Be Strong!


Pick Up Your Cross
, by Melinda Velez

 

ARE you feeling the weariness of the battle? As my spiritual director often says (who is also a diocesan priest), “Anyone who is trying to be holy today is going through the fire.”

Yes, that is true at all times in all periods of the Christian Church. But there is something different about our day. It’s as if the very bowels of hell have been emptied, and the adversary is disturbing not only the nations, but most especially and implacably every soul consecrated to God. Let us be honest and plain, brothers and sisters: the spirit of antichrist is everywhere today, having seeped like smoke even into the cracks in the Church. But where Satan is strong, God is always stronger!

This is the spirit of the antichrist that, as you heard, is to come, but in fact is already in the world. You belong to God, children, and you have conquered them, for the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. (1 John 4:3-4)

This morning in prayer, the following thoughts came to me:

Take courage, child. To begin again is to be re-immersed in My Sacred Heart, a living flame that consumes all your sin and that which is not of Me. Remain in Me that I may purify and renew you. For to leave the Flames of Love is to enter into the cold of the flesh where every misdeed and evil is conceivable. Is it not simple, child? And yet it is also very difficult, because it demands your full attention; it demands that you resist your evil inclinations and tendencies. It demands a fight—a battle! And so, you must be willing to enter upon the way of the Cross… else you be swept away along the wide and easy road.

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Conferences and New Album Update

 

 

UPCOMING CONFERENCES

This fall, I will be leading two conferences, one in Canada and the other in the United States:

 

SPIRITUAL RENEWAL AND HEALING CONFERENCE

September 16-17th, 2011

St. Lambert Parish, Sioux Falls, South Daktoa, U.S.

For more information on registration, contact:

Kevin Lehan
605-413-9492
Email: [email protected]

www.ajoyfulshout.com

Brochure: click here

 

 

 A TIME FOR MERCY
5th Men’s Annual Retreat

September 23-25th, 2011

Annapolis Basin Conference Centre
Cornwallis Park, Nova Scotia, Canada

For more info:
Phone:
(902) 678-3303

Email:
[email protected]


 

NEW ALBUM

This past weekend, we wrapped up the "bed sessions" for my next album. I am absolutely thrilled with where this is going and am looking forward to releasing this new CD early next year. It’s a gentle blend of story and love songs, as well as some spiritual tunes on Mary and of course Jesus. While that may seem like a strange mix, I don’t think so at all. The ballads on the album deal with the common themes of loss, remembering, love, suffering… and give an answer to it all: Jesus.

We have 11 songs left that can be sponsored by individuals, families, etc. In sponsoring a song, you can help me raise more funds to finish this album. Your name, if you wish, and a short message of dedication, will appear in the CD insert. You can sponsor a song for $1000. If you are interested, contact Colette:

[email protected]

 

Recalibrate Your Heart

 

THE heart is a finely tuned instrument. It is also delicate. The "narrow and rough" road of the Gospel, and all the bumps we encounter along the way, can throw the heart out of calibration. Temptations, trials, suffering… they can shake the heart such that we lose focus and direction. Understanding and recognizing this innate weakenss of the soul is half the battle: if you know your heart needs to be recalibrated, then you’re halfway there. But many, if not most professing Christians, don’t even realize their hearts are out of sync. Just as a pacemaker can recalibrate the physical heart, so too we need to apply a spiritual pacemaker to our own hearts, for every human being has "heart trouble" to one degree or another while walking in this world.

 

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The Power of the Cross


 

PERHAPS the reason many of us are not growing in holiness is because we misunderstand how the power of God is applied in our lives. Mark explains in this episode how the transforming power of God works in a Christian’s life, and how it’s not too late for anyone to become a saint…

To watch The Power of the Cross, go to www.embracinghope.tv

Landslide!

 

 

THOSE who have been following the prophetic pulse in the Church will likely not be surprised at the turn of world events unfolding by the hour. A Global Revolution is slowly picking up steam as the foundations of the post-modern world begin to give way to a “new order.” Hence, we have arrived at the epic hours of our time, a final confrontation between good and evil, between a culture of life and a culture of death. The wobbling economy, wars, and even environmental degradation are merely the fruits of a bad tree, planted through the lies of Satan through the Enlightenment period over 400 years ago. Today, we are merely reaping what has been sown, tended to by false shepherds, and guarded by wolves, even among Christ’s flock. For perhaps, one of the greatest signs of the times is the growing doubt in the existence of God. And it makes sense. As chaos continues to take the place of Christ, violence displacing peace, insecurity replacing stability, the human reaction is to blame God (instead of recognizing that free will has the capacity to destroy itself). How could God allow hunger? Suffering? Genocide? The answer is how could He not, without trampling upon our human dignity and free will. Indeed, Christ came to show us the way out of the valley of the shadow of death, which we created—not abolish it. Not yet, not until the plan of salvation has reached its fulfillment. [1]cf. 1 Cor 15:25-26

All of this, it seems, is preparing the world for a false christ, a false messiah to pull it out of a death plunge. And yet, this is nothing new: all of this has been foretold in the Scriptures, expounded on by the Church Fathers, and increasingly rolled into focus by the modern pontiffs. No one knows the timing, at least of the whole. But to suggest that it is not a possibility in our era, given all the signs, is woefully shortsighted. It was said best by Paul VI:

There is a great uneasiness at this time in the world and in the Church, and that which is in question is the faith. It so happens now that I repeat to myself the obscure phrase of Jesus in the Gospel of St. Luke: ‘When the Son of Man returns, will He still find faith on the earth?’…I sometimes read the Gospel passage of the end times and I attest that, at this time, some signs of this end are emerging. Are we close to the end? This we will never know. We must always hold ourselves in readiness, but everything could last a very long time yet.  —POPE PAUL VI, The Secret Paul VI, Jean Guitton, p. 152-153, Reference (7), p. ix.

It is with that, that I turn back to some words I sensed Heaven saying in 2008. Here, I also share some prophetic words from others that should be discerned, though I make no final claims on their authenticity. I also include here a recent word attributed to the Mother of God at a famous apparition site.

We are it seems, brothers and sisters, living in the times of the Great Landslide…

 

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Footnotes

Footnotes
1 cf. 1 Cor 15:25-26