September 11, 2006

"Our Sufferings"
 
Our sufferings alone, if they are accepted with that "yes Lord," gain tremendous territory of authority for others.  Suffering is so rich.  It has a power, the power of the Cross.  The greatest tragedy, as many people have said, is wasted suffering - Not suffering in itself, but suffering that is wasted, that is not used to help others for the graces which they need.  We must ask God always to cleanse us from anything in us that is natural.  This is the only way we can gain these territories.  He is taking us from our natural inclinations, from all that is natural - the natural way we love, the natural way we react, anything natural about us - into the supernatural so that we will be filled more and more with His divinity.  This is definitely a ministry of the Holy Spirit.  Paul said, "God wishes to make us qualified ministers of the Holy Spirit," qualified ministers of this ministry.  This is how He does it.  If we allow ourselves to be led, He will make us more and more Spirit-filled, more spiritual, so that we can go into this powerful ministry - the spiritual ministry of intercession.

Paul said, "I fill up now in my body what is still lacking in the sufferings of Christ for the sake of His body, the Church."  (Colossians 1:24)  This is what we are talking about.  Do not let a headache be wasted, do not let heart piercings be wasted.  Do not let anything be wasted.  You are gaining tremendous territory and power in your suffering.  Paul said, "I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake."  Can we say that?  Have we gained that kind of territory?  "I rejoice now in my suffering for your sake because you are getting grace."  Even though there will be days when we really drag, we can rejoice!  "Thank You, thank You, thank You, Lord!"  Grace is going out; power is going out.  We are in a whole community of intercessors; it is interesting to see the dynamic of God moving when you are around intercessors.  All intercessors - in our community anyway  - are not in intercession at the same time - at least not the heavy, territorial, burden-bearing intercession.  I think it is because those of us who are not in intercession can pray for the others that are carrying heavy loads.  When we are carrying heavy loads they can pray for us.  God will take care of it.  He will balance everything out.  We do not have to worry, thinking, "Is anybody going to be praying for me?' He will take care of us if we are taking care of his needs.

What we are really doing here is allowing Jesus to be the intercessor within us.  We are allowing Him to continue being the lamb within us and to distribute these graces from Calvary, these graces from the Cross, through us now.  There will be travail.  There was much travail in Jesus' life.  He is "The Intercessor."  Jesus wept over Lazarus.  He wept and He groaned.  Something deep - very deep - was going on within Him. 

"Lazarus, come forth"  (John 11:43).   Resurrection can come out of travail.  Paul knew this too.  He was in deep travail many times.  He says, "Oh my children, my little children, I am in labor again so that Christ may be formed in you" (Galatians 4:19).  If you are having travail, labor pains, heart piercings, burdens, then rejoice!  Anything which you are asking at that time is going to happen.  We have to be careful here. Remember that the grace may not be received by the one for whom you are praying.  We have to allow for people's free will.  But the grace is going out.

Travail, heart piercings, Calvary, territorial intercession can produce miracles, absolute miracles.  Now the Holy Spirit, as one writer mentioned, is God's birthing agent.   It happens like this. When we pray, when we are in travail, when we let God and the Spirit have their way, the Spirit goes out and breathes new life into people.  The Spirit will birth all sorts of things into people - maybe new faith, maybe hope, maybe more love.  You never know what it will be.   The Holy Spirit is the power of God.  When He moves and He broods or He hovers or He overshadows, He is the Lord and giver of life.  We say this every time we say the creed, "I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life."  This is how we are parenting.  We are giving life through the Spirit in this spiritual ministry of intercession through our heart piercings, through our love.  It is all about love.  We give birth to Jesus, always Jesus.  What the Holy Spirit was actually doing in Genesis when He breathed over those waters was giving birth to God's new creation, to the earth.  That is exactly what He continues to do now.  He gives birth to God's new creation - to earthen vessels.  We must trust Him.  This is what He is doing. Remain in Him.

