(c)Mary TV 2015
J.M.J.
March 30, 2015
Monday of Holy Week
Dear Family of Mary!
"Dear
children! Also today the Most High permits me to be with you and to
lead you on the way of conversion. Many hearts have shut themselves to
grace and have become deaf to my call. You, little children, pray and
fight against temptation and all the evil plans which the devil offers
you through modernism. Be strong in prayer and with the cross in your
hands pray that evil may not use you and may not conquer in you. I am
with you and pray for you. Thank you for having responded to my call." (March 25, 2015)
Our
dear St. John Paul II published one of his last books, "Memory and
Identity - Conversations at the Dawn of a Millennium", in 2005. In it he
shares his views of the political situation in the world today, and
reflects on where to find hope for the future. He describes very
accurately what Our Lady spoke of in this message, Modernism.
We
need to understand this very effective tool of the enemy, as we strive
to fight against temptation and the evil plans which the devil offers us
today. Here is a powerful excerpt from St. John Paul's book:
"...We
may say that Christ is always the "cornerstone" of the building and the
rebuilding of society in the Christian West....At the same time,
however, we cannot ignore the insistent return of the denial of Christ.
Again and again we encounter the signs of an alternative civilization to
that built on Christ as "cornerstone" - a civilization which, even if
not explicitly atheist, is at least positivistic and agnostic, since it
is built upon the principle of thinking and acting as if God did not
exist. This approach can easily be recognized in the modern so-called
scientific, or rather scientistic, mentality, and it can be recognized
in literature, especially the mass media. To live as if God did not
exist means to live outside the parameters of good and evil, outside the
context of values derived from God. It is claimed that man himself can
decide what is good or bad. And this program is widely promoted in all
sorts of ways.
If,
on the one hand, the West continues to provide evidence of zealous
evangelization, on the other hand anti-evangelical currents are equally
strong. They strike at the very foundations of human morality,
influencing the family and promoting a morally permissive outlook:
divorce, free love, abortion, contra-conception, the fight against life
in its initial phases and in its final phase, the manipulation of life.
This program is supported by enormous financial resources, not only in
individual countries, but also on a worldwide scale. It has great
centers of economic power at its disposal, through which it attempts to
impose its own conditions on developing countries. Faced with all this,
one may legitimately ask whether this is not another form of
totalitarianism, subtly concealed under the appearances of democracy.
(p. 47-48)
Our
Lady tells us: "You, little children, pray and fight against temptation
and all the evil plans which the devil offers you through modernism."
Have we not felt the waves of modernism crashing against the foundations
of our Christian way of life, eroding our faith by making it seem
irrelevant? The enemy's plan is to deprive us of wisdom and truth, and
leave us prey to every whim and selfish desire. In the battle for the
right to life we see this plan in all its boldness. To kill another,
simply because his life makes mine uncomfortable or inconvenient? This
is where modernism has led our societies. We are all suffering from such
depravity.
But
the waves are strong and we must fight them. "Be strong in prayer and
with the cross in your hands pray that evil may not use you and may not
conquer in you." The campaign to eliminate God from human life is very
strong in these days. Indeed it can feel like a totalitarian regime. If
we are not prayerful and vigilant, it can begin to use us and conquer us
as well. No one is immune from this fight.
The
answer is simple and clear. Our Lady has come to plant that answer
deeply within us. Jesus, our Savior and Lord, is the antidote to the
modernist threat and to the evil of our day that has become a system.
St. John Paul II continues:
The
evil of the twentieth century was not a small-scale evil, it was not
simply "homemade." It was an evil of gigantic proportions, and evil
which availed itself of state structures in order to accomplish its
wicked work, an evil built up into a system.
At
the same time, however, divine grace has been superabundantly revealed.
There is no evil from which God cannot draw forth a greater good. There
is no suffering which he cannot transform into a path leading to him.
Offering himself freely in his passion and death on the Cross, the Son
of God took upon himself all the evil of sin. The suffering of the
Crucified God is not just one form of suffering alongside others, not
just another more or less painful ordeal: it is an unequaled suffering.
In sacrificing himself for us all, Christ gave a new meaning to
suffering, opening up a new dimension, a new order: the order of love.
It is true that suffering entered human history with original sin. Sin
is that "sting" (cf. 1 Cor 15:55-56) which inflicts pain, wounding man
mortally. Yet the passion of Christ on the Cross gave a radically new
meaning to suffering, transforming it from within. It introduced into
human history, which is the history of sin, a blameless suffering
accepted purely for love. This suffering opens the door to the hope of
liberation, hope for the definitive elimination of that "sting," which
is tearing humanity apart. It is this suffering which burns and consumes
evil with the flame of love and draws forth even from sin a great
flowering of good. (p. 167)
This
Holy Week, we are going to journey with Christ on His way of the Cross.
We are going to meditate on and adore the Passion and Death of Jesus.
He will show us the antidote to Modernism, to the infectiious "life
without God". And He will invite us anew to join Him in the work of
redemption, through our love and our choice for the Good!
St. John Paul II, pray for us!
In Jesus, Mary and Joseph!
Cathy Nolan
©Mary TV 2015
PS. "Fruit of Medjugorje" tonight at 8:00 pm EDT!!
"Medjugorje is the spiritual center of the world."
Saint John Paul II
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