Author: Cathy Nolan

To pray well, fast!   October 2, 2023 The Holy Guardian Angels Dear Family of Mary! Today, Fr. Shamon tells us that in order to pray well, we must fast! Chapter 9, Teaching Nine To pray well, fast. Prayer is the breath of the soul. Fasting is the prayer of the body. Prayer and fasting are as necessary to our spiritual life as breathing and eating are to our physical life. As breathing and eating are interrelated, so are prayer and fasting. When you fast, you can pray better. Try it and see if that isn’t true. But we have virtually forgotten about fasting. Our Lady at Medjugorje asks: “Fast strictly on Wednesday and Friday…” (8/14/84) Fasting opens you up to others and to God. Fasting helps you experience how it is to be poor. The poor hunger by necessity. They know what it is to need; and so they are open to help. The poor person is open to trusting God, for he has no one else in whom to trust. That is why Mary said God gives good things to the hungry. (Lk 1:53) Her Son echoed her sentiments when He said: “How blest are the poor in spirit: the reign of God is theirs” (Mt. 5:3) Self-sufficiency can shut out God. If we have no sense of need, then we see no need for turning to God. Our Lord himself said that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. One reason is, because a rich person tends to be self-sufficient, to trust in his own resources, and not in God. Only when the well is dry will you know the value of water. Fasting does not mean not eating. When you fast, you eat, but you do not eat what your palate craves. How often we eat just because something tastes so good! Fasting denies those tastes, so jaded by our abundance. To drink sugarless coffee and one slice of toast on Friday morning and the same with a couple of slices of toast for lunch is not too appetizing-but it is sufficient. You eat, you see, but not what you would like to eat. You are in reality denying yourself. And that is good! Such fasting is so good because it also helps toward self-mastery. We all experience the rebellion of the flesh against the spirit. St. Paul cried out that because of the sting of the flesh, he did not do what he wanted to do but what he hated. “I do, not the good I will to do, but the evil I do not intend” (Rom. 7:19) If you starve a lion, you so weaken it that you can master the beast. Fasting starves the passions and so weakens their power that it becomes possible for your reason and will to gain the upper hand in your life. Lastly, you can almost say that fasting is a physical necessity. More graves are dug by knives and forks than by auto accidents. So, thousands of people diet or go to health clubs. Fasting is not so strenuous and difficult as dieting and exercising, yet it is more rewarding; for it not only slims the body, but it also shapes the soul. Mark’s gospel tells of five conflicts between Jesus and the Scribes and Pharisees. The third clash was over fasting (Mk. 2:18-22). Our Lord did not attack fasting- but only the way the Scribes and Pharisees fasted. You must fast, but never to lord it over others who do not fast (Lk. 18:9-14) You must fast, but not to be seen by men, to show off (Mt. 6:16-18) You fast to atone for past sins. When you do, fasting is called “penance”. You fast to make up for the sins of others. When you do, fasting is called “reparation.” You fast to gain future strength in the struggle against the world, the flesh and the devil. When you do, fasting is called “mortification.” Mortification opens up the heart to God and to others and disposes you to follow the dictates of your reason illumined by faith. So important is fasting that Jesus began His public life with it. It empowered Him to conquer the temptations of the devil. He is the way. There is another kind of fasting we can do. It is this: pick out two days each week for no television. Replace the time with family games, family prayer, family Bible reading, visits to friends and shut-ins, letter writing. One day Our Lady, in asking the seers to prepare for Christmas, said: “I tell you: turn off your television sets, your radios and follow the program set by God of mediation, prayer and reading the Gospel; foster the development of faith” (1984). She promised such a preparation would bring them the merriest merry Christmas! Rev. Albert J.M. Shamon, “Our Lady teaches about Prayer at Medjugorje.” Chapter 9, Teaching Nine! (P. 34-37) It is good to remember that our fasting empowers our prayer! Mother leads us! In Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Cathy Nolan (c) Mary TV 2023

Your prayer invites God to enter your life!   September 29, 2023 Feast of Sts. Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, Archangels Dear Family of Mary! Today, in Chapter 8 – Teaching Eight, Fr. Shamon tells us that our prayer invites God to enter our lives: Fr. Shamon writes: One final point remains on prayer. It is this: Why does Mary need our prayers? Why does she beg for them? On September 13, 1984, she said: “Dear children. I still need your prayers. You will ask yourselves: why so many prayers?” Yes, why? The answer lies in the fact that God has given us a precious gift, something that makes us most like Himself–our free will. The Founding Fathers of our nation (the USA) cherished liberty. The Statue of Liberty graces the harbor to our land. Revolutions have been fought for liberty. But no one respects our liberty more than God Himself and His Mother. God made us free. In the Exodus, He showed that He wanted all mankind to be free. He will never violate that freedom. He even sent an angel to get Mary’s consent to divine motherhood. John pictured Our Lord as standing at the door of our hearts and knocking for entrance (Rv. 3:20). Only we can open it. And we do when we pray. Prayer says in effect to God: “I want you to enter into my life, into our world.” That is why Mary pleads for us to pray. It gives God and her the green light, so to speak, to go ahead and act in our lives and in the world. Mary is so respectful of our freedom that her messages often begin with the words “I invite you.” Like the gospel, her messages are invitations. They ask for an RSVP – a response if you