Encouraging Words for the St. Mary's Prayer Group

4/6/19  5:45 a.m.

“I am your Lord, your God, and your King.  I know that you are afraid, My Little Ones.  I am here to tell you not to be afraid.  My Father in Heaven has His Watchful Gaze upon you.  Every moment He holds you in the sight of His Love.  He sees you constantly, as if He came to Eucharistic Adoration just to see you, to be with you, to love you.”

“Oh, My Children, do not fear what might happen to you.  My Father is at work in His Holiness, even now.  Trust in His Merciful Love for you.  He will bring about every good and loving outcome for you.  He has your best interest at heart.”

“Replace fear with trust and hope in your Loving Father, My Little Ones.  You are His Children, holy and beloved, and He loves you forever.  You are deeply cherished and very near and dear to His Heart.  He loves you so much that He sent Me to you.  I am with you always.”

“So, do not be afraid.  I will guide you and bring you to My Father.  Think of yourself already in His Loving Embrace, because you are already dwelling in His Heart.”

“I love you, My Children, I love you.  I bless you, My Children, I bless you!  Halleluia, Halleluia, Amen!!”

Fresh Gas

           All I knew is that I wanted to get the lawn mowed before I left town to move my daughter into her collage apartment.  I was leaving in two weeks, and I would be gone for two weeks, since we were driving to Savannah, Georgia.  The weeds were already knee high, and it had to be done!

            I pulled out my trusty little crimson push lawn mower, checked the oil, put in the gas, and put on my foggy goggles, mint green pollen mask, and mustard yellow leather gloves.  I wheeled the lawn mower into that level sweet spot in the driveway, where I knew I had the best chance of starting the motor.  I pushed the primer button three times, gripped the safety bar to the handle, and yanked hard on the pull string.  Nothing.  I pushed the primer button three more times, grabbed close the safety bar, and quickly drew out the pull string.  Nothing.  I repeated the whole process again, thinking surely by now I was flooding the engine with gas.  And still, nothing.

            I called Home Depot, where I bought the lawn mower.  I was relieved that the mower was still under warranty, since I only purchased it eight months ago.  Unfortunately, they would have to ship my lawn mower away to find out what was wrong with it.  I called a repair shop who wanted to charge me at least $80 just to look at it.  They said the first thing they would do is empty the gas, and put in fresh gas.  Then they would check the fuel line to see if it was clogged.  I was thinking that surely the gas in my garage was fine.  I just used my lawn mower a month ago, with that same gas.

            I decided in this day and age, I could fix the lawn mower faster and cheaper myself by watching you tube videos!  I watched you tube videos for hours, making a plan of action.  I read sections of the user’s manual online, familiarizing myself with all the parts to my lawn mower.

            I drove to Home Depot to buy a new spark plug and a suction kit to drain the gas.  It took me a long time, but I finally found the correct tool in my garage to remove the old spark plug.  I installed the new spark plug, but I didn’t want to add gas until I finished checking the other things that could be wrong with it.  I was convinced that I needed to take off the fuel line, to clean it out.  I tried everything to pull it off, but I was unsuccessful.  I became more and more frustrated as each day passed, and as the weeds grew taller.

            My husband, who was swamped with work, even said that I could buy a new lawn mower if I couldn’t get this one to work.  I wasn’t ready to give up.  I thought there was one last thing I could do, but it would require me to get inside the gas pump to clean out some tiny holes with a little wire, like I saw in the promising you tube videos.

            It was dark outside at the end of the day when I went out to the garage.  After lifting the lawn mower onto some blocks of wood, I realized that I would have to literally turn the mower upside down to unscrew the motor from the base.  That is where I drew the line.  I had worked on my mower for four days, and I was getting nowhere!

            On the fifth day I decided to drive to the gas station to buy new gas.  I thought I would try one last time to engage my lawn mower before I bought a new one.  I was scared that the mower would just blow up since I tinkered with it for so long, not really knowing what I was doing.  I set up the fire extinguisher nearby, just in case.

            I pressed the primer button three times, squeezed the safety bar shut, and pulled the draw string with all my might.  I was shocked when the engine roared to life!  All it needed was fresh gas!  I was praising God!  What makes gas go bad anyway?  I didn’t care, my lawn mower was working!  Halleluia!

