October 31, 2005   

"Be it Done Unto Me"

"Be it done unto me according to Your word."  That's the catch.  Be it done according to Your will.   That's kind of scary isn't it?  Because oftentimes we're asked to say that before we may know fully what that word even is.  But this fiat is really Mary's specialty, so when we need this grace, she's the one to go to.   If anyone can intercede for us to get this grace for us, it will be Our Lady.  Sometimes this fiat is easy and pleasant and beautiful and sweet, and sometimes it's very costly.  So we need the overshadowing of the Spirit just as she did.  Her fiat wasn't easy.  It looks a little easy two thousand years later, but there was a tremendous penalty there that could have cost her her life.  Joseph really struggled.  I mean - who would have believed her, really?  "I'm pregnant."  "By God?"  And she had to wait; she had to trust.  She had to see Joseph struggling with her pregnancy until God revealed to Joseph what was going on.  But this was costly for Mary.  It's not easy.  It's never easy to say, "Be it done unto me according to Your word."

But we can count on that empowerment. We can count on that grace of the Holy Spirit. And we can count on her intercession to obtain that same response from us.  Every fiat will bring more and more of Jesus.  It brought Jesus into her  - the Word became enfleshed.  This is Incarnational spirituality at its best.  Teresa of Avila talks a lot about Incarnational spirituality.  This is what our Baptism is all about.  And every "Yes, Lord," will be more of Jesus.  However it will probably mean less of me.  There isn't going to be room for both of us.  The Lord told me that a long time ago, "One of us has to go  - and it's not going to be Me."  I think John the Baptist understood this when he said, "He must increase.  I must decrease."  And so as painful and as costly as it is at times, it's really a win/win all the way around.  It's always going to be more of Jesus and less of me.  Is there anyone of us who wouldn't want more of Jesus?   We'll never get enough of Jesus. 

Excerpt from Mother Nadine's, "Be It Done Unto Me," Pecos, NM, 2004.

October 24, 2005 

"Jesus - Not Optional"

In Acts 4:12 we read, "There is no salvation, for there is no other name in the whole world given to men by which we are saved, except by the name of Jesus."  In other words, there is no salvation, there is no covenant love, except in Jesus.  Jesus is the key.  He is not an option.  He is absolutely essential.  He was trying to say that in the Martha and Mary Scripture.  "She has chosen the better part."  This is the one thing necessary - this union, this covenant love, this God coming to His people, is a major theme in the Old Testament, but it definitely, totally takes over the New.  In Luke 1 the whole theme is all about God coming to His people in that beautiful Benedictus, particularly verse 72 which says through the mouth of Isaiah, "God is showing mercy to our fathers because He's remembering His holy covenant." He is getting ready, now, to establish the New Covenant.  Of course John was chosen to prepare the way.  In God's mercy He is doing it again with His very self, His own Son.

This is what intercession can do as we call forth for their Lord to come, as the Spirit and the bride (that's us - the Church) begin to call forth, "Come, Lord Jesus!"  That can be our main intercession, and He will answer, "Yes, I am coming very soon."  So there is a light in the darkness.  He wants to bring His light into this darkness within people.  He wants to shine on those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.  It can be done by being qualified ministers of the New Covenant.  Paul said in Corinthians 3, "How much greater will be the glory of the ministry of the Spirit!"  We are the qualified ministers, but it is the ministry of the Holy Spirit. 

It is all for the greater honor and glory of God.  In John 17, Jesus said, "Father, I have given them the glory that you have given to Me, that I had with you before."  Jesus is that Dayspring.  He is visiting His people in mercy and this light is coming forth now because God's glory, His light, His life, His love has now been given to us as well.  This is what's happening in the overshadowing power of the Spirit, that power of the Most High, that love power, just as He overshadowed Our Lady at the Annunciation.  This is the only power there is, and it is constantly overshadowing us now. 

Excerpt from Mother Nadine's "New Covenant,"  Omaha, NE, 2004.