Excerpt from Mother Nadine's, "The Power of Territorial Intercession," Omaha, 2005

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

August 28, 2006

"Servant"

We hear in scripture, "Speak, Lord!  Your servant is listening."  Servant. This is a very special service roll today in the church.  Listen to the words of Our Lady.  "Behold the handmaid!  Behold the servant of the Lord."  Now, we might think we are servants.  I will share with you this image, which I received from the Lord one time, in which He gave me a clearer understanding of my servant-hood. It had to do with someone for whom I had been praying for a long time.   Maybe you have had such an experience and when the grace was won, you knew it. God answered your prayer.  It was at Communion when this image came to me.  I saw a person for whom I had been praying and sacrificing.  This person had died and I knew it.  In the image I saw a beautiful, royal carriage, coming along a path.  All sorts of little children and people were out there giving acknowledgement to this person.  He was obviously on the way to heaven now.  It was a beautiful image.  He was accepting flowers, which were being thrown to him and I was standing there in the scene.  I was dressed in a dark brown, long dress with a little funny hat on.  I thought, "Where have I seen that kind of a hat before?"  Then I recalled that it was in a movie where you see servants wear these little, white caps.  I thought, "Well, I am here as a servant girl."   The carriage came and passed me.  The person never even acknowledged my presence.  He never said, "Thank you."  He said nothing to me in the midst of all this acclamation and celebration. Well!  I asked the Lord about that!  I said, "What about me?"  This whole procession is taking place because I did all this intercession!"   Of course all this intercession is what the Lord wanted. What a surprise it was when the Lord said to me, "You are my servant.  Your joy is in My joy.  This is My child who was lost, and now is found."  I realized then that even when we think we are serving the Lord, there can still be that little bit of self, which we are actually serving.  We have to get totally out of it.  Intercession is totally for others.  It is for God's greater honor and glory, not ours.

You never know when the Holy Spirit is going to prompt you to go into intercession.  You may be driving along when you see something. You are the intercessor.  You are there, right on the scene.  You see it and you realize that you are to pray.  You can go to the grocery and, realizing that there is something wrong with the relationship between a parent and child, you start praying.

We have a beautiful sister in our community now who is from Singapore.  Actually we have three Sisters from Singapore.  She was sharing a story the other night about a time when she had read a little article in Singapore about some young girls who were being picked up and taken away.  People actually go to the families of these impoverished girls, give their parents money and say, "We can get your child an education.  We can help your child to get work."  What they are really doing is taking them captive and using them for prostitution.  Our sister was horror-stricken when she read that!  She had no idea!  Now it was not by chance that God was giving her this information through this little article in the newspaper.  So she had, what we call, the burden. You will know when you have such a burden. You just know.  She started prayer, "Lord, these girls that are being held captive!  Some are being shipped out.  Some are being shipped in.  They have no way of communicating. No body knows where they are or how to help them!"  The whole operation was hidden, in the dark.  It had not been brought into the light.  She prayed every day, "God, help them!  Set them free wherever they are.  Let somebody know so that they can receive help!"

After a few weeks, she happened to pick up the paper again. There was a little, tiny article which, normally, she would not have even seen.  When God wants you to see something, you are just drawn there.  This article said that, in this particular house, there were quite a few young girls who were being held captive.  One of them somehow got a little note on a rock and she threw that rock with all her might through the window.  She broke the window.  It went out on a road and somebody came along, saw it, picked it up and turned it in.  These girls were all set free! Right then the burden lifted from Sister.  She knew then that she was not to be in intercession for them any longer.  Her intercession had been answered.  When your intercession is answered, the burden does lift.  Sometimes it will lift because God wants others in intercession - because you are not the only intercessor.  We are not usually the intercessor for the whole world. He has others as well.  We have to be careful that we do not take on things that have not really been directed by God.

