(c) Mateo Ivankovic 2017
J.M.J.
August 30, 2017
Dear Family of Mary!
“Dear children! Today I am calling you to be people of prayer. Pray until prayer becomes a joy for you and a meeting with the Most High. He will transform your hearts and you will become people of love and peace. Do not forget, little children, that Satan is strong and wants to draw you away from prayer. You, do not forget that prayer is the secret key of meeting with God. That is why I am with you to lead you. Do not give up on prayer. Thank you for having responded to my call.” (August 25, 2017)
“He will transform your hearts and you will become people of love and peace.”
Once we have meetings with God in prayer, Our Lady says something wonderful will happen. We will become people of love and peace! But for sure we will not become such people by our own power, or by the things we learn in prayer, or the ideas we discover in the encounter with God. No, not on our own power will we be changed. “He will transform your hearts…” We will be changed by God! He will transform us with His power, His creative love.
No matter how hard we try, we cannot transform ourselves. It is impossible. Our only hope is to surrender ourselves to God in prayer, in that prayer that becomes joy for us, and then open our hearts to Him and let Him change us.
Have you ever felt God changing you? Have you ever encountered the Lord in such a way that you allowed the Lord to be your Lord, to take over with His love and pour it into you like the sun pours its rays on the earth? This is when transformation occurs. It is in the trusting encounter of Creator and creature. This loving and trusting encounter is awesome! And Our Lady wants us to know that God is waiting for us, waiting to meet us and pour out His transforming love into our poor hearts so broken by sin and pain.
“He will transform your hearts…” He WILL do it. Our Lady doesn’t say that He might do it, or probably He will do it. She says, “HE WILL TRANSFORM YOUR HEARTS…” All we have to do is pray “until…”
St. Faustina recounts a moment when she had a meeting with the Most High. She shares about this meeting as a transformation during a retreat:
I am coming out of this retreat thoroughly transformed by God’s love. My soul is beginning a new life, earnestly and courageously; although outwardly my life will not change, and no one will notice it, nevertheless, pure love is [now] the guide of my life and, externally, it is mercy which is its fruit. I feel that I have been totally imbued with God and, with this God, I am going back to my everyday life, so drab, tiresome and wearying, trusting that he whom I feel in my heart will change this drabness into my personal sanctity.
In profound silence, close to Your merciful Heart, my soul is maturing during this retreat. In the clear rays of your love, my soul has lost its tartness and has become a sweet and ripe fruit.
Now I can be wholly useful to the Church by my personal sanctity, which throbs with life in the whole Church, for we all make up one organism in Jesus. That is why I endeavor to make the soil of my heart bear good fruit. Although the human eye may perhaps never see it, there will nevertheless come a day when it will become apparent that many souls have been fed and will continue to be fed with this fruit.
O Eternal Love, You who enkindle a new life within me, a life of love and of mercy. Support me with Your grace, so that I may worthily answer Your call, so that what You Yourself have intended to accomplish in souls through me, might indeed be accomplished. (Diary 1363-1365)
God’s love transforms us. His love can heal our wounds, our broken hearts, our sorrows and disappointments, our discouragement and despondency. These are the things that block us, making us incapable of love. He can teach us to forgive, to ask forgiveness, to long for unity and blessing. He can transform our hearts into love! Then we can become love and peace for others, we can be useful for the Church, as St. Faustina said.
Our Mother is with us to help us encounter the Lord in prayer, and to enter into His transforming love. Thank you, Mother, for coming to us to do this. We would not even know how to begin without you.
In Jesus, Mary and Joseph!
Cathy Nolan
©Mary TV 2017
