Daily Reflections by Cathy

A New Life!

Cathy Nolan

Published October 30, 2018

(c)Anthony Zubac

October 30, 2018

Dear Family of Mary!

“Dear children! You have a great grace of being called to a new life through the messages which I am giving you…” (October 25, 2018)

I feel like we cannot afford to ignore this latest message. Even in the first line there is an urgency. We need to understand that right now, in this time, we are being offered a “great grace.” The grace is being offered to us by God, through Our Lady, present with us in Medjugorje. The grace is for something extraordinary. We are being offered a new life.

What is a new life? What does it mean to live a new life? It must mean first of all that we have an old life. We have a life that has developed over time in this world. And it may not be worth hanging on to, or God would not offer us a new life! That old life may feel comfortable, but is it really? We are used to it. We are used to living with habitual sins, dark memories, broken relationships, boredom, lost hope, and on and on. Our old lives are most likely built on a compromise between what is holy and what is not. And we are stuck in the middle. Our hearts may be divided or broken or just numb. That is the old life. It is just old.

But the new life we are being offered is a life with God. It is a life centered on God, lived with God, filled by God and made beautiful by God. It is a life that shines with light!

St. Paul said it this way:

For the love of Christ controls us, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore, all have died. And he died for all, that those who live might live no longer for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once regarded Christ from a human point of view, we regard him thus no longer.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. So we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Cor 5: 14-21)

In Christ, we become new creations! We live a new life, free from the old, by Christ’s redemption. This is the new life we are being offered by Our Lady. Her messages lead us to her Son, and through Him we become new creations with new lives. No more inner division, no more confusion, no more doubt and faithlessness. We become lovers of God, new creatures in His Kingdom.

So this new life we are being offered is something to desire. It is a gift to be accepted with open hearts. But how do we receive this gift? By living Our Lady’s messages. By living the 5 stones, and all the other beautiful things she has called us to live. It is a new life we are being offered. While we are in Medjugorje, it may seem that the new life is very simple, very possible. That is because of Our Lady’s presence. It is a bit of heaven there.

But when we get home, and all the old constructs of our lives appear, we have to begin to embrace the new life by leaving the old one. Little by little, we begin to pray more, talk less, love more, think of ourselves less, adore Jesus more, pay less attention to the world. Little by little the new life grows in us, through grace. It will make us so happy!!!

As St. Paul said: “We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”

This is the new life!

In Jesus, Mary and Joseph!
Cathy Nolan