Author: Cathy Nolan

Oh Holy Night! December 24, 2020 Christmas Eve Dear Family of Mary! Tonight little Jesus is born.  This is the night to remain in silence and peace, awaiting the coming of the Savior.  Our Lady gave us this message in 1998.  It may help us to focus on prayer today.  December 25, 1998 “Dear children! In this Christmas joy I desire to bless you with my blessing. In a special way, little children, I give you the blessing of little Jesus. May He fill you with His peace. Today, little children, you do not have peace and yet you yearn for it. That is why, with my Son Jesus, on this day I call you to pray, pray, pray, because without prayer you do not have joy or peace or a future. Yearn for peace and seek it, for God is true peace. Thank you for having responded to my call.” And here is a short Litany to the Infant Jesus. Pray it slowly and with great love. We have so much to ponder and praise the Father for: Litany of the Infant Jesus Lord, have mercy on us. Christ, have mercy on us. Lord, have mercy on us. Jesus, hear us.  Jesus, graciously hear us. God the Father of Heaven, Have mercy on us. God the Son, Redeemer of the world, Have mercy on us. God the Holy Spirit, Have mercy on us. Holy Trinity, One God, Have mercy on us. Infant, Jesus Christ, have mercy on us. Infant, true God, have mercy on us. Infant, Son of the living God, have mercy on us. Infant, Son of the Virgin Mary, have mercy on us. Infant, strong in weakness, have mercy on us. Infant, powerful in tenderness, have mercy on us. Infant, Treasure of grace, have mercy on us. Infant, Fountain of love, have mercy on us. Infant, Renewer of the heavens, have mercy on us. Infant, Repairer of the evils of the earth, have mercy on us. Infant, Head of the angels, have mercy on us. Infant, Root of the patriarchs, have mercy on us. Infant, Speech of the prophets, have mercy on us. Infant, Desire of the Gentiles, have mercy on us. Infant, Joy of shepherds, have mercy on us. Infant, Light of the Magi, have mercy on us. Infant, Salvation of infants, have mercy on us. Infant, Expectation of the just, have mercy on us. Infant, Instructor of the wise, have mercy on us. Infant, First-fruit of all saints, have mercy on us. Be merciful, spare us, O Infant Jesus. Be merciful, graciously hear us, O Infant Jesus. From all evil, Infant Jesus, deliver us. From our sins, Infant Jesus, deliver us. Through Thy most pure Conception, Infant Jesus, deliver us. Through Thy most humble Nativity, Infant Jesus, deliver us. Through Thy tears, Infant Jesus, deliver us. Through Thy most painful Circumcision, Infant Jesus, deliver us. Through Thy most glorious Epiphany, Infant Jesus, deliver us. Through Thy most pious Presentation, Infant Jesus, deliver us. Through Thy most divine life, Infant Jesus, deliver us. Through Thy poverty, Infant Jesus, deliver us. Through Thy many sufferings, Infant Jesus, deliver us. Through Thy labors and travels, Infant Jesus, deliver us. Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the world,  Have mercy on us, O Infant Jesus. Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the world, Graciously hear us, O Infant Jesus. Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the world, Have mercy on us. Jesus, Infant, hear us. Jesus, Infant, graciously hear us. Have a beautiful night, adoring the Newborn Jesus, in whom Heaven is hidden. In Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Cathy Nolan ©Mary TV 2020  

Reconcile with God! December 23, 2020 St. John of Kanty Christmas Novena Day 9 Dear Family of Mary! “…Reconcile with God, little children, and you will see miracles around you…” (11/25/20) This is the last day of our Christmas Novena. Our final sentence in the November 25, 2020 message gives us a way to enter into Christmas! The word “reconcile” is beautiful.  It means “to restore to friendship or harmony” or “to settle differences.”  In human relationships it can be a difficult project to complete.  Once two people have had a falling about something, it can be very hard for them to forgive one another and return to being friends as before.  And if one person has betrayed another, it is rare that the relationship can be mended.  But there is much joy when the two who are estranged find their way back into trust and harmony. Even more so, it is a beautiful thing when reconciliation occurs between God and one of His human children.  Indeed, the stories of such reconciliations can be found throughout the Bible.  Adam and Eve were estranged from God in the Garden, but in Genesis chapter 3, God promised a way back for them.  David served the Lord, but in later life sinned gravely, yet David repented in humility and God accepted him back.  