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"Behold the Handmaid of the Lord"

2/5/2012

July 2011: “Behold the Handmaid of the Lord”

The First Anniversary

of Little Handmaids of Our Sorrowful Mother

            The first anniversary of Little Handmaids of Our Sorrowful Mother is July 1, 2011, which this year is the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. All praise be to Him for the gift of our Sorrowful Mother’s apostolate!

            When I was discerning that Our Sorrowful Mother was calling me to initiate and form this apostolate, I received a beautiful mental image while in prayer of the Blessed Mother sitting on a rock in the wilderness, and there were a group of little girls sitting on the ground circled out from the rock; I was one of the little girls. Then the Blessed Mother sat on the ground, a part of our circle, and she said: “You are little handmaids not because you are my servants, but because you are my daughters.” (She is the “handmaid of the Lord,” and we are her “little handmaids.”)

            I would like to introduce you to the other little handmaids, our Sorrowful Mother’s daughters:

            I find myself smiling more than usual when I’m with Socorro, and I carry the smile home with me. I think it must be her childlike faith and love, so like the faith and love of her beloved Little Flower (St. Therese de Lisieux). Here is her testimony:



I have always loved the Mother of God with all my heart. Being a little handmaid, one more devotion in my life, has made a great difference. It has brought me more faith, peace, and trust in God. God has chosen me for this group in order to give wonderful things to me and my family. God never makes mistakes. May God bless this group. I love you all very much.

When I think of Mary, another of our little handmaids, I think of her great devotion to the Baby Jesus. Where the Baby is, there is also the Mother. This is her testimony:

            I was called to be a little handmaid of Our Sorrowful Mother a little after I had my accident, an accident that left me homebound. During this time my friend Rosie invited me to become a little handmaid, and I accepted because I prayed to Baby Jesus and Mary to help me grow in my faith; at that moment I saw a plaque that said “Believe.” I believe that this is their answer for me always. I know our Blessed Mother loves me no matter what; she has always been there for me, even thou I do not always pray the rosary. I do my best to go to church every day and go to confession often; God has given me many blessings since that accident, which changed my life.

            When Magda accepted our invitation to become a little handmaid in Sept. 2010, she quoted Padre Pio: “Some people are so foolish that they think they can go through life without the help of the Blessed Mother.” The Blessed Mother has led Magda to a very intimate relationship with Jesus:

Nothing happens by chance . Today I was asking myself, what is it that makes me worthy of talking to Our Lord Jesus Christ in my dreams, and now I know it was so I could give this testimony. I first spoke to my cousin Rosie, because ever since I was a little girl, I would have dreams of the Virgin Mary, Padre Pio and the Angels, but little by little I lost communication with them; I became more distant from them. And then I received a message from the Little Handmaids; with this I knew that they have always been with me. Today Jesus is also in my dreams; I can not only see Him, but He also sits with me and talks to me, and He gives me messages. We all have a mission in this life, and ours as Little Handmaids is to restore the Faith, in these times when restoration of the Faith is so needed.

Ira is a Catholic artist who paints beautiful paintings that she uses for catechesis and evangelization, and she has been very enthusiastic about our apostolate from the beginning. You may view her paintings at www.catholicworldart.com, and you will also find a few of them on our website at www.sorrowfulmother.net. Here is her testimony:

I was going through a period of time in my spiritual life where I wanted to truly “feel” sorry when I thought of Jesus’ passion and death. I struggled with it a long time and desired that, at the thought of Jesus crucified for me, I would emotionally cringe with sorrow, as I ought to. When I heard of the LHSM, I knew it was the answer to my prayer, for who better to teach me to feel sorrowful than she who suffered in union with Him? Since joining, I am experiencing Jesus sharing His passion with me. I am grateful for this apostolate, since it is making me unite my sorrows with Mary’s and Jesus’ and helping me to share in theirs.

For me Rosa Maria is a model of living in God’s perfect will. At the dialysis center where she receives treatments three days a week she is known as “the lady who prays.” She has been very enthusiastic about inviting other ladies to join us and has shared her beautiful gift of writing letters and poetry with us. Here is her testimony:

What drew me to the Little Handmaids is much prayer, so much that by the time I got the invitation to become a Little Handmaid, I yearned to be inside the Immaculate Heart of Mary. My growth has been amazing, something out of the ordinary. It is supernatural, something I cannot explain. I have seen many fruits. I have been able to go inside the Pierced Heart and Holy Wounds of Jesus, and from there I have been able to understand with complete clarity and transparency the sufferings of humanity, and from this place I was taught how to alleviate not only Jesus’ pain, but also the pain of His suffering children. I plan to stay in this place until the greatest of Loves comes for me according to His Holy Will.

