Tuesday 20 November 2012

Reflection on the Year of Grace, Year of Faith.


Sir, we wish to see Jesus (Jn 12:21)

In this Year of Grace we are invited by the Australian Bishops to make a pilgrimage into the inner sanctum of our being.   A journey of faith having before our eyes an icon or as an entry point into the inner sanctum, the face of Jesus. Not only His face as the human face of God, enfleshed, but the image of the invisible God. Jesus, the Icon which shows us the truth and reality of God.  To experience “charis” and discover the divine truth of who God is in the person of Jesus, the first born of all creation and the first born from death (Col. 1:18).  To discover the truth of the human person, whose blueprint is in the likeness of Jesus. The prototype of all creation.
This journey of faith in a year or moment designated “grace” is to stop and to find and contemplate Jesus, who then shows us the real human being. The image which God  had envisioned for the human beings  from before time began and before sin brought a forgetting of that image.  A forgetting that we have been designed in His own beautiful image, and in the seeing this then it is to recognize and see more clearly, Jesus.  The principal task of all “life” is to mirror Jesus, so that those who see “me” might see clearly ...Jesus.
“Sir, we wish to see Jesus”  (Jn. 12:21) is the soul’s yearning  to  recognise Jesus or His icon made visible in the other.  To seek Him in daily life and in every one who has “life” breathed into them. “Sir, we want to see Jesus” It’s you whom my soul longs for and desires.
We seek Jesus in the noise of life but also He can be found in turmoil of life and He comes in moments of graced silence where words are not needed but the effect of true humanity is seen and felt, because Jesus opens up the panorama which clearly shows what the human being can be and is in the mind of God. The vision shows the design and possibilities of grace. A divine bequest.  An ecstasy overflowing and uncontainable which overflowed into life and allowing the human a share of God’s own inexpressible life. Life is the result of an overflow of the love of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and the home designed for life is heaven with a vision of the face of divinity forever.
This year of Grace gives us the opportunity to live so that development of divine manners maybe accomplished in order that we may not be found wanting like the unprepared virgins (Mt. 25:1-13).  Those manners lost in the eons past may during these moments of Grace  be relearned so that at the  end of life we stand before God not as strangers and  homeless in what should be our natural homeland,  Paradise, but as sons and daughters who have been on a journey and are returning home to their Father. This year of Grace opens the vista for a vision of glory to be seen as a sign post towards home.
Nothing of the life journey’s effects is lost but all is retained, though it is  re organised in a manner which grace has purified .   Indeed preserved are all of life’s imprints, triumphs, sorrows, which grace then purifies. Thus re-established, grace, together with all its valuable gifts leads to transfiguration and finally ascension; Life with its grace filled purification is raised higher into the grace of God and ultimate union with Him.  
Jesus has opened the portals for us to enter. He leads the procession of those going home to the Father who engendered them through His ecstatic love.  Now they are returning home with Him as the Shepherd who has not left one of those given to Him behind (Jn 17:12)  He leads and they joyfully follow.  “Come let us go towards the light of my father’s love, I am your shepherd I will lead you, I will not leave one of you behind. Come follow me.”   Be at home here in the high places (Hk.3:19).
When on this lofty ground we encounter the Messiah. “We have found the Messiah” (Jn1:42).  What joy to finally encounter the Messiah who has silently accompanied and led  us on the journey to the high places (Hk.3:19)  To finally see his face. (Mt.17:1-9)  I have done the journey of Grace with Jesus who has done for me Il Camino.  Who has been for me the prayer itself and I have been the pilgrim prayer, bringing with Me Jesus to  those loftier grounds .

The Year of Grace, a gracious moment, a moment of abundant faith.

 

 

 

Friday 2 November 2012

Milano Italy October 2012.

What a joy to be invited to be present at a gathering of Medjugorje people.  To be present on the anniversary of Blessed Virgin Mary's final appearance at Fatima on October 13th 1917 and to be asked to give a talk on this special day was an enormous priviledge. Indeed I was asked to give two talks one on the 12th (3000 people) and one on the 13th of October (6-8000 people) and the talks were to be on my work post abortion grief.  I know that the Blessed Virgin grieves deeply over the loss of the infants and has spoken much in Medjugorje on this issue of abortion.
I must admit that I didnt quite know what to expect from such a weekend as I had not attended a similar one before but it is an event which should be attended by every human  being on earth because if they did we would no longer have wars, abortions, euthanasia, homosexuality, anti life wants/laws but desire to be whole as God had desired for us in the first place.
The whole weekend was filled with music, prayer, adoration, witnesses of God's Mercy and to cap it off a visiation to Marjia (visionary) by the Blessed Virgin.
I will try and explain this experience as I felt it at the time.
It occurred during the Rosary during the third mystery and in the middle of the Rosary at the word "Blessed....." a sudden silence descended throughout the whole stadium (6-8000 people) instantly, not slowly or gradually, but instantly a silence, an awe descended which was and could not be explained.  There were two babies crying and even their crying become the only thing heard.  Even a pin dropping would have been heard. This went on for some minutes but I couldnt say how long.  As I said to someone next to me it seemed an unearthly silence. Then after a time a "normal" resuming of the Hail Mary "blessed is the fruit of your womb..Jesus" and a continuation until the end of the mystery.
After the visionary Marija left the stage I had the great pleasure of meeting her and we hugged and she looked at me and promised to pray for me.  It was a moment of grace for me especially during these difficult times of cancer treatments and these difficult times of enormous attack against my work.  I felt that this invitation was a gift just for me to help me to continue when it would be easy to give up.  So I am so grateful to many people who made the journey and pigrimage to meet Mary and be with spirit filled people who love God and His Mother and who made me feel very special for the time I was with them. I was treated like gold.
Thank you Andrea B.  for recommending me as a speaker. Thank you to Sabino for the invitation, Thank you to Marija Z.Caronti for looking after me. Thank you Marianna, Benedetta, Irma, and all those who took wonderful care to make my stay perfect.  Hope we can do it again.
Thank you especially to my wonderful priest friend Fr Raymond who always does things to make life easier for me in this work that I do. You Father Ray are a marvel a priest in the order of Melchizedek.
love you to bits.