September 4, 2006

"Informed"

There are different ways of being informed.  Images are a tremendous way to be informed.  Many people in our community receive images.  Images are symbols.  The whole Catholic Church is a church of symbols.  God loves to use them and when He does He will direct us, "Pray about this.  Pray about that."  We can receive information from a direct word of knowledge.  That is given so that we can use it for others. These are all gifts of the Holy Spirit.  I remember the first time I received a word of knowledge. There were some university students who wanted prayer for their friend who was in intensive care dying of leukemia.  I had in mind that we were probably going to prepare him for a happy death.  At that time, I was not involved much in healing through intercession.  We began, "Lord, how do you want us to pray for this young man?"  The Lord said, "I want to heal him."  Well, that changes the whole way you pray, doesn't it?  So this is what we asked.  We simply prayed, right back to God, the word of knowledge, which He had given us.  "Please, heal him, Lord."    These university students were wondering, "Why do we have to pray for this?  He is dying!"  Later that night they called me.  I told them, "The Lord wants you to tell him that he is being healed."  They said, "We can't do that.  We are not family. We cannot get even get a chance to get near him.  I said, "Try.  Just try."  So they did.  They took the elevator up and when they arrived at the intensive care unit floor, the nurse was not there. She just happened not to be there!  Nothing happens by chance. They were able to walk right in to his room and they told him. They prepared him.  Two days later he walked out of the hospital.  If you get that knowledge from God, you pray with confidence!  Think of what that does to our faith!  We start to believe!  We pray with that boldness because we know what God wants to do.  In intercession, it is very important to seek His choice at all times.

The Lord might give you a scripture that will enlighten you on how to pray.  Once when we were driving into Lourdes at I was hearing in my mind, "Sed liberos nos amalos.  Sed liberos nos amalos."  It came to me as a simple little rhythm.  I did not know Latin at all so I did not know what it meant.    I felt that the Spirit was trying to tell us how to pray so when we arrived in Lourdes, I asked a priest, "What does this mean?"   He said, "That means, ‘Deliver us from evil.'"  We realized that at Lourdes there are a lot of healings - healings from things caused by the enemy.  That was our direction.  We knew then how we were going to pray.

Discernment is the gift of Wisdom. We must have this gift.  We received all of the gifts of the Holy Spirit at Confirmation.   We must ask the Holy Spirit to activate them more and more within us so that we see what God is doing.  We need the knowledge, that insight and understanding, from on high.

Another way that we are enlightened on how to pray is through what we call "burden-bearing" or "transferences."  Paul says, "I make up now, in my body, what is still lacking in the sufferings of Christ, for the sake of His body, the Church."  If you wake up one morning with a stiff neck, it may have been caused from sleeping on the wrong side, but it could very well be a sign for you to pray for the stiff-necked people in the church! Jesus had a lot of stiff-necked people in His day.  Stubborn.  Rebellious.  We have that too.  Perhaps God wanted your attention to pray for this.   You may find that when you have a headache and you take something for it, it will not go away.   That could be another sign.  Ask Him, "Lord is this pride? You wore the crown of thorns.  You had a terrible headache!"  Pray for those that need humility.  Particularly ask Our Lady to wrap those people in her humility, in her mantle of humility.  Usually when we pick up the signal from the Lord, and the signal has been received and He has the prayer he needed, it will start to lift.

You might be experiencing a deep, deep loneliness - a deep, interior loneliness.  You wonder, "What is this?"  It might be that there are some people in sin.  Sin alienates.  Jesus experienced loneliness on the cross because He was covered with our sin.  He became sin for all of us.  Do not be afraid to bring these feelings to Him. "Lord, I am in deep, deep loneliness.  Whoever needs to experience You..." (and it may be more than one) "Lord, come into their hearts.  Come into their lives, wherever they are."  If you are experiencing hopelessness or a depression that will not lift - whatever it is - pray for those who are depressed or hopeless.   Pray for those who are suicidal.  Whatever you are feeling in your body can be a transference as a signal for how to pray for the larger body of Jesus.

If you find that you are seeing sorrow in your life, and your heart has really been pierced, this brings tremendous power in intercession.  You are picking up the piercing of the heart of Jesus, the piercing of the heart of Mary.  Sometimes people call them the twin hearts.  Saint John Eudes, who is like a grandfather of our charism, called them, "The heart of Jesus and Mary."  He said that they have but one heart.  I was asking the Lord about that one time.  "Is there a difference between the piercing of Your heart and the piercing of the heart of Our Lady?"  In scripture we read about Our Lady, "Your own heart a sword shall pierce so that the thoughts of others may be revealed."  That sounds like a tremendous piercing.

