Greetings lay apostles,
On February 5th we invited lay apostles to give their insight on the daily message we had chosen from one of the volumes.
This Lent we are reading from Volume Five and asking questions for Anne as well as sharing our insight and connections to the messages. We are posting some of the questions from lay apostles below…
Feedback from Anne:
Q: Anne, what do you tell a friend who has lost a their soul mate, but refuses to let go after 10 Years, but holds on and refuses to let God in for fear of letting go?
With regard to the friend who has lost their soul mate and who ‘refuses’ to let go after 10 years, I would say first of all, well done remaining faithful to your friend. Next, I would say continue to be patient. The Lord is patient with us and many people give the Lord a run for His money in terms of standoffs. But Jesus remains by their side, waiting and waiting, and at the opportune moment when the heart opens the smallest bit, Jesus rushes in with love so pure that the soul is overcome with healing. What joy there is in heaven when the soul is restored to happiness. This friend may be suffering with a deeper wound. Perhaps the death of the loved one has laid it open in some way and the friend is frozen. So be it. Paralysis in the faith life, or in the human life for that matter, is common. Everyone reading this will ask the Lord to console the friend and no doubt the Lord will claim the victory in time. Patience, lay apostles. Be patient in love. We must keep our personal goals and feelings about success out of the obligation to love and let the Lord do what He likes with the love He offers through us. God is with us. He will handle these things if we love.
As a final note, I would do two things. One, I would contemplate the friend in prayer with Jesus for at least ten minutes. Ask the Lord how to love your friend. Allow Jesus to show you how He would like you to proceed. Often, Jesus needs us to provide a gentle presence and then the Spirit freely offers from that quiet companionship. We are making a space for the pain of the other when we are quiet but present. And in situations like this, our human temptation is to overdo and force situations that will only move on their own. Next, I would steadily offer the friend all that the friend is doing right! Praise the friend for anything the friend is good at during this time. Affirm the friend with positive observations about him or her and allow him to receive God’s healing when he will.
Q: We have spent many conversations on 2 things from Volume 5; the Darkness and Self Improvement strategies. Is the Darkness, the 3 days of Darkness or are we reading into this to deeply?
Anne: Our base mission during our time on earth is to become holy. So it is good that we are spending time on improving ourselves for Jesus. This is actually wonderful because what we are doing is improving our receptivity to Christ, thereby improving our wellbeing and the potential wellbeing of all whom we encounter. It becomes very big when we zoom out into the Lord’s big picture. With regard to the darkness being symbolic or literal, interpretation is best left to the Holy Spirit in each individual. I would think the Lord would be pleased if we acted with the Spirit in prayer each day and determined our service for the day based on our duties. But we have been given these prophecies so we can never go back. In a sense, we understand that the Lord has grave concerns about His children’s safety and spiritual wellness in the world so we must become as holy as we can to assist as many as we can by serving in God’s will. (By safety I am referencing spiritual safety/eternal safety.) We are not coming back once we are finished. This is our chance to show God how much we love Him and to remain faithful to the Truth that our parents and those around us have given us. Remember, Our Lady is helpful with the details of our lives and our holiness work. Love from Anne
Q: how do I know I’m doing the ‘right thing’? So often it feels like I’m getting nowhere and making no difference, like I’m pointless
A: The most important part of serving the light is recognising the light. For Christians, this means recognising Christ. If we recognise Christ at the start of each day, then we have already increased the chance that we will serve well during the day, hence the importance of the Allegiance Prayer. We all spend time wondering if we are pointless or if our days are leading anywhere. But they must be leading somewhere, because they are passing. God created us with such tenderness and hope. It is, from heaven’s eyes, impossible that any child of God is pointless or that any day spent on earth is a pointless day. We are on a journey. We believe that we are heading for heaven. When we arrive there, we will understand the beauty of that which occurred during the periods of our lives that felt ‘pointless’. (Broad human experience, fyi. We all spend time suffering in this way).
Ps.- Always separate the world’s goals from heaven’s goals. Maybe according to the world’s timeline you feel you are not getting anywhere or going fast enough. Maybe according to heaven’s goals you are right on track for success.
