October 16, 2006

"Inner Healing - A Reconstruction"

We have had many hurts in our life.  We must have a deep experience of healing if we are to deeply experience love and allow Love Himself to rest within our hearts in perfect peace.  Paul says in Ephesians 3:16-17, "Out of His infinite glory, may He give you the power through His Spirit for your hidden self to grow strong, so that Christ might live in our hearts."  We need this power.  The Spirit wants us to be healed so that our hidden self might grow strong.  St. Paul recognized the shadow side of our nature, the unconscious parts of our mind that need to be set free if we are truly to be one with Jesus.

Inner healing is simply asking Jesus to walk back to the time when we were hurt and to free us from the effects of that wound in the very present moment.  We might not remember these incidents.  Often times we do not, but God does. We can ask Him to walk back into that time and to set us free from anything that is still darkness within us, anything that is still noisy within us, anything that is still taking up room within us, that should be reserved entirely for God.  This involves bringing to light the things that have hurt us and not trying to repress them.  It may involve talking them out with another person.  Healing is a process.  We take a lot of this to our journals so that we can get it into the light.  It is the work of the Holy Spirit.  Hurtful memories of the past cannot be ignored if we are to really become filled, full of grace, full of love with God.  It is a journey, a process.  We must remember, however, that we travel this journey throughout our entire Christian life with the Lord.  Inner healing is not something that happens instantly.  It may happen day to day to day.  Even when hurts get healed from our past, there are still daily hurts that have to be brought into God's healing light.

We do not have a road map for this; we only have the Lord.  We have the Spirit.  He knows the way.  He is the way.  Sometimes this quest for inner healing begins when we feel utterly defeated by uncontrollable attitudes.  "Lord I do not know why I always get upset this way!  I do not know what triggers this anger.  I do not know why I become negative when I hear that person's name or see him or her.  Sometimes, I feel I am out of control."  Once we can say this, we are at the point where we begin.  We bring it to God.  The Lord might begin to show us that these feelings come through something way back, when we were little children.  Often times this is where it has begun, because of the hurt little child within us that is buried there, that has been silent, that has been repressed.  It is this little child within, perhaps, that suffered rejection, isolation or lack of love and it is this child who is making it difficult for us to be open to the Heavenly Father.  The Spirit wants us to be able to cry out, "Abba, Daddy!"   If we have an erroneous image or experience of daddy, however, that could block this deep union and keep us from becoming a child and receiving this gift to the fullest.  It is the little child within that God wants to bring into the light - bring into the conscious part of us, so that we can see what has happened there.  We find that these experiences coincide with the findings of psychologists.  Many of the deepest hurts go way back to the time when we were the most vulnerable and least able to defend ourselves.  The conversion process may be difficult for us.  Jesus said, "You have to change and become as little children."  That could be very fearful for many people. It may not have been a happy time and the heart is going to put up the fig leaves and resist.  The walls go up because the process is going to set off memories, which have been stored in the heart.

The heart remembers everything.  The conscious mind does not.  The mind, somehow, develops at a little later stage. But, in the very early stages of development it was the heart that knew, the heart that heard, the heart that experienced.  It is the heart that has to be healed.   We know now, and psychologists are confirming, that there is a good deal of evidence that we have memories of things which happened to us in the womb.  We have these encounters a great deal, particularly in our retreat work.

We know that when Our Lady was carrying Jesus in her womb and Elizabeth was carrying John the Baptist in her womb, there was quite an exchange of activity between these two babies.  We know that John, who is the prophet, was picking things up even there from his mother and she, of course, was picking it up from the Holy Spirit.  We know now that a child does pick up a lot from its mother during this time in the womb.  If the mother is suffering from anxiety or fear or whatever is going on in her life, the infant, somehow, will pick up these feelings and will respond to them.  The infant may become afraid and make a little decision in the heart, "I am not going to come out," or "they do not want me!   I am not going to be born."  Fear can enter into that child right then.

When God was preparing me to take this charism out from the cloister, He took me through an inner healing.  It was a beautiful experience.  What He showed me I did not remember because it happened when I was in the womb.  Consciously, we do not remember a thing in the womb. God replayed a sequence of events and let me experience them again.  The heart does not forget.  I was having the experience of myself in my mother's womb and I heard my mother tell my father she was pregnant.  This must have been at the very early stages of my conception.  This, evidently, is how far back the heart remembers.  I heard her tell my father she was pregnant and I heard my father's reply, "How can we make ends meet?"  I thought, "They do not want me."  That was not at all what my father said but that is what I felt and I grew up with that lie.   I grew up, believe it or not, feeling inferior.  There was a time when I would hyperventilate if I ever had to say anything in front of people. You wouldn't know it now.  I have been healed.

