Daily Reflections
by Cathy

January 25, 2022 Reflection – Stone #4 – Confession

 

 

Confession

January 25, 2022
The Conversion of St. Paul the Apostle

Dear Family of Mary!

Confession is one of the most important gifts given in Medjugorje. Our Lady invites us to her village, and she guides us through many experiences of prayer. But one of the most important moments for each individual is the Sacrament of Confession, received around the Church before Evening Mass. Confession in Medjugorje is like no other confession. It is only because Our Lady is there, giving us such peace and security that we can face the most difficult sins of our past. We can offer them to Jesus through the priest, and truly be freed and healed. It is incredible!

I want to share an entry from the book, “Give Me Your Wounded Heart” by Fr. Slavko Barbaric. This book is about Confession. And this small entry may help us all to turn again to Confession with renewed faith and desire. Confession is a miracle:

Your are called to Confession

On March 25, 1985, the Feast of the Annunciation, Our Lady gave this message through Marija Pavlovic:

Dear Children! Today I wish to call you all to confession, even if you have confessed a few days ago. I wish that you all experience my feast day within yourselves. But you cannot experience it unless you abandon yourselves completely to God. Therefore, I am inviting you all to reconciliation with God!

This is one of the most striking messages in which Our Lady invites us to confession. Viewed in relation to the Feast of the Annunciation, one more thing about confession is clear.

Mary is the New Eve. She said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done unto me according to Thy word” (Luke 1:38).

With these words of Mary, the handmaid of the Lord, a new world began.

The first woman, Eve, did not fulfill God’s plan in her life. She sinned and through sin man rejected God and His plans. Through sin, man preferred his own will, and rejected God’s will. Mary brought healing to a world which was hurt by the disobedience of our first parents. It was possible because Christ, the new Adam, accepted the will of the Father and entered the world to save the world. He entered the world through Mary, the one who was the humble and obedient handmaid of the Lord.

Therefore, the deepest meaning of the Feast of the Annunciation stems not just from the fact that Christ, the Word Divine, became man for us by His Incarnation in the womb of the Virgin Mary, but even more, that through Mary’s surrender to God’s will a new history of salvation began.

From this great mystery and the reality of the Incarnation, which was dependent upon Mary’s acceptance of the will of God, we discover the deep meaning of confession. Certainly it is no accident that Mary called us all to confession on her feast. This helps us to understand the question: What is confession?

Confession is the total and conscious acceptance of God’s will and the renunciation of the world which enslaves and destroys us. It is the acceptance of God’s salvation and light, peace, and love, and the renunciation of the world of darkness, hatred, and unrest.

Mary said, “You cannot experience a true celebration of this feast if you do not confess your sins.” It means that you cannot begin a new life if you are not prepared to tell God, “Here I am, Lord, ready to do your will.” It is God’s will for us to seek forgiveness for all those areas where we oppose Him and prefer our will to His, and where we are really closer to the old Eve than we are to Mary, the new eve. Therefore, confession is the moment when we return to a life without sin and begin to build a new world. It is the moment when we allow God to enter our lives again, when we put Him first in our lives once more. It is also the moment when the old man in us is renewed by the power of Christ’s Incarnation.

The more sincere we are in our confessions, and the more regularly we receive the sacrament, the closer we will come to celebrating the true spirit of the Annunciation which Mary, the Mother of all the living and the new Eve, refers to in her message. That celebration is a celebration of life, peace, joy, love, and true community between God and man, and men among themselves.

The closer we come to living what Mary is really leading us to in this message, the more we will renounce the destructive power of sin. We will become stronger when temptations arise, and we will have less fear and anxiety.

In this way we will enter into the glory of being children of God. This is why it is no accident that many pilgrims and priests in Medjugorje confirm that through the sacrament of Confession they have discovered the beauty and significance of the call to conversion, of returning to friendship between God and man.

Now the meaning of the ministry of reconciliation which has been given to priests becomes clearer in the eyes of both priests and believers. Surely, there is no ministry from one person to another more beautiful than the ministry of reconciliation. (Father Slavko Barbaric. Give Me Your Wounded Heart. Medjugorje: Informativni Centar Mir, 1996. P. 62-64)

Truly, Confession is the Sacrament of transformation! Our Lady provides so many graces for this transformation in Medjugorje! And by extension, all around the world!!

