Author: Essy Dias

If you only knew how much my Heart loves and cherishes purity. This is a virtue which makes souls open to receive a special influx of my love, which enables them to see me, to feel my presence with them.

Blue Book # 46 b

We have lost the evening with father and mother when little children were told fairy tales and went to sleep dreaming of beautiful ladies and the like. We have lost the time of small farms, when children grew up learning about trees and flowers and wheat and oats and how they grew. There were church suppers where everyone was friendly and knew each other, and barn dances and the thousand things that seem old but could become new any day because they are immortal, and could disperse loneliness like wind disperses fog. When people communicate, loneliness is broken into tiny pieces that are scattered by the wind. One has to laugh to communicate, and communication is the enemy of loneliness.

Grace in Every Season (March 4)

When we have embraced purity we are able to see Jesus and Our Blessed Mother more clearly in each person that we interact with and to feel His presence within ourselves more strongly.

Impurity on the other hand takes all that away from us and we become a mere commodity for each other. Mistrust, resentment and separation sets in, resulting in anguishing loneliness.

I believe much of what we have lost in society comes from a loss in innocence and purity. It’s true that humans since the great fall have always tended towards it, but society had always held it at bay by establishing clear boundaries on what was or wasn’t proper. Those have been completely annihilated, and the opposite is being built up and endorsed now.

We need to come back to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, to let her show us the path to purity and true brotherly love… and light a bonfire so big that it will warm the entire world.

Hmm…and by the way I think bringing back church suppers would be a great starting place. 😀

My son, gather together from all sides my beloved sons. They need so very much to know each other, to meet each other, to love each other deeply as brothers, to help one another, to encourage one another in walking always in simplicity and abandonment along the difficult and painful path of these times.

Blue Book # 45 e

There was a time (older people can tell you) when people were neighbors. They did not sit staring at TV with a glassy stare.No, people were neighbors and they used to visit each other, or play games together, or have other kinds of entertainment. There was a time when people painted, wrote books, and opened their souls in thousands of ways to others. People could talk and think together.

We cry for release from our loneliness and someday we will understand we are prisoners to computers and technology.Someday, we will arise and destroy their fascinating power, and we will be free again; we will be able communicate with others.Then our natural loneliness will disappear.

Grace in Every Season (March 3)

Yesterday in my 20 minute drive to my parish for Eucharistic Adoration, I spoke with the Lord as I often do and I felt compelled to ask Him… ‘why are you having me drive all the way out here when You are fully present in my neighborhood chapel only 2 minutes from my house?’ The answer was quick and decisive, ‘this is where your people are too’ and ‘places do matter’. I was going in for Him alone, didn’t even think I’d see anyone I knew, as there were so few people last time. But I felt assured that praying at the same place, even if not at the same time, strengthened the group somehow.

So I pulled in to the parking lot and right from the get go I’m greeted by an old friend with the words ‘well, isn’t God good’! Indeed He is I wanted to cry as my heart swelled. Then after catching up with encouraging conversations, I walked into church to be in His presence. It was like pure light, love and peace all just swallowed me up. Then a few people started coming in, all people I knew and cherished. It lit me up! We need to foster these connections that support our faith … and have it spill out into our homes, neighborhoods and extended communities.

…Even though you do not see me, I am not only spiritually but really and truly present. And I will give you sure signs of this presence of mine.

Blue Book #43 b

There is a story of a boy in a burning house. His father is outside, calling to him, “Jump! Jump!” The child cries, “Daddy, I can’t see you!” “That’s okay,” the father says, “I can see you.”

Grace in Every Season (March 2)

Sometimes it’s difficult to trust when the calamities seem to come one after the other, and especially if you’ve been traveling the path of faith for a long time and have experienced the sweetness and now for a short while have to endure walking by faith alone. It’s hard! You cry out in anguish like Jesus, ‘my God, my God, why have You forsaken me’. And for a while no answers come… but then you get a sweet reminder that He’s still there, helping you through it all. Just stay the course and keep in mind that the intended goal of every cross is the resurrection.

I will lead them, these little children of mine, very far in love, in suffering, in the joy of the cross!

Those moments are approaching when I will be able to act, for the salvation of the world, through the sufferings of my priest-sons… From them I want trust, prayer, simplicity, silence…

Blue Book #42 g, h

“If Christians of the past lived in great measure in a silent world, giving them ample opportunity for concentration, contemplation and the inner life, Christians of today have to make a special effort to recover this essential dimension of silence, which alone can put them in contact with God. Thus, the problem of radio and TV during Lent is not a marginal one, but in many ways is a matter of spiritual life or death.”

