Day: October 29, 2019

(c)Mary TV  Your sacrifices will have meaning.   October 30, 2019 Dear Family of Mary!    “…. Little children, in complete surrender to God, He will take care of everything and will bless you; and your sacrifices will have meaning…” (October 25, 2019) I am so drawn to these words from Our Lady. She assures us that God can and will take care of every detail in our lives, under one condition. We must surrender to Him in everything. Completely. We have all tried at some point to trust someone in our lives, a mother or father, a teacher or a friend, even a spouse. We long to have someone who is totally trustworthy, and in whom we can entrust ourselves. But this kind of trust is not possible with our fellow humans. Why? Because not one of us is all knowing, all loving and all powerful. Not one of us is capable of covering all the bases. Such surrender and trust are not justified or even healthy. And so, we have learned not to surrender to anyone. And this makes it hard for us to even imagine surrendering to God. And on top of that, all the saints who have surrendered completely to God still suffered. And that seems to contradict God’s ability to manage everything! But, of course, we know that God has such an infinitely higher perspective than we do, and that He sees suffering and self-denial in a vastly different way. He saw the sacrifice of Jesus and Mary in a way we could not imagine. It was salvation for the whole world that was being won by their sacrifices. And he sees our suffering as part of that work of salvation as well. If we give it over to Him, it becomes so valuable!!! He entrusts us with that suffering because He loves us and trusts us to carry it for Him.  And He also sustains us and heals us with His powerful love, time and time again! Well, St. Faustina wrote about this mystery of love in a beautiful way. On New Year’s Day 1938, she prayed: Welcome to you, New Year, in the course of which my perfection will be accomplished. Thank You in advance, O Lord, for everything Your goodness will send me. Thank You for the cup of suffering from which I shall daily drink. Do not diminish its bitterness, O Lord, but strengthen my lips that, while drinking of this bitterness, they may know how to smile for love of You, my Master. I thank You for Your countless comforts and graces that flow down upon me each day like the morning dew, silently, imperceptibly, which no curious eye may notice, and which are known only to You and me, O Lord. For all this, I thank You as of today because, at the moment when You hand me the cup, my heart may not be capable of giving thanks. So today I submit myself completely and with loving consent to Your holy will, O Lord, and to Your most wise decrees, which are always full of clemency and mercy for me, though at times I can (62) neither understand nor fathom them. O my Master, I surrender myself completely to You, who are the rudder of my soul; steer it Yourself according to Your divine wishes. I enclose myself in Your most compassionate Heart, which is a sea of unfathomable mercy. (Diary 1499-50) Our Lady wants us to imitate St. Faustina, and in our surrender begin to see the meaning of our sacrifices. She wants us to have the lofty and eternal perspective that St. Faustina developed, the perspective that the Father has for all of us, seeing us as co-workers in the fight for souls. She also wants us to trust that the Father will not leave us alone, but instead sustain us and care for us always. Oh, Jesus, be the rudder of our souls! In Jesus, Mary and Joseph!Cathy Nolan©Mary TV 2019

(c)Mary TV    October 29, 2019 Dear Family of Mary! “Little children, in complete surrender to God, He will take care of everything and will bless you; and your sacrifices will have meaning…” (October 25, 2019)  Our Lady understands complete surrender to God. She lived her entire life in deep surrender and trust on the Heavenly Father. Each mystery of the Rosary shows us her surrender. But we have a difficult time of surrendering to the Lord. We find it hard to let go of our fears and worries. And so the Lord sent us a teacher, Fr. Dolindo Ruotolo. Here is a brief description of his life:   “On November 19, 1970 Don (Fr) Dolindo Ruotolo died at the age of 88. Padre Pio once said of this priest from Naples, Italy, “The whole of paradise is in your soul.” His name “Dolindo” means “Pain” and his life was rich with this pain. As a child, a teenager, a seminarian and a priest, he experienced humiliation, which was the realization of the prophetic words of a bishop who said “You will be a martyr, but in your heart, not with your blood.” In his profound humility, he was able to hear the words of God. Even with his hidden life he was one of the greatest prophets of the last century. He wrote to Bishop Hnilica in 1965 that a new John will rise out of Poland with heroic steps to break the chains beyond the boundaries imposed by the communist tyranny. On this postcard, he wrote words of consolation for Poland and all the countries suffering under the communist regime. This prophecy was realized in the papacy of John Paul II. In his tremendous suffering, Dolindo became more and more a child who lived his self-offering to the Divine Father. “I am totally poor, a poor nothing. My strength is my prayer, my leader is the will of God which I let take me by the hand. My security over the uneven path is the heavenly mother Mary.” One of the treasures from the words which Jesus spoke to Dolindo was the teaching about total abandonment to God. In this novena, Jesus is talking to Don Dolindo and also to you.” The way of total abandonment is given to us in the “Novena of Surrender to the Will of God” that Jesus gave to Fr. Dolindo. We pray this novena every day during the Daily Rosary on Mary TV. The words of this novena help us to refocus and abandon ourselves to God. Such abandonment and surrender makes us able to serve the Lord in our day. We become available to Him. This is very important. Here is a PDF of the Novena to the Will of God by Fr. Dolindo. It is a great gift to us all!!    Novena of Surrender to the will of God In Jesus, Mary and Joseph!  Cathy Nolan  ©Mary TV 2019