October 17, 2005  

"Available, Vulnerable, Expectant"

There is the attitude of availability.  It's another way of looking at covenant.  In other words, quality time.  God gives us quality time.  In prayer we try to give Him quality time as well, not just what's left over.  We try to give Him our best.  This flows out in the New Covenant relationship with others.  "Whatever I have - time, energy, possessions - is at your disposal, if you need them.  I give these to you now as a priority because God has brought us into a covenant relationship together."  This is His plan for Church - that we can be in covenant together.  There's a covenant of prayer.  Our attitude starts to change.  We covenant to pray for others in a regular fashion because we know that our Father wants His children to pray for one another and ask for the blessings they need.  This is where intercession is so powerful because we are more in love with others, with God's people, and with God's design, than with ourselves.

In this New Covenant, there's an attitude of openness.  I promise to strive to become more open because now I'm experiencing my own openness to God.  I can disclose my feelings, my struggles, my joys, my hurts to God - and now I am free.  I am secure enough to do the same with others because I am full of His covenant love, so now I can enter with more openness into relationships.  I can enter into more heart-to-heart relationships, not superficial.  In other words, I can really say to my brothers and sisters, "I need you.  I need you in my life."

Then there is another aspect of covenant that is sensitive.  It's a dimension of being sensitive to the needs of others and their desires to be known and understood, just as we want to be known and understood.  We know the story of the woman at the well.  Jesus was so sensitive to her that He knew, without any words, that she needed to be known and understood.  He starts telling her all about herself.  That was such a joy to her that she ran back into the village saying, "He told me everything about me!"  We really want others to know we are sensitive to who they are, not just what they are saying, but what their heart is trying to communicate as well.  So we covenant to really try to hear another person, to feel where they are, to draw them out of any discouragement or any way they may be withdrawing, that we say, "I won't hurt you.  Share those deeper feelings with me because I'm sensitive now to the pain in your heart.  I can feel it."  This is one of the ways that we know how to pray - when we're sensitive, and New Covenant love makes us very sensitive to the heart of God and very sensitive to the heart of others as well.

We enter into the covenant of honesty.  I try to mirror back to you what I'm really hearing you say, what I'm really feeling you say.  It might mean that we're taking a risk in a relationship because we are being honest with each other and speaking truth, but speaking the truth in love.  This is what true friendship is all about.  We are experiencing this deep friendship with God, knowing we can be honest with Him and He, of course, is very honest with us.  So we want to share that honesty now with others.

There's a confidentiality that comes with this covenant relationship.  "I promise to keep confidential what you are really sharing with me if that is what you want."  There are things that God says to each one of us that are not for anyone else.  We know that so we keep His confidences.  We find that in our intercessory groups there are things God shares with us that we never share with anyone.  It's just for that group because He wants us to know things for that level of intercession.  If we broke those confidences would He continue to confide in us at that level?  Probably not.  He trusts us.  When people know we will not break their confidence, they will trust us at this deeper covenant level as well.  So confidentiality is very much an attitude and aspect of New Covenant Love.

Accountability always goes with New Covenant love.  I am accountable for the gifts God has given me.  I'm accountable to use them for His greater honor and glory.  I'm accountable to use them for others.  I'm accountable to share them with others.  Am I doing that?  Of course, I'm accountable to God.  When we are called forth to pray as intercessors, we're held accountable for that.  We have an office of intercession?  We are being held accountable to that so that God's people can continue to receive the graces from this New Covenant love.

God is saying to us now, "Come higher, friends."  We need to check ourselves constantly to make sure we are always being wrapped, washed, healed, and filled with the blood of the Lamb, the blood of the New Covenant that brings us totally into the family of Jesus Christ Himself, so that He can constantly cleanse us, heal us, and we can constantly say yes to the Lord.

In Isaiah 42:67, God said, "I have formed you."  God has formed us and He is continuing to form us.  "I have formed you as a covenant."  You become the covenant now, "to open the eyes of the blind, to bring the prisoners out from confinement", out from the dungeons or from wherever they are living in darkness.  This is New Covenant ministry at its best.  In John 17, Jesus said, "I have given you the glory that the Father has given to Me.  I have prayed, ‘Father, that they may be one, as we are one.'"  That's covenant.  "You, Father, in me and I in you and I in them," one totally in this Trinitarian love.  Jesus has called us into this relationship, to be totally, literally, in love, dwelling in the full presence of love in this New Covenant relationship.  All this I, too, say to you today that His joy may truly, truly be in you, so that your joy will always be complete.

Excerpt from Mother Nadine's "New Covenant," Omaha, NE, 2004.

