July 1, 2022 Reflection – Return to God and prayer!
Return to God and prayer that the Holy Spirit may work in you and through you. July 1, 2022 Dear Family of Mary! “Return to God and prayer that the Holy Spirit may work in you and through you.” (June 25, 2022) Our Lady often calls us to return…return to prayer, return to God, return to her heart…She knows how easy it is for us to wander off. We are like sheep who are so busy eating grass that we don’t realize we are in danger of getting separated from the fold. We are distractable people. Our minds can be attracted to all sorts of things, things that pull us away from prayer, away from God. And we don’t realize the danger of getting distracted until it is too late and we have wandered off. Precious time can be wasted each day in such wanderings. Opportunities can be wasted. We can miss the chance to pray a decade for someone who is suffering. We can miss the opportunity to witness to someone about Our Lady’s presence, because we are thinking too much about something else and we don’t notice them. That is why Our Lady calls us to return to God and prayer. If we practice the presence of God, if we stay mindful of His nearness and His love for us, we will more likely be praying. And in that prayer the Holy Spirit will be able to direct us and use us for others. So much can change in our day if we are spending that day with God. He never leaves us, but we easily can leave Him through our own mindless distractions. Even when we work, we can forget to include God in the working. We get used to working alone, thinking alone, struggling alone. But if we work with God, everything is better! Return, Our Lady says. She knows that we can wander and forget God, so she just gives us the practical answer…return to God. Once we realize we have wandered away, we can just turn our minds around and go back to our most loving Father, our most heroic Brother, our most powerful Holy Spirit, and begin again to listen to and follow them!! It doesn’t matter how many times a day we return, the point is that we do return. If nothing else, this is an act of love for God. In humility, to turn back to Him, and to run into His arms like children who love Him so much!!! We should be returning to God all the time!!! “Return to God and prayer that the Holy Spirit may work in you and through you.” (June 25, 2022) In Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Cathy Nolan (c)Mary TV 2022