please, but a response freely given. All she can do is invite and wait. Prayer is our response to the invitation. It is our asking God and Mary to step into our lives. On Thursday (4/26/84), Our Lady did not give any message to the parish. The following week (5/3/84), Marija asked Our Lady: “Dear Mother, why did you not give a message for the parish last Thursday?” Here is what Our Lady answered: “I do not wish to force anybody to do anything they do not feel or wish to do, even if I had some special message to give to the parish with which I wanted to revive the faith for all the faithful.” Imagine that! Our Lady implied that even if she had a most helpful message to give, we could prevent her so doing just by our saying ‘No’. What Our Lady can do, or will do, depends on each of us. For instance, Our Lady told the visionaries when they had asked her what she would like them to do with their lives late on: “I would very much like for you to be priests or religious, but that is for you to choose. You are free.” Again she said: “You must make up your own minds. I will help you in your decisions.” Ivanka decided to marry. Our Lady did not object. It was Ivanka’s decision. We are free! In the monthly messages to the world, Our Lady constantly calls us to decide. “Dear children. I invite all of you to decide for paradise” (10/25/87). God will give paradise only to those who freely choose it! “Dear children. I invite each one of you to decide again to surrender everything completely to me. Only in that way will I be able to present each of you to God…I desire each of you for myself, but God has given to all a freedom which I lovingly respect and to which I humbly submit…” (11/25/87) There you have it. “Only in this way will I be able…God has given to all freedom…I respect this…I submit to this.” Can you now see why she pleads so earnestly that we pray? Prayer frees her to act in our lives. This deep respect for our liberty is one of the marks of the authenticity of the apparitions of Medjugorje. Mary invites; she thanks us for our response. But not so Satan. He is the father of all agitation. He is harsh. He seeks to force his will upon us. When Mirjana saw the devil (4/14/82), she said: “You cannot imagine how terrible he was. He almost killed me with his gaze…” At every Mass we are reminded at the Presentation of the Gifts that our salvation is the work of both God and man; for the Church speaks of bread “which earth has given (God’s work) and human hands have made” (man’s work), and of wine as “fruit of the vine (God’s work) and work of human hands” (man’s work). In one of her latest messages to the world (1/25/88) Our Lady once more underscored the power that is ours in our free will. She said: “Dear children, today I am again calling you to complete conversion, which is difficult for those who have not chosen God.” We must choose God; otherwise conversion is difficult. “I am inviting you, dear children, to convert fully to God.” She asks for full conversion. Too often we seek God only in times of sickness or problems; we think He doesn’t listen to us or hear us. And that is not true. We limit God’s power by our lack of faith. So the Mother of God said: “I am praying for you and I want to draw you ever more near to God, but I cannot if you do not want it.” The final decision is ours. Mother Mary says she cannot draw us to God is we do not want it. St. Augustine said: “God who created us without our consent will not save us without our consent.” And that is that: that is why Our Lady begs us to pray. Prayer opens us up to God. Rev. Albert J.M. Shamon, “Our Lady teaches about Prayer at Medjugorje.” Chapter 8, Teaching Eight! (P. 34-37) We are grateful to Fr. Shamon for such simple but powerful words which show us Our Mother’s love and great holiness. We are in good hands with Our Lady!! In Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Cathy Nolan (c) Mary TV 2023

Pray the Rosary!   September 28, 2023 Dear Family of Mary! Today we are encouraged by Fr. Shamon to pray the Rosary! Our Lady told us; June 12, 1986 “Dear children! Today I call you to begin to pray the Rosary with a living faith. That way I will be able to help you. You, dear children, wish to obtain graces, but you are not praying. I am not able to help you because you do not want to get started. Dear children, I am calling you to pray the Rosary and that your Rosary be an obligation which you shall fulfill with joy. That way you shall understand the reason I am with you this long. I desire to teach you to pray. Thank you for having responded to my call.” Fr. Shamon – Chapter 7, Teaching 7 – Pray the Rosary!! Outside of the Mass, the prayer Our Lady asks for above all other prayers is the Rosary! She asked for it at Lourdes, at Fatima, and now at Medjugorje. Only here at Medjugorje, she asked not only for the daily Rosary, but the family Rosary and the complete Rosary: joyful, sorrowful and glorious mysteries. On September 27, 1984, She said: “I beg the families of the parish to pray the family Rosary.” Mary begs! “You must pray in your families…”(2/14/84). You must! It’s imperative! It’s mandatory! “Dear children,” she said again, “let all the prayers you say in your homes in the evening be for the conversion of sinners, because the world is in great sin. Pray the Rosary every evening” (10/8/84). You see, Our Lady again tells us not only to pray the family Rosary, but she specifies the intention: the conversion of sinners. On the eve of the Feast of her Assumption (8/14/84), Our Lady appeared unexpectedly to Ivan in his home. “I ask the people,” she told him, “to pray with me these days. Pray all the more. Fast strictly on Wednesdays and Fridays; pray with me every day at least one Rosary: joyful, sorrowful, and glorious mysteries.” If you pray the complete Rosary, you can say the joyful mysteries sometime in the morning; the sorrowful in the afternoon; and the glorious right after dinner in the evening, before doing dishes, as a family group. The Creed, Our Father and three Hail Mary’s need be said only once–and the conclusion, the Hail holy Queen, only after the glorious mysteries. A man made a promise to say the complete Rosary daily. Then he had qualms of conscience. He felt he had made a promise he could not keep. He went to church and said, “What have I done? I don’t have time to say the complete Rosary.” But he started. A month later, he confessed, “How stupid I was to think I did not have time for the complete Rosary. I have discovered that I could say five Rosaries every day.” When you make up your mind, God will give you time! Why does Our Lady stress the Rosary so much? There are many reasons. One reason is that the Rosary is one of the most powerful weapons there is against Satan and evil in the world. This is true, because Our Lady always prays the Rosary with us. Here is what Our Lady revealed to Fr. Stefano Gobbi.”