Firsts

#234  Thursday, Feb.6/14, 3:50pm, St Theresa’s before the Blessed Sacrament

  

This may not be a particular day in your life Margo, but it is for some others.

Who will come to meet Me in paradise?

Who will draw their first breath in this world?

Who will realize that I am their God?

Who will surrender in war – not a physical war, but a war that has been raging in their soul for some time?

Who will notice a butterfly for the first time?

Who will succeed in sports and maybe fail in finances?

Who will see the face of God and live?

There are so many firsts aren’t there.

Each breath is the first one for you in this particular moment in time.

You take lots of breaths, yes, yet you have never taken one this moment and you never will again take this same breath at this exact moment in time.

So you don’t only experience a new holy day each day, but a new holy moment each moment.

Do you see how full Creation is of Me?

Each moment has been blessed so you have the opportunity of gaining more of Me each moment of your life.

Like, this is just not another Thursday --- no, no, no.  This is the only Thursday, Feb.6/14 that there will ever be.

So treasure the moments of each day.  Surrender them with joy to Me.

Thank Me for creating in you a heart that can accept this new knowledge.  You know more of Me today than yesterday. 

Abandon your words “oh it is just another Thursday” because it is NOT.

Look on each new, holy day with awe.

It is a first for you --- yes the bedcovers may be the same when you wake up, the snow  may still be on the ground, but it is a new holy day, never before experienced.

What joy should fill our hearts when we realize ‘this new holy day is a first for me.’

What a blessing.  What Joy!  Live in it.

Surrender your Surrender

#233  Tues. Feb. 4/14, 10:25am. St. Theresa’s before the Blessed Sacrament

I want to be “Precious Jesus” to so many of you.

Something so precious that you never want to give up.

Put Me on a list of all things and people you hold dear.  Which of these will you give up before you say you will give Me up.

That is, which of these is more precious to you than I am?

Sometimes it is a tough question because I am not asking you to give up anything. Right?

So it is easy to tell Me how precious I am to you.  You have yet been asked to show Me how really precious I am to you in your life. 

You really don’t even want Me to ask you that question, do you?

You are most content to prayerfully proclaim it to Me, but if your back was against the wall what would you not want to give up?

What stands between you and Me?

When I ask you to start listing what it is that stands between us, there is a lot you can list.

But I up it a notch and ask what you are willing to give up, hand over --- the decision becomes harder.

So the prayer “I surrender myself to you, take care of everything” still has its limits doesn’t it.

I see you smiling because even though you really want to surrender yourself to Me – your good intentions to do this, there is still so much of you that you will have a hard time surrendering.

And I understand!  Yes I do.

But please do not let that stop you from saying the surrender prayer.

Ask Me for the Grace, when  you say that prayer, to bring to your attention what is separating us especially on this day.

You know, you can’t say this surrender prayer without My Help.  Surrender your surrender prayer to Me.

Make it a more Precious Prayer by surrendering it to Me.

Ask Me to help you pray this prayer not from memory, but from the very depth of your soul.

Ask Me to help you make this a more powerful prayer in your journey with Me.

Pray it from the center of My Sacred Heart with the Immaculate Heart of Mary alongside us in this adventure.

What stands between you and Me when you volunteer to surrender is not just material things but more importantly spiritual things.

We can list the material things much easier than we can list the more soul things.

So come aside.  Sit with Me and ask Me to show you the things in your soul that you find hard to surrender, and maybe even those things in your soul that you do not feel are even there and in need of surrendering.

What a new slant on the surrender prayer!

Thank you for adoring and listening to My Words for the World.  Go with a joyful attitude.  Jesus loves you.

Graces and more Graces

#231   Wed. Jan. 29/14, 10:25am, St.Theresa’s before Blessed Sacrament

You come to Me today knowing how I Grace you.

I am delighted  that you are so aware that I Love you and want to heap Many Graces on you.

The most important Grace for you, you realized, was not to stay in your self, feeling sorry for yourself, feeling unloved.

You see, we see the good things that make us happy as My Graces on you.

Now realize that one of the strongest Graces I have for you, and I offer you, is that of not feeling sorry for yourself.

When we get in that mode of thought, we do not see the Grace in it.

Yet in itself you can acknowledge My Hand and ultimately My Grace.  Not My Grace that brings you out of this negative mode, but My Grace that allows you to experience this mood so you can make the choice to love or remain in selfish love.  This it the Grace of Opportunity!

The chance to check your heart and see if it is living in My Love or living in your self-centered love.

You never saw negative circumstances as presenting you with the Grace of Opportunity did you?

What a new revelation.

You thought coming to Me in this mood and asking for the Grace to get through it or over it was the only Grace attached to this negative mood.

So look on every circumstance as an opportunity presented by Me to allow you to make use of ALL My Grace Resources.

You not only need Graces to get out of such moods or circumstances but you need the Graces to see that this is an opportunity to choose to do My Will or remain in your own.

If everything ran beautifully you would miss out on a lot of My Graces of Opportunity.

So with the Grace of Opportunity there is the Grace of Realization. 

Realizing that this Opportunity Grace allows you to move closer to Me your loving God.

