Day: February 10, 2020

Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us! Our Lady of Medjugorje, pray for us! February 11, 2020Our Lady of Lourdes Dear Family of Mary! As I was praying about this reflection I thought to look back at some of the previous reflections I have written for the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. Amazingly, I came upon this reflection from February 11, 2015. It isn’t about Our Lady of Lourdes, but it is exactly what I have been thinking about all day. Our Lady’s plan!! I have been feeling strongly that Our Lady needs us to listen to her call and really take it to heart, responding with our lives. If you read yesterday’s reflection you will understand. Fr. Leon made it clear that we must live the messages and not just hear them like Herrod heard John the Baptist. Herrod never took what John the Baptist said seriously. What a mistake that was. But we can make the same mistake!   So here is my reflection from 5 years ago. It is about the very same thing!! (The February 11, 2015 Reflection)   “Dear children! I am here, I am among you. I am looking at you, am smiling at you and I love you in the way that only a mother can. Through the Holy Spirit who comes through my purity, I see your hearts and I offer them to my Son. Already for a long time I have been asking of you to be my apostles, to pray for those who have not come to know God’s love. I am asking for prayer said out of love, prayer which carries out works and sacrifices. Do not waste time thinking about whether you are worthy to be my apostles. The Heavenly Father will judge everyone; and you, love Him and listen to Him. I know that all of this confuses you, even my very stay among you, but accept it with joy and pray that you may comprehend that you are worthy to work for Heaven. My love is upon you. Pray that my love may win in all hearts, because that is the love which forgives, gives and never stops. Thank you.” (February 2, 2015)   “I know that all of this confuses you, even my very stay among you, but accept it with joy and pray that you may comprehend that you are worthy to work for Heaven.”   Just as judging ourselves and others only leads to wasted time, so can trying to figure out what God is doing! Our Lady is right. We do get confused when we try to see the bigger picture and figure out what God’s plan really is for Medjugorje. Why is Our Lady with us so long? When will the secrets happen? Why did God pick Medjugorje? Etc. Etc.   Our Lady has never given us the blueprint of her plan. She has mentioned that there is a plan; that the Heavenly Father has sent her to us in Medjugorje; that she has come to bring peace. But we are left in the dark about a lot.   Our Lady has instead been consistently drilling into our hearts and heads the need for our own conversions, and the necessity that we live her messages. This part of her plan has not been left in the dark. She gave us our marching orders in 1987, when she began the messages on the 25th of each month:   January 25, 1987 The first apparition of the 25th of the month, given to Marija, for the parish: “Today I want to appeal to all of you to start living a new life from this day on. Dear children, I wish that you would understand that God has chosen each one of you to have a part in the great plan for the salvation of mankind. You cannot fully understand how great your role is in God’s design. For that reason, pray, dear children, so that through prayer, you may be able to know your role in God’s plan. I am with you, so that you may be able to realize it fully.”   Our Lady told us that each one of us has a role to play in the plan given by God through her. That role is a unique one for each one of us. Each of her children has their own specific job to do, fitted to their individual gifts and life situations. Each one of us has a role in the plan of salvation which can only be discovered through prayer.   And ever since that day Our Lady has been molding us and fashioning us according to her plan, through her messages. Here is one that particularly touches me:   August 02, 2014 “Dear children, the reason that I am with you, my mission, is to help you for ‘good’ to win, even though this does not seem possible to you now. I know that you do not understand many things as I also did not understand everything, everything that my Son explained to me while He was growing up alongside me – but I believed Him and followed Him. I ask this of you also, to believe me and to follow me. However, my children, to follow me means to love my Son above everything, to love Him in every person without making differences. For you to be able to do this, I call you anew to renunciation, prayer and fasting. I am calling you for the Eucharist to be the life of your soul. I am calling you to be my apostles of light who will spread love and mercy through the world. My children, your life is only a blink in contrast to eternal life. And when you come before my Son, in your hearts He will see how much love you had. In order to spread love in the right way, I am asking my Son, through love, to grant you unity through Him, unity among you, unity between you and your shepherds. Through them my Son always gives Himself to you anew and renews your soul. Do not forget this. Thank you.”   The plan has not changed. Salvation! The Good to win! That is the goal. And we are being called to believe and follow Our Lady in that plan just as she followed Jesus. It is a plan that involves our own conversion, our seeking after holiness, and our acceptance of Our Lady’s call to be her apostles. Each one of us answers that call in our own lives, in our own situations, with our own gifts and limitations, through love. This was the plan in 1981, in 1987, in 2014, and today. “I know that all of this confuses you, even my very stay among you, but accept it with joy and pray that you may comprehend that you are worthy to work for Heaven.”   We don’t need to know the big picture, we just need to believe and follow our Mother. She is leading us in this vast, worldwide plan of salvation that will take place through Jesus. Our role is to be those who are saved, and who witness that salvation to those who do not yet know the love of Jesus. This is a big enough plan for us, it is enough to know and to accept with joy!   In Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Cathy Nolan ©Mary TV 2015 and 2020!   PS.  Mike Nolan is leading a pilgrimage to Medjugorje from April 13 to 22, 2020!  Denis and I will be joining the group!  There is still room for more pilgrims. Join us!!   Here is Mike’s contact information and website: Mike Nolan: [email protected] 574-335-9952 https://www.pilgrim-medj.com/pilgrimages.html

