39. It is time that I myself gather them together
February 18, 1974
“Let yourself be led by Me, my son, and you will see marvels happening around you: one of these is that which you are living through today. (…) , N. is an example of all the Priests of my Movement. What love he has for Me and for my Son Jesus! How he lives for souls; how many he saves!
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. Even today I like to reveal myself to my children in places similar to those in which I lived with my Son Jesus: Bethlehem, Nazareth. Yes, even today I choose poverty, simplicity, littleness, and the ordinary in order to manifest myself. I know this can be a difficulty for many; and yet this is necessary for those who wish to encounter Me. It is necessary to be little, and that all feel themselves to be just what they are before Me: just little children. The little child never looks at himself, but gazes intently at his mother! And it is the mother who looks at her little child. She is the one who, looking at him, can say to him: ‘Oh, how beautiful you are, how precious you are, how good you are!’
(…) Today for you, here in this very place, something is really being born. It is like a small seed, but it will spread itself out, grow and become a great tree. For you, there has been a meeting here today: you have found a brother. But for a long time he has been made ready by Me! You see, from long ago I have been fashioning this Priest: through suffering, through misunderstandings, through solitude; oh, how I have accustomed him to that interior humility and to that childlikeness of spirit which is so pleasing to my Immaculate Heart. Now I look upon him with satisfaction; he is only a little child in my arms, and I can carry him and make use of him as I wish. Such is one of my Priests; such are all my Priests.
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. They meet each other, they look at each other, and it seems as though they had always known each other: they feel themselves to be really brothers. I give you as gifts, one to the other.
Love one another, my beloved sons, be united, look after each other, help each other! Oh, how happy the Mother is when she sees you all gathered together as good brothers in her house…
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Catechism of the Catholic Church:
751 The word “Church” (Latin ecclesia, from the Greek ek-ka-lein, to “call out of”) means a convocation or an assembly. It designates the assemblies of the people, usually for a religious purpose.139 Ekklesia is used frequently in the Greek Old Testament for the assembly of the Chosen People before God, above all for their assembly on Mount Sinai where Israel received the Law and was established by God as his holy people.140 By calling itself “Church,” the first community of Christian believers recognized itself as heir to that assembly. In the Church, God is “calling together” his people from all the ends of the earth. The equivalent Greek term Kyriake, from which the English word Church and the German Kirche are derived, means “what belongs to the Lord.”
752 In Christian usage, the word “church” designates the liturgical assembly,141 but also the local community142 or the whole universal community of believers.143 These three meanings are inseparable. “The Church” is the People that God gathers in the whole world. She exists in local communities and is made real as a liturgical, above all a Eucharistic, assembly. She draws her life from the word and the Body of Christ and so herself becomes Christ’s Body.
III. MARY – ESCHATOLOGICAL ICON OF THE CHURCH
972 After speaking of the Church, her origin, mission, and destiny, we can find no better way to conclude than by looking to Mary. In her we contemplate what the Church already is in her mystery on her own “pilgrimage of faith,” and what she will be in the homeland at the end of her journey. There, “in the glory of the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity,” “in the communion of all the saints,”518 the Church is awaited by the one she venerates as Mother of her Lord and as her own mother.
- In the meantime the Mother of Jesus, in the glory which she possesses in body and soul in heaven, is the image and beginning of the Church as it is to be perfected in the world to come. Likewise she shines forth on earth until the day of the Lord shall come, a sign of certain hope and comfort to the pilgrim People of God.519
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My Thoughts:
Mary, Mother of the Church and our Mother, is birthing a renewed, radiant church into being, by forming and gathering her children to bring to her Son “so that He might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.” Ephesians 5:27
Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done on earth as it is in heaven…