Apr. 26 - "Were not our hearts burning within us..."

[MariaChristi]

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Today’s Gospel offers us so much hope in these words:

“Were not our hearts burning within us
while He spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?” (Lk 24)

If anyone has not had that experience of truly “hearing with the ears of one’s heart,” God speaking through the words of Jesus, then I encourage you to pray for that grace to listen as Mary our Mother listened and had faith without any doubt.

When the two disciples first encountered Jesus on their way to Emmaus, He asked them what they were discussing and they told Him “… the things that happened to Jesus…” Then He spoke His Truth to them:

And He said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are!
How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke!
Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things
and enter into his glory?”
Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets,
He interpreted to them what referred to Him
in all the Scriptures.

How many of us are equally “slow of heart to believe…”? How many of us who have been baptized and given the supernatural gifts of Faith, Hope and Divine Charity even slow to Listen in order that we might believe the Truth we are hearing?

How have so many in the Church today seemed to have “fallen asleep” like the apostles in the Garden, instead of staying awake to pray with Jesus in His Agony? How has the enemy made “the ways of the world” so popular and made such inroads among so many – inciting more and more self-centeredness and weakening the “one another Love” Jesus gave us?

Far more serious, than the devastating pandemic which has killed so many bodies, is the lack of faithfulness to God causing death to our souls. What has happened to the Interior Life of our souls? If there ever was a time for Listening to God, with the ears of our hearts, it is now!

Today if you hear the Voice of God, harden not your hearts. (cf Hebrews 3:15 and Ps. 95)

God continues to give grace! Yesterday I was encouraged to read this:

Bishops of U.S., Canada will consecrate their nations to Mary, May 1
For more see article HERE

Our Lady of Fatima said “In the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph”.

Jesus will come again as He did the first time, through Mary. His First coming was hidden but His Second Coming will be Glorious – He will Triumph through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the Mother and Model of His Church! On that day may we all have our hearts burning within us, truly hearing with the ears of our hearts the fulfillment of the Scriptures.

 

[MariaChristi]

Dear Cath and QuietTrad,

Thanks again for your faithful and loving “hearts” given in love to Jesus through Mary. You thus can give encouragement to others to grow in love for The Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary also!! The first words of St. Louis de Montfort’s Introduction to True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin :

1. It was through the Blessed Virgin Mary that Jesus came into the world, and it is also through her that He must reign in the world.

St. Louis then ends his introduction with these words:

1. My heart has dictated with special joy all that I have written to show that Mary has been unknown up till now, and that that is one of the reasons why Jesus Christ is not known as he should be.

If then, as is certain, the knowledge and the kingdom of Jesus Christ must come into the world, it can only be as a necessary consequence of the knowledge and reign of Mary. She who first gave Him to the world will establish His kingdom in the world.

Thank you Lord for the gift of Mary as our Mother and Model for the Church.
By your grace working in us may we faithfully Listen to your Word as Our Mother listened and pondered all in her heart. May we be attentive to the Holy Spirit sent to bring the Church into the fullness of Truth, Who is Jesus.

 

[Katie777]

It is through Mary’s fiat we are instructed to live a life of virtue and be ready to listen for Her call.
I find it very interesting that our Blessed Mother and Her followers said “yes” to God without question. She,in all Her Holiness gives this example. Others had to be persuaded,proven blinded etc before accepting reality.

We as Mary’s children should know better. Let us pray to have Mary’s “yes” penetrate our hearts.

Thank you MariaChristie for this post and meditation.

Your sister in Christ through Mary
Katie

 

[MariaChristi]

My dear sister in Christ, Katie,

Thank you so much for your reply. “Yes”, Mary’s “Fiat”, her words of reply to God through His Angel recorded in the Gospel of Luke, need to be heard more deeply in the heart of every child of hers:

Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her. (Lk 1:38)

St. Louis de Montfort in his Supplement contained at the end of his “True Devotion to the Virgin Mary” encourages us to ask Mary to give us her heart to receive Jesus:

Before Holy Communion

1. 1) Place yourself humbly in the presence of God.

2) Renounce your corrupt nature and dispositions, no matter how good self-love makes them appear to you.

3) Renew your consecration saying, “I belong entirely to you, dear Mother, and all that I have is yours.”

4) Implore Mary to lend you her heart so that you may receive her Son with her dispositions. Remind her that her Son’s glory requires that he should not come into a heart so sullied and fickle as your own, which could not fail to diminish his glory and might cause him to leave. Tell her that if she will take up her abode in you to receive her Son - which she can do because of the sovereignty she has over all hearts - he will be received by her in a perfect manner without danger of being affronted or being forced to depart. “God is in the midst of her. She shall not be moved.”

Tell her with confidence that all you have given her of your possessions is little enough to honour her, but that in Holy Communion you wish to give her the same gifts as the eternal Father gave her. Thus she will feel more honoured than if you gave her all the wealth in the world. Tell her, finally, that Jesus, whose love for her is unique, still wishes to take his delight and his repose in her even in your soul, even though it is poorer and less clean than the stable which he readily entered because she was there. Beg her to lend you her heart, saying, "O Mary, I take you for my all; give me your heart."

Totus tuus!

 

[MariaChristi]

Dear Cath,

Thanks for your faithful and loving “heart” also given to Jesus through Mary! We can never thank Jesus and Mary enough, but we ought always to persevere in asking, seeking and knocking on the door for God to open to us all the graces we need to honor Him through Mary our Mother, whom He gave to us in saying to His Beloved disciple John:

Behold your Mother!

Let us ever obey Jesus as John did and take Mary into our lives – at every moment of every day of our lives!