Jesus said that when His heart was pierced, life came out from it - blood and water, pure life, which gives grace and new life.  But He also told me that the piercing of the heart of His mother is what opened other hearts to receive His message. We need both.  It is as if the angel came to Mary to tell her of the gift God wanted to give to mankind, but He needed a receiver - someone to receive it.  We need to allow the piercing of the heart and we need to use it.  "Whoever needs this grace, Lord, whoever needs the opening to receive the grace, use my pain now because my heart is being pierced.  The two hearts definitely go together.

I attended a conference once where a group of Christian medical professionals were trying to decide on new by laws for their association.  When it came to the by laws about the heart of Jesus, there was no problem.  When they wanted to introduce Our Lady there was some opposition.  Many of the attendees thought that Mary should not really be part of this since Jesus is the healer.  They said it should be all about Jesus. That was the kind of mentality in the church at that time.    I realized then why I was there.

My friend and I started interceding, "Let them know, Lord, that Jesus and Mary were together.  That she was there at the foot of the cross. They go together.  Let them know somehow that she has to be incorporated into the bylaws too!"    Such a heated argument broke out that the priest leading the meeting said, "Why don't we just stop for a while and have mass?  Then we will resume.  Maybe we will get clarity on this."  They were so divided.   During the mass, just before the consecration, we were all standing around the altar.  Suddenly the candles on the altar started to sputter and wax started flying through the air at such a speed you could hear it.  The wax landed on the altar cloth.  When we all looked at it, we saw that it had landed in the form of a perfect white heart.  We thought, "Wow! Jesus is saying, ‘This is My heart!'"  Now, for some reason the sacristan wanted to remove the altar cloth immediately, during the mass.  I don't know why he thought that was so urgent.  When they removed the cloth and turned it over, there was another perfect white heart, formed out of the melted wax, adhering to it on the other side. The argument was over! The heart of Jesus and Mary are one and they need do go together.  Do not limit God.  Release Him to be God and to answer your prayers.

The Lord may give you an insight on how to pray for a nation or a parish.  You do not have to go into a lot of detail and tell Him all the things that are going on.  Just do whatever He tells you.  This past year he has asked us with some urgency to begin praying very seriously for integrity for America.  Integrity.  Integrity is truth.  The truth will set us free.    He is letting us know, "America is not praying.  America is in terrible bondage." So we pray for the truth to come upon America.

You might feel that you are in terrible fatigue all the time.  The first time I experienced this I started to take vitamin pills thinking, "Oh!  I am so tired!"  Now it may be a natural fatigue but we must look at it closely. It may be the Spirit alerting us that grace is going out from us.  Somebody is drawing on us as they did from Jesus.  Do you recall the time when Jesus was surrounded by a large crowd and suddenly said, "Who touched Me?"  All kinds of people were touching Him.  But He was talking about someone who had touched Him for healing, someone had touched Him in faith and He could feel that it was drawing grace.  That can happen to you.  God can draw that grace from you because He is answering someone's intercession.  Does that make sense to you?  If you are feeling fatigued, ask the Spirit, "Who touched me?"  After a while, intercession becomes a lifestyle as it was for Our Lady and you will get used to it.   God can use you anywhere at any time.

If you find that you are suddenly over reacting to something, it may be coming from your own wounded-ness but it could also be the Lord trying to get your attention.  Watch those movements of your heart.

Not too long ago we started a seminar for our lay community on deeper inner healing.  The Lord indicated to me one day, "Go back to the A, B, C's," - always be a child.  Let us get the child within healed.  We started taking our community through inner healing.  The very next day I started to experience anger.  I got mad at my cat who happens to be deaf. I asked the Lord, "Why would I get angry at a cat that I know can't hear me in the first place?"  He said, "Because, I want you to pray for all the anger, that is coming up in members of the community.  They are going deep, now, into some hidden anger in their hearts."  So, I knew how to pray.   It was not about the cat at all, nor was it about my own inner anger.  It was about intercession for the members of the community. It was so that they could get healed and get the breakthrough.  St. Augustine used to pray every day, "God, that I may know You and know myself."  Self-knowledge is key.  It is very important.

Right now, God is asking us to ask for the nations.  Many nations are coming in to Omaha for our upcoming conference.  They are asking for prayer - nations everywhere are asking for prayer.  Our books are being translated into other languages. He is taking us out into the parishes, into the cities, and even beyond to certain places in our country and to other countries.  We must allow God to draw us out to whomever or where ever He desires.  Do not limit Him.  There are so few intercessors, that when He sees those that are willing, He will really take advantage of them.  Remember that He will never be outdone in generosity.  We are being paid a hundredfold for doing whatever He wants us to do!

Excerpt from Mother Nadine's, "Intercession," Waveland, MI, 2005