The First Gift of Christmas

The First Gift of Christmas

            In the famous Christmas movie, The Polar Express, the boy receives a bell from Santa Claus which is called “the first gift of Christmas.”  Then he is told that only those who believe in Santa Claus can hear the ringing of this bell.

            What longing in the human heart was the author of The Polar Express trying to convey?  It is the desire to have something beautiful to believe in-- beyond what we see around us.

"O Radiant Dawn, splendor of eternal light,
sun of justice: come, shine on those who dwell
 in darkness and the shadow of death."

            Around us there is so much desolation.  There are wars between nations and the war against the preborn.  Consider, for example that since 1973 the equivalent of 17.5% of our national United States population has died in the war against the preborn.  Additionally many of the elderly or disabled have fallen victim to euthanasia.  There is violence in our schools and communities.  Poverty, substance abuse, pornography, suicide, bankruptcy, and homelessness have become rampant.  Our freedom of speech and freedom of worship are being severely eroded.  Multitudes have embraced the lie that our sexuality—the gift of being created male or female in the image and likeness of God has no meaning.  This has reached the point where people are being persecuted and ostracized for stating the obvious fact that sodomy and other distortions of sexual expression are intrinsically disordered and morally destructive. Even the meaning of terms like equality and freedom has changed.  Instead of referring to the individual dignity of each person, equality is now falsely used to justify aberrant behavior and freedom is used to justify licentiousness.

            Yet despite all this desolation the longing for the beautiful remains in each of our hearts.  We desire that Someone Beautiful would come to heal our grief and restore what we have shattered.  Many centuries before Christ’s birth it was prophesied that when He came He would bring good news to the poor, heal the brokenhearted, proclaim liberty to captives, and set prisoners free (cf. Isaiah 61:1)  In the synagogue at Nazareth Jesus applied these words of Isaiah to Himself: “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21).  And now He is here, the Father’s Eternal Gift, the Radiant Dawn from on High, the true and everlasting First Gift of Christmas, Jesus Christ, the Lord.

            He is coming for you—His beloved one.  No matter what you have done or failed to do—you are still His beloved one.  He sees your true identity, the real you!  You were created as a unique, irreplaceable male or female immortal person in His own image and likeness.  The greatest gift you could give Him this Christmas is to open your heart to His overflowing Love for you.

            Today will you open your heart to Jesus Christ, the True First Gift of Christmas, or will you allow the hole in your heart to be forever unfilled?

 

Wishing you and your loved ones

The Everlasting First Gift of Christmas,

Sister Mary Rose Reddy, DMML

Spiritual Warfare is Necessary Against Suicide

The tragedy of suicide has multiple causes but what should not be overlooked is that in some cases evil spirits have negatively influenced the victims' thought patterns.  This was brought out in a very good article that I read today: "Why are so many pastors committing suicide?"

We need to take the offense against suicide by uniting ourselves with Jesus Christ and His Blessed Mother and the Holy Angels.  Together with the armies of Heaven we can resist negative thought patterns and help others to do so.  Through our prayers and love we can also reach out to help the souls who may be suffering in Purgatory because of the terrible mistake of suicide.  And united with Jesus Christ and His all Powerful Spirit we can aid with our love the grieving families and friends of those who are suffering the loss of a loved one to suicide.

A Prayer of Thanks for Your Infinite Mercy Toward Those Who've died by suicide

A Prayer of Thanks for Your Infinite Mercy Toward Those Who Have Died by Suicide

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the immeasurable gift of every person You have ever created.

We know that each of us is a beautiful irreplaceable unique image of Your perfect Beauty.

Today we offer You thanks for having created the people whose suicides we are grieving.

Thank you for the gift of their lives.

Thank you for all their heartbeats, the breaths they took, the joy and love they brought into our lives.

Thank you for their immortal souls created in Your image and likeness.

Thank you for the Gift of Your Son Jesus Who offered His Life on the Holy Cross for us.

Thank you for allowing Your Beloved Son to experience the terrible anguish that led Him to cry out to You, “My God, My God why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46) so that no soul would be beyond the hope of redemption.

Thank you for hearing your Son’s prayer form the Holy Cross, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).

Let God the Father take care of His people

One morning last week as I was waking up I said to God the Father, "There are so many people that I am worrying about."  He said, "Why don't you let me worry about the people since I created them and you just love them?"

