M.J

November 17, 2014

St. Elizabeth of Hungary

Dear Family of Mary!

On Saturday, November 15, Cardinal Schönborn hosted a powerful Evening of Prayer for Peace in the famous St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna. This Evening or Prayer was sponsored by the prayer group in Vienna that has existed for many years, dedicated to Our Lady of Medjugorje. There were testimonies of graces received through Our Lady of Medjugorje, Ivan Dragicevic shared about his ongoing apparitions and messages from Our Lady of Medjugorje, Our Lady came for her apparition to Ivan at about 6:40 pm, and then Cardinal Schönborn offered Holy Mass and a powerful Eucharistic Adoration service. Throughout the evening a beautiful choir led by Roland and Melinda from Medjugorje sang recognizable hymns from Medjugorje. Truly, one felt totally connected to Medjugorje. It was a blessing born out of Our Lady's presence in Medjugorje!

I have transcribed the English translation of Cardinal Schönborn's homily, because it is so anointed. There is much to pray over in this homily. My thanks to our translator, who worked very hard all evening to help us English speaking viewers to enjoy every word spoken in the cathedral. She did a great job, and I believe the main thoughts of the homily were presented.

Tomorrow I hope to have an accurate account of Ivan's apparition and message to present to you.

Cardinal Schönborn, Holy Mass, November 15, 2014, St. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna:

(The Gospel was Matthew 25: 14-30, the Master and the talents)

It is always, every time, a great moment for the Dom, for all the Church of Vienna, when we gather here for this prayer meeting. And it is very seldom that the Dom is so full! And the faithful stay a long time inside of the Dom, especially for Holy Mass, and that is a big sign of thanks.

Here before us is Our Lady who points to her Son. And she is saying to all of us, "Do whatever He tells you." He "tells us" in the Gospel which is His word, and when we hear the Gospel, it is not just a voice from the past, it is a voice that is speaking to us now.

God speaks to us as a Father to His children. And that is why I am inviting you that we open our hearts and we pray to the Holy Spirit so that the words of Jesus in the Gospel we will hear personally. We need to hear what Jesus says to us personally through the Gospel, Him to you.

In this Gospel (Mt. 25: 14-30) there are three words for us: trust, variety, responsibility. That is what the Cardinal is saying...the way he heard the Gospel with the three words. From the Gospel, we have heard that the master has given his whole wealth to his servants and he has trusted his servants and has given all his property to them. Eight talents! One talent was 36 kilograms of silver! So eight talents is a big fortune.

The first word I heard from this Gospel is that our God is a God of trust. God trusts us, He trusts mankind. He should have said, I know you and I know your weaknesses. I know you are simply poor sinners. So I can't trust you. But He has great trust in us. And there is something special about this trust. A person blossoms when someone has trust in him, like in the family, when the children have trust in their parents or parents have trust in the children.

I see many children here and I would like to give a very warm welcome to all the children here. (Applause) I see Reinhardt here with his daughter, and she trusts her father! Why do children trust their parents? Later when they become teens it becomes harder, but they live out of trust. Psychologists speak about the root of trust. God trusts in us.

God trusts us, He has put everything in our hands. The Father gave everything to Jesus. And Jesus says that the same way that the Father has given to Me his wealth, I will give it to you. Because the Father gave Jesus everything and in the same way Jesus wants to give it to us. And here we can see that God trusts us.

In God's eyes, we are really worthy, otherwise He would not have such trust in us. This is the first thing I heard in the Gospel. And Jesus says to us, I gave you all that is precious to me. We have received that treasure, which is the treasure of the faith. The treasure of grace. It was entrusted to us. If He entrusts all this to us, then He expects us to do something with it. He is giving it to us not to bury it, but to do something with it.

And the second word of this Gospel is that the master divided it up differently. This is the variety.   God gives to each of us in different ways. Today we hear so often "discrimination or nondiscrimination". And we cannot discriminate. According to race, gender, age, because all people have the same dignity and value. But in spite of this, we have many differences. In the first reading we heard about a working woman, and that a woman is not a man and a man is not a woman. God wanted that difference. New ideologies say that this difference was made by mankind, but that is not the truth. And it is beautiful the way God has given differently to people. I find it very nice when a person is playing the violin, because I am not capable of playing the violin. That is a talent. I would starve of hunger if I would have to make my own meals! And every day I am wondering and I am impressed by the beautiful food I get to eat. Catherine of Sienna said that God said to her that He wanted big differences between persons, so that no one could say "I is enough for me". Love needs the other. God wants this variety. Our Lady speaks many times of the family. The family is the beginning cell of society and provides variety in the community.

And the third is responsibility. When God is giving us so many talents, then we have also a responsibility for all these talents that He is giving us. And I believe that this is closely connected with trust. Because someone trusts me, in that way I am responsible to that person for the trust he has in me. God trusts us so much, so we shouldn't let Him down.

The third word in the Gospel communicates some fear of God, from the strict master. The responsibility is an answer to the trust. I can remember when I was a child how important it was to me when my uncle trusted me with some money, 500 schillings. I was then 14 years old. At that time it was a lot of money. Therefore I had a responsibility towards my uncle.

My dear brothers and sisters, God entrusts us with His fortune. He entrusts us with talents. And what are we doing with them? God is giving us courage, so we do not have fear in taking responsibility for the talents that we have been given. We have responsibility for each other and for the great faith that was entrusted to us. The same with Jesus and His disciples. He wouldn't have sent them out into the world if He didn't trust them. He entrusted to them the Gospel. And we have to take responsibility for our actions.

Oh Lord, what have I done with the talents you have entrusted to me? Was I living the faith and spreading it further to others? Have I answered the trust you gave to me in a worthy way? We should be joyful and say to the Lord, "You trusted me with 5 talents and I gave them to 5 others, so I have gained 5 others." Can we say that? I believe we can.

We need to believe that God is entrusting us and has trust in us. St. Paul said at the end of his life, I kept my faith, I ran the race. So let us pray to Our Lady, the Mother of God - Holy Mary pray for us now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

The Cardinal is such a good and kind teacher. His words to us are encouraging and sobering. I believe that Our Lady wants us to be good servants. We have received so much from Our Lady of Medjugorje. How can we invest what she has given to us? How can we report back to her that we have increased her gifts? There are very many ways. We can live her messages. And we can spread the word of her coming to Medjugorje. Millions of people still do not know of her coming. Sharing this good news to even one new person each day could be enough of an investment. The whole world needs to know about Medjugorje. It is God's providence for this difficult age. So many souls need this good news.

In Jesus, Mary and Joseph!

Cathy Nolan

© Mary TV 2014

PS. "Fruit of Medjugorje" tonight!!

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