…it is a prayer you say together with me. When you invite me to pray for you, I accede to your request and mingle my voice with yours. I unite my prayers to yours.” Fifty times at least, when you pray the Rosary, you say: “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now…” In a day of recollection that Father Gobbi was giving to us priests, he got us all laughing when he said, in reference to this petition in the Hail Mary, that Our Lady said to him: “Do you think I’m deaf? You ask me, your mother, to pray for you now… Don’t you think I do?” She eagerly solicits us to use her as our intercessor, our prayer companion. The Rosary, then, is most powerful, because it is Mary’s prayer, too. Though a creature, she is omnipotent, because her Son is omnipotent and He will refuse her nothing. Thus she can say: “With this prayer, made by you together with me, you are able to influence all human events and even future events…” Isn’t that remarkable? But the Rosary imparts great benefits even to you yourself when you pray it. The thoughts that enfold you are the thoughts that mold you. You cannot think on the mysteries of Our Lord’s life each day and not be changed. As you think, so shall you act. The Rosary is not just saying one hundred and fifty Hail Mary’s. The Rosary means looking at the events of Our Lord’s life through the eyes of Mary. It means discovering how these events can prod you to live them in your own life. Just thinking about the Visitation, for instance could move you to visit a sick friend waiting for you, wanting your visit, your words of comfort, your smile. When God’s word prods you to act, then your conversion is taking place. To meditate well on the Rosary mysteries, we must read the Bible each day. On October 18, 1984, Our Lady said: “Today I ask you, dear children, to read the Bible. Put it in a prominent place in your home so that it may be a stimulus to you to read and to pray.” What a great idea: enthrone the Bible in the home! Also, October 18 is the Feast of St. Luke. He and St. Matthew wrote the infancy Narratives of Our Lord’s life which comprise the joyful mysteries. Chapters one and two of both evangelists should be read prayerfully and often. Then the joyful mysteries of the Rosary will become alive to you and fill you with joy! Perhaps one of the greatest helps the Rosary can give you is to convince you of the importance of ordinariness. When Ivanka told the people of Medjugorje her mother, Jagoda, was in Heaven, the women of the village who had known her mother said: “Thank God, there is hope for us. You don’t have to be a saint to get to Heaven.” That in fact is what the mysteries of the Rosary mean. They are called “mysteries,” because they tell of great sanctity being achieved by people just doing their ordinary, everyday duties, and the salvation of the world being effected by One so ordinary that His own did not receive Him. “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son?” His townsmen asked, “Isn’t Mary…His mother?” Just ordinary, everyday people! In an interview with Mirjana (January 10, 1983) A priest asked her; “What must one do to enter Heaven?” Mirjana answered: “God is not looking for great believers but simply for those who respect their faith and live peacefully, without malice, meanness, falsehood.” Mirjana said she came to that conclusion after talking to the Madonna–“No one has to perform miracles or do great penances; merely live a simple, peaceful life.” (Cp. Eph 4:29-32) That is what the mysteries of the Rosary tell us: each ordinary person is wonderful in the eyes of God and the little ordinary things we do are extraordinary, for they can win the salvation of the world and the conversion of sinners — ordinary things like saying the Rosary each day, the complete Rosary! Would you believe it? That’s a mystery indeed! From: Rev. Albert J.M. Shamon; “Our Lady teaches about prayer at Medjugorje”. p. 29-33 “Dear children! Today I call you to begin to pray the Rosary with a living faith….” In Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Cathy Nolan (c) Mary TV 2023  

  You must pray for God’s plans to come about!   September 27, 2023 Dear Family of Mary! Here is the message from Our Lady, Queen of Peace of Medjugorje, for September 25, 2023: “Dear Children! I am calling you to strong prayer. Modernism wants to enter into your thoughts and steal from you the joy of prayer and of meeting with Jesus. That is why, my dear little children, renew prayer in your families, so that my motherly heart may be joyful as in the first days, when I had chosen you, and day and night prayer resounded – and Heaven was not silent but abundantly bestowed peace and blessing on this place of grace. Thank you for having responded to my call.” (September 25, 2023) Our Lady’s call this month is for “strong prayer”! Strong prayer!!! What is strong prayer? Well, I think that Fr. Shamon got is right in his book on prayer. The next little chapter is on “You must pray for God’s plans to come about!” Strong prayer is prayer prayed for God’s intentions, His plans, His program of grace. It is prayer that sets aside our own needs in order to join in the battle for souls that the Lord is leading! He needs us to be firmly committed to His program! Here is what Fr. Shamon wrote: Chapter 6 – Teaching 6: You must pray for God’s plans to come about! If your prayer is from your heart, you’ll not only experience God in you, but you’ll begin to think like God and want like