(c) Mary TV 2020
January 13, 2020
St. Hilary - Bishop, Doctor of the Church
Dear Family of Mary!
"Dear
children! My call for you is prayer. May prayer be a joy for you and a
wreath which binds you to God. Little children, trials will come, and
you will not be strong, and sin will reign but, if you are mine, you
will win, because your refuge will be the Heart of my Son Jesus.
Therefore, little children, return to prayer until prayer becomes life
for you in the day and the night. Thank you for having responded to my
call." (July 25, 2019)
This call to prayer from Our
Lady says it all. Prayer is the gift we are being given in order to
withstand the trials ahead and help spread the peace and mercy that are
offered to us through Our Lady of Medjugorje.
I remember
something Marija Pavlovic Lunetti said on October 24, 2017, in a talk
she gave in St. Stephen's Cathedral, right after Our Lady's apparition
to her. She said that she believed that now the Triumph of the
Immaculate Heart of Mary was beginning. That was in 2017. Here we are
two years later, and we see that Triumph growing. Indeed, it is growing,
even as the world seems to be growing farther away from God each day.
And that Triumph is happening in each one of us who pray, who respond to Our Lady's call, her summons to prayer.
I would like to share with you a homily that Fr. Maximilian Dalve gave
on November 18, 2017, just three weeks after Marija's surprising
statement. It is a beautiful description of prayer and how to make
prayer our life, as it says in the July 25, 2019 message above.
Homily for November 18, 2017, Medjugorje English Mass with Fr. Maximilian.
Jesus
in the Gospel on several occasions invites us, asks us, commands us, to
pray unceasingly. St. Paul, in his letters repeats this teaching.
Ephesians 6:18, he says, "Pray unceasingly, with every form of prayer in
the Spirit." In 1 Thessalonians 5:16 he says again, "Pray without
ceasing." He repeats it.
Mary, here in Medjugorje, clothes
these words from the Gospel in motherly terms. She says also on several
occasions words like "Fill every moment even with the smallest prayer."
Someone might ask how we can do that? I must work, I must eat, I must
sleep, I can't always sit in church and pray.
Now
we must distinguish between a spirit of prayer which can embrace the
whole day and a time spent exclusively on prayer. The spirit of prayer
is expressed very well in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, N 2565.
It says: "The Life of Prayer consists in being habitually in the
presence of God, three times holy." It is beautiful! As it says in the
Bible of the Prophet Elijah, he says of himself, "I am the servant of
the Lord at whose presence I stand," This says everything.
The
habit of spiritual recollection can bring us to this grace. And it is
necessary because we live in this time of rationalism, in which I always
must think about God, use my brain, use my intellect, and then we
become tired of that.
It is, first, a matter of
the heart. For a boyfriend, it is not difficult to think of his
girlfriend continuously, because he is in love. It is a matter of love.
Prayer is a relation, a friendship, says Theresa of Avila - and she is
the mystic of prayer. And for us it is a joy to pray. It is joyful to be
with our friend. So through prayer it becomes an experience of joy.
This initial effort, because we have to detach ourselves from the
things of this world we love, from ourselves, and from all the other
things we love, to truly love God, which makes our prayer an experience
of love and of joy. So, Mary combines the effort and the spirit of
prayer and she says, "Pray until prayer becomes joy for you."
So,
we must look to our daily prayer so that prayer for us is a joyful
experience. To be happy to pray. Because we are with the one who loves
us most. And joy is an eternal effect of our experience of love, St.
Thomas Aquinas states. So, when we feel love, joy grows in our heart.
Joy and peace.
There are people who say to me,
"Father, I always pray. I am always with the Lord. From morning to
evening. But I have two kids, I must work at the office, I have all
these things to do, please don't ask me to sit down and spend time in
prayer. I just don't have the time." It sounds a bit off key, you know,
for it would be like a boyfriend who calls his girlfriend and says,
"Honey, I thought of you all day long, so it isn't necessary to see you
this evening." It seems ridiculous, you know!
And
then Jesus told us, "When you pray, go into your room and pray to the
Father in silence." So, we need some time for prayer, we need a meeting.
Others
say, "Father, can I pray if I am driving the car? Is it disrespectful
to pray the Rosary and drive the car?" I say not at all. Mary said to
pray always. Jesus says, pray always. Just don't close your eyes if you
are driving your car as you pray. Pray according to the circumstances.
But as I said there must be a special moment of prayer.
Jesus
says, "When you pray, go into your room, lock the door, and pray to the
Father in secret. And the Father who sees in secret will listen to
you."
One lady said to me once, "Father, I love to
pray. I made even a little altar in my room in my home, and there I
have a picture of the Sacred Heart, the picture of the Immaculate Heart
of Mary, and my Bible there, and that is my favorite place. I love to
stay there. But you see my husband left me, and I have three kids so in
the morning I have to get up and get the three children off to school,
go to the office, do all my duties, drive the three children back from
school, help with the homework, supper, go to bed. After a day like this
I am tired. And it is every day. So, I come to the altar. The place I
love. I see my Mother and my Lord who I love. I feel happy. I feel at
peace. And I say sorry, I am too tired to pray."
I
said to her, "My dear sister, you are praying the most wonderful
prayer. Prayer is not a letter full of words. Prayer is an act of love.
As you love, you make the most beautiful prayer. Obviously if you are
there and can be at peace, in your mind distractions come like, "I have
to go to the supermarket, I have to do this or that." Just pick up the
Rosary and say some Our Father's, Hail Mary's, and Glory Be's. Then
prayer becomes contemplation. Prayer becomes a work of love. Prayer is
more something of the heart than of the mind.
Prayers
are sometimes said in such a dry way, just out of duty, full of
distractions so that the Lord must be bored just to have to listen to
them. But if you look around in this world and what is going on, how can
our prayer not be a cry? Jesus said today, "Those who he called who cry
to the Father being light...How can our prayer not be a cry seeing what
is going on? Not a cry of despair. Not a cry of anger. But a cry of
faith, of hope, of love, of confidence in His mercy. Jesus, Himself was
on earth, as Hebrews 10 says, "And He was heard, as He prayed with loud
cries and tears." Tears are the most beautiful cry, a silent cry, as we
see what is going on in this world, as we see what happens to our
brothers and sisters who don't know God.
We can
ask ourselves; how can we be so cold that we don't think of them, and
pray for them with loud cries and tears? Mary, here in Medjugorje, wants
to transform us into her apostles of love. She wants to pray, to teach
us how to pray and wants to pray with us, wants to pray in us. And her
prayer, her call, her tears, are something to listen to, and they send
us peace.
So eventually in prayer, besides the
formulas which are very useful, Jesus gave them to us, think of the Our
Father. But besides these formulas, besides the rules of prayer, is a
passionate heart, a heart of love in which our prayer becomes a cry. Day
and night. And the Chapels of Perpetual Adoration I think are the most
powerful houses of prayer in the world. We need a lot of them. So, don't
feel afraid to ask the parish priest to join together and strive to
open a Chapel of Perpetual Adoration. There I think is the most powerful
cry because it is Jesus, Himself, who cries to the Father. If we are
with Him day and night.
(Homily at English Mass, Medjugorje, November 18, 2017 - Fr. Maximillian Dalve)
Let us make prayer our life. This is our call!!
In Jesus, Mary and Joseph!
Cathy Nolan
©Mary TV 2020
"Medjugorje is the spiritual center of the world."
Saint John Paul II
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