(c)Mary TV 2014
J.M.J
January 9, 2015
Dear Family of Mary!
"Dear children, I am here among you as a mother who desires to help you to come to know the truth. While I lived your life on earth I had knowledge of the truth, and by this alone, a piece of Heaven on earth. That is why I desire the same for you, my children. The Heavenly Father desires pure hearts filled with the knowledge of the truth. He desires for you to love all those whom you meet, because I also love my Son in all of you. This is the beginning of coming to know the truth. Many false truths are being offered to you. You will overcome them with a heart cleansed by fasting, prayer, penance and the Gospel. This is the only truth and it is the truth which my Son left you. You do not need to examine it much. What is asked of you, as I also have done, is to love and to give. My children, if you love, your heart will be a home for my Son and me, and the words of my Son will be the guiding light in your life. My children, I will make use of you, apostles of love, to help all of my children to come to know the truth. My children, I have always prayed for the Church of my Son, and so I also ask the same of you. Pray that your shepherds may come to shine forth with the love of my Son. Thank you." (January 2, 2015 - Mirjana)
Knowledge
of the truth. I come back to this topic because it is indeed a
puzzlement for many of us. Like Pilot we want to say, "Truth, what is
truth?" We live in a world where truth seems hard to find. But this
worldly truth is not what Our Lady is talking about. This truth has only
to do with the One who is True.
Fr.
Jacques Philippe has written a new book, "Thirsting for Prayer" in
which he talks about knowledge of God. I think his words shed light on
what Our Lady is presenting to us in this message. Fr. Philippe first
talks about how we only truly know ourselves when we encounter God. In
prayer, as we encounter God we become aware of our human failings, our
sins and faults. This is an important knowledge. But it is only part of
the truth we need to discover. He speaks then of the deeper knowledge we
receive in prayer:
At
a deeper and still more essential level than our human limitations and
the evil that affects us, there is, as it were, an untouched core: our
identity as children of God. Each of us is a being who is soiled with
sin, in urgent need of purification and conversion. And yet there is
something within each of us that is absolutely pure and intact: the love
that God has for us personally, as our Creator and Father. This is the
whole basis of our identity, the inalienable fact that each is a beloved
child of God. Reaching this point by means of faith is precisely what
opens up and guarantees the possibility of the path of conversion and
purification, which we cannot afford not to find.
All
men and all women are in search of their identity, their personality at
the deepest level. "Who am I?" Sometimes we ask ourselves that question
in anguish halfway through our lives. We have tried to construct a
personality for ourselves, to fulfill ourselves, following our personal
aspirations and also in line with the criteria of success offered by the
cultural context we live in. We have put ourselves into our work,
family, relationships, all sorts of responsibilities, and so on,
sometimes to the point of exhaustion...And yet a part of us is still
empty, unsatisfied, perplexed: Who am I really? Does what I have lived
through up till now really express what I am?
There
is a whole aspect of our identity derived from our history, heredity,
what we have experienced and the decisions we have made, but that is not
the deepest part of ourselves. That deepest part comes to light only in
the encounter with God, which strips us of everything artificial in our
identity to bring us to what we really are, at the heart of our
personhood. Our true identity is not so much a reality to be constructed
as a gift to be received. It is not about achieving, but letting
ourselves be begotten. "You are my son, today I have begotten you" (Ps
2:7); and "You are my beloved son" (Lk 3:22).
In St. Luke's Gospel, these last words are said by God the Father to
Jesus at his baptism in the Jordan, but we can make them fully our own
by virtue of our own baptism.
The
essence of our personality consists of two realities that we are called
to discover progressively. Simple, but containing inexhaustible
richness, they are the unique love that God has for each of us,
individually, and the unique love we can have for him....Each of us has
every right to say: "God loves me as he loves nobody else in the
world!....
God's
Fatherhood in regard to us is the deepest reality there is, the richest
and most inexpressible, an inconceivable abyss of life and mercy. There
is no greater source of happiness than being a son or daughter, living
in the movement of this fatherhood, receiving oneself and receiving
everything from God's goodness and generosity; confidently expecting
everything at every moment of our lives, from God's gift. "How sweet it
is to call God our father," said Therese of Lisieux, shedding tears of
happiness. (Fr. Jacques Philippe. Thirsting for Prayer. 2014. P 21-24.)
I
believe that the "piece of heaven" that Our Lady experienced through
her knowledge of the truth is exactly this, that God is our Father who
loves each of us individually and completely at the core of our being,
and that is our true identity. Think of walking through life with this
truth in your heart, and living with the Father moment by moment!!
This
knowledge of the truth can only be received in prayer. Let us follow
Our Lady's advice, and through fasting, prayer, penance and the Gospel,
discover our Heavenly Father's love for us, expressed through Jesus
Christ, His Son, and poured out on us by the Holy Spirit!
In Jesus, Mary and Joseph!
Cathy Nolan
©Mary TV 2015
PS. Fr. Jacques Philippe. " Thirsting for Prayer" is available at www.scepterpublishers.org
PPS. We have changed our schedule of programming a little big. Silent Prayer will now be streamed at 3:00 pm Medjugorje time (9:00 am EST) and will be 1/2 hour. We will stream from different locations in Medjugorje!! Then at 5:00 pm
Medjugorje time we will stream the Parish Rosary during the Evening
Program, in the church! This will be a full hour of prayer with the
parish!!
Silent Prayer: 3:00 to 3:30 pm Medjugorje Time (9:00 to 9:30 am EST)
Parish Rosary: 5:00 to 6:00 pm Medjugorje Time (11:00 am to 12:00 pm EST)
"Medjugorje is the spiritual center of the world."
Saint John Paul II
Be connected!
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