God. One mistake we can make is to pray only for our own needs. Jesus never taught us to pray that way. Some people have even reduced the Madonna of Medjugorje to a personal piety. They go there only to see what they can get from it. They are thinking only of themselves and not of anyone else. Whenever we let our own plans and projects crowd out God’s, then atheism sets in. At Medjugorje Our Lady told us to widen our horizons in prayer. She said: “Dear children…continue to pray so that all my plans may be carried out…” (9/27/84) Her plans! Again, on January 25, 1987, she said to the visionaries “I want you to understand that God has chosen each one of you in order to use you for the great plan of salvation of mankind…” God’s plan is for the salvation of all mankind, not just you and me. The same was true of Fatima. There, Our Lady asked prayers and sacrifices for the conversion of Russia and to save sous from hell. God’s plans, her plans–these should be the object of our prayers. At the Annunciation and in the Agony in the Garden, both Mary and Jesus prayed that the will of God be done in them. We must pray for what God wants. And He wants the salvation of the world and the conversion of poor sinners. That was why Our Lady spent weeks teaching the prayer group at Medjugorje how to pray the Our Father. The Our Father is really the blueprint of what we ought to pray for in prayer. Jesus taught us to pray big: to pray first for God’s glory, for His kingdom to come to earth, for His will to be done as in Heaven. Between His cosmic plans and our spiritual needs, He sandwiched in only one petition for temporalities; and then it was a prayer for everybody: “Give US this day our daily bread.” Our spiritual needs followed. He taught us to be forgiving. To pray that no one of us fall into temptation–the temptation of an affluent society; namely, of thinking that we do not need prayer, that we can go it on our own. Finally, to pray for deliverance from our common enemy: the evil on, the devil; he does exist. Jesus wanted us to pray for everybody, to share His concern for the whole wide world. That is why the priest, another Christ, assumes the obligation of praying the Liturgy of the Hours each day. He not only sanctifies time, but he is praying for the whole Church. What a misuse of prayer to use it only for ourselves. We can get some idea of how wrapped up we could be with praying just for ourselves if we were to say: I don’t need the message of Medjugorje. I don’t need to pray the rosary daily or to go to confession monthly or to fast. I’m o.k. as I am.” And that’s the trouble; we’re not o.k. if all we think about is ourselves. Our Lady pleads with us to widen our vision in prayer, to try and put on the mind of Jesus in prayer. At Fatima she asked us to pray for the world. I think most of us missed the point. Here again at Medjugorje she asks us to widen our vision and pray for the salvation of the world, for she knows that the salvation we seek for others will be given to us. “Dear children,” she asked, “please pray, as Satan wants to impede my plans again…” (8/9/84). “My plans!” You see, she asks that we pray not just for ourselves but for her plans. From: Rev. Albert J.M. Shamon; “Our Lady teaches about prayer at Medjugorje”. p. 26-28 Strong prayer is heart-felt prayer for what God and Mother Mary are doing in the world today. It is putting the plans of Our Lady before our own plans, wholeheartedly!! Our Lady, in the message above, asked us to pray against Modernism!! This is a worldwide catastrophe! The enemy is destroying the faith in every country through the lies of modernism. She needs our strong prayer, our determined prayer, our selfless prayer, for all those duped by modernism in the world and in the Church. Our prayers can make a difference!!We can do it, if we love enough! Strong prayer!!! In Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Cathy Nolan (c) Mary TV 2023  

The September 25, 2023 Message from Our Lady, Queen of Peace of Medjugorje   September 25, 2023 Dear Family of Mary! Here is the message from Our Lady, Queen of Peace of Medjugorje, given today through the visionary, Marija: “Dear Children! I am calling you to strong prayer. Modernism wants to enter into your thoughts and steal from you the joy of prayer and of meeting with Jesus. That is why, my dear little children, renew prayer in your families, so that my motherly heart may be joyful as in the first days, when I had chosen you, and day and night prayer resounded – and Heaven was not silent but abundantly bestowed peace and blessing on this place of grace. Thank you for having responded to my call.” (September 25, 2023) In Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Cathy Nolan (c) Mary TV 2023  

You MUST pray with the heart!   September 23, 2023 Feast of Padre Pio Dear Family of Mary! In Chapter 5, Father Shamon tells us “Prayer is a dialogue with God!” Fr. Shamon wrote: Chapter 5: Prayer is a dialogue with God. Perhaps the most constant urging of Our Lady at Medjugorje is for prayer. “Pray, pray, pray,” She repeatedly says to the visionaries. On September 10, 1984, Our Lady said to Jelena: “Dear children, You must understand that you have to pray. Prayer is not a trifle. Prayer is a dialogue with God. You must hear the voice of God in every prayer. It is not possible to live without prayer. Prayer is life.” Mary said: You have to pray– no choice. If you want to be saved, you have to pray — period! That is why to pray or not to pray is not trifling matter. Eternal salvation hinges on it. Mary defined prayer as “a dialogue with God.” How simple, how beautiful! We all know what dialogue is. How human it is. To have a dialogue demands two persons. A dialogue is not a monologue, but a two-way street: one party does not do all the talking. There is give and take. you talk, the other listens. The other talks and you listen. The “other” in prayer is God. He talks to us in our hearts and through Scripture. St. Augustine said: “When you pray, you talk to God; when you read Scripture, God talks to you.” One of the great helps to prayer is the reading of Scripture. Such reading helps one especially in meditating on