(c)Mary TV 2013
J.M.J.
November 5, 2013
Dear Family of Mary!
"Dear children! From day
to day I wish to clothe you in holiness, goodness, obedience and God's love, so
that from day to day you become more beautiful and more prepared for your
Master. Dear children, listen to and live my messages. I wish to guide you.
Thank you for having responded to my call." (October 24,
1985)
Yesterday we heard from Fr.
Ruairi O'Domhnaill about the importance of Our Lady's messages. He called her
our "Anam Cara", the Friend of our soul, because she gives us spiritual
direction through her messages.
Today, we will hear from
another priest, Fr. Benny McHale, also from Ireland. He gave a very brilliant
talk about Our Lady's messages and their purpose. I will share the first half of
his homily today, and the second half tomorrow:
I have noticed
that most of our readings are warnings, warnings about using our time well,
waiting for the second coming. I often think of the story of the priest in the
States who was in the classroom with a bunch of young people, and he said to
them, "Nobody knows when they are going to die." And one little boy put up his
hand and he said, "Excuse me, Father, your wrong. My uncle knew." And the priest
said, "No he couldn't. No that's impossible." And the little boy said, "Yes he
knew the year, the month, the week, the day. He even knew the time of day he was
going to die." And the priest said, "That's impossible. How could he know that?"
And the little boy said, "The judge told him."
But apart from
that kind of pre-knowledge, all we can manage to do, as we've heard all week, is
to use our time well. I often wonder why Our Lady came here to Medjugorje. She
came to renew the Church. That's what she is all about. Medjugorje is about the
renewal of the Church. And how is she going to do that? By giving us the
messages that we can take home to our own parishes, and renew the parish there.
That's why she brought you here. Coming here is a great privilege. It also
carries a great responsibility. Because there is a battle going on between two
kingdoms, between the Kingdom of evil and the Kingdom of right, the Kingdom of
God and the Kingdom of Satan. And we've got to decide whose side we are on in
that great struggle. It has been there since the beginning of time, of eternity,
with Adam and Eve who opened the gates to evil, and it has spread to us. That
battle is still going on. And as somebody said, "All that is needed for the
triumph of evil is that good people do nothing."
I'm going to
challenge you this morning, you good people who have been brought here (Nobody
decides to come here, everybody is brought.) to realize that Our Lady has
brought you here to renew you so that you can go back and renew your church. The
one thing we need to do that is to be holy. "Be holy, for I, the Lord your God,
am Holy." Because holiness, like the mosquitos that attacked our group the other
night, always finds attractiveness. Did you ever meet a holy person? You just
know it. They've got some character, some quality that draws you to them. And
our Church is called to be holy, but that can't happen unless each of the
members accepts that challenge.
So the Lord
has brought you here to make you holy. And twice in that first reading St. Paul
used that lovely word, "for our sanctification." We've been freed from sin, and
now the second part of our journey is to become holy.
I must say I
am often disappointed when people come here and ignore the messages. Some people
don't even know the messages. People come here and they don't live the messages.
Then they wonder why the Church is not being renewed. Look, Our Lady brought you
all here for a purpose, to renew your church at home.
I'd like to
talk a little bit about the messages this morning, because for some people, I'm
not saying they shouldn't come here, but it's awfully important that you hear
what is being said in the messages and go out and live them. If you don't it's
like someone buying a cook book, and instead of making the recipe, they buy
another cookbook with the same recipes in it. The old Chinese proverb says,
"What you hear you tend to forget. What you see you remember. What you do, you
understand." So it is only when you do the messages, when you live them, you
understand them. You could read them to the end of your life and still not
understand, but start doing them and they become alive.
Try to
remember that Medjugorje is not a place. Medjugorje is a spirituality. Because
wherever the visionaries are, Our Lady appears to them. It is centered here in
Medjugorje like the Catholic Church is centered in Rome. But Rome isn't the
Catholic Church. It is where it is centered. And Medjugorje is the center. And
you know the real center of Medjugorje is your heart. Until your heart becomes
infused with the messages, somehow we turn Medjugorje into a place of pilgrimage
but not something that makes us vitally alive.
So I would ask
you before you go home, would you all buy a copy of the messages? There are lots
of books in the book stalls. And read them. Read one every day, and ask the
Lord, "Lord would you make that message alive in me?"
Can I suggest
a few ways you might live the five stones she gave us?
First is
fasting. That is probably the most difficult one, because in the western world
we live in, we are probably too well fed. But do you ever feel that life is
going very quickly? Do you want to slow it down? Then start fasting. Just start
fasting and you will see how long the day is! You will wonder will the next meal
ever come. You'll also lose a lot of weight, which in our world today can be
very helpful. But seriously when we fast, as you heard Paul say in that first
reading "Put your bodies at the service of righteousness for your
sanctification." Fasting empties us of our ego, and makes room for God. Not just
fasting from food. Not everybody is able to do that, but you do what you can.
Often fast from television because we waste a lot of time watching empty
programs. I think Groucho Marx once called television "chewing gum for the
eyes." You watch the thing and then you yawn and go off to bed, and it does you
no good. Imagine if we spent that time in prayer, if we spent that time in
opening our hearts to the true love of God.
The second
thing is the Bible. She asks us to read a little bit of the Scriptures every
day. And again we have that message in today's Psalm, "Happy the man whose
delight is the law of the Lord." We should read a bit of Scripture every day.
Then we wouldn't be embarrassed when a Jehovah's Witness or a Mormon knocks at
our door and starts quoting Scripture. We feel so inadequate. As Catholics I am
afraid, we have fallen down on Scripture. We often think it is a Protestant
book. It is a tragedy of the Reformation. And that Psalm today is challenging
us, "Happy the man whose delight is the law of the Lord." That is Jesus' way of
saying that if you want to be happy let My Word come into you. And if you notice
that before the Gospel today, we made three crosses, one on our foreheads, one
on our lips, and one over our hearts. They represent our hope that the Word of
God will come into our mind to change the way that we think, be on our lips and
change the way we speak, and above all be in our hearts and change the way we
love. And once I discovered that, I make a fourth cross and put it on my ear to
change the way I listen to allow the Word of God to seep into my heart. (Fr.
Benny McHale, Homily of 10/24/13 in St. James Church)
Fr. Benny said that the center of
Medjugorje is each of our hearts. How beautiful! And how true. Our Lady comes to
renew, purify, strengthen and prepare each of our hearts for the Kingdom of God.
It is through our hearts, filled with the light and love of Christ, that the
kingdom will come to others.
More tomorrow!
In Jesus, Mary and Joseph!
Cathy Nolan
©Mary TV 2013
"Medjugorje is the spiritual center of the world!"
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