Grace in Every Season (March 1)

Catherine Doherty in the paragraph above mentions only radio and tv, this was before social media came on the seen. Can you imagine how much ‘noisier’ our lives have become since her days. This is something that I struggle with personally, I live my day with phone in hand. Even though it’s mostly good stuff that I seek… I’m still seeking … instead of just … being.

I’m old enough to remember life without all this. And having been born in the Azores in the early sixties and living there until the age of seven, I have wonderful memories … it wasn’t the burdensome quiet that we now experience when we try an electronics fast. It was different… filled with more… family, play, activities, feasts. Community. Church!

I remember one day much later in life when I was having a resurgence of faith. I was praying and meditating and just sitting with God. And I was hit with this feeling of ‘what now Lord, is this all there is’ … I hate to admit it but it kind of felt dry and boring. Then I sensed Him saying to me… ‘these quiet times are for you to listen to me … so that I can lead you’. That I was to ‘pray and obey’ and would no longer be bored. And oh boy has that ever been true!!!

Hmmm… I’m thinking it’s time to book a retreat… 🙏🙏🙏

Therefore, behold, I will allure her, Bring her into the wilderness And speak kindly to her.

Hosea 2:14

“Let yourself be led by me at every moment, my son, and you will find peace… even in sorrow, even in abandonment, even in contradictions, even when you seem to feel that you are powerless to do good.

Blue Book #42 a

To be alone, forgotten, neglected, to have all you do accepted either as a matter of fact, or without gratitude, or to suffer in silence, to be silent under injustice and provocation, pain and suffering, to feel left out of things and have your love rejected or coldly received- all of this is to be like whom?

…Think this over. And thinking, pray that you may understand and cooperate with his incomprehensible ways of leading you to him.

Grace in Every Season (February 28)

It’s important to keep in mind that the aim of embracing our crosses is not simply to suffer, God is not a sadist. It’s what we learn through our suffering…detachment, humility, gratitude…love… to become little… so Jesus can exist more fully in us. There is tremendous peace in living united with Our Lord.

Because I call them to be great in love, in holiness, in heroism, they must become the smallest of all. Oh, my priests are not yet, all of them, my little children, but I will make them so, because it is only in this way that they can grow in trust for me.

Blue Book #41f

Be at peace! This dark aridity is joyful, for this is the beginning of wisdom, for your beloved is the very Wisdom of God. He teaches you his wisdom now in the loneliness and silence of the desert, now in the quiet and darkness of the night of love. There are two nights in this world: the night of hate and the night of love. This is the night of love.

Grace in Every Season (February 27)

The process of becoming ‘little’ or of being ‘taken down a notch’ … can be extremely painful to go through, but this ‘night of love’ which is so contrary to everything the world tells us, is the only way to get us to where we need to be. Less of me, more of Him!

Called by me long ago, long ago they have answered. Nourished by me, fashioned and guided by me, now they let themselves be led with docility. It is time that I myself gather these children of mine from all sides. With them I must form for myself an invincible cohort.

Blue Book # 39 h, i

Today each Christian is responsible for projecting the true face of Christ to others, or for blurring it or annihilating it in the souls of other people. The voice of the church is not heard as well as it used to be in the times when the world was Christian. And it must be heard better than ever, for never have human beings been so hungry for the truth as they are today. The way it will be heard now will be through every Christian, and not so much in one’s speech as in one’s life.

Grace in Every Season (February 25)

Catechism of the Catholic Church

795 Christ and his Church thus together make up the “whole Christ” (Christus totus). The Church is one with Christ. The saints are acutely aware of this unity:Let us rejoice then and give thanks that we have become not only Christians, but Christ himself. Do you understand and grasp, brethren, God’s grace toward us? Marvel and rejoice: we have become Christ. For if he is the head, we are the members; he and we together are the whole man. . . . The fullness of Christ then is the head and the members. But what does “head and members” mean? Christ and the Church.²³⁰ Our redeemer has shown himself to be one person with the holy Church whom he has taken to himself.²³¹ Head and members form as it were one and the same mystical person.²³² A reply of St. Joan of Arc to her judges sums up the faith of the holy doctors and the good sense of the believer: “About Jesus Christ and the Church, I simply know they’re just one thing, and we shouldn’t complicate the matter.”²³³

It was through Mary that God chose to bring Christ into the world and to each one of us 2000 years ago, and it is through Mary that that mission continues today. Not just the Head, but the entire Body has been entrusted to her. We are all needed now more than ever, and right there is the reason why the world is experiencing so much divisiveness at this point in time. We are the church and the enemy knows how powerful we will be once we truly come together.

