Choose Life!
February 18, 2021
Thursday after Ash Wednesday
Dear Family of Mary!
The readings at Mass during Lent are so powerful. Here is the first reading for today:
A reading from the Book of Deuteronomy:
Moses said to the people: “Today I have set before you life and prosperity, death and doom. If you obey the commandments of the Lord, your God, which I enjoin on you today, loving him, and walking in his ways, and keeping his commandments, statutes, and decrees, you will live and grow numerous, and the Lord, your God, will bless you in the land you are entering to occupy. If, however, you turn away your hearts and will not listen, but are led astray and adore and serve other gods, I tell you now that you will certainly perish; you will not have a long life on the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and occupy. I call heaven and earth today to witness against you: I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live, by loving the Lord, your God, heeding his voice, and holding fast to him. For that will mean life for you, a long life for you to live on the land that the Lord swore he would give to your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” (Deuteronomy 30:15:20)
“Choose life, then…” The Lord spoke to His people through Moses! Choose life!! God cannot choose life for us. He gives us life at conception, but from then on, we have to yearn for life, choose life, by choosing His way. The Creator alone knows the way to real life, eternal life. And it is our joy and blessing to listen to Him and follow that way.
Our Lady said to us:
“Dear children! Particularly at this holy time of penance and prayer, I call you to make a choice. God gave you free will to choose life or death. Listen to my messages with the heart that you may become cognizant of what you are to do and how you will find the way to life. My children, without God you can do nothing; do not forget this even for a single moment. For, what are you and what will you be on earth, when you will return to it again. Do not anger God but follow me to life. Thank you for being here.” (March 18, 2003)
It couldn’t be plainer. Our Lady wants us to choose life and has been sent to help us to do it. Her messages make a pathway for us into the Father’s embrace. “Listen to my messages with the heart that you may become cognizant of what you are to do and how you will find the way to life.”
May we choose life and not death of the soul today and every day after.
St. Joseph, help us to follow Our Lady on the path towards life!
Prayer to St. Joseph (adapted from St. Bernardine of Siena)
Oh my beloved St. Joseph, adopt me as thy child. Take charge of my salvation; watch over me day and night; preserve me from the occasions of sin; obtain for me purity of body. Through thy intercession with Jesus, grant me a spirit of sacrifice, humility, self-denial, burning love for Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, and a sweet and tender love for Mary, my mother.
O Blessed St. Joseph, pray for me, that I may serve the Blessed Virgin Mary in her battle against the devil in these last days, always living her messages and answering her call from Medjugorje, so that the Immaculate Heart of Mary will Triumph in this world.
Finally, St. Joseph, be with me living, be with me dying, and obtain for me a favorable judgement from Jesus, my merciful Savior. Amen.
Dear St. Joseph, help me respond to this message from Our Lady:
“Dear children! Today in a special way I invite you all to prayer and renunciation. For now as never before Satan wants to show the world his shameful face by which he wants to seduce as many people as possible onto the way of death and sin. Therefore, dear children, help my Immaculate Heart to triumph in the sinful world. I beseech all of you to offer prayers and sacrifices for my intentions so I can present them to God for what is most necessary. Forget your desires, dear children, and pray for what God desires, and not for what you desire. Thank you for having responded to my call.” (September 25, 1991)
In Jesus, Mary and Joseph!
Cathy Nolan
©Mary TV 2021