We live out of lies - all kinds of lies.  God wants to set things right and come with truth.  So be open, be open.  If you cannot get in touch, He can.  He can bring it forth.  Let Him bring anything forth that He wants.  Let Him take the lead.  More than anyone, He wants us to be whole.  It is for His greater honor and glory and for His joy.

Jesus makes available to each one of us, the gift of freedom.  God wants all of us to be free, free from the noise within, free from the negative emotions, the negative attitudes which would prevent us from being that spontaneous, joyful, loving, little person that we are created to be.  Inner healing is a process of reconstructing our emotions. We can use the authentic principles of psychology but we must use them under the guidance and inspiration of the Holy Spirit.  In the first public message of Jesus' ministry, He said that He came not only to heal the physically ill but those who are downtrodden, those who are bruised, those who are crushed, those who are broken hearted.  Isn't that beautiful?  You can read that in Luke 4.  Clearly then, this is Jesus' public announcement of God's commission to Him - His task of inner healing, which alone can release our hearts from the emotional shadows and the trauma that keeps us crushed and broken and bound in a deep bondage to our afflictions.

Excerpt from Mother Nadine's, "Mary, Seat of Wisdom," Omaha, NE 2005

October 9, 2006

"Wisdom Rests"

The gift of wisdom is a gift of revelation.  We love revelation.  We love to know new things.  Once, in Medjugorje, we became aware of roosters crowing all over the place every morning. Riding through Europe, through all the little villages and even in Rome the roosters were crowing.  At first we did not know that the Lord was speaking to us through this symbol   Finally we began to realize that God was trying to get our attention. He was announcing a new day, a new dawn.  This is revelation.  The gift of wisdom is like a rooster.  It announces new days, new ideas, new concepts, new horizons, new visions.  It is a wonderful gift, like a diamond.  It is the queen of all the gifts because all the gifts are reflected in it.  It is the intercessory gift. In Amos 3:7 God says, "I never do anything without first revealing it to my servants, the prophets."  We are the servants of the Lord; we are prophets by virtue of Baptism.  In the desert we listen; we listen.  In the silence and in the solitude there is not much else to do but listen and that is just what God wants us to do.  Our Lady talks about it all the time. "Listen to Him.  Listen to Him."  This is not an option for intercessors.  We need it; we have to have it so that we know God's point of view, how to pray, when to pray, when not to, what to do, what not to do.

I remember when we learned that the altars would be turned around so that the priests would be facing the people.  I had just come into the Church shortly before that and I thought, "This is a great idea." I did not know why the backs of the priests were to the people anyway.  We were not going to have Latin anymore; I just thought it was wonderful.  But there were some in the cloister that were not so excited about it.  They were struggling with it.  They just could not believe that the priest was going to face them and that they would not be kneeling at the Communion rail anymore - all the little changes that we now just accept.    One sister was really struggling and said, "I just do not know what I am going to do.  I am losing my peace.  This is awful."    I said, "Why don't we pray and ask for God's wisdom?  This is coming from Holy Mother Church and she is wise.  There are reasons we do not even know about.  You need to hear from God."  So we prayed.  Right before the change came she shared with all of us what God had revealed to her once she had opened her heart and let it all pour out.  He gave her wisdom.  He gave her His mind and His heart on it.  He said, "It is alright.  When I said Mass on Calvary, I faced the people."  That is wisdom isn't it?  All of a sudden, you know something that you did not know before.  When God gives it to you, you know that you know that you know!

The gift of wisdom is part of the discernment gift.  We need discernment; we need it in the Church today probably more than any other gift.  With the gift of Wisdom, The Holy Spirit helps us to recognize Jesus in others.  He helps us to recognize the Lord in ourselves.  He helps us to recognize our own natural spirit, thanks be to God! We would never see it otherwise.    He especially helps us to recognize the evil spirit.  With this kind of light, this kind of wisdom moving, it is so easy to see what is not of God and just discard it.  Discernment becomes quite simple once we have this light that comes from the light of wisdom.