In intercession, we are telling God, as Mary did, "They haven't any wine!"  They haven't any life!  They haven't any joy! They haven't any love!  They need You!  The bottom line in intercession is that Jesus always sends us forth in His grace.

What is needed for intercession? Union.  There is a beautiful scripture in the Song of Songs in which God is saying, "Oh, My dove!  Let Me hear your voice!"   He is speaking to His dove within each one of us.  He is speaking to His Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit, Paul tells us, who intercedes within when we do not know how to pray.  The Holy Spirit makes intercession for us.  He is the dove. God wants to hear the dove who needs our voice. Intercession can only be done in union.  It cannot happen without union.  Isn't that interesting?

Jesus won the graces.  He is  "The Intercessor."   He works through His disciples in the power of His Spirit.  God will only go through humanity.  He can move anywhere!  God is God!  He can do anything, but He chooses to move and act through humanity.  He does it through being asked.  We never realized that.  It is the way that He set up.  He sent Jesus as the intercessor and then Jesus comes again and again in the power of the Spirit through us.  So God does need us!  He has chosen not to do it without us.  I see now why Jesus is so insistent that we ask and ask and ask! When we ask, God definitely does act!

In John 15, Jesus said, "I am the vine."  You are not!  I am!  "You are the branches!"  We must really know this.   Branches cannot survive all by themselves.  Apart from the vine, they die.  Jesus said,  "You cannot bear fruit apart from Me."  In the ministry of intercession, we are in it together with the Lord.  "If you live in Me and My words stay part of you, you may ask what you will and it will be done!"  That means you can ask for miracles.  God loves to do miracles.  One time the Lord said to me, "There are just not enough people asking for miracles in the name of Jesus." We need to believe that God is God and wants to do the impossible - impossible to us!  But nothing is impossible to God!  Nothing!

Do not limit God. Let Him be God.  We are the limited ones.  I said to Him one time, "You deliberately made it this way, didn't You?"  "Yes," He said, "You are limited."  We are limited in love.  We are limited in patience. We are limited in virtue.  He is not.  I asked Him, "Did you set it up this way so that we would always come to You to fill up what we cannot do and to do what we cannot even think about doing!"  He said, "Yes."  He wants to be with us in all of this, in everything!  It pays to let Him be God and to remember that you are not.    Ask Him with boldness!  We can do that when we get to know Him and when we really know what He wants to do. There is a beautiful scripture in Amos 3:7.  It is one simple, little scripture that He gave me a long time ago.  It says, "God never does anything - anything - without first revealing it to His servants, the prophets."  Prophets are those who listen.  He does nothing without revealing it!  When we get that knowledge from God and can see what He wants to do, we can pray with boldness.  We have information!  We no longer pray, "If it be Your will."  We know His will and we can pray in a tremendous boldness.

Scripture also says, "Jesus was heard because of His reverence," and "I no longer call you servants.  Now, I call you friends."  When we start walking in a close relationship with the Lord, which is what God wants us to do, since His wisdom makes us friends of God, we must not get so casual that we fail to speak with reverence. We must always remember: He is God.  The Lord showed me this one time in my own relationship with my mother, who was my closest and dearest friend.   We had a wonderful relationship.  I used to share everything with her. The Lord said, "You always remembered, though, that even though she was your best friend, she was your mother. She was not your sister.  She was your mother." We must maintain that reverence, even in this deep friendship with God.  Jesus was always reverent. He said, "The Father is greater than I."  He always prayed with great reverence to the Father.  He was heard and answered.
Excerpt from Mother Nadine's, "Intercession," Waveland, MI, 2005

August 21, 2006

"Count the Cost and Pick Up Your Cross"

Intercessory prayer is for others.  Perhaps that is why there are so few intercessors. So many times we want to pray for ourselves and certainly there is a time and a place for that.  When we pray for others, however, we must deny ourselves.   We must forget about ourselves and that is not always easy.