In Jesus, Mary and Joseph!
Cathy Nolan
(c)Mary TV 2022

P.S. I will send out the message for January 25, as soon as possible!

Mission Statement

Mary TV is a lay apostolate founded to put at the Gospa’s service (Our Lady’s service) modern communication technologies to bring her presence in Medjugorje – and her school in Medjugorje – to the world.

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“Medjugorje is the spiritual center of the world!”

Pope St. John Paul II – February 24, 1990

“Dear children, my real, living presence among you should make you happy because this is the great love of my Son. He is sending me among you so that, with a motherly love, I may grant you safety!”

Our Lady of Medjugorje – July 2, 2016

“Rejoice, little children, because God is merciful and loves you all with His immeasurable love and leads you to the way of salvation through my coming here!”

Our Lady of Medjugorje – June 25, 2018

“My Son promised me that evil will never win, because you, the souls of the just, are here!”

Our Lady of Medjugorje – November 2, 2014

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Our Lady Speaks

Vicka's Note MaryTV

Vicka, one of the visionaries in Medjugorje, wrote the note (above) after Our Lady spoke with her during an apparition in Medjugorje in April, 1999, about Mary TV’s  plan to build a television facility in Medjugorje.

Vicka wrote to Denis: “Our Lady says that the plan is good – but you need to wait a little.  Now you can get prepared little by little, until Our Lady tells when the right moment is.  You don’t need to hurry, make haste, but to be patient.”

When Our Lady said this to Vicka, the technical genius in Medjugorje that she had her eyes upon, who would begin Mary TV’s live streaming from Medjugorje, was seven years old.

Totus Tuus (Totally Yours)

Immaculate Conception, Mary my Mother, Live in me, Act in me, Speak in me and through me, Think your thoughts in my mind, Love through my heart, Give me your dispositions and feelings, Teach, lead me and guide me to Jesus, Correct, enlighten and expand my thoughts and behavior, Possess my soul, Take over my entire personality and life, replace it with Yourself, Incline me to constant adoration, Pray in me and through me, Let me live in you and keep me in this union always.

Our Lady gave this prayer 25 years before She started appearing in Medjugorje. This prayer is being answered through Our Lady’s presence in Medjugorje and through Her messages. Mother Immaculata writes: “This is Mary’s hour and She is about to crush Satan’s head. Her very being is like incandescent heat in the center of the Trinity and the manifestation of Her power is growing daily. The Immaculate Conception prayer (which is what Our Lady called the prayer she gave me for union with Her) has been used by exorcists who have told me that the devil reacts violently to it and is subdued by it. We are praying daily for the success of Mary TV!“

Our Lady Gives A Sign…

Mary_with_Sun

MARY TV was LIVE STREAMING Ivan’s May 24, 2013 apparition on Mt. Podbrdo (Apparition Hill) in Medjugorje. My wife, Cathy, was praying in front of her computer in the US, connected through the Internet, welcoming Our Lady along with everyone gathered on the mountain. She couldn’t see anything on her computer screen because it was late at night and Ivan had said, “No lights.” She found herself asking Our Lady for a sign – a little light – as a sign that MARY TV was on the right track and really serving her. Just after the apparition, when she went to give an account on Mary TV’s Facebook page, the page opened with this picture that she had never seen before, captioned: “MARY APPEARS OVER BUILDING IN MEDJUGORJE, PHOTO TAKEN BY PILGRIM.” Our Lady is standing directly over MARY TV’s studios, her feet right where we have two POV cameras STREAMING 24/7 LIVE TO THE WORLD Apparition Hill & Cross Mountain!

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Our Lady spoke to Vicka during an apparition in Medjugorje in April, 1999, about the importance of Mary TV’s mission. At that time she told Vicka that she herself (Our Lady) would begin Mary TV! She did! But she didn’t do it alone. The generosity of her children made Mary TV a reality for her. Your generosity is needed now for it to continue!