the mysteries of the rosary. Thus Our Lady asks us to read the Bible at home every day. And she said for us to put the Bible in a prominent place in our homes so that it will remind us to read it (10/18/84). Sometimes you can have a dialogue without saying a word. In The Merchant of Venice, Bassanio went to the merchant, Antonio, to borrow 3000 ducats so that he could woo and wed Portia. Antonio asked: “How do you know Portia loves you?” Bassanio answered: “…sometimes from her eyes I did receive fair speechless messages.” Just as the heavens speak in silence of the glory of God, so in prayer heart can speak to heart. When a simple workman made long visits to the Blessed Sacrament, a priest asked what he said to the Lord. The man replied; “I say nothing. I just look at Him and He looks at me.” Isn’t that the way two people deeply in love relate? Again, on October 20, 1984, Our Lady said to Jelena and her prayer group: “…you must pray more. Prayer is a dialogue with God. Prayer means understanding God. Prayer is necessary, because after it everything will become clear…Prayer is not a trifle. Prayer really is a dialogue with God.” Fr. Albert Shamon. “Our Lady teaches about Prayer at Medjugorje.” Our Lady told us: April 2, 2011 “Dear children; With motherly love I desire to open the heart of each of you and to teach you personal unity with the Father. To accept this, you must comprehend that you are important to God and that He is calling you individually. You must comprehend that your prayer is a conversation of a child with the Father; that love is the way by which you must set out love for God and for your neighbor. That is, my children, the love that has no boundaries. That is the love that emanates from truth and goes to the end. Follow me, my children, so that also others, in recognizing the truth and love in you, may follow you. Thank you.” In Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Cathy Nolan (c) Mary TV 2023  

We must pray with the heart!   September 22, 2023 Dear Family of Mary! In Chapter 4, Father Shamon tells us “You must pray with your heart…” Fr. Shamon wrote: Chapter 4: You must pray with the heart! To pray well, prayer needs a proper setting. Soi many do not progress in prayer, because they never get ready to pray. Athletes limber up before a game. Opera stars vocalize before a performance. Pray-ers need to prepare for prayer. The first prop needed for prayer is a proper atmosphere: silence. How can on dialogue in a noise room or in a tumult? That is why Our Lady suggested we have a prayer corner in our home or a prayer room. When milk stands still, the cream rises to the top; when we are still, we are in the best position possible for the “cream” – to hear God speaking. Silence is simply the stilling of one voice to hear another. You can sit or kneel, which ever suits you better. If your body is at rest and your muscles relaxed, you will have one less distraction in prayer. Your heart, too, has to be at rest to pray. That is why Our Lady urges us to get rid of sins by confession and to dump worries through abandoning ourselves to God. We must be unhampered and unhindered by sins and worries when we pray. We must clear the decks, so to speak, when we engage in the action of prayer. One caution: when you pray, pray slowly, not hastily. Pray like a child secure in its mother’s arms. Once Fr. Vlasic asked Our Lady through Jelena: “Dear Mother, how was Jesus able to pray all night?” Our Lady replied: “He had a great desire for God the Father and the salvation of souls.” That is one key to prayer: desire! Do you want to pray? How strong is your wanting? Do you desire to meet God, to experience Him, as a hungry man desires food or a thirsting man drink? The strength of your desires will determine whether or not you will pray, how often you will pray, and how well you will pray. We might even define prayer as the expression of desire. How can one best learn to pray? There is no best way to learn. Just be yourself! Prayer cannot be learned by techniques, but only by praying. You learn to pray by praying. Isn’t this true of other skills? You learn to type by typing. To play an instrument, by playing it often. To speak a foreign language by speaking it. We learn to pray well by praying and praying often! However, Our Lady did describe a best way to pray. She said: “Pray from your heart!” Again and again she asked for this kind of prayer. “Dear children…I invite you to prayer of the heart and not only by habit…”(5/2/85). “I am calling you again to prayer of the heart…” (5/30//85). Dear children, I invite you again to prayer of the heart…” (1/23/86) “I am calling you, dear children, to pray with your heart” (4/25/87). And so she pleads again and again. What is Our Lady asking for? It is simply that our prayers be heartfelt. That we really mean them. It is the difference between “saying prayers-words, words, words; and “Praying -meaning what we say. The difference between lip-service and worship in spirit and in truth. Once when Jelena recited the rosary with Our Lady, she prayed it “as she was taught it in church.” Our Lady said; “This is not the rosary. You prayed only with your lips. You must concentrate. You must sit down without moving and enter inside.” Our Lady further explained heart-prayer this way. She said in effect, “Don’t just stand before me or beside me. Take me into your hearts.” Consider, for instance, Shakespeare’s great lovers, Romeo and Juliet. Just suppose I were standing right next to Juliet, I would not be so close to her as her Romeo, because, even if he were miles away, he would be closer, for he would be in her heart! So, Mary asks us not just to kneel before a statue, but to have her in our hearts. Unless love for the Madonna prompts us to pray and unless prayer is the expression of that love, then our prayer is but words: it comes not from the heart, but from a sense of duty. Such prayer draws no one closer to God, nor deepens one’s love for Him. Unless prayer reaches the heart, it leaves on untouched. Our Lord warned against this kind of praying: “Unless your holiness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees you shall not enter the kingdom