Mary, Mother of the Church, pray for us!

This is a humble place, a place of little things, almost unnoticed by most. And yet it is here and no place else that today my presence is to be found.

Blue Book 39 b

So, come Lent, you make a genuflection not so much of your knees but of your soul- and you say to yourself, well, here is where I cleanse my soul; here is where I spring-clean it; here is where I make it a place in which God can live.

Grace in Every Season (February 24)

There is a ‘revival’ happening in Kentucky, that most have heard of by now. It is drawing large crowds, and by all accounts there are good things happening there. People are hearing about Jesus and hopefully lives will be changed.

But while I sat at Eucharistic Adoration at my church last night with only a few others (and the number dwindled as the evening progressed), I wondered and prayed the words ‘why not here Lord…where You are truly present?’ The answer didn’t come to me until this morning when I did my spiritual reading and read the above passages.

I now see this grand happening as the ante room and not the ultimate destination, it is where some preparation happens before you can enter the main room. There are bands playing, and lots of hand raising experiences that definitely engage the emotions and can bring a great high.

But at some point a choice will have to be made, will the crowds choose to enter through the narrow gate. If they say yes, the room that they’ll be welcomed into is quiet and humble, and what they’ll experience there cuts deep into the soul… and sometimes they will sit alone, it doesn’t draw huge crowds …alone with the One who loves them best, alone with their Creator.

I pray they say yes…

Learn to see me even in obscurity; learn to feel my presence even in abandonment, O my son; learn to do everything with me, in me. Give me your whole self completely, at each moment.

Blue Book #38 d

When I’m discouraged I remember that I have recourse to the only thing I know will keep me from absolute discouragement, and that is Calvary. Whenever I feel that the things of the world are too much for me, I take refuge at the foot of the cross, and even if the whole world is shrouded in darkness, and the curtains of all my temples are rent, I know that although I cannot see, nor hear, nor understand I am safe at the feet of my crucified Savior.

Grace in Every Season (February 23)

In today’s Gospel we hear “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. What profit is there for one to gain the whole world yet lose or forfeit himself?”

The world easily accepts ‘no pain no gain’ or ‘just do it’… but when we speak of embracing our crosses everyone cringes. But yet that’s the fullness of truth right there. It’s in facing and dealing with our hardships that with God’s grace we can triumph over them.

This grace filled season of Lent is the perfect time to take a look at all of our crosses big and small and see how many ways we’ve been running from them.

The Cross is rightly associated with suffering, but that isn’t its sole purpose. The main purpose is to die to self so that He can live in us more fully. So our thoughts during Lent shouldn’t be how horrible can I make my life during these forty days, but to instead say ‘Lord I’m Yours, I’m here to do Your will’ … when our wills aren’t fully united in a particular area that’s when ‘suffering’ happens…go with it, grow with it…fully embracing that He knows best and loves you completely.

c. How much of the human there is in your desires! It is necessary that I, in a motherly way, purify you, if you want me to lead you to that perfection which is pleasing to my Heart.

Blue Book #37

This dying to self to make room for God is painful. But dedication is seen in pain. There is a radiance emanating from that pain which disperses the shadows in another’s face. That is the essence of our vocation–to burn with love, to be a light, to be a fire. And we cannot start a fire with green wood. The fire of love of God will not take hold in a soul that is not utterly dedicated to him.

Grace in Every Season (February 21)

This purification process is SO hard. Just when we think we’ve given our all, He shows us another area that we are still clinging to our own wills on. It could be good things… and most likely are… but if they aren’t according to God’s will for us at this time in our lives, then they must be released.

In todays First Reading We hear “Accept whatever befalls you, when sorrowful, be steadfast, and in crushing misfortune be patient; For in fire gold and silver are tested, and worthy people in the crucible of humiliation. Trust God and God will help you; trust in him, and he will direct your way; keep his fear and grow old therein.”

What a perfect Lenten plan…