(c)Mateo Ivankovic 2018
April 12, 2018
Dear Family of Mary!
“Dear children! Through the great love of the Heavenly Father I am beside you as your mother and you are beside me as my children, as apostles of my love whom I ceaselessly gather around me…” (April 2, 2018)
Our Lady has mentioned many times before that it is the Heavenly Father who has sent her to be with us. It is His desire that we take Mary as our Mother in these days. He sends her to us! He wants us to take great comfort in her presence and to stay beside her. He knows that we are living in a very difficult time, a time of great stress in the world. And so, he allows our Mother to remain among us for this long a time!
“My children, you are those who, along with prayer, need to completely surrender to my Son so that you may no longer live but my Son may live in you – so that all those who do not know my Son may see Him in you and come to desire to know Him…” (April 2, 2018)
Mother Mary speaks very clearly to us, as we stay beside her. She tells us straight out that we must completely surrender to Jesus. No more halfhearted surrendering. No more holding on to a little bit of our own way, our own desire, our own projects. There is no more time for that. We cannot be divided in our hearts any more.
We must see ourselves like St. Paul saw himself after his conversion. He encountered Jesus, was struck blind, then healed, baptized and given a mission. His mission was to tell the whole world about Jesus. And he did it! Imagine if St. Paul had responded to this great call by saying, “Ok, Jesus, I will spread the word, but I still need to do part time work at the Sanhedrin. They won’t be able to function without me…” Ha, ha!! St. Paul instead, dropped every cause, every function, every desire he ever had. He dropped them all. And he became a great Apostle, taking Jesus everywhere, even to Rome. He described his change this way:
“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Gal 2:20)
St. Paul said that he died with Christ, that he was crucified with Jesus. How? His old life was over and was buried with Jesus, completely gone. The life he was living after that was Jesus’ life. It was a life completely surrendered to Jesus, so that St. Paul could only do what Jesus was doing in Him. He was surrendered to Jesus so completely that all those who did not know Jesus would see Jesus in St. Paul and come to desire to know Him. St. Paul lived the will of God, not his own will. He was dead to his own will, but alive to Jesus’ will. He was alive only to the extent he was doing God’s will.
This surrender can sound very harsh and unappealing. But wait, isn’t the life of Jesus heaven? Isn’t the life of Jesus full of light and peace? Isn’t the life of Jesus joy, and love, and hope? To have Jesus live within us is to have heaven within us. God’s will is heaven! So even if we are suffering on this earth, the inner life we will have will be worth it all. To surrender to Jesus is to surrender to life!
So, maybe we can actually do what Our Lady is asking of us. Maybe we can actually say, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
Surrender!!
In Jesus, Mary and Joseph!
Cathy Nolan
©Mary TV 2018