Live my messages! (c) Mary TV/Anthony Zubac February 10, 2020St. Scholastica, Virgin Dear Family of Mary! January 25, 1993 “Dear children! Today I call you to accept and live my messages with seriousness. These days are the days when you need to decide for God, for peace and for the good. May every hatred and jealousy disappear from your life and your thoughts and may there only dwell love for God and for your neighbor. Thus, and only thus shall you be able to discern the signs of the time. I am with you and I guide you into a new time, a time which God gives you as grace so that you may get to know him more. Thank you for having responded to my call.” Our Lady has asked us many times to live her messages. She gives them to us to help us through these very important and difficult times. But She even gets a little disappointed in us, because we are so easily distracted from her messages. Like all children, we lose our concentration, and resolve. And so, she continues to call us to live her messages.   On Friday, February 7, Fr. Leon gave a homily about living the messages that was very helpful. Our shipmate, Stephanie, transcribed it for us!! Fr. Leon has a way of saying things that makes it all quite clear! Here is the Homily by Fr. Leon during English Mass — Friday, February 7, 2020: Homily The family of Herod is very complicated. King Herod the Great, so called “the Great,” – the one who tried to kill Jesus when He was an infant – had a number of sons. One of them is Herod Antipas; the one you hear of in the gospel today.   Now, Herod; let me see, first of all, his niece, Herodias, had been married to one of his brothers called Herod Philip, by whom she had a daughter called Salome. Later she divorced her uncle, and married another uncle, Philip; also called Philip. This is very confusing. And, then she divorces Philip and marries Herod Antipas. And then John the Baptist comes on the scene and says to him, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.”   Now, telling the truth to people is a difficult thing, and yet we are duty bound to this. It is one of the Acts of Mercy, to instruct the ignorant; to tell them, for the sake of their souls. But we have to do this with charity. John the Baptist; notice, he doesn’t come to Herod and say, “Oh, let me accompany you in your journey of adultery, and, you know, slowly, hopefully before you die, it will all work out and you’ll repent.” No, he says to him, “It is not lawful.” Because, John the Baptist loves Herod. He cares for his soul. He cares too much to lie to him.   On the other hand, we have Herod. Herod is a very confusing character. Because he seems to believe certain things about the faith. He believes in the resurrection. When he hears about Jesus, he says, “This is John whom I beheaded, and he has risen from the dead.” So, he actually believes in resurrection, which is a curious thing. But at the same time, it says: He kept him in prison, and he was very much perplexed by John, and yet he liked to listen to him.   Whenever I hear these words, especially, I think about Medjugorje. How many of us have been coming for years and years to Medjugorje? How many people have come here and heard the messages? But, how few of us put them into practice?   Now, I’m not here, I don’t delight in pointing fingers and saying, “Oh, you have failed to live the message of Medjugorje.”   I remember even before speaking about The Five Stones, I thought, before I even speak about them, I must live them. No one is going to listen to a fat priest talk about fasting. Okay, and that’s paraphrasing. St. John Chrysostom actually says that; he says, if you’re fat and greedy, who’s ever going to listen to you when you talk about fasting?   We must live the messages. Our Lady doesn’t come here and just give messages just to titillate us, to delight us. And we think, “Oh isn’t it marvelous she’s here.” And then we go off and forget about her messages. If we don’t live them, we are like Herod. Herod loved listening to John but didn’t want to act on anything he said. And it didn’t do him any good; it didn’t do him any favors! Herod ended up in a worse place. Because, to his adultery, he adds murder. And then lust – he lusts after his own great niece, Salome. Then, he adds, to that, he adds cowardice; because he is afraid of looking bad in front of his friends.   None of this does us any good, if we don’t live Our Lady’s messages. Every day in the news you can see how – I’m not going to comment on any one thing – but lots and lots of things are taking place in the world that show us, things are moving in a certain direction. And if we are not constant in the faith, if we don’t actually live our faith, what good does it do us?   What good does it do us if we say that we are here in Medjugorje and then we fight with each other, provoke quarrels, maybe deliberately misunderstand each other – or not deliberately misunderstand each other – but still, revel in fighting and quarreling and anger. What good does this do any of us? We are then like Herod. Not living God’s will, but our own, our own will, our own stubbornness. And this certainly does not make for peace. This is not being a child of the Queen of Peace. (You can listen to the homily here: https://marytv.tv/english-mass-in-medjugorje/  – remember it is 020720) Let’s pray for one another that we can all grow in living Our Lady’s messages! In Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Cathy Nolan©Mary TV 2020    PS.  Mike Nolan is leading a pilgrimage to Medjugorje from April 13 to 22, 2020!  Denis and I will be joining the group!  There is still room for more pilgrims. Join us!!   Here is Mike’s contact information and website: Mike Nolan: [email protected] 574-335-9952 https://www.pilgrim-medj.com/pilgrimages.html