Proper Prayer Comes from the Heart

I am He Who is called Faithful and True

I have taken some time now, as I have in my own private prayer and in prayer group setting to reflect more and more on the richness of the message of Our Lady that was just given on 2/2/2011 through Mirjana.
Here it is again for your review:

“Dear children, you are gathering around me, you are seeking your way, you are seeking, you are seeking the truth but are forgetting what is the most important, you are forgetting to pray properly. Your lips pronounce countless words, but your spirit does not feel anything. Wandering in darkness, you even imagine God Himself according to yourselves, and not such as He really is in His love. Dear children, proper prayer comes from the depth of your heart, from your suffering, from your joy, from your seeking the forgiveness of sins. This is the way to come to know the right God, and by that also yourselves, because you are created according to Him. Prayer will bring you to the fulfillment of my desire, of my mission here with you, to the unity of God’s family. Thank you.” (2/2/2011)

Our Lady said on 1/25/2011 that the Holy Spirit is working in the hearts of those who said ‘yes’ to her. And here she is now giving detailed instruction on how to follow her teaching.

The first image I had when I began to reflect on her message was of a child’s game called pin the tale on the donkey. The focus was on the child who is blindfolded, spinning around and then trying to find its mark. And here is our Lady saying three times repeated, “you are seeking, your are seeking, your are seeking…” as if she is saying you are getting closer and closer, and closer to me….BUT….

“…you are seeking the truth, but you are forgetting what is the MOST IMPORTANT, you are forgetting to pray properly. Your lips pronounce countless words, but your spirit does not feel anything…”

Does this sound like your prayer life? Is it all repetition? Or do you feel you are just going through the motion, but not getting any where, and you are wondering why you even need to take the step to pray? What’s the purpose? Are you saying, “I’m not getting anything out of it?”

Most likely you won’t get anything out of it, if you are just praying with your lips, in a religious routine, reciting your words over and over, just to get the prayer done and out of the way. But you are not encountering God in your prayer. Your spirit is still in darkness and you are not quite there yet to meeting God.

The imagination wanders and you imagine God to be who you want Him to be, not who He is.

I find this very common among our Christian brothers and sisters. God bless them!

However, the lose term is “Jesus Christ your personal Lord and Savior.”

Is God a personal God? Can we make God what we want Him to be for us? Do we see a problem with this?

Let’s just think for a moment. If God is my personal God, then I am going to tell God what I want Him to do for me. Or I can go on sinning and have no accountability for my sin, because Jesus died for me and that is it! He saved me, so I am going to heaven.

This is so contrary to the gospels in this way of thinking. We forget that God is the Creator, and we are the creatures. God belongs to no body! But we belong to Him.

Here is a basic catechism lesson. Why did God create you? To know Him, to love Him and to serve Him in this life so that we can be with Him in the next life. So many are asking, who is God? For most this will be kept a great mystery until the day of judgment.

For others however, we know God, because He has come in human form in the person of Jesus Christ. If you want to know the Father, you must know the Son. He is the way to the Father. Remember, Philip the apostle said to Jesus, “show us the Father and we will believe…” Jesus told Philip, ‘you have been with me this long, and you still don’t believe. If you see me then you see the Father…” Jesus is the way to the Father. “No one can come to the Father except through me,” said the Lord.

How quickly in our prayer do we run to the Father in our pride? Do we realize who we are encountering in this moment? Even Jesus humbled Himself before the Father, and said, “Equality to the Father is something to be grasped. Think about these words…

We really need to be careful in our spiritual life and fully aware of what we are doing, especially in the presence of the Father. It is wise and prudent to ask the Lord for the gift of Fear of the Lord, for in this comes all wisdom.

Our Lady continues on and speaks about prayer. She said,

“…Dear children, proper prayer comes from the depth of your heart, from your suffering, from your joy, from your seeking the forgiveness of sins. This is the way to come to know the right God, and by that also yourselves, because you are created according to Him….”

Wow! The key word here is ‘proper prayer.’ I have heard many times so many people say, ‘it does not matter how you pray, as long as you pray.’ Now there is truth to this, however the Mother is looking for a little more. The mother is saying, ‘proper prayer comes from the heart…”

Our Lady calls us to prayer with the heart and has done so on many occasions, and to make it all the more clearer, the prayer with the heart comes out of your suffering, out of your joy and when you are humbled asking for forgiveness when sin has been enlightened in you.