The gift of wisdom is very prophetic, very prophetic.  God is revealing His mind and His heart.  That is no small thing.  It is a tremendous gift.  We want to know and God lets us know what He wants us to know.   Sometimes we see only one step at a time.  That is alright because it is all the light we need.  We are little children remember. If we had to take two steps, three steps, four steps, we could get fearful.  We do not have the grace for that; we have just the light for one step at a time.  "My word," He said, "is a lamp to your feet."  A lamp does not give a lot of light but it will give enough for one step at a time.

In Revelation 4 we see and hear that God wants us to have this gift, "Come up here; come higher. Come to Me, into My presence, so that I can share My mind and My vision.  I can share My heart and I will show you," He said, "what is to come." He wants us to know so that we will always be prepared.

From wisdom flows the Sword of the Spirit Himself.  The Sword of the Spirit is the Word of God.  The Word of God Incarnate is Wisdom Incarnate is Jesus.  The more wisdom that comes into us, the more we are transformed into Jesus. He becomes flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone. Then we, in union with Him, become the Sword of the Spirit.  It is wisdom when we can have the flexibility to allow the Holy Spirit to use us in any way He wants.  In the Psalm it says, "Go this way; go that way."   It makes no   difference.  We can do "whatever" because we are filled with wisdom and light and we are in the hands and power of the Spirit.

In Revelation 12:14 we read about the woman who was given gigantic eagle wings so that she could fly to her place in the desert.  The Church needs eagle wings.  This is a symbol of contemplative prayer. Eagles soar - they ride the wind, which is so beautiful.  That is contemplation. It is all gift; it is the gift of the desert. Wisdom is given.  Knowledge is given.  Understanding is given.  All this is given if we will simply be still and know, experience, that He is God.  This is the experience that Paul prayed for.  "I pray Father, that they may experience Your love, the height, the depth, the width, the breadth that surpasses all understanding " (Ephesians 3:14-19).   Paul knew that we all must become mystics  - all of us.

Silence is so important.  We might have to find special times in our day; we must carve it out.  We must protect it because this is where we encounter God in a special way.  "Be still and know."  I would suggest mornings. Oftentimes at night we find that we are so tired, we can get a little too still.  In the morning our minds and hearts are still clear.   It will be such a richness in your life. You will never regret any time that you give exclusively to God.  We must make a definite decision to listen.

The silence of this kind of prayer is the silence of the heart.  It is the language of love.  Love, at its deepest level, loves silence, because there is nothing else to say.  It is union.  You are in God's presence.  God's presence is within you.  It is the end.  You are content.  You are satisfied.  You are totally receiving.   God is happy too, because He has us where He wants us.  He is love and now He can pour forth His love.  He can pour forth His instruction.  He can pour forth anything He wants.  It is one thing to know about God but it is another thing to understand.  We must understand.  We must have an awareness of God's presence within to cultivate this love within in the silence.  All of these beautiful gifts of the Spirit start to grow, start to develop.  Listen. Listen.  Jesus Himself said this in John 10:10, "Listen so that you may have life."  "Listen," He is saying, "so that you may have Me." Out of this comes tremendous union.  The Father says this again to Peter, James and John on Mount Tabor, "Listen to Him. Listen to Him."  He has the words of eternal life.

Remember the beautiful words in Isaiah, "Every morning, He opens my ears to hear" (Isaiah 50:4).  Are we allowing Him to do that for us?  Am I receiving something every day that is giving me life, that is giving me revelation, that is giving me a prophetic vision?  Wisdom Incarnate came forth at the Annunciation in silence.  He came forth visibly at Bethlehem in silence.  Scripture says that in His years at Nazareth, Jesus grew in the silence of Nazareth; He grew in wisdom and grace.  How important it is for our interior life to develop and to grow.  We must have Nazareth time every day, that hidden-ness, because wisdom is mysterious and hidden.  The fruit of it will always be peace.  The more peace there is in a soul, the more silence there is in the soul.  It is a wonderful circle of divine intimacy.  A heart that lets Jesus come is a peaceful heart, a silent heart, because there will be quietness and stillness within, and God can rest.  God is the contemplative One.  He wants to share His being with us.
Excerpt from Mother Nadine's, "Mary Seat of Wisdom," Omaha, NE 2005

October 2, 2006

"Wasting Time"