I see Rosie—my friend and partner in serving Our Sorrowful Mother and her little handmaids—as being like St. Therese when she described herself as “Baby Jesus’ little ball.” It seems to me that Rosy is willing for Jesus to do whatever He wants with her. She does all of the Spanish translation and most of the Spanish correspondence. Sometimes she collaborates with me on the monthly devotional by making suggestions for changes. She and I have worked together on constructing the website, and we talk a lot about the direction of the apostolate and make decisions about it together, after much prayer and consultation with the spiritual director of the Little Handmaids. Here is her “kind of simple and to the point” testimony:

What I think drew me first to this apostolate was Our Lady of Kibeho and also the fact that this apostolate was not going to have commitment to meetings. I also liked that communication was going to be online. I know I have grown spiritually to the point of wanting to be a better person every day. I believe that the fruit of becoming a little handmaid has shown in my prayer life. Also I see the sacrament of confession in a different light. I see confession as a means to transform ourselves into that saint God and Our Lady want us to be.

            As for me (Cami), most of you probably already know that Our Sorrowful Mother came to me when I urgently needed her loving support, and then “sent me out” via internet to draw other women to her. As a little handmaid, I have grown closer than ever before to the Blessed Mother, and I experience the gentle love of Jesus more intimately than ever before. In my family I am able to better accept the difficulties of my life and have grown in patience. Our family is more joyful and peaceful now.

`               When I recently expressed our gratitude to Fr. Jaime for what he has done for us as our spiritual director, he waved his hand in a dismissing gesture and said: “Mary is my Mother. What I do for her I love to do!”



            Dear daughters of Our Sorrowful Mother, if you know Mary as your Mother and love to do anything that you can for her…If you want to grow closer to her and to her beloved Son, Jesus…If she is touching your heart with her compassion, and opening it with compassion for others, we invite you to ask her if she is calling you to be a Little Handmaid of Our Sorrowful Mother.

Written by Our Sorrowful Mother’s little handmaids

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"The Love of a Most Tender Mother"

2/5/2012

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May 2011: “The Love of a Most Tender Mother”

            When I first returned to the Church in 1992, a well-intentioned friend told me that men are made in the image of God, and women are made in the image of men. I don’t remember how many months it took me to learn that that was not true, but, anyway, thanks be to God, that I now know that all people (men and women; fathers and mothers; boys and girls, etc.) are made in God’s image. “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him: male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:27).

            For the month of May, I would like to share with you some Scriptures, and also some excerpts from St. Faustina’s Diary, that reflect on the maternal qualities of God’s Heart—for you to ponder and pray about. By reading and reflecting on them, I believe that I have experienced a deeper sense of my gift of being made (as a woman, wife, and mother) in God’s image. God’s tender love radiates from our Mother Mary’s Heart (“My soul magnifies the Lord…), and every mother’s love (every woman’s love) is a small portion of the gentle love of our God.

“Jesus, You are my Mother, You are my all! It is with simplicity and love, with faith and trust that I will always come to You, O Jesus! I will share everything with You, as a child with its loving Mother, my joys and sorrows—in a word, everything.”

(Diary #230)

“But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a child quieted at its mother’s breast;

like a child that is quieted is my soul.”

(Psalm 131:2)

“Jesus, I trust in You! Jesus, I love you with all my heart!

When times are most difficult, You are my Mother.

(Diary #239)

“Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should have no compassion

on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.”

(Isaiah 49:15)

O God, how much I desire to be a small child. You are my Father,

and You know how little and weak I am. So I beg You, keep me close by Your side all my life

and especially at the hour of my death. Jesus, I know that your goodness surpasses

the goodness of a most tender mother.”

(Diary #242)

“As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you;

you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.”

(Isaiah 66:13)

O my Jesus, the Life, the Way, and the Truth, I beg you to keep me close to You

as a mother holds a baby to her bosom, for I am not only a helpless child,

but an accumulation of misery and nothingness.”

(Diary #298)

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you!

How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers a brood

under her wings, and you would not!”

(Matthew 23:37)

All my nothingness is drowned in the sea of Your Mercy. With the confidence of a child,

I throw myself into Your arms, O Father of Mercy, to make up for the unbelief of so many souls

who are afraid to trust in You. O how very few souls really know You! How ardently I desire

that the Feast of Mercy be known by souls! Mercy is the crown of Your works;

You provide for all with the love of a most tender mother.