Now in reality, let’s look at suffering prayer. Don’t you think when the Father was looking at Jesus in his tormented agony praying from the cross, or praying in the garden of Olives that the Father had compassion on the Son? Of course He did! The Father was moved in grief to see His only Son suffer in the way He did so beautifully, laying His life down showing the Father everything that He created was good, and worth it to do what He had accomplished.

When someone is in joy, isn’t their heart rejoicing and the spirit is lifted high? So what do we do with this joy. We praise and thank God for giving us the gift of joy, and the gift that we are joyful for, with an ardent love for him in great gratitude, and maybe as a sign of our appreciation, we would make a special offering of thanksgiving to the Father for what He has done for us.

Prayer of the heart in seeking forgiveness. My friends, never forget the cross. Never forget what Jesus endured to save the soul. Here is the triumph of mercy for souls, in the cross. When we seek the Lord in His mercy and ask for forgiveness, there is no greater glory that is given to God, for we acknowledge our weakness, and give praise to Jesus on the Cross for our redemption.

For the one who is humble, and the one who has contrition for sin, there is nothing that the Lord will not do for such a soul. Jesus said to St. Faustina that we offend Him most when we do not trust in His mercy.

In the darkness, we are blind and we cannot see. Our Lady says we are wandering in the darkness, just like the image give above. We are disoriented and cannot find our way. Sin weakens the soul, and makes deaf our ears and eyes of the heart. That is when we are in sin, we cannot discern clearly the things of God, we lose our focus and fall off the path He has designed for us. We must always seek to remain in the light, and frequent the sacrament of reconciliation.

Do we see now that we cannot justify ourselves and our life styles to have God conform to us? NO! This is the lie. God is the same, and I will repeat this over and over. He is the same, yesterday, today, and will be in generations to come.
God cannot be made up in the imagination. He is Who He is, and in truth and in prayer we must seek Him for Who He is. You cannot create God to be what you want Him to be for yourself; that is ‘disordered.’ No! he created you to be who you are. He knew you before you were formed in your mother’s womb. (Is. 44:2, Jer. 1:5, Is. 43:1)

Our Lady has come with a purpose. Her purpose, her desire is to convert sinners and return them back to her Son. She wants the world to convert. This leaves no one human person out. She said very clearly in this message:

“…Prayer will bring you to the fulfillment of my desire, of my mission here with you, to the unity of God’s family….”

Her mission is to bring the family of God back together as one. Yes, she repeated again what she just said last month; remember, she is praying that we comprehend that we are God’s family. And she has summed up the purpose for her coming for this very reason. God’s children must reflect the image of the Father, and who better than the Mother to form and to teach the children of the family of God. Isn’t this a Mother’s role after all in the home?

Well it is suppose to be. Blessed Mother is the true feminine. She knows her role to perfection, and she will not shrink from her role and mother to make sure that every child of hers is safely back with her.

Remember, God is Father. Our Lady is Mother, and this Mother is determined to transform her children in the image of Jesus. Remember, Jesus was the only acceptable sacrifice pleasing to the Father. If we want the Father to see us then the Father needs to see Jesus fully alive in us. That means someone has to go, and that is the I, I, I inside of me, me, me. As St. John the Baptist said, “I must decrease so that He may increase…” (John 3:30)

Our Lady came to Medjugorje on 6/24/1981; the feast of St. John the Baptist, the herald call of the prophet who said, “prepare the way of the Lord, make straight His path.” She has come in the Spirit of Elijah to bring the triumphant reign of her Son in the world, and in human hearts. This is the mission. This is her plan. There is nothing short of this.

My friends, when Medjugorje is fulfilled, the power of satan will be destroyed. Mirjana said this. There will be nothing left but God and the sinner in fullness of truth. There are so many false claims of a final confrontation or the last battle. The battle is for your soul. God has already won the battle on Good Friday over 2000 years ago.

The enemy wants your soul, and will stop at nothing to claim it. Our Lady said in Medjugorje, it knows it has but a short time and it has become aggressive. The human spirit is so weakened by sin, it is just handing itself over into the hands of the enemy, without even reflecting on the eternal future.

Prayer and conversion are the only things that are important today. Satan wants you to think other wise and lures to worldly things which only distract the human intellect and heart from God. There is nothing more important than the salvation of your soul. If anyone can walk away from anything in reading these letters, I repeat again, your soul is more important than your home, your car, your bank account. Let’s get it all into perspective my friends. Convert!

I will continue on again in another posting, however for this purpose I feel I must stop here, to allow time for reflection. Take to heart the words and read them prayerfully with the help of the Holy Spirit, and pray for truth!

