Down the scented country road, the bells of the little white church rang out the thousand alleluias of an Easter morning, like a choir of children unexpectedly released from school. There was joy in the world, for love had risen from the dead.
Are we part of that joy? Do we remember how to be joyous? Or have we lost joy, along with so much else? Perhaps it is because we have lost simplicity.
The virtue needed above all others today is simplicity, that holy, childlike, joyous simplicity that walks in humble, strong faith, that sees clearly, acts resolutely, and lives in love. We have become too complex to live with ourselves, or our neighbors or even with God.
Grace in Every Season (April 13)
Therefore, no longer fix your attention on time; do not be even reckoning on the time of my triumph. Live simply in surrender and trust, like my little children, in my Immaculate Heart.”
Never, even for an instant, feel yourselves alone and without me. Sons consecrated to my Heart, I am your Mother who today gives you the gift of her habitual presence at the side of each one of you.
Blue Book #73 o
How clearly the early Christians understood that each Sunday was a “little Easter,” that each was a Parousia, which means the Second Coming of Christ, for in each Sunday Mass Christ comes again in the Eucharist.
Grace in Every Season (April 12)
It’s so easy for some of us to slip into feeling alone, rejected, despised. That’s not from God and we need to do everything in our power to fight it according to God’s Will, or it will drag us into a pit.
Jesus knowing full well that the enemy would tempt us in this manner, left us Himself in the Eucharist, and the entire Body of Christ to keep us company and to see us through this vale of tears.
Our part? We need to reach out when we can, or merely accept the invitation when it’s being extended to us.
After a great upheaval and the purification of the earth, my Immaculate Heart will sing of its victory in the greatest triumph of God.
It is for this moment, my beloved priests, that I have called you one by one from all parts of the world and have made you ready.
Blue Book #72 n, o
Now the world lives in the resurrected Christ. Whether men and women know it or not, the world has changed; it and the cosmos are now living, existing in the Lord of history, of eternity, of time, and of love. And not only the church is on pilgrimage toward the Parousia, the Second Coming, but so are all men and women and all the world, and all that surrounds God’s world.
Grace in Every Season (April 11)
I often hear people getting hanged up on when this will all happen. That this smells of Millennialism, which the Catholic Church rejects.
Personally, I choose to see it as my own journey. That when I opt to unite myself to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and allow her to help me unite more intensely with her Son… then I’m living and breathing the Triumph. That even though I most likely won’t fully experience it on this side of heaven, I can have a taste of it right now! It’s called, living in Grace! This is why Jesus left us His church and Sacraments.
‘Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven’. Is not just a longing prayer for some unknown future time. We can make it happen right this minute. By constantly uniting ourselves with His Divine Will.
There are some among you who are still caught up in the temptation of doubt and criticism. After all I have done for you. Do not grieve my Heart by your doubt, by your incredulity. Have you not yet learned to let yourselves be guided by me? Overcome this temptation by prayer.
Blue Book #72 m
When we are absolutely down, we cry, “Father, Father, why have you forsaken me?” The echo of our voice is in our ears. This echo is something that moves us up the mountain of the Lord very quickly. The Lord stands on the mountain and says, “Friend, come higher,” and we are crying to his Father, “Why have you forsaken me?” But if, in total trust and utter faith, hope and love, we really bend close to the ground, and continue to appeal to the Father, our voice becomes lower and lower until it becomes a whisper, until we are silent. As we move up the mountain of the Lord we suddenly understand what is happening to us: we are entering into the resurrection of Christ.
Grace in Every Season (April 10)
We give to Him our doubts, our hurts, our feelings of rejection and abandonment. We keep uttering prayers that are filled with faith, hope and love. Fully confident that what He has done for us before, He will do so again.
This then is your hour, and this is why I am calling you to nothing but prayer, suffering and a total immolation of yourselves. Forget every other preoccupation, and entrust yourselves to me; and by your great love, second this plan of my Immaculate Heart.
Blue Book #71m
A person who is a gossip is a frustrated personality, often a mousy creature who passes unnoticed, but actually craves to be the center of attention, at the price of anybody’s reputation. It is a pathological state. It is the only sin for which the church demands public restitution. The only way to restore a reputation is to publicly announce that the gossip is untrue. It is interesting to note that in civil law, one can sue a person for defamation of character, that is for gossip. Listening to gossip is participating in it. If there were no listeners, there would be no gossip.
Grace in Every Season (April 7)
I’ve mentioned in previous blog posts, the need to shut our eyes to the world. Well, apparently we need to shut our ears and mouth too. This gossip mentality that is so pervasive, is no longer just coming from the neighborhood busybodies of old, but has infiltrated all types of media and thereby has easy access to all of us.
We may be thinking that it’s ok because the ones being talked about are public figures, either political, religious or from the entertainment industry. But how much are we our selves contributing to the ugliness by bringing evil and vulgarity to light and rehashing it over and over? We keep supplying those necessary ‘clicks’ that keep these gossip mongers in business.
We need to try to promote what we love instead of bashing what we hate. It’s not always easy… the temptation is there and I for one fall often. But we have to keep trying to not get enmeshed with the swamp. If you keep stirring poop, you’re going to start to stink. 😉
Even if this hour is one of darkness, you are called by me to reflect the light of the Will and the plan of the Father. You will be called to bear witness to the fatherhood and the merciful love of God.