of God.” (Mt. 5:20) A surgeon absorbed in his work sent his wife to a psychiatrist, because she was becoming hyper, tense, nervous. After examining her, the psychiatrist called the surgeon to explain what was wrong with his wife. It was very simple. “You don’t have any time for her,” the psychiatrist said. “She feels rejected, unwanted, frustrated. So I want you to set aside some time for her each week, to be with her. God to dinner and a movie together, or something else like that- but be with her.!” Well the surgeon did just that. He gave his wife more time, went to dinner with her, then to a movie; but still there was no change in her. She did not get better. The psychiatrist called the surgeon again. “You misunderstood me,” he said to the surgeon. “I did not tell you just to take your wife to dinner and a show every week. It isn’t the dinner or the show that she wants; she wants you. What is meant was that you must show your love for her by taking time for her, to be with her. You must enter into her life and let her enter into yours. Show her you really do care for her. Then she will get well.” This time the surgeon got the message. He began loving his wife, taking her into his heart. And when he did, there was not further need for a psychiatrist. Similarly, with prayer. It must be more than a duty or habit for you. It must be an encounter of love. It must come from your heart, be heartfelt- a dialogue between lovers. Fr. Albert Shamon, “Our Lady teaches about prayer at Medjugorje.” p. 19-23! I think this chapter is one of the most challenging for me. It will take some time to reach the point of prayer with the heart. But it is not impossible!! Our Lady told us: July 25, 1997 “Dear children! Today I invite you to respond to my call to prayer. I desire, dear children, that during this time you find a corner for personal prayer. I desire to lead you towards prayer with the heart. Only in this way will you comprehend that your life is empty without prayer. You will discover the meaning of your life when you discover God in prayer. That is why, little children, open the door of your heart and you will comprehend that prayer is joy without which you cannot live. Thank you for having responded to my call.” Amen! Show us the way, dearest Mother! In Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Cathy Nolan (c) Mary TV 2023

We need to pray…   September 21, 2023 Dear Family of Mary! Fr. Shamon tells us that we need to pray! Our Lady does too: January 25, 2019 “Dear children! Today, as a mother, I am calling you to conversion. This time is for you, little children, a time of silence and prayer. Therefore, in the warmth of your heart, may a grain of hope and faith grow and you, little children, will from day to day feel the need to pray more. Your life will become orderly and responsible. You will comprehend, little children, that you are passing here on earth and you will feel the need to be closer to God, and with love you will witness the experience of your encounter with God, which you will share with others. I am with you and am praying for you but I cannot without your ‘yes’. Thank you for having responded to my call.” Our Lady’s message is full of hope! But her hope hinges on our decision to pray! We need to pray, and to pray more and more! It is a need!!! Fr. Shamon wrote: Chapter 3: You need to pray! Because we do not see the value of prayer, we say we have no time for prayer. First, We need to pray, because our salvation depends on it!! St. Alphonsus Ligouri said; “If I had only one sermon to preach, I’d preach it on prayer.” “For,” he said, “if you pray, you will be saved; if you do not pray you will be lost.” Someone put it this way in rhyme: If you pray well, you’ll live well. If you live well, you’ll die well. If you die well, you won’t go to hell. And if you don’t go to hell, then all is well. The plight of the world today and and the victories of Satan in the world can be attributed to the single fact that we are relying too much on our own resources – ourselves, our sciences, our technologies- and not at all on prayer. Yet St. Paul warned us, “Our battle is not against human forces but against the principalities and powers and the evil spirits in regions above. You must put on the armor of God…at every opportunity pray…” (Eph. 6:12-13, 18) In reality, prayer is searching for God. When we do not pray, as our Lady asked, we are fighting without the armor of God. We are defenseless and vulnerable, sitting ducks for Satan. And he, with his angelic powers, is making fools out of us. Believe it or not, he even has Satan worshippers in this supposedly so enlightened nation of ours. Prayer-less, one becomes Godless. Godless, one can turn to demons. This is actually happening here in America [Here Fr. Shamon quotes Mike Warnke who lists thousands of satanic cults and practices in America, which we all know.]…Hence the urgency of Our Lady’s call to prayer. “Prayer has no sword nor saber, no mighty bayonet. Threats not to crush its neighbor ‘neath it’s heel; and yet, when all else fails, prayer prevails.” It is significant that Mike Warnke, a former Satanist high priest, was able to break his ties to Satan, only through prayer – His own prayers and especially those of his devout wife, Sue. Mike advised: “Fight fire with fire. Go directly to the greatest source of supernatural power of all. Pray. Pray for all of us…and also pray for specific people involved in the occult… Pray-Pray-Pray – Jesus is the only effective answer to those who want deliverance from the occult…Don the full gospel armor, pray, and ask others to pray that He will guide you. He will! Secondly, we pray to meet God. Why did the Wise Men follow a star? Was it not to find God? Why does Our Lady appear at Medjugorje? To lead us to Christ! That is why prayer requires time. We pray to meet God, but we must pray long and often in order to become friends with God. Aristotle said: “To become friends, you must eat a bushel of salt together.” At every meal, you eat at most only a pinch of salt. To eat a bushel would require countless meals together. What Aristotle meant, the, was that forming a friendship demands countless