Blessed Mother: Pure Love, Pure Mercy

I experienced a great grace this weekend, being able to attend a powerful retreat on Forgiveness with Rwandan holocaust survivor, Immulee Ilibagiza and Monsignor John Esseff.  Thankfully, and by the grace of God, forgiveness has not been a big issue for me, but I was so moved by Immaculee's story of survival and forgiveness, living 91 days in a 3' X 4' bathroom with 7 other women, only to emerge to find her family had been murdered, that I could not pass up this opportunity to hear her great witness to forgiveness and the love our Beloved Savior has for all of us.

 
I also longed to know more about Our Lady of Kibeho, (church approved apparitions which occurred prior to the Rwandan holocaust), and was happy to learn much from Immaculee about her own experiences with the visionaries and what the messages meant to her, to Rwanda and to the entire world.  My love for our Blessed Mother has grown ever stronger after understanding more and more the great gift we have been given by Mary's unfathomably merciful, Divine Son.

I am only now starting to process some of the fruits of this wonderful retreat experience, but clearly for me, one of the greatest gifts of this retreat came from Monsignor Esseff, when he told us that God, in His mercy, gave us Mary -- pure love, and pure mercy -- as our Mother.  Jesus, on the other hand, is also pure love and pure mercy, but additionally He is pure justice.  Mary sees us, her children, with the eyes of love and mercy, no judgment.  Justice is not her domain.  Jesus, as the just judge, can deny his Mother nothing, as she is perfect and immaculate in every way.  He is powerless against her intercession.  (See The Wedding at Cana).  Of course her intercession is pure and always for our own good as a perfect Mother, and her will is perfectly aligned to that of the Divine, but it is becoming clearer and clearer to me, how going through Mary to Jesus is a far quicker and efficient way to getting to the center of His Sacred Heart than to go directly to Him.  She makes a clear, straight, easy path for us without judgment and opens the way to Him, just as she did when she cleared a path to Him from heaven to earth when He was born.  She cleans us up and presents us to Him in a way that we are unable to present ourselves.  Her only desire is to bring us close to Jesus so that we too may have complete union with Him for eternity.  In her love, she wants us to know Him as she knows Him, and from her perspective, she can obtain that for us far better than we can obtain it for ourselves. 

Pure love.

Pure mercy.

Would that every mother on earth could be called the same!

fiat.

Begging for the Intercession of John Paul II

My mother has Parkinson's Disease.  It is difficult to see her body increasingly betray her, although she has the best attitude for dealing with the constant changes, and keeps giving it all to God.  She accepts God's will for healing as well as she does for His reasons for not healing her -- His will be done.  But I am a beggar, and I do not plan to stop asking Jesus to give her this great gift of a miraculous healing.

I have recently felt inspired to ask the constant intercession of Pope John Paul II to obtain from Jesus, a complete healing for my Mom.  I have absolute faith that He can heal her, and I pray that it is His will to heal her with a miracle that will give tangible witness to the mercy, power and love of our Beloved Savior.  Of course, His mercy may permit her to continue to suffer for reasons only known to Him.  But we pray, and we hope.

Please join me in praying the prayer I have asked my entire family to pray, every day, at least through May 1st, which is Divine Mercy Sunday, and the day our Pope John Paul the Great will be named Blessed......

Dear Pope John Paul the Great,
Through the Immaculate Heart of our Beloved Mother, Mary,
We beg you to intercede for us,
Pleading with He whom you were known as His Vicar on Earth.
We beseech you to beg Him for a miracle,
That on the day you are raised to the altar and declared Blessed,
That He will grant a complete healing to my Mother,
His beloved daughter, Patricia Ann.

As you, yourself know first-hand the suffering endured
By those who suffer from Parkinson’s disease,
We beg you to obtain from Jesus,
That my Mother be completely healed from this terrible illness.

Oh, Holy Father!
Can Jesus Himself ignore the pleas of His Beloved Vicar?
We implore you, pray unceasingly to our Beloved Savior,
That He will look with favor on us and grant what we request,
Through your humble and holy intercession.

We ask this through Jesus Christ, our Lord,
Who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit,
One God, forever and ever.
Amen.

FIAT