Job questioned the Lord in his suffering, but God showed Job the truth, and their relationship was healed.  And Peter denied the Lord on Good Friday, but after the Resurrection, Jesus brought Peter back into His friendship by the words, “Peter, do you love me?”   It seems that God is always ready to reconcile with us.  We are the ones who find it hard to bridge the gap when we have sinned. The is why Our Lady calls us to reconcile with God right now, before Christmas.  She knows that we have a really hard time being honest with ourselves and seeing exactly what we have done to become estranged from God.  But all we have to do is take some time to talk to the Lord about it.  He will show us.  In what ways have I broken trust with the Lord?  How have I forgotten Him?  How have I lost my connection to the Lord?  Am I praying and speaking to Him?  Am I looking for Him in everyday life?  Am I thinking of Him and including Him in my decisions?  These questions may help.  We know what issue has driven a wedge between us and God.  That is where we should start in reconciling. If we succeed in finding our way back to the Lord (Confession is the way to do it), we will enter into the Christmas season with such joy!!  And I think we will see miracles all around us!!  Because when we walk as one with the Lord, He can do miracles around us.  Imagine walking with Jesus as the disciples did, and seeing the blind given their sight, the lame walking, the deaf hearing, the lepers cleansed, the dead raised!!!  Just by walking with Jesus, you would see miracles all around you. It is the same today.  When we are reconciled with Jesus, we walk with Him, and we see all the miracles He is doing.  We are just walking with Him, and He is doing miracles!  Let’s run to be reconciled with our Lord! Let us pray: Dearest Baby Jesus.  I love You.  I can’t take our eyes off of You.  I long for You.  And I pray to You, please come and be born in my heart today.  And I say to You: I give you permission to be born in my heart right now, today.  I give you permission to use my poor stable of a heart as your birthplace.  I open the doors of my stable/heart, and I say to You, come!  Come with Your Mother, Mary, and with Your foster father, Joseph, and find in my heart, a place to rest and be born.  I welcome You with wonder and awe.  And I love You with all of my strength.  Come and take over my stable of a heart.  It is Yours forever.  Amen. In Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Cathy Nolan ©Mary TV 2020 P.S. The parish of Medjugorje continues the Novena before Christmas today! Each day the parish will climb Apparition Hill, praying the Rosary. Mary TV will stream this event, live, each day, at 2:00 pm Medjugorje time. You can join in on our Channel at www.marytv.tv PPS. Here is our Donate link! The matching grant is still active!! (Go to our website for more donation options)      Donate      

Confession! December 22, 2020 Christmas Novena, Day 8 Dear Family of Mary! Today is Day 8 of our Christmas Novena!  Here is the next sentence in the November 25, 2020 Message: “…Work on and build peace through the Sacrament of Confession…” Our Lady has called us to confession since the very beginning of the apparitions.  She has requested monthly Confession for everyone.  And pilgrims experience the power of confession for healing and peace in a profound way.  Every evening confessions are available before the evening Mass.  Miracles happen in those confessionals.  Conversions abound.  Healings of mind and body occur.  Lives are changed.  Truly Confession is the hallmark of Medjugorje! Once Confession becomes a staple in your spiritual life, you begin to see many miracles happen in you and around you.  Your life becomes more and more peaceful, more and more recollected!  It is because you are tending your soul much like a good gardener tends to the garden, cleaning it and nourishing it through the forgiveness and healing of Jesus through the priest in confession.  We need regular and consistent tending.  We are constantly bombarded with temptations and difficulties, and we can easily fall.  But with regular confession, Jesus is able to pick us up, dust us off, and help us again to live a life of love and purity. When we go to Confession regularly (at least monthly) we do build peace in our lives and relationships, and in our interior.  It is truly miraculous. St. Faustina depended on Confession in order to live her vocation and to carry out the demands of Jesus, to spread the devotion to Divine Mercy.  Confession was a lifeline for her.  