(Diary #505)

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"A Heart of Flesh"

2/5/2012

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June 2011: “A Heart of Flesh”

In this month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, I would like to share with you some excerpts from a beautiful article entitled “About the Sacred Heart and Saint Margaret Mary”from www.sanctuaires-paray.com: the website of Paray-le-Monial, the monastery that was the religious home of St. Claude de la Colombiere, the spiritual director of St. Margaret Mary:

“Everywhere in society, in our villages, in our neighborhoods, in our factories and our offices,

in our meetings between people and races, the heart of stone, the dried up heart, must change into the heart of flesh, open to one’s brothers, open to God. The survival of humanity

depends upon it. It is beyond our power. It a gift from God, a gift of His love.”

(John Paul II, October 5, 1986, at Paray-le-Monial)



            This gift of love was announced by the Prophet Ezekiel: “I will give you a new heart and place a new spirit within you, taking from your bodies your stony hearts and giving you natural hearts” (Ez. 36:26). But how does this transformation come about, so necessary to the well-being of humanity and to the salvation of souls? How does the Holy Spirit come into the hearts of men? It is the work of Jesus Christ: on Calvary, the Heart of Christ, opened by the soldier’s lance, became the source from which the Heavenly Father would make flow the graces of conversion and participation in the divine life.

            On the threshold of modern times, St. Margaret Mary was chosen by Divine Providence to remind the entire Church and the world of the depth of the love of Christ. She “knew the overwhelming mystery of Divine love. She knew all the depths of the words of Ezekiel: I will give you a heart. During all of her life hidden in Christ, she was marked by the gift of this Heart, which offers itself boundlessly to every human heart” (John Paul II, ibid.)

            At a recent silent retreat I asked God the Father for that “new heart,” because, I told Him, my heart is irreparably damaged by the abuse and neglect that I suffered as a child, and by the damaging effects of the grievous sins of my young adulthood. Yet, Father, “nothing is impossible (nor irreparable) with You.” He responded to me: “It is the gift I have prepared for you. It is the gift. Believe in Me.” I believe that it is the gift He has prepared for me, the gift I see growing in me. I believe that it is the gift He has prepared for each of us, His children: a new heart. The heart of His Son Jesus.

The article about the Sacred Heart continues:

            June 13, 1675. During an apparition, Our Lord, uncovering His Divine Heart, revealed to Sister Margaret Mary, “See this Heart which has loved men so much that it has spared nothing, to the point of exhausting and consuming itself to show them its love.” God wanted to become man so as to be able to love us with the Heart of a man. The ultimate goal of such a love is expressed in this phrase from the Gospel: “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him may not die but may have eternal life” (Jn. 3:16). But, before introducing us to the intimacy of divine life, God had to remove the obstacle constituted by sin, the greatest of evils that touch man. “To the eyes of faith, no evil is greater than sin and nothing has worse consequences to sinners themselves, for the Church, and for the whole world” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1488). The manifestation of Divine Love would thus take a particular expression; it would be called mercy.”

            Mercy is at the center of the message confided by Jesus to St. Margaret Mary. To be merciful is to be moved to sadness at the sight of another’s misery as if it were one’s own. The effect of mercy is to eliminate another’s misery as much as possible…

            At my retreat the Lord showed me that my deepest sin is self condemnation. I had an image of myself as a little child who is beaten each time I judge and condemn myself. When I woke up the next morning, I thought of that image of the beaten little child deep within me, and I was “moved to sadness at the sight” of my own “misery” and resolved to put my full effort, with the Lord’s grace, into trying to be as merciful to myself as I have experienced the Lord being merciful to me. I pray daily for the grace to do this.

            When we open our hearts to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, He will show us our sin, so that, when we repent of that sin, He can “remove the obstacles-including unhealed wounds- to prepare to introduce us to the intimacy of divine life.”

Jesus to St. Faustina, from Divine Mercy in My Soul, #1577-78

“Tell souls not to place within their own hearts obstacles to My mercy, which so greatly wants to act within them. My mercy works in all those hearts which open their doors to it.

Both the sinner and the righteous person have need of My mercy.

Conversion, as well as perseverance, is a grace of My mercy.”

“Let souls who are striving for perfection particularly adore My mercy, because the abundance of graces which I grant them flows from My mercy. I desire that these souls distinguish themselves by boundless trust in My mercy. I myself will attend to the sanctification of such souls, I will provide them with everything they will need to attain sanctity. The graces of My mercy are drawn by means of one vessel only, and that is—trust. The more a soul trusts, the more it will receive. Souls that trust boundlessly are a great comfort to Me, because I pour all the treasures of My graces into them. I rejoice that they ask for much, because it is My desire to give much, very much. On the other hand,

I am sad when souls ask for little, when they narrow their hearts.”