            Immediately, I was struck with the thought that the Holy Spirit is like fresh gas.  Just like my lawn mower needed fresh gas to run properly, I need God’s Holy Spirit to live my life the way God intended me to live it.  “…you will receive power when the holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”  Acts 1:8

Encouraging Words for Men’s ACTS Retreat Nov. 1-4, 2018

10/31/18   3:51 a.m.

“Oh, My Children!  I am your Lord, and your God, and your King!  You are My Beloved Sons!  I created you.  I formed you.  I raised you up to be a mighty army in My Holy Name.”

“I have watched over you with tender love and care.  I have been intimately involved with every detail of your life.  I know you better than you know yourself.”

“I hold your heart in My Hands.  I wish to unite your heart with My Sacred Heart.  I want you to know this incredible love that I have for you.  I want to share Myself deeply with you.  I want to walk hand in hand with you in the bottom of your soul.”

“I want to fill you with My Light to disperse the darkness.  I want to bring you My Joy and My Peace.  I want to strike at the root of your soul and plant My Love.”

“I want to so fill you with My Holy Spirit, that you will be on fire with My Holy Love.”

“This is why I came, to set a fire of love upon this Earth.  I came to rescue you from yourself, to save you from your sins.”

“Your heart could be as black as charcoal, but I can make it as white as snow.  The Blood and Water that gushes forth from My Sacred Heart washes over you, cleansing and purifying your heart, soul, mind, and body.”

“Look upon Me, raised up on a Cross.  Believe in Me.  I have taken the first step closer to you.  Open your heart to Me, My Son.  Let Me be a Father to you.  Let Me be a Brother to you.  Let Me be the Holy Spirit within you!”

“I love you, My Child, I love you!  I bless you, My Child, I bless you!  Halleluia, Halleluia, Amen!”

Encouraging Words for Teen ACTS Retreat, June 29 - July 1, 2018

6/29/18   3:58 a.m.             

“Oh, My Children!  I have a tender love for you.  I was thinking about you the whole time I was in such pain for you during My Passion and Death on the Cross.  I was overflowing with love for you, like a fountain of Living Water.  I was breathing New Life into you as your sins melted away in My Precious Blood.”

“I reached out to your very precious soul, and pulled you close to Me.  I filled you with My Light, and banished the darkness from your mind.  I rescued you from yourself.  I placed you on solid ground, on My Love for you that will never fail.”

“Oh, yes, My Child, I love you!  Come to Me.  Come, let Me hold you.  Rest your head on My Heart.  Hear My Heart beating for you.  I love you, My Child, I love you.  I bless you, My Child, I bless you!  Halleluia, Halleluia, Amen!”

Call to be Missionary Disciples

Jesus calls each of us to be a missionary disciple.  What does that mean?

Jesus tells us what it is like to be a missionary disciple.  “As you go, make this proclamation: ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’  Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons.  Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give…Whatever town or village you enter, look for a worthy person in it, and stay there until you leave.  As you enter a house, wish it peace.  If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; if not, let your peace return to you.”  Matthew 10:7-8,11-13

“The kingdom of heaven is at hand.”  To me, the kingdom of heaven is something that can be experienced here and now, “at hand.”  It is God’s love, joy, and peace in our hearts.  It is definitely believing in God’s Love, Goodness, Kindness, and Mercy!

Jesus says to, “Cure the sick.”  Knowing that you are loved by God will automatically put you on the road to healing.  Believing in His Goodness, Kindness, and Mercy for you, will give you hope to overcome your illnesses – spiritual, mental, psychological, and physical.  Jesus said to the Samaritan woman, “whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”  (John 4:14)  Jesus is the source of living water that brings healing to your heart and soul.  When you invite Jesus to come into your heart, and to be the Lord of your life, then He becomes a spring of living water, running over, to cure you, and the sick around you.   Jesus Himself gives all of us eternal life when we believe in Him.  “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”  (John 3:16)

Jesus calls us to, “raise the dead.”  We are to love and have mercy and compassion on those around us who are spiritually dead in their sins.  We are to raise up, and lift up their hearts, in prayer, to our Lord.  We are to beg God to rain down His precious Blood and Living Water upon their hearts, so that they will turn from their sinful ways, and live a new life for God.

