(c)Mary TV 2013
J.M.J.
October 15, 2013
Saint Teresa of Jesus
Dear Family of Mary!
"Dear children! I
call you to peace. Live it in your heart and all around you, so that all will
know peace, peace that does not come from you but from God. Little children,
today is a great day. Rejoice with me. Glorify the Nativity of Jesus through the
peace that I give you. It is for this peace that I have come as your Mother,
Queen of Peace. Today I give you my special blessing. Bring it to all creation,
so that all creation will know peace. Thank you for having responded to my
call." December 25, 1988
Yesterday, as I was waking up, I
was aware that my thoughts were dark, full of temptations. I must have been
wrestling with darkness in my dreams. And I felt unpeaceful as I awoke.
Through prayer I was able to
overcome these thoughts, and at Mass I gave the temptation to fear to the Lord
and it went away. But I was made aware that peace in my heart is not to be taken
for granted. Peace is a great gift that we have been given by Our Lady, as we
live her messages, and it is sorely missed when we lose it.
I believe that peace is the great
message of Medjugorje. In almost every testimony that we have been given for
"Fruit of Medjugorje" episodes, we are told that peace is one of the first
things the person notices upon arriving in Medjugorje. Peace gently wraps the
pilgrim up in its warm and comforting embrace. It is noticed at some point by
each pilgrim. If you watch "Tea with Rosie" for this week, Bishop Bob Gruss says
it too, "I feel that peace that Mary brings, by being here. Hopefully it will
deepen the peace I feel in my own heart. I think in some ways I will be a
different person, a new person when I go back to America, to share the message
of the Gospa. I have just been filled with joy in the experience I have had
here!" (Tea with Rosie, Episode 58 - October 14, 2013)
Peace! It is the missing
ingredient in most of our lives. We live in anxiety and fear most of our lives.
We don't even notice it, but the turmoil and unrest engulf us. Our Lady has come
to fight those things in our lives, and to give us hearts full of peace.
Yesterday during the Daily
Rosary, I asked for thoughts about peace from our prayer group. I have been
wondering what peace really is. I got a great response from Reuben. He
wrote:
Hi Cathy,
I am just
responding to your request we all think and pray about what peace means.
This morning,
I too was given a lot of potentially discouraging thoughts, and in the midst of
seeking consolation, I turned to the book of Job. It seems what first restores
Job's fortunes on earth is his sense of peace, and what brings him that peace is
his choosing to stay in the fellowship of God exactly when it least makes any
apparent and rational sense to do so. It's not wrong of him to rail and beg
questions and be tempted even to despair, nor to use his reason to try and
understand why suffering persists in his life, but once he accepts that not all
suffering can be so easily or immediately understood, the suffering is eased by
a peace which surpasses understanding. It really helped me to embrace the cross
of my continued struggles. It's easy for me to build up expectations of
receiving a peace which takes away suffering rather than turning it to good
advantage, especially when something so huge as a world consecration to Mary has
just taken place. It's like I become excitable, and subconsciously come to
expect some big firework display of God's grace, and not the much more important
morning star rising gently in my heart. I forget Mary's humility and
maternity!
So I guess I'm
thinking I stay in God's presence most effectively when I stay in Mary's
presence, and I do that best when I stay more humble, and therefore more
childlike. Crosses help me stay that way sometimes, so suddenly, I realize what
I need to realize over and over again: that my suffering is sometimes given me
in love, and I am truly peaceful if truly present in humble prayer with my
mother. The fullness of a joy which embraces its difficulties is surely what
Christ gives us every day that we ask for it, and it seems to be the very
gravity behind crushing the serpent's head.
How blessed I
am to believe. I don't know what thoughts others are having, but these are
mine.
Ave!
Well said, Reuben. In fact, peace
comes when we are in Mary's presence. She connects us to God most effectively,
and of course God is our peace. When Job finally had said his piece and he
experienced God, he regained his peace because he regained the presence of God.
When we are troubled, we regain our peace when we again are in Mary's presence
because she brings us to the Lord. Peace is God. Peace is not the absence of
suffering, but the presence of God!
"Dear children! I call
you to peace. Live it in your heart and all around you, so that all will know
peace, peace that does not come from you but from God..."
Peace comes from God
because peace is in God. He is peace. He is everything. In Him there is no lack,
no fear, no loss. God is all for us! He is our peace.
God bless us
all,
Cathy Nolan
©Mary TV
2013
"Medjugorje is the spiritual center of the world!"
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