Dear Family of Mary!




Stormy weather over Krizevac
(c)Bernard Gallagher, used with permission

 
March 13, 2012

Dear Family of Mary!

"Dear children! Through the immeasurable love of God I am coming among you and I am persistently calling you into the arms of my Son. With a motherly heart I am imploring you, my children, but I am also repeatedly warning you, that concern for those who have not come to know my Son be in the first place for you. Do not permit that by looking at you and your life, they are not overcome by a desire to come to know Him. Pray to the Holy Spirit for my Son to be impressed within you. Pray that you can be apostles of the divine light in this time of darkness and hopelessness. This is a time of your trial. With a rosary in hand and love in the heart set out with me. I am leading you towards Easter in my Son. Pray for those whom my Son has chosen that they can always live through Him and in Him - the High Priest. Thank you." (March 2, 2012)

Now we arrive at possibly the most troubling part of the message:

"This is a time of your trial. With a rosary in hand and love in the heart set out with me. I am leading you towards Easter in my Son."

Any time the word "trial" is mentioned it tends to make us nervous. Yet this can't be news to us. The situation in the world has become more and more tense, more and more divisive. We all feel it. Like the buildup of towering clouds and the heaviness of the atmosphere, we can feel a storm coming. Our Lady could be referring to Lent, and the struggle we have to purify our lives. But it seems like she is thinking in broader terms as well. This is a time of trial, a trial of our resolve, of our commitment to Jesus, of our willingness to follow Him, no matter what.

But how do we respond to this trial? My dear friend, Mary, shared with me a dream she had recently which I think speaks directly to this question. Here is her description of the dream:

Dear Cathy,

Sorry it's taken me a few days to get back to you regarding the dream I had a few weeks ago. Like I said on the phone, I don't want to exaggerate its importance, but it did and has struck me in a profound way. I just now read the message from March 2 and it seems to be exactly what my dream was about.

So, a few weeks ago, I had a very vivid dream where I was looking at the sky and there were these terribly ugly cloud storms gathering. They were an ugly black and yellow. And people were saying, "Look at those clouds!" Then the clouds turned into the form of a dragon and it went swooping over the land and the people. There was a lot of chaos and people were screaming. I took the hand of a young girl next to me and I knew she was an unbeliever and unprepared for the evil. A voice said to me, "Don't look at the evil. Just pray." And I began to say the Hail Mary. I wasn't panicked, I prayed with much trust and I knew I was helping the girl next to me whose hand I was holding. Then I woke up.

This dream has really helped me in the last few weeks to just keep praying, amidst all the evil going on around us, to just keep praying. Anyway, I hope maybe this can help some people.

God bless,
Mary

Mary told me that this dream was so vivid that it imprinted on her memory as if it had really happened. I find it very compelling. Indeed, it sounds very much like the advice Our Lady gave us: "With a rosary in hand and love in the heart set out with me." Instead of looking at the evil (which will only paralyze us with fear), we can grasp Our Lady's hand (through the Rosary) and let our love for her and our trust in Jesus lead us through the storm to God's peace. This is how we can help our brothers and sisters who do not yet know the love of Jesus. We can grab them by the hand as well, and help them through the storm, strengthened by our prayer and our love and trust in Jesus and Mary!

We may not see the way we are going when the storm is at its height. The sky may be black, the wind howling, the rain lashing at our faces, but we will have the Rosary in hand to bind us tight to Our Mother's side. We will find ourselves sooner or later at the sunrise, in the golden glow of the Resurrection. And if we persevere, we may find lots of other folks there with us, bewildered and happy to have found life as well.

It is hopeful, isn't it! Mary is not going to leave us alone in this trial. She has given us the Rosary as our life line, and she has awakened love in our hearts which is our strength. And best of all, she is with us!

In Jesus, Mary and Joseph!
Cathy Nolan
©Mary TV 2012

P.S. I am only sharing Mary's dream because I think it illustrates a spiritual principle. I am not saying that her dream is in any way a private revelation. It just demonstrates the importance of prayer and love in any confrontation with evil or danger. As Christians our way is through love of God and neighbor and prayer which provides trust and communication with God. Just wanted to clarify!