(c)Mary TV 2020
Dear Family of Mary!
“Dear children! May this time be an incentive for personal conversion for you. Pray, little children, in solitude to the Holy Spirit to strengthen you in faith and trust in God, that you may be worthy witnesses of the love which God bestows upon you through my presence. Little children, do not permit trials to harden your heart and for prayer to be like a desert. Be a reflection of God’s love and witness the Risen Jesus by your lives. I am with you and I love all of you with my motherly love. Thank you for having responded to my call.” (April 25, 2020)
“Dear children! May this time be an incentive for personal conversion for you…
It is a comfort to know that Our Lady is with us in this moment in history. She is with us as we face the coronavirus pandemic. She is with us as we spend our days at home, enduring the limits of social distancing. She is with us as we work in the hospitals and medical facilities to aid the sick. She is with us as we support necessary industries and businesses. She is with those of us who are sick, and those who are dying. She is with us in this very difficult time.
She knows we are facing a world changing moment. And so, what does she advise us to do? “May this time be an incentive for personal conversion for you…” She advises us to go into prayer, go into our hearts, and use this time for our personal conversion.
Our shipmate, Tracy, asked me for a simple explanation of what conversion means. I had to think about it. And here is what I came up with:
“Personal conversion” then means that we come to a moment in which we change the direction of our personal life, we choose a new destination, we adjust our sights and we decide to aim at something better. We convert in our hearts, meaning that what we love has changed. We long for something new.
So you can see that “personal conversion” would have to do with deciding to change the aim of one’s life, while letting go of some things we have been aiming at, desiring, working towards, or following.
And of course we know that Our Lady wants us to adjust our sights so that we are clearly focused on Jesus, with the desire to be totally consecrated to Him, living for Him, loving Him, and desiring eternal life with Him. This entails letting go of worldly goals, temporal profit, and yes, sin. Anything that distances us from Jesus must be left behind.
This is a watershed moment, and we need to take stock of where we are with God, right now. We need to look at the course we have charted for our lives and decide if our goals and our desires are the best ones for our souls now. Where are we going, if we stay the course we have been on? And where should we be going?
May Our Lady guide us as we use this time as an incentive for conversion. May she be our spiritual director. May her mantle be over us, and her love surround us as we convert, choosing Christ as our all in all.
In Jesus, Mary and Joseph!
Cathy Nolan
© Mary TV 2020