Jesus tells us to, “cleanse lepers.”  It is easy to want to stay away from the people in our lives that we don’t like.  It takes courage to pray for them, and even more courage to reach out to them.  Jesus says, “The Advocate, the holy Spirit that the Father will send in my name – he will teach you everything and remind you of all that [I] told you.  Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.  Not as the world gives do I give it to you.  Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.”  (John 14:26-27)  Ask the Holy Spirit to be with you and guide you.  Allow yourself to be an instrument for God to use.  Cleansing a leper can be as simple as inviting someone to go with you to the Sacrament of Reconciliation, where Jesus is present through the priest, to forgive and to heal.

Jesus exhorts us to, “drive out demons.”  Any thought that pulls you down, and does not reinforce and verify God’s love for you, is not from God.  Guard your heart and soul.  Always say, “yes,” to God’s love in your heart and soul.  Say, “no,” to thoughts that cause you to harden your heart.

  Saint Paul says, “What will separate us from the love of Christ?  Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword?...No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor power, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  (Romans 8:35, 37-39)  Saint Paul goes on to say, “Do not be conquered by evil but conquer evil with good.”  (Romans 12:21)  Driving out demons can mean encouraging a person to trust in the Lord, instead of doubting; to banish fears with the love of God; to replace anxiety with faith in God, etc…

Jesus says, “As you enter a house, wish it peace…”  A “house” can also mean a person’s heart and soul.  When you are with someone, you can wish them the peace of our Lord.  Saint Paul says, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 6:19)  You are not only a house, but a temple!  Even Jesus referred to His own Body as a temple.  He told the Jews, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up…he was speaking about the temple of his body.” (John 2:19-21)

Love is calling you.  Love is calling you to be a missionary disciple.  Do you hear it?  Believe in God’s Love for you!

My prayer is…

that the Lord’s Loving Will be done in my life today

that I may love Jesus

with all of my heart

that I may love Jesus

with all of my soul

that I may love Jesus

with all of my mind

that I may love Jesus

with all of my strength

that I may see God’s love for me today

and share His Love with others

Amen!

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength…you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  Mark 12:30-31a

Love is The Answer

“…whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.  This is the commandment we have from him:  whoever loves God must also love his brother.”  (1 John 4:20b-21)

            I’ve always wondered about these verses in the bible.  It seemed to me that I could actually have a very strong love for God, who I couldn’t see, and still have great difficulty loving certain people that I could see.

            Little did I realize that God was asking me to change the way that I loved.  God wanted me to have some, “skin in the game,” to take risks, be involved with the lives of those around me, and prove my love by my actions.

            It’s easy for me to feel love for people who are kind.  It takes a certain amount of sacrifice to love those who are bitter, resentful, angry, or just plain mean.  I can’t do this alone.  What I need is Jesus’ spirit of sacrifice.

            I love the rosary meditation that I heard recently for the fourth joyful mystery, when Mary took her baby Son, Jesus, to the temple to present Him to the Lord.  In this prayer, my brothers and sisters in Christ, who stayed after Mass to pray the rosary, asked Mary, our Holy Mother of God, to obtain for us the spirit of sacrifice.

            Later that same day, I opened a prayer book about Saint Anthony of Padua that I received in the mail.  Even Saint Anthony encouraged people to repentance and sacrifice in their lives.  I read how Saint Anthony was not only a finder of lost things, but more importantly, I finder of lost souls!

            That’s what I want to be – a finder of lost souls.  I don’t have to travel very far to do this.  In fact, I can start with my own family!  It’s not going to take classes, or job experience, or money.  It’s going to take my heart.  It’s going to take a decision, an act of my will, to love, no matter what.

            Love is the answer, but not just any kind of love.  What my heart needs is God’s agape Love – that compassionate, merciful, forgiving, sacrificing love.  This is the kind of love I need to give to my family.  My heart needs to give this kind of love to find lost souls.

            I see my family every day.  Sometimes they can be the most difficult to love.  These are the precious ones that God has put into my life.  This is a training ground of love.  God knows my heart is not perfect, and I need His help if I am going to learn how to love like He loves.  Jesus says, “As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.”  (John 13:34)  At this rate, I need Jesus Himself in my heart to love my family with agape Love!

            So, how do I get this agape Love?  This is how it happened for me.

I desperately needed to know deep in my heart and soul that I was loved by God as a child, that I am loved by God now, and that I will be loved by God forever.  To know this, I needed to spend lots of time in prayer with God, even years.  God graciously blessed me with visions of Jesus and Mary taking turns holding me as a child in their laps, where I soaked in their love.