When we want to take time for this type of prayer, because we are not doing anything, people will say to us, "Why this waste?"   Do you remember when the ointment was poured upon the feet of Jesus by Mary Magdalene?  Who was it that said,  "Why this waste?"   It was Judas!  The world will tell us that their value system is not the value system of God's kingdom.  Satan will whisper it to you, "You are wasting your time.  Should you not be doing something?"  If anybody should be doing something, it would be the Pope yet look at the time the Pope spends in prayer.  How amazing it is that our Popes have been the busiest people on earth.  The more time we spend in prayer, the more energy we have and the more we get done. God will never be outdone in generosity.  Time spent in listening prayer is definitely not a waste.  It is a time in which we are fed by God, a time when we receive revelation, a time when we receive more of Him.  John the Baptist knew that.  "More of Him, less of me."  It is a dying process in the desert, so that Jesus and the Spirit of Wisdom can grow.

Prayer is a journey from our brokenness to wholeness, from our sinfulness to holiness, from our separateness to unity, from being just one in isolation to being with God.  When we are one with God, we become so much more one with each other.  We go from our darkness into light.  We go from one kingdom into God's kingdom.  There are only the two kingdoms and at times we try to straddle both.  God says, "You are either with Me - totally in My kingdom - or you are not."  Ponder this.  It will help us make the crossover to the threshold of God's presence and of His way.

Mary, full of grace, with her whole being magnifying the Lord, is asking that of us.  She is interceding for these graces for us all the time.  It is what we call the healing of memory.  Memory, God's memory, knew who she was.  She tapped into the fullness of God.  St. Augustine saw man as an image of the Trinity.  He said,  "In man's interior being there are three realities: memory, understanding and will."  He said, "Memory is compared to God the Father because it is an image of eternity; it is the point out of which springs love and in relation to this love it hasn't any beginning."  When we tap more and more into the Father our memory will go back and back into whatever He wants us to know, because we are tapping into His memory.  But our memories sometimes block His memory.  We must have the growth in memory, which comes with the growth in spirituality.  It goes together.   The more we tap into God, the more our memory is going to tap into His memory.  Isn't that an interesting concept of how this works?  And it does work!  In my awareness of myself, I may know myself to be the person who, yesterday, lived through a certain series of experiences.  I answer to the same name; I know who I am.  I know what I did yesterday.  This awareness of ourselves always involves knowing where we come from not only in the sense of our past but also in the sense of our source.  Where do we really come from?    We come from God and our memory needs to take us back to that.  We come from God.  He has put us here in this present moment.  He is holding us in existence even though we may not even be aware of it.   As we grow more into this union with the Trinity we will grow in an increasing awareness of the place from which we came.

As our memory becomes more and more aware of the presence of God, our memory becomes more and more healed. It begins to tap into the memory of God, the Father.  We call this process the healing of memories of our whole inner being.  It is like a sacrament of God's presence. The memory not only retains our past, with its unhealed wounds, but it also carries within it, the deep, deep effects of God's actions in our lives, moments which, in a special way, make up our salvation history.  God wants to bring us into complete wholeness so that we will remember everything.  When we are totally healed we can even remember the pain.  Jesus came forth from the tomb with His wounds intact.  God could have removed those wounds but He did not.  For all eternity we can look at His wounds.  Jesus can look at them.  The pain is no longer present, but the gift remains.  We will be able to look at our wounds and see the gift that was there when we are healed. Memory, our deep, deep mind, is extremely important. It is an action of God in us, a living as a Sacrament of His presence.  Through it we can enter more and more into the deep knowledge of not only who we are but also of the place from which we come.

Excerpt from Mother Nadine's, "Wisdom Sings Her Own Praises," Omaha, NE 2005

September 25, 2006

"Now is the Time"

Our Lady has been telling us that the time is now.  This is new for us because we have always heard "Mañana,"- always in the future - always, "I will let you know."  We always waited for the Father to give the green light.  We wait.   Jesus says in the scriptures, "Wait until you are clothed with power from on high."  But this is different for us.  Our Lady is saying, "The time of waiting is over.  This is from Revelation 10: 6, "The time of waiting is over.  The time is now."  In Psalm 2, we read, "Ask Me for the nations."  Remember, when we ask Him for the nations, He wants to give us the nations.  That means there will be intercession, there will be the winepress to tread; there will be a Cross.  There is a price to pay.  There is a cost to Pentecost.  There is a cost to souls.  We are here to distribute the graces we earn so that God can use us.  In this way the nations can receive Him in His wonderful mercy.  He said, "I want to pour out My Spirit upon all mankind now." Now.  This is high noon.  We are going to be moving right under the glory spout.  It is now, not tomorrow, not next year; it is now.  God has called all of you here to experience this "now" ministry.  God is present with us now.