encounters together. Likewise, intimacy with God demands continuous prayer. Thirdly, we pray to be changed. St. Thomas wrote; “You pray not to make your needs known to God; but to make known to yourself your need for God. “You pray not to change God’s mind, but to change your mind to Him. “You pray not to move God to do your will, but to be moved to do God’s will” (II-II, q. 83, A. 2) If prayer is not changing you, then you are not praying well. Our Lady asked: “Why are you praying? to be with God, to experience God within. After five minutes for prayer something ought to happen within you, if you do it properly.” Lastly, we pray to open up the hearts of sinners. In our prayers, we should pray for the opening of hearts gripped by sin. On April 18, 1985, Our Lady said: “Dear children,…pray so that the hearts which are under the burden of sin may open up. I so desire it.” Our Lady requested such prayer from Mirjana, perhaps because at the University of Sarajevo she no doubt was having firsthand experience of atheism. Our Lady begged for prayers for unbelievers and atheists, because, as she said to Mirjana, “They are my children too and I suffer much because of them.” She suffers especially for them, for she knows the hell to which their atheism can lead them. Thus Our Lady went on: “If they only knew what would happen to them, if they are not converted. Mirjana, pray for them!” (3/18/85) Our Lady is asking us to have both Jesus’ and her scope of vision in prayer: to pray for everybody, especially sinners. She made the same request at Fatima when she asked us to pray after each decade of the rosary: “O my Jesus, forgive us our sins. Save us from the fires of hell. Draw all souls to heaven, especially those most in need of Your mercy” – namely, poor sinners. (From “Our Lady teaches about Prayer at Medjugorje”, by Rev. Albert J.M. Shamon) We need to pray! Our entire destiny depends upon it! Prayer is the first and most important message Our Lady has given to us. And yet it is the easiest thing to forget. We need to pray!!! In Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Cathy Nolan (c) Mary TV 2023

To pray, you must take time! (Pictured is our dear Franjo Zubac! He was a member of the prayer group Our Lady began and has never stopped living her program of prayer! Pray for us, Franjo!)   September 20, 2023 Dear Family of Mary! Here is the August 25, Message again: Dear children! In this time of grace, I am calling you to prayer with the heart. May your hearts, little children, be raised in prayer towards Heaven, so that your heart may feel the God of love who heals you and loves you with immeasurable love. That is why I am with you, to lead you on the way of conversion of heart. Thank you for having responded to my call. (August 25, 2023) Today we are on Teaching Two in Fr. Albert Shamon’s little booklet on prayer. Fr. Shamon makes the case that prayer requires a commitment of time, lots of time!! We can’t just fire off a rosary and think we are finished with our prayer!! Fr. Shamon wrote: Chapter 2: To pray you must take time Prayer is a meeting with our Lord. If you want to meet with someone, you have to take time for them. You have to sit down, have a cup of coffee or lunch together and talk. The important thing is, you have to take time! Our big sin today is that we have not time for God. Our Lady said: “The sin of the world consists in the fact that people are not interested in God. The cities and villages are full of churches…but people do not go to ask how they must live. The sin of the world today lies in this, that there is not interest in or time for God.” (8/25/82) We have time for everything else; but when you say you have no time for prayer, you are really saying, I have no time for God. Our Lady begs us to take time for prayer. She said: “Pray when you can. Pray how you can, but always pray more and more.” Then she added “Each of you could pray even for four hours a day. But I know many people do not understand this, because they think they can live by there works alone.” Ah, there’s the rub! We still think God is of no use to us. We think what counts most in life is our own efforts, our own endeavors, our works. So again Our Lady warned; “Do not forget: man does not live by work alone but also by prayer. Your work will not go well without prayer.” You can work continuously and come up with nothing. Or you can pray, as you should, and come up with everything. If you don’t believe that, read the prophet Haggai. When Israel neglected God, their works were in vain–“He who earned wages earned them for a bag with holes in it.” (HG. 1:6) So on July 5, 1984, Our Lady again pleaded: “Dear children…Always start our work with prayer and end your work with prayer…These days you have been praying too little and working too much. Pray therefore. In prayer you will find rest.” In the Our Father, Our Lord taught us to pray: “Lead us not into temptation.” The great temptation today is to depend totally on our own resources, to try to go it alone without God. The truth still is “without Me you can do nothing” – absolutely nothing! When two people are in love, time stands still for them. They love to spend time with the beloved. When we do not want to spend time in prayer, what is that saying? It is saying, “We really do not love God.” It is saying, “We are sick spiritually.” If you don’t want to eat, you are physically sick. If you don’t want to pray, you are spiritually sick. If you have to be forced to eat, you are sick-you’ve lost your appetite for food. If you have to be forced to pray, you are sick- you’ve lost your appetite for God. We have basic needs, like eating and sleeping. When you don’t eat, you feel hungry. When you don’t sleep, you feel sleepy. When you don’t pray and you don’t feel anything then God is no longer basic to your life. You’ve lost Him. We try to gloss over this atheism by pleading we are too busy. Yet we have time to eat, time to sleep, time to work, time for television (sometimes three or four hours a day)- but no time for God? That means we are in reality, atheists. We have lost the faith! Our Lady went so far as to tell the visionaries; “You can pray even four hours