From the Grace of Opportunity, there is the Grace of Realization and from this is the Grace to Act – to act to choose My Will.

Even if you do not choose My Will.  You still have the Grace of Free Will – which enables you to choose Me or you.

Now choosing you as the center does not allow the Grace of Free Will to flourish.

Who You Are

#230  Monday, Jan 27/14, 9:30am St.Theresa’s, before the Blessed Sacrament

So you came to sit quietly.

I ask you to sit quietly and listen to My Words.

Present yourself to Me.  What do you say about yourself when you present yourself to Me?

Tell Me who you are.  Tell Me who you think you are.

Are you defined by dates, times and places?

Or do you think to say “I am a child of God.”

That is all you have to say because I know all about you – name, dates, times, places.

I want you to know who you are.

I know in the world in which you are living that this kind of response does not cut it.

But, I want you to know that when you come into My Presence I know you as a child of God  --  one of His Beloved.

Again, I just want your soul to see how it is seen by Me and the Father.

I do not distinguish height, weight, hair or eye color, tall or short, accomplishments or not.

The Father sees you as His Beloved Child.

I, Jesus, see you as His Beloved Child entrusted to Me for your salvation.  The Holy Spirit lends credence to the fact that you are a child of God by sharing God’s Wisdom, Understanding with you.

“I am a child of God.”  “I am God’s Beloved one.”

Take ownership of this Free Enormous Gift that God has lovingly bestowed on you.

You see we can only get closer to the Father if we acknowledge to Him that we have received this Gift and recognize ourselves in His Eyes.

We may often wonder how God sees us?

Now you know.  He sees you as His Beloved One – He wants you to claim to your heart that you are a child of God and that is how you will perceive yourself from now on.

What a relief!  You don’t have to wander around wondering how you would describe yourself to your Father.

I am Your Child God.

This simple sentence proclaims to your heart your intrinsic value in God’s Creation.  It also lets God, your Father, know that you recognize and want to proclaim that you are His Child.

And thus as a ‘child’ we are more likely to seek His Advice and Guidance.  When we see we are still a vulnerable child, we know we need to go to Him for guidance.

Children run to their parents with the simplest of questions expecting an answer that will satisfy their curiosity.

So we can run to the Father with our questions expecting, as innocently as little children do, that He will answer.

As a child you open your heart more readily to love and compassion. 

You are much less judging.

There is still sublime innocence.

You see nothing stupid about running to your ‘dad’ for advice, protection, guidance.

As we get older we allow our child-like innocence to be replaced by the various goings on in the World.

Pray, yes pray for a return of that precious innocence which does not judge but trusts and loves.

Ask for the innocent heart of a child.

Then you will not be embarrassed to claim to Me and to all the World that you are a child of God.

You will genuinely point to Me as your God & Saviour because you are proud to claim Me as yours!

He is My Father.  He is My Brother.  He is My Counselor.

You can say these phrases as an adult, however you may not say them with a child’s trust and innocence.

Do not be embarrassed to claim Me as your Father.

When you pray with the heart of a child you will find that your prayers are simple.  You will come right to the point. “I want some gum.”  Four short words that let you know right away what is on the child’s mind.

Now if you tell Me “I just want My sister to know you.” Say it from your child heart – full of love for that person, trusting that I will do it, and being satisfied with how I do it.

Your ways are not My Ways.

As a child I may ask for a tree house.  I know my dad loves me enough that I can ask him for this.  I trust he heard my request, and even when the end product may not look exactly as my child’s mind had imagined, I still think it is pretty nifty what he did make.

Now, for sure, I could get upset with the results and stomp around.  But most children won’t and don’t.

I want your heart satisfied with My Responses to your requests.

It will only be satisfied if first you believe that I, your Father, am acting on your behalf out of Love, Immense Love for you.

Keep your heart unhardened and open to the flow of Love.

See beyond the adult heart you now have and check out your child heart.  What entered in that erased innocence, trust, pure love, abounding joy?

Now come to Me and ask “I want the pure love I had as a child Lord.”

But are you ready to give over all that is in your heart that stands in the way of this pure love? 

Where to start?  Start by proclaiming to Me and to your heart that
“I am a child of God.”

Immediately that sentence of non-ownership by you, avails your heart the Grace to open and trust more and more in Me.

Can you see the surrender prayer here?

“o Jesus I surrender myself to you, take care of everything.”

“O Jesus, since I am a child of God, I can surrender myself to you and I know you will take care of everything.” 

So when you say the simpler rendition of this prayer, say it from the heart of the child who is praying to God. Say it from the innocence and unclutteredness of your child heart.

Sometimes if you ask a child what they plan to do, they may answer “I don’t know.”

What a blessing for them.  They have not cluttered their day with all sorts of plans but, without knowing it, have left their day freer for God to organize.

I tell you “Be like little children.”

So when you come to Me from now on, how will you present you to Me?

I am a child of God.

I am Your Child God.

AMEN.  Thank you for recognizing your marvelous relationship to Me and with Me. 

Let the floodgates of Grace flow into your child heart. 

Enjoy the child in you today.