Praying for Souls Who Committed Suicide

Every November 2nd the Catholic Church throughout the world prays especially for the souls in Purgatory.  At Medjugorje Our Lady said that when most people die they go to Purgatory, the next greatest number choose to go to Hell by rejecting God's Merciful Love, and the fewest go directly to Heaven.  Souls in Purgatory are all on their way to Heaven but they are expiating sins and faults that were encumbering their souls at the moment of death.  These souls need our help.  We can help them by our prayers and sacrifices.  Especially souls who have committed suicide need help.  If you are suffering anguish because of a suicide of one of your loved ones, please place all of that grief into the Heart of Jesus and offer it with His Perfect Offering to our Heavenly Father for the relief of your beloved one's soul.  It will become a very powerful prayer and this prayer will help your loved one to complete the "School of Love" that is Purgatory and to enter more quickly into the full bliss of seeing God face to Face in Heaven.

Jesus to the Suicidal

My Dear Beloved Child,

I love you and I, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit have loved you from all eternity as the prophet Jeremiah told you, “With age-old love I have loved you; so I have kept my mercy toward you” (Jer. 31:3).  Please, my child, reject the thoughts that urge you to take your own life.  These thoughts do not come from my Holy Spirit.  Your life is a gift not just to you but to all those others who are surrounding your earthly journey.  You were created to live in joyful union with Us forever. 

 I know that life on earth can be difficult.  Remember that I walked the roads of your world.  I sweated blood in the garden as I grieved over so many souls who would reject the Gift of My Precious Blood of Redemption that I was about to pour out on the Cross.  Please do not reject My Love! You think that you have sinned too much to be forgiven, but that is a lie! My Mercy is Infinite—that means it is greater than all the sins that can possibly be committed combined.  Even if you were the only one I would have poured out all My Blood to reassure you of my love and my mercy for you.  

 I created you in my own image and likeness and I gave you a mission on the earth which is yours alone and it is irreplaceable.  I am with you every moment.  Call on Me.  We will walk together through the sorrows of earth to the eternal joy that is awaiting you.  Call also on my Mother, Mary because I entrusted you to her Motherly Care as I was dying on the cross for you (John 19:27).  Call on all the Angels and Saints to join their prayers to yours because they are your invisible companions on the journey to eternity.  Console My Heart by accepting the cross of your earthly sorrows and trusting in My everlasting Love for you.   "Because you are precious in my eyes and glorious, and because I love you" (Isaia 43:4).

All my Love,

 Jesus Christ

Guardian Angels Want to Help Us

Every October 2^nd the Catholic Church celebrates a feast in honor of the Guardian Angels.  In the Gospel of St. Matthew Jesus tells His Apostles, “See that you do not despise one of these little ones; for I tell you their angels in heaven always behold the face of my Father in heaven.  For the Son of Man came to save what was lost” (Mt 18:10).

 It is very important to realize that every person has his or her own personal Guardian Angel sent by God just to watch over each of us and to inspire us to make the choices that will lead us to the everlasting joy of eternal union with God and our loved ones.  Also each person who is contemplating suicide or who has already committed suicide has a Guardian Angel.  Angels are outside of time and they have the power to bring the consolation of God to people.  We see this in the Agony in the Garden where Jesus was in such great anguish and where God the Father sent Him an angel of consolation (cf. Luke 22:43).  St. Padre Pio who was a Catholic priest who died in 1968 had the gift of always being able to see his own and other peoples’ Guardian Angels.  St. Padre Pio used to receive letters from people all over the world in many different languages.  If he did not know the language of the letter he had received, his Guardian Angel would translate it for him.  There is a whole book about this called Send Me Your Guardian Angel by Fr. Alessio Parente.  What is important to the members of LAST to know is that Padre Pio used to advise people to send him their Guardian Angels.  We can still do this now that Padre Pio is a Saint in Heaven.  I can say, “Dear Guardian Angel, please go to Padre Pio and ask him to pray for (whoever God has particularly put upon my heart).  Of course we can also pray directly to Padre Pio or more especially directly to God, but God likes it when we make use of intercessors because it is humble and respectful and increases the love power of our request.

You Are The Father's Beloved.

You are the Father’s Beloved.

No matter what anguish you are experiencing;

No matter how many sins you have committed;

No matter how many times you have turned away from Him;

No matter what horrible things have happened to you;

No matter if you are very angry with Him for allowing terrible things to happen;

No matter that it seems like your life is totally messed up;

You are and always have been the Father’s Beloved Child.

The Father has created you to be a unique, irreplaceable image of Himself.  No one can take your place.  The Father desires that you enter into a union with His Beloved Son Jesus and His Holy Spirit that will make you unimaginably happy forever.