a day.” When someone said that’s asking a lot, Our Lady answered: “It is only one sixth of a day.” The paradox is, If we give time to God, then God will give us all the time we need for everything else. If we have not time for God, we shall soon discover that we shall be pressed for time to do even the things we must do. Our Lady asked Jelena to form a prayer group (June 24, 1983). “I wish to have prayer groups,” she told her. “Everyone can participate, but i commend it particularly to young people (because they are free from engagements) and especially to those young people who wish to lead a consecrated life.” To Jelena’s prayer group, Our Lady asked for at least three hours of prayer each day – three hours! At least one half hour in the morning and one half hour in the evening. If you praying the morning and in the evening, it prevents your day from unraveling. You’ll find you will finish your work in a shorter time than before and you will have time on your hands-more than you need. Our Lady asked Jelena’s prayer group to devote themselves to the prayer group for four years before choosing any vocation, whether it be to the religious life or to marriage. When Our Lady was asked, “Why this wait-especially if one wanted to go into religious life?” The Mother of God replied: “…the most important thing is to enter into the depth of prayer and then you will be able to make the right choice.” So there you have it. How much time do you spend in prayer? Our Lady is telling us that what is needed is more than quick, off-the-cuff prayers; more than conscience-easing prayers at the beginning and the end of the day. She wants us to become prayerful persons committed to prayer, persons who are dissatisfied with the meager crumbs of prayer that so often are thrown to God. Our Lady is asking us for a major, not a minor, commitment to prayer.! (From “Our Lady teaches about Prayer at Medjugorje”, by Rev. Albert J.M. Shamon) We can see that the pilgrims in Medjugorje find themselves living just such a life of prayer while they are in Medjugorje. Usually they have morning prayer with their group, Mass in the morning in their language group, the rosary prayed while climbing Apparition Hill or Cross Mountain, meditation at the Risen Christ Statue, and the evening program of prayer which is easily three hours long. It sounds impossible to pray that much, but not when we are being guided by Our Lady. Prayer becomes the air we breathe in Medjugorje!! Let’s try to live Medjugorje at home!! In Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Cathy Nolan (c) Mary TV 2023  

Obstacle 2! WORRY   September 19, 2023 Dear Family of Mary! Here is the August 25, Message again: Dear children! In this time of grace, I am calling you to prayer with the heart. May your hearts, little children, be raised in prayer towards Heaven, so that your heart may feel the God of love who heals you and loves you with immeasurable love. That is why I am with you, to lead you on the way of conversion of heart. Thank you for having responded to my call. (August 25, 2023) Today we take on Obstacle 2 to praying with the heart…Worry! Fr. Shamon wrote: Chapter 1, Teaching One: In every apparition at Medjugorje, Our Lady asks for prayer. “Pray, pray, pray.” On April 25, 1987, she begged the children (and that includes each of us) to pray, pray, pray with our hearts. To pray, we must first remove the two obstacles to prayer; sin and worry. (b) WORRY The Second obstacle to prayer is worry! First of all, you cannot be preoccupied with two things at the same time. If a bottle is filled with vinegar, it has to be emptied before you can fill it with honey. It is upsetting when you are talking to someone and that person is not paying attention. Generally, you stop speaking. When as kids, if we were not paying attention in class, the teacher would just stop teaching. Our Lady mentioned this problem in praying. She said: “Your hearts are still taken up by earthly things and they worry you.” Worry is fear of the future- of an impending evil. The future belongs to God. He has a No Trespassing sign there. When you trespass into the future, the penalty or fine for so doing is worry. Someone said: “Sorrow looks back, Worry looks ahead, and Faith looks up!” What Our Lady advised was for us to cast out worry by looking up to God. The biblical section she asks us to meditate upon again and again is Matthew 6:24-34. Your worries, your problems, must not mean more to you than God Himself. If you are full of worries, you are closed to God. Put God first, and the problems will become manageable. It is as simple as that. Our Lord Himself said; “Come to me all you who are weary and find life burdensome and I will refresh you” (Mt. 11:28) In His last talk to His own, Jesus said, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Have faith in God and faith in me” (Jn. 14:1). St. Peter echoed the same thought; “Cast all your cares on Him because He cares for you” (1 Ptr. 5:7) Some unknown poet explained why you can in “The Weaver.” My life is but a weaving Between my Lord and me; I cannot choose the colors, He worketh steadily. Oft-times He weaveth sorrow, And I, in foolish pride, Forget He sees the upper, And I the under side. Not till the loom is silent And the shuttles cease to fly, Shall God unroll the canvas And explain the reason why. The dark threads are as needful, In the Weaver’s skillful hand, As the threads of gold and silver In the pattern He has planned. He knows, He loves, He cares- Nothing this truth can dim; He gives the very best to those, Who leave the choice with Him. Therefore, Our Lady asks that we abandon ourselves totally to her. “Dear children, surrender yourselves to me so that I can lead you completely” (7/17/86). “Dear children…my Son is happy for your abandonment” (5/17/84). “Dear children…I am always with you, so do not be afraid of the trials, as God always watches over you…” (7/19/84). “Dear children. Pray with your hearts and abandon yourselves in prayer to Jesus…” (8/9/84). (From “Our Lady teaches about Prayer at Medjugorje”, by Rev. Albert J.M. Shamon) In Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Cathy Nolan (c) Mary TV 2023