“The one who comes from above is above all. The one who comes from the earth is earthly and speaks of earthly things. But the one who comes from heaven is above all…the Father loves the Son and has given everything over to Him. Who ever believes the Son has eternal life. Whoever disobeys the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains upon him.” (Jn. 3:31, 35-36)

We Walk By Faith not by Sight

"Lord open his eyes that he may see" (2 King 6)

Believe the invisible…hard to swallow isn’t it? Believe the invisible. To believe in something we cannot see, and to trust in something we do not know, or do we?

Yet we walk by faith and not by sight right? St. Paul said, “no one comprehends the thoughts of God, except the Spirit of God…” (1 Cor. 12:3)

I often reflect on the people of Israel and how hard it had to be for them to believe in just a word of the testimony and witness of the prophets, and yet I find myself today in the same struggles. If it weren’t for the crucified, how difficult it would be for me to just believe a word…yet the Word of God was alive for this people who lived it and experienced it.

The Lord spoke to me on one occasion, and it was a powerful prayer experience with God. He spoke and said the same words given to St. John the Baptist by his father Zachariah… the Words were to me, “you my child shall be called the prophet of the most high, for you will go before the Lord to prepare the way, to give His people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of sins. In the tender compassion of our God, the dawn from on high shall come upon you, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide their feet on to the path of peace.”

Now most of us have heard and prayed these words, and maybe feel it in your heart as you pray it, as it is part of the morning prayer in the divine office of the Church.

But it was different for me. This word was enfleshed in me. I felt these words in the very depth of my soul. My heart burns when I hear them, and the Lord has consumed me with such zeal for His house no words can describe. I was called “sunshine” by my birth father even to this day, affirming the words “the dawn from on high shall shine upon you…”

This prophetic voice came to my soul over 10 years ago at a time I was naïve, yet wisdom and experience have proven to me to be careful and prudent of what you say yes to.

I don’t want to be mis-understood here, because where I am today verses where I was then is clearly night and day, literally. But the Lord has raised me up as a prophet, and well we all know a prophet is never welcomed at his home town…that is those who know me cannot believe it is really me.

What I didn’t know then, and what I know now, but most especially by experience, none the less, is that a prophet lives in his body what God is conveying to His people by voice.

You see then I used to say like many unbelievers, “the bible is just a bunch of words written by men, and it doesn’t even apply today…”

God in His infinite wisdom called me out on this, in a most powerful way. Here I am today to say, “watch out unbelievers! You will be made an example of, if you don’t believe the spoken word of God in His holy text!”

I don’t even want to ask any more when I am reflecting about what something means in the bible, because the minute I ask, the Lord will show me, right in my own home…now I’m just kidding to some respect, but there is truth to this.

Why am I saying this? All of the experiences I have had to go through, not just myself, but with my husband, our marriage sacrament, our children, our family, has been nothing short of the crucible, the fiery furnace. When you walk with God, it will be so for your own good and salvation. I’ve had to live it to tell it!

I can honestly speak with experience the lessons taught in the bible first hand experience by living it first hand, and say with confidence this is why I am experiencing this, as atonement for sin, for intercession, for my own conversion, for the greater good of another and so on…

Now do I do this perfectly…ABSOLUTELY NOT. Because I never know when I am in the storm or going through the fire why it has come until I pass through and see it from the other side.

We have been writing a series of articles just about what has been on my own heart in prayer as I feel Our Lady and the Lord moving in my own private life. However, I am convicted in many ways, by the calls, e-mails and conversations I have with many that we are all in similar ways going through the same thing.

Our Lady just spoke to the world again yesterday about the way we pray (2/2/2011). I felt as if she is enforcing what we’ve already been talking about which I will put in another posting.

However as to continue from what we began last week, on the series of messages from 1992 and with her help in her recent messages, she said in my heart just today… “keep writing.” I said, “who is really listening, I am just a voice? Who wants to hear me?”

Ah ha, then the word came quickly, St. John the Baptist, “I am a voice of one crying out in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord…”

Oh but a heavy sigh, I said again, “Yes! Ok. I am just a voice of one, and I emphasize the word ‘one.’

There is a difference between a voice and the Word. You see Jesus is the Word flesh. Meaning His word is alive in the flesh.

I am a voice. A voice is empty and just makes noise and chatters. But if it has the Word of God, then there is some content to what is spoken. There is an experience in the Word, and this word can be lived and put to life.

The Lord has declared that His spoken word is made flesh in me. (Now of course this does not mean just me, because He is in all of us, but what He is saying to me in my own heart He is trying to get my attention to something more deeper inside of me).