Worldly goal. Get ahead. Have fun while you are trying to get ahead.
Heavenly goal. Become holy. Do your duty while you are becoming holy.
The Right Thing will usually involve love and duty. Bigger decisions are made with prayer and generally seem like reasonable courses of action given all circumstances.
Q: how do we accept that the darkness is ending when some us feel increasingly ostracized for living our faith today?
Christianity, through time, has always been targeted. Broad movements happen over time and on time but according to heaven’s time. (Different time. Possibly frustrating for humans). God is urging us strongly to form prayer groups for this very purpose. We will not feel ostracised in our prayer group (hopefully). Plus, the first followers of Christ certainly did not fit in. Neither will we except with each other and even then, every man’s journey to God includes a certain amount of ‘alone’ work, done with God as our only companion.
Q: Anne are the messages directed more towards lay apostles or everyone?
A: The works of the apostolate are for everyone.
Posted February 11th,
Q: What is the best way to handle those who do not wish to witness your hope, who ridicule you and are determined to focus on the negative?
Anne: On the day this question came in, I noticed that it was a memorial of Saints Paul Miki and His Companions, Martyrs. We are told that they were crucified by being placed on crosses and speared, after being mocked and ridiculed. There is great precedence for being ridiculed in our tradition. Those determined to focus on the negative can be acting from a wound or from fear or disappointment. We must persist in our hope. And while we think we are merely suffering ridicule, we are actually impacting others while we persist in hope. And honestly? If we abandoned our hope, given what we know about Christ, we would become ridiculous. The experience of being mocked for hope holds spiritual riches when received with the Lord. Even if we hate it at the time!
Q: Is the sentence,” your children’s children will be joyful followers of the light.” mean it literally that my grandchildren’s generation will see Jesus’ second coming?
Anne: Nobody knows the day or the hour(Matthew 24:36). Prophecy can be taken literally or symbolically. God is reassuring us, perhaps. As the scripture states, I do not know. I have reverence for the action of the Spirit in each reader. For me, I believe that if I persevere, my example and my prayers will impact the generations coming after me in a positive fashion, just as the example and sacrifice of my ancestors has influenced and protected me for God. As I say repeatedly, lay apostles, what we do counts!
Q: Do you think God has to do something Major to wake people up?
Anne: No. I do not think this is necessary for everyone. Clearly, it has not been necessary for most of us. Ordinary life, taken with faith, has been enough for many of us to come to Christ in humility and remain to serve Him. That stated, the Lord is generous to each generation with signs, prophets and historically appropriate graces. This is not to forget the most important faith stronghold…our local parish Church where we all began our faith journey, baptised at the hands a diocesan priest, may God reward him. God will not abandon any generation. We are all God’s cherished children and heaven wants to see us do well spiritually while we are here.
Q: Are there special saints to help lay apostles? and God allows certain amount of evil to co-exist, the children of Newtown, Ct were killed by evil, are there special prayers to soothe this tragedy?
Anne: The terrible tragedy in Newtown made me think of a similar tragedy involving Amish children. Our brothers and sisters in that Amish congregation laid down a powerful witness path when one father said, to paraphrase, I was so grateful to God that I did not have to judge the man who committed these actions. His tone communicated relief and total trust. We must all seek the same trust. We will understand in heaven.
Q: I have watch Anne’s video from Covington many times which was right after Katrina and I’ve had trouble trying to understand.
In this message I understand the Father saying ‘look for changes’ but when the changes come we’re chastized if we say God sent this storm to cleanse the world. At the end of the video Anne said “that’s not charitable to say”. Even evangelists are called down if they refer to an incident as coming from the Father. Please help me understand.
Anne: Sometimes when changes come that could be called apocalyptic, people compound the suffering of the victims by saying things like “This happened because those people are evil.” This is neither charitable nor completely accurate. We all struggle with becoming saints and we are not equipped to judge the journey of others. We can conclude that there are many things that concern us in the world and that God views these same things. When events occur that bring abrupt change, we pray for the victims and help in any way we can. No judging.