Jesus spoke about His work in her heart in confession: Today the Lord said to me, Daughter, when you go to confession, to this fountain of My mercy, the Blood and Water which came forth from My Heart always flows down upon your soul and ennobles it. Every time you go to confession, immerse yourself entirely in My mercy, with great trust, so that I may pour the bounty of My grace upon your soul. When you approach the confessional, know this, that I Myself am waiting there for you. I am only hidden by the priest, but I Myself act in your soul. Here the misery of the soul meets the God of mercy. Tell souls that from this fount of mercy souls draw graces solely with the vessel of trust. If their trust is great, there is no limit to My generosity. The torrents of grace inundate humble souls. The proud remain always in poverty and misery because My grace turns away from them to humble souls. (1602) The Sacrament of Confession is so amazing!!  We have an amazing God!  He loves us so much that he has arranged a way to meet with us personally and let us talk to Him directly about our troubles and our failings and our need for healing!  Jesus is waiting for us there.  He will act in our souls.  He will pour out His Mercy in abundance.  We only have to approach Him, be humble, speak from our hearts, and ask for forgiveness, and it will be given in abundance! We only have a couple days before Christmas.  Let’s make sure we go to confession before this awesome Solemnity. Now let us pray: Dearest Baby Jesus. I love You. I can’t take our eyes off of You. I long for You. And I pray to You, please come and be born in my heart today. And I say to You: I give you permission to be born in my heart right now, today. I give you permission to use my poor stable of a heart as your birthplace. I open the doors of my stable/heart, and I say to You, come! Come with Your Mother, Mary, and with Your foster father, Joseph, and find in my heart, a place to rest and be born. I welcome You with wonder and awe.  And I love You with all of my strength. Come and take over my stable of a heart. It is Yours forever. Amen. In Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Cathy Nolan ©Mary TV 2020 P.S. The parish of Medjugorje continues the Novena before Christmas today! Each day the parish will climb Apparition Hill, praying the Rosary. Mary TV will stream this event, live, each day, at 2:00 pm Medjugorje time. You can join in on our Channel at www.marytv.tv PPS. Here is our Donate link! The matching grant is still active!! (Go to our website for more donation options) Donate      

History will be truth! December 21, 2020 Christmas Novena, Day 7 St Peter Canisius Dear Family of Mary! Day 7 of our Novena before Christmas!  And here is the sentence from Our Lady’s message for us today: “By reading the Sacred Scripture you will discover Jesus’ birth and joy, as in the first days which Medjugorje gave to humanity. History will be truth which, also today, is being repeated in you and around you…” (11/25/2020) I included the 6th line with the 7th.  The meaning of our sentence today depends on it.  Sacred Scripture contains our history, seen through spiritual eyes.  Though the Old Testament tells the story of the Chosen People, it also contains the spiritual history of each one of us.  No one can read the story of Cain and Abel and not see in it the truth about sibling rivalry and our difficult family relationships.  And again, no one can read about Joseph being sold into slavery by his brothers and not feel the sting of envy and the ruin of power struggles in our own families or communities.  Or take King David’s adultery with Bathsheba, or King Ahab’s coveting of his neighbor’s vineyard, or Harrod’s adultery with his brother’s wife, and on and on.  The Bible contains the true history of us all. And there are also so many good examples of holy and courageous lives in the Bible, from Noah to Abraham, to Jacob, to Job, to Elijah, to Esther and Judith and so many more. These holy ones also are the truth, that God can raise up holy people in every age to serve Him. What we learn in the Scriptures tells us about ourselves, our own times, the trials and temptations, the victories, and failures of us all.  Truth shines in that history, especially because we see not only the choices for good or evil that are made, but the consequences of those choices.  And we learn what is the will of God, what is holy and good. “History will be truth which, also today, is being repeated in you and around you…” It is vital that we understand what history is being repeated in each of our lives. For good or ill, we contend with the same trials and temptations and have to choose between good and evil, daily.  