Eventually, Jesus showed me something I didn’t know I had - inner wounds from childhood.  These wounds were holding me back from becoming the person God intended for me to be, fully alive in Him.  I didn’t know how to fix my heart and soul.  All I knew was that my wounds had far reaching effects into my relationships with my husband and children.  I had a father-daughter relationship with my husband, instead of a partner-partner relationship, and I had buried my authority as a mother.  I lived my life in fear, not in love.  Only God could see the wounds that needed healing in my heart and soul.  Mercifully, He set into motion certain events in my life that would bring this about.

I praise God that He knew exactly the steps I needed to take.  He blessed me with three amazing women - a spiritual director, a therapist, and a very close friend who wasn’t afraid to tell me the truth!  When I went to confession at a Catholic Women’s Conference, I realized that God was asking me to face my fears, and talk to my parents.  Talking to them was like ripping a band-aid off, but I needed to expose my inner wounds, and give Jesus permission to touch and heal me there.

Then, in prayer, Jesus showed me my wounds on His Body on the Cross.  I saw the sacrifice that Jesus made to heal me, because He loves me.  I saw how Jesus and I were united in this pain, and at the same time, we were united in His healing, freeing, rising, agape Love from the Cross!  “For if we have grown into union with him through a death like His, we shall also be united with Him in the resurrection.”  (Romans 6:5)

Some miraculous things started happening.  After twenty-eight years of marriage, my husband finally agreed to go with me to a Worldwide Marriage Encounter Retreat!  Wow!  Our communication is improving more and more every day.  Our love for each other is growing deeper as each day passes, like a second honey-moon!   He is even playing you tube love song videos for me during breakfast every morning!

A beautiful transformation took place in my heart and soul.  In the places where I was bound by sin, hiding, and hurting, Jesus set me free.  I am free to love much deeper than before.  I am free to allow God’s agape Love to flow through my wounds, united to Jesus’ wounds on the Cross, and out of my heart to the hearts of lost souls.  I am free to council my children with truth and love, instead of seeking their approval.  Praise God!

Jesus told Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska in her Diary, “When you say this prayer, with a contrite heart and with faith on behalf of some sinner, I will give him the grace of conversion.  This is the prayer: (Diary, 186) ‘O Blood and Water, which gushed forth from the Heart of Jesus as a fount of Mercy for us, I trust in You.’” (Diary, 187)

I am so thankful to God that He not only knows how to heal me, He knows how to reach and find the souls in my family.  All I need to do is trust in Jesus and Mary.  In prayer, I bring my family to the foot of the Cross, and entrust them to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  In prayer, I also bring my family to Mary, kneeling beside her lap, and entrust them to her Immaculate Heart.

I trust Jesus, in His Mercy, to give my family the grace of conversion.  I trust Mary to bring my family to Jesus.  I trust Jesus to help me make the sacrifices necessary for my family to see His agape Love for them through me.  I trust Jesus to help me keep His commandment to love my family.  “If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.” (John 15:10)  I want to remain in Jesus’ love, as much as possible.  I want to remain in His agape Love.

I want to love all the people that I see, starting with my family.  Then I’ll know that I’m loving God, who I can’t see.  Then I’ll know that I’m loving God the way He wants me to love Him.  Jesus, please set my heart on fire with Your agape Love!

Words of Encouragement for Women's ACTS Retreat May 10-13, 2018

5/8/18        6:30 a.m.

“Oh, My daughter!  You are so precious to Me.  I have always loved you, since the beginning of time.”

“Come to Me.  I want to hold you in My Loving Arms.  I want to hold you close to Me, close to My Sacred Heart.”

“You are all that I care about.  Your heart and your soul are My Delight.  I created you to be much more – full of My Love, My Peace, and My Joy!”

“Open your heart to Me.  Allow your eyes to gaze upon Me.  Allow Me to hold you, My Precious Daughter.”

“I am your Heavenly Father who loves you.  I am your Brother Jesus, who died on the Cross for you.  I am your Holy Spirit, who stirs up the fire of My Love in you.”

“Come, My Love, let us walk together, you and I, hand in hand.  I have many things to show you.  I will teach you everything you need to know Me, to follow Me, and to love Me.”

“I love you, My Daughter, I love you.  I bless you, My Daughter, I bless you.  Halleluia, Halleluia, Amen!”