Today (August 7) is a day that God the Father in an approved private revelation to Mother Eugenia Ravasio in 1932 suggested be established as a feast in His Honor. You can read the whole message at: http://www.theworkofgod.org/God.htm

Up to this point (2013) God the Father has no feast day.  If one is established by the Church it will open up a floodgate of blessings as more and more of God’s beloved children come to realize that they have an Infinite Loving Father Who desires to be known, honored, and loved by them in order to draw them into the happiness He created them to experience.  You can read another article about this on today’s Spirit Daily website: http://www.spiritdaily.com/GodtheFather.htm

Priest Helps Boy Who Had Committed Suicide

Today I read a great article on the Spirit Daily website that shows the power of prayer and especially the power of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass to help people who have committed suicide.  Here is an excerpt from the article:

A priest in Scottsdale, Arizona, has established a chapel for the souls in purgatory in part as a consequence of his own experiences with the departed on the "other side."

Father Doug Lorig, a convert from the Episcopalian faith, now pastor of one of the most prominent parishes in the Phoenix area, says the Lord has used a number of extraordinary mystical experiences to instruct him on the deeper devotions of Catholicism.

In one case he buried a 17-year-old boy named Tony, who had been involved with drugs and committed suicide. "I prayed for him at every Mass for a year and about a year later went to Queen of Heaven Cemetery for another funeral, of newborn, and parked car at far end of cemetery," says Father Doug. "I then went to the canopy and said prayers and consoled the family and was walking back past all these graves and just stopped because someone was calling my name.

"'Father Doug, Father Doug.'

"And there was nobody there.

"I looked down -- and there was Tony's grave! I happened to be right there. And I had a locution.

"I heard him clearly say to me, 'Father Doug: thank you.'"

To read the full article click on: http://www.spiritdaily.com/lorig.htm

For those grieving the loss of a loved one to suicide

This week the son of one of my friends committed suicide.  I called her and talked with her about how her prayers and love were present at the moment that her son died and that even her anguish can become a prayer for him.  Yesterday she called me back and asked me to write a letter to her daughter explaining the things that I had told her on the phone.  I said that I would and that I would also publish it on this blog so that maybe it would be able to help others who are experiencing this terrible grief.  If  you would like to read it, please click on the page that says "letter of consolation."  Feel free to use it to help other people.  We need to stay united in prayer and love and the Holy Spirit so that we can help the many victims of suicide and their families through the Mercy of our Savior Jesus Christ to attain eternal life with our Heavenly Father.  In the end that will be the only thing that really matters.

The Communion of Saints

Tomorrow would have been my mother's 99th birthday.  When she was still on earth I often asked her to pray for my intentions and I know that when I ask her now to pray for my intentions she still does, and she has a much greater power of intercession.  All the people in Heaven are Saints!  That means we all have relatives who are Saints!  We still need to pray for our loved ones who have died because they may need our prayers to get up to Heaven but it should give us great hope that we were all created by God Who is Love and that the way that leads back to Him is Love.  Let us continue to love each other down here on earth but let's not forget to love those who have left the earth and depend on our prayers.  At the same time let's learn to depend on their prayers.  This is what the Communion of Saints means.  Once Jesus said to His enemies who were questioning the Resurrection, "Haven't you read what God spoke to Moses saying 'I am the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.'?  He is not the God of the dead but of the living for all live to him."  Think about the meaning of what Jesus was saying.  Abraham lived about 1900 years before Jesus was born as a man.  He was pointing out that God didn't say, "I was the God of Abraham...."  In other words, Abraham is still alive.  Another time Jesus illustrated that He is God, as well as man, when He said, "Before Abraham came to be, I am."

Ed and Char Reddy, my parents

"Come to Me all you who labor and are burdened"

On this great feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus the very best way to celebrate is to respond to this invitation of His.  Jesus says to you and to me, "Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy, and my burden light" (Matthew 11:28-30).  Just turn to Him in your heart and tell Him about all your afflictions, anxieties, sufferings, griefs, anguish, temptations, sicknesses.  And when you have told Him everything leave it all in His Heart.  Now you will see that He is sharing your burden and your heart will have a new capacity to receive the great hope that He has for you and the desire that He has to give you "a future full of hope."

"I have loved thee with an everlasting love."

God the Father speaks these words directly to you and to each person.  Each person is a unique irreplaceable image of God.  Because God is all knowing and has no beginning or end, you have always existed as an idea in His Mind and He has loved who you are.  That is why the members of LAST (Lifeline Against Suicide Team) pray for every person to realize the gift of his or her own life and to appreciate that everlasting gift.

The L.A.S.T. word

The L.A.S.T. Word

By Sister Mary Rose Reddy, DMML

“Do not harm yourself, for we are all here” (Acts 16:28).