In fact, our only sphere of influence actually is our own life.  We have to work on ourselves, as Our Lady says.  We have to make our history a good one. If we are good historians, we look for the truth.  Without the Sacred Scriptures we will not have the moral compass necessary to discern the truth in our personal history, and in the history of our family, our country or the world.  That truth is not just facts, but the facts seen in the light of God. So, as we contemplate the Birth of Jesus, let’s pray that He will show us the truth about His birth!  We want to know every little detail about Jesus, so that we will see God in all His providence, saving us from our sins, and righting all the sordid history of the past.  Come, Lord Jesus, and save us from our sins.  Save us from our past lives.  And make us part of Your History of Salvation! Now let us pray: Dearest Baby Jesus. I love You. I can’t take our eyes off of You. I long for You. And I pray to You, please come and be born in my heart today. And I say to You: I give you permission to be born in my heart right now, today. I give you permission to use my poor stable of a heart as your birthplace. I open the doors of my stable/heart, and I say to You, come! Come with Your Mother, Mary, and with Your foster father, Joseph, and find in my heart, a place to rest and be born. I welcome You with wonder and awe.  And I love You with all of my strength. Come and take over my stable of a heart. It is Yours forever. Amen. In Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Cathy Nolan ©Mary TV 2020 P.S. The parish of Medjugorje continues the Novena before Christmas today! Each day the parish will climb Apparition Hill, praying the Rosary. Mary TV will stream this event, live, each day, at 2:00 pm Medjugorje time. You can join in on our Channel at www.marytv.tv PPS. Here is our Donate link! The matching grant is still active!! (Go to our website for more donation options) Donate      

Discover the Birth and Joy of Jesus! December 20, 2020 Fourth Sunday of Advent Christmas Novena, Day 6 Dear Family of Mary! This is Day 6 of our Christmas Novena!  Here is the sentence from the November 25, 2020 message for today: By reading the Sacred Scripture you will discover Jesus’ birth and joy, as in the first days which Medjugorje gave to humanity. The Gospel readings for these last days of Advent are some of most beautiful and joyful scriptures to be found in the Bible.  Starting with December 19, we read a portion of the first chapter of the Gospel of Luke each day until Christmas!  And what joy and wonder is to be found in each reading!! Luke 1:5-25:  And angel of the Lord appears to Zechariah, proclaiming that his prayer had been heard, and his wife, Elizabeth would bear a son who will go in the spirit of Elijah to prepare the way of the Lord! Luke 1:26-38:  The Annunciation!!  The Angel Gabriel comes to Mary saying “Hail, full of grace!”  He announces the Incarnation of the Lord, the coming of the Messiah!  And Mary says, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” Luke 1:39-45: Mary sets out in haste to visit Elizabeth and little John leaps for joy in the Holy Spirit at the presence of Jesus! Luke 1:46-56: Mary proclaims her Magnificat!!  “My soul proclaims the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior!!”  What joy!!! Luke 1:57-66: Elizabeth gives birth to a son, and he is named John!  And the news spread throughout the hill country of Judea!! Luke 1:67-79:  Zechariah proclaims in prophecy his great Canticle: Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel; for he has come to his people and set them free.  He has raised up for us a mighty Savior, born of the house of his servant David…” Then on Christmas Day Luke 2:1-14: The Birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, in a stable, because there was no room in the inn.  And all heaven erupts of jubilation!! Indeed, this entire week we will be discovering the joyful birth of our Savior, Jesus!  I hope to take time for some prayerful reading of these scriptures, in order to let the Holy Spirit, fill my heart with joy. Our Lady mentions that as we ponder these scriptures, we will discover the same joy that was revealed in the first days of her apparitions in Medjugorje.  This may seem odd.  But in reality, it is not.  Franjo Zubac shared on the Jesus Rosary for December 2, 2020, about the power of the joy that Our Lady gave to the people of Medjugorje when she appeared.  He said that the communists were using all their tactics to scare the people away from the apparition site.  They were threatening them with terrible consequences.  