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Bare Branches: Signs of Hope

2/5/2012

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Bare Branches: Signs of Hope

            At the track near my home, as I was walking along praying, I began looking at the beautiful signs of spring. There were little trees along the track that had flowers beginning to grow on them, and some of them had small green leaves. Most still had only bare branches, but there was the promise in the air of growth to come. When I looked at the little lavender (or white) flowers and the green leaves on a few of the branches, I thought, “These are signs of hope, Lord,” but the Lord, in His gentle Teacher’s manner, corrected me, “It is the bare branches that are signs of hope.” How can bare branches be signs of hope?

“For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope.

For who hopes for what he sees? (Romans 8:24)

            How can a Cross covered with the Blood of an Innocent Victim be a sign of hope? Yet, millions of Christians around the world have experienced the hope that comes through the Cross of Christ.

            There are so many places throughout the world where innocent blood is being shed today. Among those places, there are none more tragic than the abortion facilities where the blood of unborn babies, killed in their mothers’ wombs, is being shed. Yet, in God’s mysterious ways, at many of those abortion facilities, hope is blossoming in hearts, through the power of His Holy Spirit.

            40 Days for Life is a community-based movement of volunteers who pray, fast, and stand (or kneel or sit) in vigils in front of abortion facilities throughout the United States and in several other countries; and of those who (like myself), unable to be physically present at vigils, pray and offer sacrifices at home for the sake of the babies, parents, and the active volunteers. They offer the hope in their hearts for those women who, without hope of another alternative, go to have abortions. They pray, peacefully hold signs, and offer literature (and sometimes counseling) to those women (and men) who are open to their help. On the day I have begun this devotional (halfway through their campaign) their website at www.40daysforlife.com announces that 178 babies (that they know of) have been saved since this Lenten campaign began on Ash Wednesday. What joy, the fruit of their hopeful prayers and efforts! I would like to share a short account from Day 13:

            From Corpus Christi, Texas- Outside the abortion center, 40 Days for Life participants were able to talk to a couple—but couldn’t convince them to turn away. As they walked in, the volunteers resumed their prayers.

            A short time later they came out of the building. The young woman raised her hands in the air and said, “I didn’t do it!”

            “They were so happy,” said one of the volunteers, “and they begged us to pray for them.”

            “Prayers—and the vigil—work,” she said. “Amen!”

“A first essential setting for learning hope is prayer. When no one listens to me anymore, God still listens to me. When I can no longer talk to anyone or call upon anyone, I can always talk to God. When there is no longer anyone to help me deal with a need or expectation that goes beyond the human capacity for hope, He can help me.”

   [“Saved in Hope” (#32), 2007 encyclical of Pope Benedict XVI]

            What about the women who don’t change their minds, who walk into the building and, tragically, have abortions? There are many more women who have abortions when they come to the facilities than there are women who change their minds. In the 40 Days for Life email for Day 22, Shawn Carney, co-founder of 40 Days for Life, writes:

            When you pray at the abortion facility, you represent the last hope (in this world) for the baby scheduled to be aborted…

            …but you also represent the first sign of mercy as the woman leaves the facility after the abortion .It’s a sad fact that many of the women arriving for abortion appointments today have already been there before. Many of these women have had one or more abortions previously. Many are still hurting. Others try to numb themselves to the pain. Whether they’re ready to admit it or not, they need the mercy and healing hand of Christ. (In Him it is not too late for changes: souls restored and hearts healed.)

“…we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us,

because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit

which has been given to us.” (Romans 5:3-5)

            When we pray from our hearts for those innocent babies, for their mothers and fathers, and for others who are wounded by abortion, we suffer with them in our hearts. If we endure in that journey of suffering, God assures us (through the Apostle Paul) that we will rejoice, for our hope will not be disappointed. Why? Because it is the fruit of God’s love, “which has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.” Hope does not disappoint, because, in the long run, God does not disappoint those who come to Him with trust and are faithful in seeking to do His will.

“Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on His law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit in its season…In all that he does, he prospers. (Psalm 1:1-3)

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First Post!

1/28/2012

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Start blogging by creating a new post. You can edit or delete me by clicking under the comments. You can also customize your sidebar by dragging in elements from the top bar.

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"Behold the Handmaid of the Lord"

"The Love of a Most Tender Mother"

"A Heart of Flesh"

Bare Branches: Signs of Hope

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Cami Murphy

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