Recently an eight-year old boy made a day of recollection with us. It is amazing that we are giving retreats for our children now.  It is wonderful.  They journal.  Because their heart is still the heart of a child, they hear from God. At the table that night, after his little retreat day, he shared his journal with all of us. One of the things he asked God was, "Who do You say that I am?"  God told him, "You are a lamb."  So he asked, "What do you mean by a lamb?  What does a lamb do?"  The Lord answered him, "A lamb sacrifices."

"What do you mean by sacrifice?  How shall I sacrifice?"

God said, "Pray for others." Isn't that interesting?  He is already beginning to learn intercession.  God did not use the word, "intercession" with him but that is what it is.  Intercession is a charismatic gift. It is a gift given for others.

From the very beginning of my Catholic life I began to see that God was leading me into this kind of prayer. My first day as a Catholic, which happened to be Christmas day that year, my father disowned me for becoming a Catholic.  I went to the priest the following week, just heart-broken, and I said, "What should I do?"  He told me to keep communicating with my father. He said, "Keep communicating with your father, even though he is not going to answer.  Go to church every day and pray your heart out for him."  During my first three months as a Catholic that is all I did.  That was the only kind of prayer I really knew.  At the end of three months I received a beautiful letter from my father.  In the letter he said that he had a dream in which my grandfather appeared and said, "Don't worry about Nadine any more. It is all right.  She is a child of God now."  Because his father had said it was alright, it was now alright for him.

Intercession works.  One time the Lord said to me, "It is like A. A."  I said,  "A. A?  I don't know much about A. A."  Then He told me, "You ask, I act!"   There is the power of intercession.  We do not have to fix things.  We come from a culture which tells us that we must fix things.  Once, my spiritual director called and said, "Will you pray for a good family to be found?  I have a young girl here; she is going to have a baby and she wants to put it up for adoption to a good family."  I immediately went into this "fix it" mode.  "Who do I know?  Oh, so and so, and so and so, and so and so are looking for a baby. Babies are hard to find.  I know that a lot of our community is going over to other countries to get babies."  I called up father and said,  "I think I can find a good home for the baby." He said, "I did not ask you to do that.  I just asked you to pray."  The Lord was really showing me, "You pray.  I will act."

Intercession is for others.  Our job is to ask, ask, ask.  Jesus said this so many times in the gospels, particularly in John 15.  "Ask!  Ask anything in My name.  Ask anything."  He said, "If My word lives in you and is part of you then you may ask," - if My word lives in you, and is part of you!

Intercession is Spirit-led.  It flows from contemplative listening.  It flows from our relationship with the Lord. That is why our book is entitled "Interceding With Jesus."  Intercession has no power apart from Jesus.  We base this on the scripture about Peter's mother-in-law who was ill.  Scripture tells us, "They interceded with Jesus."  They always interceded with Jesus.

Now at Cana, we see Our Lady, the intercessor par excellence, saying, "They have no wine."  They do not have the Holy Spirit.  They have no joy.  They have no union, no relationship.  God, the Father, gave the deference to Mary in this ministry.  She picked up the Spirit and it was costly for her to make this move.  I want to point that out because intercession can be costly.  You can be, and you will be, the victim of your own intercession.  She was asking something of her son which would be costly to her.  It is easy to overlook the significance of this in the gospel account.  But when you realize that she had 30 years alone with her Son, in tremendous hidden-ness, tremendous intimacy, you can begin to see the cost of the events which she was about to trigger   She knew that all she had to do was to mention this to Him and He would do it.  She knew who He was and that once He did this miracle and it became public she would never have Him again in that way.  She was cutting the apron strings. That was very difficult.  Yet, she was prompted by the Spirit, led by the Spirit, to act.  The Spirit within will prompt you.  This is the ministry of compassion.  It is a ministry of love.
Excerpt from Mother Nadine's, "Intercession," Waveland, MI, 2005