But it didn’t work.  Here is why: “But Our Lady poured joy into the hearts of the people, and the people would walk to Medjugorje’s church through the fields, singing! Singing! Full of joy and happiness. And you couldn’t stop it. And slowly, slowly it started moving the way Our Lady wanted it. And slowly, slowly, through the messages that Our Lady is giving us, all of us even today, every month, she is trying to lead us and guide us. Prepare us.” (Frano Zubac, Jesus Rosary, 12/02/20) The joy that the people experienced was a power much greater than any communist threat.  It was the joy from Heaven, the joy of the first days which Medjugorje gave to humanity.  That joy persists.  And it is more powerful than any worldly threat.  So, the joy of Jesus’ birth and the joy of Our Lady’s coming both tell us: “God exists!”  They tell us that Jesus is with us and that He loves us, and this is all we need! (You can hear Frano describe the first days at this link: https://marytv.tv/jesus-rosary/ (scroll down to December 2, 2020) Or read my transcription here: https://marytv.tv/the-december-3-2020-reflection-as-in-the-first-days/ Now let us pray: Dearest Baby Jesus. I love You. I can’t take our eyes off of You. I long for You. And I pray to You, please come and be born in my heart today. And I say to You: I give you permission to be born in my heart right now, today. I give you permission to use my poor stable of a heart as your birthplace. I open the doors of my stable/heart, and I say to You, come! Come with Your Mother, Mary, and with Your foster father, Joseph, and find in my heart, a place to rest and be born. I welcome You with wonder and awe.  And I love You with all of my strength. Come and take over my stable of a heart. It is Yours forever. Amen. In Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Cathy Nolan ©Mary TV 2020 P.S. The parish of Medjugorje continues the Novena before Christmas today! Each day the parish will climb Apparition Hill, praying the Rosary. Mary TV will stream this event, live, each day, at 2:00 pm Medjugorje time. You can join in on our Channel at www.marytv.tv PPS. Here is our Donate link! The matching grant is still active!! (Go to our website for more donation options) Donate      

Little children, work on yourselves! December 19, 2020 Christmas Novena, Day 5 Dear Family of Mary! “…Therefore, little children, work on yourselves…” (November 25, 2020) Our Lady is always practical.  She is a mother. She knows that the only sphere of influence we have is our “self”.  Everything depends on the state of our own soul.  And that is our responsibility.  On Tuesday of the Third Week of Advent in the Office of Readings for the Liturgy of the Hours, the second reading hit it on the head for me!  Just how to work on myself!! If we want to make our hearts into homes for Jesus, we must work on them, and this advice is very good: From the Imitation of Christ (Thomas A Kempis) (Lib II, cap, 2-3) On humility and peace Do not care much who is with you and who is against you; but make it your greatest care that God is with you in everything you do. Have a good conscience, and God will defend you securely; no one can hurt you if God wishes to help you. If you know how to suffer in silence, you will surely receive God’s help. Since he knows best the time and the way to set you free, resign yourself to him, for God helps you and frees you from all confusion. It is often good for us, and helps us to remain humble, if others know our weaknesses and confront us with them. When a man humbles himself for his faults, he more easily pleases others and mollifies those he has angered. God protects and frees a humble man; he loves and consoles a humble man; he favors a humble man; he showers him with graces; then, after his suffering, God raises him up to glory. He reveals his secrets to a humble man and in his kindness invitingly draws that man to himself. When a humble man is brought to confusion, he experiences peace, because he stands firm in God and not in this world. Do not think that you have made any progress unless you feel that you are the lowest of all men. Above all things, keep peace within yourself, then you will be able to create peace, among others. It is better to be peaceful than learned. The passionate man often thinks evil of a good man and easily believes the worst; a good and peaceful man turns all things to good. A man who lives at peace suspects no one. But a man who is tense and agitated by evil is troubled with all kinds of suspicions; he is never at peace with himself, nor does he permit others to be at peace. He often speaks when he should be silent, and he fails to say what would be truly useful. He is well aware of the obligations of others but neglects his own. So be zealous first of all with yourself, and then you will be more justified in expressing zeal for your neighbor. You are good at excusing and justifying your own deeds, and yet you will not listen to the excuses of others. It would be more just to accuse yourself and excuse your neighbor. If you wish others to put up with you, first put up with them. Let us pray: Dearest Baby Jesus.  