So now I have to believe in faith, BY HIS WORD that what He said is true and that my one voice will be heard and stir the spirit in another. I can only speak by what He has put on my heart to speak, and trust that what is spoken He will do the work on His own in the heart of another and meet them where they are at.

So to continue with Our Lady message below which she gave to the world in 1992 is still present for today even though it was given 9 yrs ago-just like scripture it is a living word and used in the present moment.

What we do not understand my friends is heaven is on earth. Our Lady is bringing heaven to us; Yes! Just like we ask in the Lord’s prayer.

So we are in God’s time, her time right now in heaven. We are in a suspended time of history where heaven has come to meet earth and God wants His people to look toward Him again. Hence the meaning “time of grace, time of mercy.”

Mirjana (Medjugorje visionary) had an experience with Our Lady when she was a child in the early days. It was that her watch was running backwards. Keep in mind Fatima at this time and the third secret untold, which eventually made public was found that a nuclear war was to occur in the mid-80’s. This was a time of the cold war, between Russia and the United States. The threat of nuclear war was emanate. Lucia the Fatima visionary confirmed this in her testimony before she died and Pope John Paul II knew about it.

The visionary (Mirjana) understood that time was being reversed when she prayed about its meaning. Time was being suspended. The earth was given more time to convert; Blessed Mother obtained that grace from her Son.

And now Our Lady has as I have said in the past posting, ‘rolled up her sleeves, and is getting down to business to clean up the house of God, and tell her children its time for them to come home from their non-sense.’

Blessed Mother has just proclaimed to the world that hearts are changing now. In 30 years of apparitions, the Mother has never said this. She is saying this now! Hearts are changing and the Holy Spirit is at work! (1/25/2011) Praise God my friends, praise God!

But now, she doesn’t want us just to pray with our lips, she wants us to pray with our hearts, our whole being, not to pray for our gain, but to seek God for who He is. (2/2/2011). Well here’s a twist.

Do you know God? Do you know who He is? How are you going to know of Him if you do not spend time with Him and experience Him?

So I ask that you read the below message and ask yourself, is this the way I pray?

“Dear children, today also I invite you to prayer so that through prayer you come yet closer to God. I am with you and wish to lead you on the path to salvation which Jesus gives. From day to day I am closer and closer to you, although you are not conscious of it and do not want to admit that you are connected to me in prayer only a little bit. When temptations and problems arise you say: “Oh God, O Mother, where are you?” And I only wait for you to give me your yes so that I pass it on to Jesus and that He may bestow with you graces. Therefore, once again accept my call and begin anew to pray, until prayer becomes a joy for you. And then you will discover that God is Almighty in your everyday life. I am with you and I wait for you. Thank you for having responded to my call.” (5/25/92)

Let’s begin with the first part; Our Lady begins with her invitation to prayer. “…also today I invite you to prayer….SO THAT THROUGH PRAYER YOU COME YET CLOSER TO GOD….”

Prayer is a way to bring us closer to God. How can anyone say He knows God, if He is not praying? That’s a hypocrite! You don’t know anyone unless you spend time with them and they share their deepest darkest thoughts of their heart with you.

Jesus said, “I have called you friend, because I tell you everything I have heard from the father…” (Jn. 15:15)

Jesus wants to share in the most intimate way what we should know about the Father. However, to get close to the Father, we must pass through His Son.

Friend? Are we friends of Jesus? He said we are friends if we live His commandments, just as previously posted. (Jn. 15:14)

But most of us are not even living the commandments. A friend of Jesus is one who lays His life down for another because of love. This is friendship with God. Isn’t this what Jesus did?

Our Lady said at another occasion, “I call you to the love that is loyal and pleasing to God…” There was only one love that was loyal and pleasing to God, and that was His only begotten Son crucified on the cross. This is the love that is loyal and pleasing to God. You allow yourself to be crucified, and die to yourself because of love for another and for God.

That is true friendship. That is true love of a spouse or a husband for His bride. He’s not complaining, not begrudging, not accusing, but to do it because Jesus did it for you in love. This is only one part of your Christian vocation my friends.

Then our Lady continues, and she said…

“…I am with you and wish to lead you on the path to salvation which Jesus gives. From day to day I am closer and closer to you, although you are not conscious of it and do not want to admit that you are connected to me in prayer only a little bit.