Like Mary, we want to receive His word in a deeper way.  We must become like sponges.  We must become like Mary.  We want God to begin making visitations, so that others can receive what we have.  You cannot give something you do not have.  The more we receive, the more we can give without worrying about being emptied out.   God never runs out.  The whole principle of intercession is to receive and give, receive and give.  In intercession we are devoted to prayer so that we can receive. We are also devoted to the ministry of the Word, the ministry of intercession, so that we can give.

There was a very powerful prophetic word given from the Papal altar at St. Peter's.   I never forgot it.  It seems that now is the time for this prophetic word to be realized, I want to share a little bit of it.  This is what God said. "I will pour out on you all the gifts of My Spirit.  I will prepare you for spiritual combat.  Be ready My people; I want to prepare you.  I speak to you of the dawn of a new age for My Church.  I speak to you of a new day that has not been seen before.  Prepare yourselves for the action that I begin now because things that you see around you will change.  The combat that you must enter now is different.  It is new.  You need wisdom from Me that you do not yet have."    This is why we are going to go to the desert - to get this wisdom.  "You need the power of My Holy Spirit in a way that you have not yet possessed it.  You need an understanding of My will and of the ways that I work that you do not yet have.  Open your eyes.  Open your hearts to prepare yourselves for Me and for the day that I have now begun.  Prepare!  For, I proclaim a new day, a day of victory and of triumph for your God.  Behold, it has begun."  What a beautiful word.    Doesn't it sound like it is for us?   Doesn't it sound like this is His time?

About two years ago when all of us were praying in intercession, there was an image given of John Paul II.  He was still our Holy Father at that time.  He showed up in the prayer, dressed in a beautiful long white cassock.  He had a long gold cape that covered it, clear to the ground.  He said to us, "I will not leave you orphans."  None of us thought a great deal about it at the time.  He was still living even though he was ill and we all knew that when he went there would be a successor.  We forgot about this image until he died two years later.  The day after he died, on the very day that one of the visionaries at Medjugorje saw him with Our Lady during her apparition, word came to us about that apparition.  He was dressed in this white cassock and was wearing a long gold cape, just the way we had seen him two years ago.  So it had my attention.  Another day went by and our community started to experience his presence.  People were dreaming about him.  People were getting things in prayer.  He was just there at Bellwether.  So I said to him, "Are you trying to say something to us?  Is it my imagination or are you really letting us experience your presence here at Bellwether?"   It surprised us so.  That is when he spoke and said, "Go back and read the Scripture that I gave you two years ago."  I looked it up in John.  It says, "I will not leave you orphans.  I will come back to you."  His spirit is moving with us very powerfully.    It was on the feast of the Annunciation when I asked him, "Is there anything you would like to say right now?"  I would like to share with you the word which he gave to us.  "You have been entrusted with a precious jewel."  When he said that he gave me an image of a beautiful jewel.  It was sparkling like a diamond.  He then gave me the Scripture from Revelation 21: 11 which says, "The city, the new Jerusalem had the radiance of a precious jewel that sparkled like a diamond."  The image I was having was of a beautiful diamond, sparkling like a radiant star.  The Holy Father went on to say, "You are called to reflect the glory of God shining on the face of Jesus in each one of you.  You are called to be a beacon of hope, guiding the Church through the turbulent night, preparing for the new dawn and rejoicing with her as she becomes clothed with the sun."  When he said clothed with the sun, I knew that he was talking about the Son of God, that power of Jesus.  "You have never been more needed than you are right now, nor have you ever been more loved. I will help you.  Be not afraid, Heaven is counting on you." He signed it, "Your papa, your brother and your friend."  Isn't that a beautiful word from him?

We are moving in great company.  We have Our Lady.  We have St. Joseph.  We have John Paul II.  We have the saints.  We have St. Michael.  We have angels.  We have all of heaven with us.  We are not moving forth and going into battle alone.  It is time; truly, it is time.
Excerpt from Mother Nadine's, "Introduction," Prepare the Way of the Lord Conference,  Omaha, NE  2005