I love You.  I can’t take our eyes off of You.  I long for You.  And I pray to You, please come and be born in my heart today.  And I say to You: I give you permission to be born in my heart right now, today.  I give you permission to use my poor stable of a heart as your birthplace.  I open the doors of my stable/heart, and I say to You, come!  Come with Your Mother, Mary, and with Your foster father, Joseph, and find in my heart, a place to rest and be born.  I welcome You with wonder and awe.  And I love You with all of my strength.  Come and take over my stable of a heart.  It is Yours forever.  Amen. In Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Cathy Nolan ©Mary TV 2020    

The feeling of Heaven – hidden in the Newborn! December 18, 2020 Christmas Novena, Day 4 Dear Family of Mary! “…God sent me to be joy and hope in this time, and I am saying to you: Without little Jesus you do not have the tenderness or the feeling of Heaven which is hidden in the Newborn…” (November 25, 2020) I find it comforting to know that God has provided for us in these days we are living right now.  He knew that these days would be filled with anxiety, depression, fear of the future, and a deep oppression from the enemy.  Our enemy is laying a trap for us.  He wants to engulf us in the troubles of these days and take away our peace and our faith. But the Father sent Our Lady “to be joy and hope in this time…”  She is the antidote to all that the devil is doing to bring us down.  She is joy!!  She comes from Heaven to tell us that God exists, that God loves us, that Jesus is our brother, and that we have been called and chosen by God!  All of this give us a deep hope for the future.  Our Lady of Medjugorje is God’s answer to the lies of the devil. And what does Our Lady tell us to do in these difficult days?  “Pray, little children, for little Jesus will be born in your hearts!”  She calls us to open our hearts to Jesus.  Then she warns us: “Without little Jesus you do not have the tenderness or the feeling of Heaven which is hidden in the Newborn…”  We need little Jesus in our hearts so that our hearts can be transformed!!  We need little Jesus because His presence brings powerful graces to us.  And these graces will change us forever! Jesus will bring to our hearts, tenderness!  What is tenderness?  Let’s think about it. Tenderness is softness.  A tender heart is soft, gentle, kind, generous, welcoming, quiet, and loving.  A tender heart is able to feel the needs and trials of others.  A tender heart can empathize.  Such a heart feels what the other is feeling and responds with love.  When a tenderhearted person sees a baby, that person responds with all his or her strength to serve that little one.  To protect the baby, to nurture the baby, to comfort the baby…etc.  A tender heart is a loving and nurturing heart. When Baby Jesus is born in our hearts, our hearts change.  They become tender, supernaturally tender!! And this next gift is even more astounding.  With little Jesus in our hearts, we can have “the feeling of Heaven which is hidden in the Newborn!”  The feeling of Heaven!  Heaven itself is hidden in the Newborn Jesus.  Little Jesus brings Heaven in a powerful way. It is true that every newborn baby communicates a bit of Heaven.  If you have ever witnessed a birth, you know this is true.  When that tiny little human is revealed, squinting at the light, shivering a bit with the coolness of the air, reaching out but not finding the comforting confines of the womb, and just being so new, there is also something otherworldly about him.  It has to do with wonder.  We are astounded at the wonder of new life, the wonder at God’s intricate design for each child, and even more we are in wonder at the presence of a soul that will live forever.  We can feel it.  It is there. And so, imagine what it was like to see the Newborn King!  Magnify this wonder at a newborn human a billion, trillion times and you will still only be scratching the surface.  Jesus, the Newborn, brought Heaven to earth.  