| 12-25-06 Joy |
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December 25, 2006
"Joy" In her Magnificat, Our Lady says, "All generations shall call me blessed." When you pray through the Magnificat, you see all the Beatitudes coming to life in her beautiful exhortation of thanksgiving. When we live her Magnificat, we will share in that blessedness. We too will be called blessed. We too will be happy, happy, happy. We need to be happy! There is a strength that comes with joy. That does not mean that there will not be sorrow, but joy and sorrow are friends. They can live side by side in the human heart. Our Lady knew sorrow; she also knew joy. In her litany we say that she is the cause of our joy. We want to be the cause of other people's joy as well. If the world needs anything today it needs joy. The Lord gave me an image one time of a very busy street. It could have been any big city. I was just watching the people coming and going. The sidewalks were packed and hardly anybody paid attention to anybody else. It was all hurry, hurry, hurry! I asked the Lord, "What is it that You want me to do in this image?" He said, "Look at their faces." I said, "Lord, they are not happy! There isn't any joy." He said, "No. They haven't any wine. They need the New Wine. They need the Spirit." The joy of the Lord is our strength. Intercessors need joy because we need strength for the combat that we are in all the time. It is gift and it is fruit. We may be treading the wine press one day, yet we are still experiencing joy right along with it. Jesus said that when the birthing has occurred, when that grace comes forth and is given, there is no joy like it. There is no joy like it. The intercession lifts and you know you are not treading the wine press. You know that someone has received Jesus. Pentecost has happened for somebody somewhere. We are her offspring. We are part of that generation that is blessed. We are the blessed fruit of her heart. All that Mary is, she wants for us so that we may sing with her every day a new song unto the Lord - a new song. It is the Spirit playing on our heart-strings. It is always new when God is involved. He does not repeat Himself. Have you ever noticed that in faces? When we are in airports it is wonderful to watch the people come and go. You never see anybody look alike. How can God do that? Wouldn't you think that He would run out of ideas? Mary gave herself totally. She gave everything. She gave everything that she was, everything that she had, everything that she really is. And she received a hundredfold. She received the fullness of life and the fullness of light, the fullness of love. She received the fullness of the Trinity. She said that God had made her the most blessed of all and that her spirit rejoiced in God, her savior. She truly knew that the Lord was with her. Joy is always the infallible sign of the presence of God. Satan can imitate almost everything else. He can imitate a false peace. He can imitate prayer languages; he can imitate certain healings. He can do so much imitation but he cannot imitate joy because joy is God Himself. It is the presence of God Himself. Can you imagine what it will be like when the Church really goes into the desert again, really becomes contemplative again and really starts receiving the enfleshment of the Word, being fed, experiencing the joy? Can you imagine the evangelization that will go forth? People are drawn to happy people. Joy is contagious. You will be able to walk down the street and say, "What do they have?" That is what drew us, in the cloister, to the Charismatic renewal in the first place. Bishop Joseph Mc Kenny came and was so filled with joy. It was wonderful to see a Bishop at the altar who was happy. You cannot camouflage joy, can you? We want to be people of joy. We want to be Pentecost People. At Pentecost, Our Lady was with the disciples so that they could have the same experience in the Upper Room which she had at the Annunciation. Out of the climate of silence, authentic prayer really begins. Here is where revelation and contemplation comes. As we are fed, we become quieter, more silent. We start to gaze. The more we gaze, the more we become like that at which we are gazing.
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