The path to salvation is where she wants to lead us which Jesus gave is the “way of the cross.” That is the path to salvation. That means, your trials, your suffering, your burdens is your path to your salvation…taking up your “daily crosses” and follow Jesus the way He carried the cross and the way you carry your cross will determine how heavy or light the burden will be for you.

She is with us from day to day, and she is coming closer to us. Her holiness, her presence is going to stir up dust in us, because we cannot remain close to her nor to her Son if we have a spot of darkness. She will make sure is it wiped spotless from us. So you may experience stirrings of agitations around you, that are to get your attention to say… “hmm I am not liking this, I want this to change.” Yep! She wants it to change also!

I will share with you a moment of agony and suffering in my own life. Now I have experienced God’s power in my life in a most tremendous way on multiple occasions. I have seen and witnessed things that there is no doubt in my mind God exists.

But even because of this I am fully aware of the weakness in my own humanity, of who I am, and knowing I am powerless.

Our family is going through a tremendous trial in this time. Now, no body would know this, because it is a silent suffering. Those on the outside would never know if we did not bring it to light. But all the more, knowing what I know about God, travailing is not any less, because we are human, we have emotions, we exist in this world, and we are not always going to be strong and for certain we are going to suffer.

But I got to experience today the power of the sacrament of marriage in a way that I have not before. I was consumed with anxiety and a fear today over a situation with our family, feeling helpless and desperate, still knowing nothing is in my control, nothing is in my power to change it. I had to just press into the pain, and seek refuge with the Lord.

I went deeper into my prayer, talking to Jesus and Blessed Mother in my heart telling them all my feelings about what was going on. I grabbed my crucifix and I carried it around the house with me, holding my mystical spouse tightly, and looking at him, knowing I was in the marriage bed with him on the cross in agony and in tears; and with all my heart in one breath asking why, and the other breath saying let it be.

The struggle within me was intense, and I clutched Jesus all the more, and my tears are covering the crucifix pouring over him.

My husband in the midst of all of this called me on the phone demanding to talk to me through my daughter. I said I was not able to talk right now, because I did not want him to know how much pain I was carrying, because I did not want him to worry about me.

When I took his call however, he began to share with me, how he was feeling this weight come over him of this cross we are carrying and asked me if we could just sit together tonight, that we didn’t even have to pray, but to be silent together. I could hardly hold back the tears. He didn’t know what I was experiencing in this time, because I never told him. Only Jesus crucified knew who I was holding in my arms in this moment.

But you see what you all don’t know is that I have been praying to see Jesus in my spouse for many years, to open my eyes so I could love my spouse the way I love Jesus and love Jesus in him.

And through this agonizing experience, I was able to unite my suffering on the cross, struggle in it, and a beautiful grace came in it. The burden is still there, but there was a peace that came in the voice of my spouse; that is my husband and Jesus speaking through him. I can hardly hold back the tears as I am writing about this now.

The Lord then gave me a flash of an image. I saw my husband in the person of Jesus. First it was Jesus and then it was him, flashing in and out, carrying the cross. I then experienced Jesus’ love for me carrying this burden on His shoulders as my own mystical husband, and is giving my husband the grace to carry it for me.

I don’t understand why God does what He does and His ways, but this is a most intimate experience that know body knows about (of course until now because I have just shared this in the book of my life).

So as I reflect today on this message of Our Lady when she said…

“… When temptations and problems arise you say: “Oh God, O Mother, where are you?” And I only wait for you to give me your yes so that I pass it on to Jesus and that He may bestow with you graces…”

I had to find the strength in my heart knowing God was listening to me, to cry out and say … “Yes! I will carry this cross! I remember you Blessed Mother with St. Joseph and your struggles as a husband and wife waiting upon the Lord, and I affirm loudly, “I believe in the love of God for me, I believe He has the power to deliver us from this darkness, this is why I need you God in my life! I cannot carry these burdens alone…”

And then the Lord proved by this experience, He not only heard my prayer, but He let me experience the power of my vocation and the sacramental grace in it with a small consolation of His love for me in my spouse.

In this moment, I was able to experience “God Almighty” today in my life as our Lady promised in this message through prayer. I don’t know the future, I only know what is present and I am here to proclaim, “My God reigns!”

Maybe this will help someone reading this, to go deeper into their heart in the midst of the fire, and cling to Jesus as He has taught me. Let the Church the bride of Christ, cling to her spouse! Ave Maria!

“I am the true vine and my Father is the vine grower. He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit and everyone that does He prunes so that it bears more fruit. You are already pruned because of the word I spoke to you. Remain in me as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit because without me you can do nothing….” (Jn. 15:1-5)