And though it was hidden from so many in His time, it broke out quite often, bringing healing and conversion and truth and light to all who desired to see. Our Lady wants us to experience that Heaven that is hidden in the Newborn this Christmas.  She wants us to be transformed by the Heaven that is hidden in the Newborn Jesus, born in our hearts.  Our Lady is talking about transformation.  She wants us changed, made whole and strong through the birth of Jesus in our hearts. Are we ready to be transformed?  Are we ready to be filled with joy, hope, tenderness, and Heaven?  We need to pray for it (desire it) and give Jesus permission to come into our hearts this Christmas! Let us pray: Dearest Baby Jesus.  I love You.  I can’t take our eyes off of You.  I long for You.  And I pray to You, please come and be born in my heart today.  And I say to You: I give you permission to be born in my heart right now, today.  I give you permission to use my poor stable of a heart as your birthplace.  I open the doors of my stable/heart, and I say to You, come!  Come with Your Mother, Mary, and with Your foster father, Joseph, and find in my heart, a place to rest and be born.  I welcome You with wonder and awe.  And I love You with all of my strength.  Come and take over my stable of a heart.  It is Yours forever.  Amen. In Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Cathy Nolan ©Mary TV 2020  

Jesus gives Himself to each of us! December 17, 2020 Christmas Novena Day 3 Dear Family of Mary! “…Open your hearts to Jesus who gives Himself to each of you…” (11/25/20) Our Lady has asked us to open our hearts many times throughout her almost 40 years with us in Medjugorje.  As our Mother, she has tried to teach us to live simple lives, completely given over to God.  She has wanted us to live out of a deep faith and trust in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  That deep trust creates an openness towards God which allows the Lord to come to us and even enter into our hearts. I always think of Jesus’ words in John’s Gospel: Jesus answered him, “If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” (John 14:23) Doesn’t this promise of Jesus make you shiver with joy?  If we love Jesus, and we keep His word, which is do everything He has taught us the best we can, then His Father will love us!  And Jesus and the Father will MAKE THEIR HOME WITH US!!! I think opening our hearts to Jesus has everything to do with loving Him and keeping His word.  If we do these two things, we open the door of our heart wide!  We say “Welcome” to Jesus and to the Father and of course the Holy Spirit.  And then we find we have made our heart a home!!  A home for the Trinity! Of course, Jesus started this process first, by becoming a Man, by choosing to become one of us.  And in that human estate, doing everything He possibly could to teach us about Himself, His love for us, His desire for us to be healed, His gift of the truth to us so that we would no longer sin, His sacrifice on the Cross, so that we could be forgiven and reunited with His Father.  Jesus offers Himself to us over and over again, day in and day out.  He makes the first move.  He never lets up.  He loves us so much.  But never the less, we are the ones who have to love Him back and make some kind of move in His direction.  Only then can He enter our hearts. This brings me back to the understanding we had yesterday of how Jesus can be born in our hearts.  “He can bring that moment of His birth into our moment in time.  And somehow, He can make each of our hearts into that stable, that poor, lowly place where He was born.  And we can welcome Him in our poverty and emptiness, just as the stable did.  We can welcome Our Lady and St. Joseph and the animals and the stars and the shepherds into our hearts, so that we can all adore the Christ Child together there.  Jesus can do that.  All we have to do is pray for it and permit Him to do it!” This could be the best Christmas we have ever had! Let us pray: Dearest Baby Jesus.  I love You.  I can’t take our eyes off of You.  I long for You.  And I pray to You, please come and be born in my heart today.  And I say to You: I give you permission to be born in my heart right now, today.  I give you permission to use my poor stable of a heart as your birthplace.  I open the doors of my stable/heart, and I say to You, come!  Come with Your Father, Your Holy Spirit, Your Mother, Mary, and with Your foster father, Joseph, and find in my heart, a place to rest and be born.  I welcome You with wonder and awe.  And I love You with all of my strength.  Come and take over my stable of a heart.  It is Yours forever.  Amen. In Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Cathy Nolan ©Mary TV 2020