May 28, 2019
Dear Family of Mary!
"Dear children! God permitted me, out of His mercy, to be with you, to instruct and lead you towards the way of conversion. Little children, you are all called to pray with all your heart for the plan of salvation to be realized for you and through you. Be aware, little children, that life is short and eternal life waits for you according to your merit. Therefore, pray, pray, pray to be worthy instruments in God's hands. Thank you for having responded to my call." (May 25, 2019)
Our Lady tells us
"Little children, you are all called to pray with all your heart for the plan of salvation to be realized for you and through you..." The call we have been given is to first and foremost be intercessors with Mary for the plan of salvation in this world. But does our prayer really make a difference?
I think that it can be easy to undervalue our prayer. We can wonder if our prayer helps Our Lady at all. I wonder if we undervalue prayer when we don't pray with the heart. Prayer that consists of words or even ideas, is not prayer. Prayer is a conversation with God, a meeting of old friends who can speak to one another even in silence. Prayer is a joining of hearts in the desire for peace, for the good of others.
This kind of prayer moves mountains. This kind of prayer changes things. In prayer with the heart, God listens to our hearts and shares His heart with us, and the meeting is filled with power. The Holy Spirit is present in this kind of prayer. And things happen.
Prayer with the heart is a mystery of love. We all want to pray with the heart. In the Catechism of the Catholic Church there is a beautiful description of prayer with the heart which may help us begin to pray more deeply from our hearts:
2562 Where does prayer come from? Whether prayer is expressed in words or gestures, it is the whole man who prays. But in naming the source of prayer, Scripture speaks sometimes of the soul or the spirit, but most often of the heart (more than a thousand times). According to Scripture, it is the heart that prays. If our heart is far from God, the words of prayer are in vain.
2563 The heart is the dwelling-place where I am, where I live; according to the Semitic or Biblical expression, the heart is the place "to which I withdraw." The heart is our hidden center, beyond the grasp of our reason and of others; only the Spirit of God can fathom the human heart and know it fully. The heart is the place of decision, deeper than our psychic drives. It is the place of truth, where we choose life or death. It is the place of encounter, because as image of God we live in relation: it is the place of covenant.
2564 Christian prayer is a covenant relationship between God and man in Christ. It is the action of God and of man, springing forth from both the Holy Spirit and ourselves, wholly directed to the Father, in union with the human will of the Son of God made man.
Prayer as communion
2565 In the New Covenant, prayer is the living relationship of the children of God with their Father who is good beyond measure, with his Son Jesus Christ and with the Holy Spirit. The grace of the Kingdom is "the union of the entire holy and royal Trinity . . . with the whole human spirit."
12 Thus, the life of prayer is the habit of being in the presence of the thrice-holy God and in communion with him. This communion of life is always possible because, through Baptism, we have already been united with Christ.
13 Prayer is Christian insofar as it is communion with Christ and extends throughout the Church, which is his Body. Its dimensions are those of Christ's love.
1412 St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Oratio, 16, 9: PG 35, 945.
13 Cf.
⇒ Rom 6:5.
14 Cf.
⇒ Eph 3:18-21.
The life of prayer! Isn't this a wonderful idea! Our whole life can be prayer. And in that prayer, prayer from the heart, with the heart, to the Heart of God, we can live in constant communion with God. In that communion, we can pray for Our Lady's plans with power and great joy! Because who could want Our Lady's plans to succeed more than the Lord God who sent her!!
May we all grow in our prayer with the heart in these days. We will be so happy if we do!
In Jesus, Mary and Joseph!
Cathy Nolan
©Mary TV 2019
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