Do not be worried about the first meeting tomorrow. I will arrange everything. The priests whom I want here… are already on their way. The meeting will be a wonderful occasion for all, and I will give so very much joy to each one. My priests will receive a special grace which will transform their whole lives.
The Blue Book #18e
Loneliness is hunger for Union with a perfect being, i.e., God…
Aloneness is man-made. Some are alone because they flee from reality or withdraw from life. This is a pathological aloneness, as is also the aloneness of a shy person; but mostly aloneness stems from not knowing that God loves us, or from accepting this truth with great difficulty. Also, we don’t love ourselves as we should, or our neighbor as we must. Then it is hard for us to dedicate ourselves to a cause, even to God. We spend part of our time in daydreaming and imagining an ideal partner, a friend, a lover, a husband, a wife, who will “understand” us; but we make no steps toward understanding others.
Grace in Every Season (January 29)
We were not meant to live our faith out alone. Yet the way our society has spun out of control, that’s exactly what many of us feel regardless of how many ‘friends’ we have on Facebook.
Our Blessed Mother knows what her children are facing and the dangers that come with this level of loneliness. She addresses her sons the priests in the Blue Book. But these messages were meant for them to put into practice themselves and then pass on to the laity that they have been put in charge of feeding. But she then includes the laity as part of her little flock too.
So her answer to this great loneliness are the cenacles. Parish cenacles…but perhaps just as important the family home cenacles… where entire families of all ages gather with their friends and can support each other in growing in faith and from there welcome the unchurched in their own lives to come to know Jesus and His church by what they are experiencing, and thereby evangelizing their little corner of the world.
She constantly asks throughout the book for more and more cenacles. They don’t have to be large, in fact sometimes two people in prayer can delve deeper into the heart of Mary and Jesus… and that’s the whole point.
We just need to be willing. She’s the one that sets them up. She brings her own people together in ways that we can’t imagine. I’ve experienced this myself. Then she feeds us … giving us each exactly what we need along with the special gifts of joy and life changing grace!
Our Lady’s Promises Given To Fr. Gobbi Concerning Family Cenacles
- She will help them live the sanctity of matrimony, principally to remain united and to be faithful, to live the sacramental character of the family union.
- She desires to help the children of these families. Among many young people there is the danger of losing the faith, following the path of evil, of vice, of drugs. Our Blessed Mother promises that as a mother she will be at their side to help them grow in goodness and to save them.
- She will always be near in all their spiritual as well as material needs.
- During the period of difficulties, she will protect these families, sheltering them under her mantle. For this reason, she invites families to multiply throughout the world these cenacles of prayer.