"Do not harm yourself, for we are all here."
 (Acts 16:28)

With these words St. Paul prevented his jailer from committing suicide.  Suicide is not the last word; mercy is.  As part of our mission for the healing of families, the Daughters of Mary, Mother of Healing Love are launching the Lifeline Against Suicide Team (L.A.S.T.). 

It is very simple to join the Team, especially if you already pray a daily Rosary and/or a Divine Mercy chaplet.  L.A.S.T. uses the international Rosary as a model.  Each decade is for a different continent.  For example you might pray the first decade for Africa, the second for Australia and all the island countries, the third for Europe, the fourth for North and South America, and the fifth for Asia. All you have to do is add (mentally) an intention before each decade that people in that area tempted to suicide will be prevented from doing so, and that those who have already committed suicide will receive God’s Mercy.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “We should not despair of the eternal salvation of persons who have taken their own lives.  By ways known to him alone, God can provide the opportunity for salutary repentance.  The Church prays for persons who have taken their own lives” (CCC 2283). 

When my childhood friend Rosemary committed suicide in 1990 it seemed that nothing would ever be alright again.  I had become a religious Sister and moved to Connecticut in 1980 and Rosemary and I had gradually fallen out of contact; but she was the kind of lifelong friend with whom I could pick up a conversation as if we had only seen each other the day before, no matter how many years had actually gone by. 

Because her favorite color was yellow, I titled the poem I wrote on the day of Rosemary’s funeral “Yellow Roses.”   The poem was a prayer asking God to have mercy on her soul.

For several months after her death I continued to grieve.  The thought that her soul might have been lost was a great anguish to me. I kept wishing that I had stayed in contact with her and that I might have been able to help her somehow. 

Then God in His Mercy began to show me that I could still help her.  I considered that “God is Love” (1 John 4:8); He loves Rosemary much more than I do, and He desires her salvation.  His Mercy is Infinite and at the moment when she realized the terrible mistake that she had made, if she turned to Jesus for mercy, she certainly would have received it.  I was greatly consoled by a saying of Saint Padre Pio, "For the Lord, the past does not exist; the future does not exist. Everything is an eternal present...even now I can pray for the happy death of my great- grandfather!"  I knew that this meant that I could pray now for Rosemary to be open to receive God’s Mercy at the moment of her death because everything is present to God.  At the moment of her death, God already saw my future prayer for Rosemary.

On the Palm Sunday after Rosemary’s death, I said to her, “If you are either in Purgatory or in Heaven, then I want you to give me a sign in one week.  It doesn’t matter what it is; but I need to know for sure that it is from you.” Exactly one week later, on Easter Sunday, I was at another convent.  I happened to be looking through a drawer filled with free holy cards.  Seeing one of my favorite pictures of Our Lady on the cover of a greeting card I took the card out and opened it.  Inside was a picture of yellow roses and the words, “Behold I am alive and I live forevermore.”

If you would like to formally join the Lifeline Against Suicide Team (L.A.S.T.), then please e-mail your name to Sister Mary Rose at: lastacts1628@gmail.com.  Also if you have any witness stories of how L.A.S.T. has helped someone, please feel free to send them to us.

Please join the Lifeline Against Suicide Team ( L.A.S.T.)

The Lifeline Against Suicide Team (L.A.S.T.)

“Do yourself no harm, for we are all here” (Acts 16:28).

With these words St. Paul prevented his jailer from committing suicide. Suicide is not the last word; mercy is. As part of our mission for the healing of families, the Daughters of Mary, Mother of Healing Love have launched the Lifeline Against Suicide Team (L.A.S.T.).



The only requirement to join LAST is to pray every day for the suicidal, and for those who have committed suicide and their families.


LAST is for all people not just for Catholics. Please unite with people all over the world who are praying for these people who are suffering so grievously. Your prayers will help to open the door to God's overflowing love and mercy!

“

LAST blog begins on Pope Benedict XVI's last day

February 28, 2013

In honor of Pope Benedict XVI's last day as Pope, I am writing the first post for the Lifeline Against Suicide Team (LAST) blog.  I chose this day because this Pope made God's Love the theme of his whole papacy and that is also the theme of LAST.  The blogs on this site will be for the purpose of bringing love and hope to the suicidal, to those who have committed suicide, and to their families.  Please consider joining the LAST team.  The only requirement is to pray every day for the suicidal, for those who have committed suicide, and for their families. To formally join the LAST team please send an e-mail to Sister Mary Rose at: lastacts1628@gmail.com