October 10, 2005  

"New Covenant Love - A Marriage Contract"

Jeremiah is a great prophet of the covenant.  In Jeremiah 31:31-33 we read, (this is God speaking through Jeremiah),  "The time is coming when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.  It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them out of Egypt because they broke my covenant, though I was husband to them."  So we can see that God, way back then, thought of covenant as marriage.  He thinks of the Church as bride.  John the Baptist made that very clear.  "I am not the bridegroom."  God goes on to say through Jeremiah, "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.  I will be their God and they will be my people."  This is a very prophetic type of covenant that was starting to come.  Of course, Jesus is the fulfillment of this beautiful covenant.  Jesus said, "When the Spirit comes, then that new law will be written in your heart."  The Holy Spirit is the promise of God of this New Covenant, of this great gift of love.  Jesus said to the woman at the well, "If you but knew this gift. . . ."  So here it is coming - we are being called into this New Covenant of love.

Remember, it is both ways.  In order to enter into this tremendous Spirit-to-spirit relationship, there has to be the purification.  There has to be the progression in prayer.  So God is teaching us.  We're beginning to understand.  We're beginning to desire this union, this marriage with Him, as He desires it with us.  He's beginning to show us, as He did in the Old Testament, that it is for everyone.  He wants to take up residency in this New Covenant posture within everyone, the entire Church, through the fullness now, the full fruit of Baptism so that we can have the fidelity of love.  We can have this fidelity because we now have love Himself within us.  God said, "I myself am going to come.  I myself will be the covenant." 

So He's cleansing us through the power of His blood so we can enter into this deeper ministry of love - this deeper ministry of covenant love - to continue taking away sin.  He said, "When I send the Spirit, one of the first things He is going to do is to begin to convict you of sin."  He does.  He'll convict us of sin in the senses.  He'll convict us of the sins in the heart.  He's got a divine flashlight!  Just ask Him to flash it around, and He'll show you a few things.  If you say, "Is there still more, Lord? (There usually is!) What about my spirit?"  He will show you.  He wants us to be convicted of sin so that in that truth we can be set free.  The beautiful thing is that when God convicts us of sin in the light of His Spirit, in the light of His love, it is done simply because it is love.  When we see anything about ourselves in love, we accept it.  We know Love Himself is wanting to heal us and set us free. 

We know that truth and love must always go together.  We have to be careful that we don't say just pure truth to someone, even though it's true, without love.  If we do, they won't hear it or it will cause them more pain.  They'll resent it or they simply won't change.  We can say, "But it's true.  It's for your own good."  They're not going to hear it.  But we don't hear it either so this is why Jesus said, "I'll send the Spirit, the Spirit of love, and in My love, you'll see truth and you'll want to change."  It's like Peter who said, "Lord, cleanse all of me."   Now it's the covenant of the Spirit, and this is the basic ministry of the Spirit. 

Paul tells us that God's love wants to reach all nations.  We need to think in terms of global more and more.  As we come into this New Covenant relationship, we'll begin to think more of God's designs, more of souls, more of others, more of our own nation, and more of other nations.  It's the world.  We'll start to pick up that zeal that God wants all souls - all - to be in covenant relationship in this beautiful union.  It comes because Jesus said, "Father, behold you have prepared a body for Me."  "You have prepared a whole Church for me, Father.  I come to do your will."  Doing the Father's will is always the bottom line of union.  The Father has sent Jesus so that Jesus and us will continue doing the Father's will if we will let Him take over and grow within us and continue to glorify the Father within us.

Paul said in Hebrews 10:10, "By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus.  Once and for all we have been brought into this union."  In other words, the price has been paid.  This is the covenant now.  The Father said, "Their sins, their transgressions I will remember no more."  This is purity.  Satan is defeated at this level because of sinlessness.  He's defeated now because of this marriage.  He has to deal directly with the Lamb, Jesus.  At Fatima, Our Lady said, "In the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph."  In the end her sinless heart will triumph, her sinless heart, in this whole body.  When the Church, as one, has this sinless heart, and we can move as one body, one spirit, one mind, one soul, having one God and one Father, then we'll have the victory over sin.  We will all be in New Covenant together, free, home free.  Satan is totally defeated by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of our testimony. "Father, your will be done."  No more "no's" to God.  Everything is "yes, yes, yes!"

Excerpt from Mother Nadine's "New Covenant,"  Omaha, NE,  2004.