Blue Book #71l
This is the moment of joy. It doesn’t matter that it might be also the moment of pain. Joy overcomes pain, because now we suddenly know that all the while we were in darkness, knocking at all kinds of doors, Christ was there. So we stopped knocking and fell prostrate before his face.
Grace in Every Season (April 6)
We are Good News people, so we need to start acting like it. Satan wants us to look deep into his eyes, Jesus says don’t … you belong to ME!
Yes, there’s darkness all around us… we aren’t being called to pretend otherwise… or to suddenly go blind, deaf and dumb. We see it, we feel it… and it’s tempting to draw us in at every opportunity. Jesus wants to show us a brighter more attractive way, but we do need to shut our eyes to the ways of the world and see only Him.
By focusing on current events it makes us want to run for the hills. By focusing on Jesus, we are able to hear His call clearly, and see where we are needed. There in service to others is where we will find grace flowing in abundance.
The hour of darkness is approaching, the hour when you must drink the chalice which my Son has prepared for each one of you. But do not even think of this hour, that you may not be caught up in fear and anxiety.
Look only to my Immaculate Heart: take refuge and warm yourselves here, strengthen yourselves here. Feel yourselves in safety here!
Blue Book #70 g, h
But if we fall in love with the crucified one, we shall know something else as well. We shall know joy beyond all knowing. We shall have peace, the peace he promised. We shall be able to lift up all things before his face. We shall make up what is wanting in the sufferings of Christ, for the Body of Christ still suffers. Are we ready?
Grace in Every Season (April 5)
If we want to experience the Resurrection, then there is no evading the cross! But if we stay close to Our Blessed Mother, she will shelter us through whatever is to come.
We can’t focus on the storms that keep hitting us from every direction, which only lead us to fear, anxiety and further isolation.
We instead need to put on our blind folds, and set our face ‘like flint’ and look only to her Immaculate Heart where we will find warmth, strength, peace and yes, JOY!
With each day that passes, I will liberate you from your attachments, and I will make you more and more free, little, trusting and surrendered, until you are totally mine and my Immaculate Heart is in fact your only good. Then I will be able to act in you and carry out my work as Mother, which is that of making each one of you into a living copy of my Son Jesus. Entrust yourselves to me without fear. Every pain that you feel because of a new detachment will be soothed by me with a new gift of love. Each time that you detach yourself from a creature, you will feel your Mother closer to you.
Blue Book #69 g
Loneliness can be prayer, for every man and woman, married or single, in every vocation, at some time, is lonely. When that terrible loneliness comes upon you, a cry wells up deep in your heart like the cry of a mute person, and rises to God. That cry is prayer.
Grace in Every Season (April 4)
The pain of the detachment process and the resulting feeling of loneliness can be excruciating. But we can give it back to God in prayer. I believe that this is a part of the pain that Jesus had to undergo at the Garden of Gethsemene.
When we feel deep loss of someone, when betrayal and rejection bites us hard… it’s because we were attached too deeply.
I think ‘attachment’ carries with it expectation and expectation, disappointment. So it’s easier to forgive, love and serve others as God is dictating when our only attachment is to God Himself.
Even though we are required to love greatly, we are asked to not be too attached to anything or anyone on this earth and that includes mother, father, spouse, children.
I remember when my mom passed away the pain was so excruciating and it came like ocean waves that just tore at me. One time I prayed about it, and the answer I received was that I was holding on to the pain because I felt it was a way to hold on to her. I had to be willing to let her go. Of course it still comes unexpectedly once in a while, but I no longer wallow in it and can go on with life. And it turns out that I didn’t lose her at all…I have plenty of joyful memories, and life lessons that she taught me to see me through.
“Every pain that you feel because of a new detachment will be soothed by me with a new gift of love.” This is what we need to trust.
You yourselves must be the living Gospel in order to oppose with your light the great darkness which is growing ever denser throughout my Church.
Blue Book #68n
What can the world give me when I have Christ? I can give something to the world. I, in my empty hands, can give God.
Grace in Every Season (March 3)
This great Light that we are being asked to bring to the world at this very dark time, is God Himself. Empty hands are required to even receive Him fully… that entails constantly dying to ourselves and our own will and embracing the Father’s perfect will.
Today in my Catholic Women’s group I was reminded of Alphonsus Liguori’s Conformity with God’s Will. (If you haven’t yet read it, just click on the title and it will take you to it). There are many things that we can be doing at any one moment, but if they aren’t according to God’s Holy Will for us according to our state in life, even if they are good things, they can actually be detrimental to our spiritual growth.
Again we can ask Our Blessed Mother to help us, her humility and total dedication to doing the Father’s Will brought God to earth through her Son Jesus Christ.
You also will be persecuted: the time will come when you will be the only light left burning, and thus, through your fidelity to the Gospel and your sufferings, you will be able to point out the way of salvation to a vast number of souls. And through my intervention, this light of yours will never be completely extinguished.
Blue Book #67 n
When doubts assail you like a thousand flies buzzing in your ears and heart and mind and all around you, think about it. As a child, he was obedient to his parents, and later obedient unto death to his Father in heaven.
Grace in Every Season (April 1)
“Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.” 1 Peter 4:12
The assailments of the enemy never stop. And even though we are cautioned to not be surprised by it, when it happens it does take us by surprise every single time.
What to do? Go full throttle obedient! That’s how Jesus overcame the enemy on our behalf… and that’s what we are called to also.
