Our Thoughts Are Not His Thoughts

I still believe that life is a series of Gifts and Lessons. If I'm honest, I’ve gotten the best learning from the Lessons. But more times then not, I pray for and enjoy the Gifts better.

At one point in my life I was in the midst of a real Lesson. I'd love to say that I was trusting of His Will during the process, but I'd be lying. In fact, not only was I not focused on God's hand in this, I was focused on and experiencing mostly evil from people who had set themselves out as the local religious elite.

In the process, I turned to a very good priest. I shared what was going on and in response I heard compassion. Compassion instead of legalistic jargon. Honesty instead of excuses. Forgiveness instead of judgement.

During the conversation with this priest, I mentally felt immediate relief. I thought the take away was the way the priest dealt with me. This was how I wanted to treat others in the same situation from now on. Great . . . but I had realized only part of the Lesson.

It wasn't until later when I was sharing the story with a lay apostle that I got the rest of the Lesson. After hearing what transpired and how it affected me, the lay apostle simply shared that I was hearing the voice of God. God was speaking through this priest. Here I was in the middle of all of these religious people, experiencing opposing ways of resolving issues.  If our Lord was to manifest in a human body today . . . I definitely believe He would resemble the priest who was compassionate, humble, honest, and forgiving.

Todays Gospel (Luke 9:28B-36) shows our minds aren’t able to see and comprehend everything that God is able to:

Jesus took Peter, John, and James and went up the mountain to pray. While he was praying his face changed in appearance and his clothing became dazzling white. And behold, two men were conversing with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his exodus that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem. Peter and his companions had been overcome by sleep, but becoming fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with him. As they were about to part from him, Peter said to Jesus,  “Master, it is good that we are here; let us make three tents,one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”

But he did not know what he was saying. While he was still speaking, a cloud came and cast a shadow over them, and they became frightened when they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said,  “This is my chosen Son; listen to him.” After the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone.

They fell silent and did not at that time tell anyone what they had seen.

In Anne a lay apostle’s book Climbing the Mountain, we see that the ultimate goal is to blend our will with His Will:

“Consider a mountain. On that mountain is a path that has been marked out carefully for each of us by Jesus. Jesus is at the top. The world is at the bottom. If we get on that path and begin to climb, we will reach Jesus. We climb the mountain through our daily “yes” to Jesus. People say that they do not know the will of God, but God will not hide His will. We must spend time in silence and ask Jesus and He will tell us where our path lies on this mountain of holiness. Most of us need look no further than to our vocations. Our path is usually marked out with the daily duties of these vocations and it is always best to begin at that point. In this time of transition, Jesus needs souls to find their path and start climbing. The higher we climb, the more grace and light Jesus flows through us into this world and the greater the number of souls saved. We praise God for the way He allows us to participate in this renewal. Some speak of darkness and sin  and the disobedience of many of our brothers and sisters. This darkness exists and we cannot ignore it. To do so would be to rest in denial. However, when souls talk more about these things than about the glory of Jesus Christ, it is clear that they are facing the wrong way on the mountain. Face up, dear friends! Face Christ! Face heaven! If you do, you will be filled with heaven’s joy and confidence. If you face down toward the world you will become afraid. Also, when a soul faces the darkness he can risk becoming mesmerized by that darkness and drawn down into it. This is bad. Some souls are so busy studying the darkness that they ignore the light. Counsel souls to face Christ always and they will talk about joy and trust and heaven. An important point to remember is that Jesus is far bigger than the Empire State Building, in terms of His power, His love, and His glory. The enemy is comparatively the size of an ant, a very small ant. The devil is like a little fire ant, it is true, and he stings, but ultimately he cannot topple the Empire State Building.” 

Lay apostles, it’s through prayer and grace that we are able to climb the mountain. Some parts of the journey are easy, and others extremely difficult. In the end, we find that we need to have both in order to experience life to its fullest with God. 

Thank you, Lord, for being there in the times where Your Will was extremely clear as well as in the times where I just need to trust.

In humility and gratitude,

Jay

A Serious Matter - Fr. Darragh Connolly

Bullying is bullying no matter who the bully is . . . let's all focus on the Volumes and all the work DFOT is doing to build the kingdom! God bless, Bonnie





Dear lay apostles,

This is a brief letter to inform you of a new position we are taking on a matter which emerged a few years ago. The prudence of this organisation has been heavily borrowed upon and we are now setting a firmer boundary regarding this issue.

Most of you are unaware of this but for the last four and a half years we at DFOT have been the subject of bullying behavior by a religious sister and a priest who works with her. Some priests and lay apostles have been told false stories by them and then sworn to secrecy under the guise of confidentiality. Confused by the request for secrecy, many have phoned to let us know. Indeed, this is how we have come to understand the extent of what has been circulated. We are grateful to the priests and bishops from several countries, as well as religious and lay people, who have not only been disturbed by these actions, but felt it their responsibility to alert us.

In other arenas in the world, this behavior would be classified as character defamation. The entire organization and specific members have been subject to false accusation, and yet never directly, always covertly. We have written reports of this and summaries of how it was done and I have dealt with this in many countries, at every level.

Some prayer groups were instructed by these individuals to stop reading the monthly message and either cease their prayer groups altogether or change them entirely. Others were told they had to burn their books. Letters written by them and people associated with them were passed along to us and are in our possession. Aspersions have been cast on the bishop, the staff and the writings. And again, in most cases, people were sworn to secrecy, suggesting some form of a covert campaign.

Burning books with an official Church Imprimatur? Lay apostles, we are steering our organization into healthy portions of Human Development for a reason. Indeed, as we piloted our human and spiritual development program in high schools in our diocese, we realized that we were advising responses to bullying that we, ourselves, had not implemented. Specifically, we tell the young people that secrecy is a red flag and that we must bring these issues into the light of day.

To be clear, the claims of these individuals have all been examined by the competent authority, Bishop Leo O’Reilly, as well as the official diocesan commission formed to evaluate Anne’s experience and the writings, as well as the organization, years ago. The claims of these two people, some of which were specific, were deemed unfounded and objectively false. Furthermore, it must be noted that these individuals have neither competence nor authority to make claims or assessments of any kind.

As stated, these types of actions are not uncommon in the world and can be seen within the Church, at times, in a particularly insidious way, creating confusion and uncertainty. Because we are human, this is inevitable and we know that many of you may have experienced similar situations in your lives. However, we are all responsible for our feelings and how we choose to act upon them. In this situation, several of the people who have alerted us as to what is being said and done, have expressed fear that if we make their name known, they will also be targeted. Clearly we wouldn't do that except to our bishop. Nevertheless, the only mature and transparent action at this point for us is to name this openly and call it unacceptable.

One final reason for sending this email is that as we move into this next phase of the mission we will be drawing a line under this matter. For the last several years we have treated this as a distraction from our work and given it little attention, except when absolutely necessary. In the future, we will be passing along all evidence of further coercive or covert behaviors for the attention and handling of the appropriate authorities, including their own superiors. If you have experienced this behavior please contact me. If you have suggestions for us around this issue, we would like to hear them. In turn, I can help you to understand how this is happening and that you are one of many who have been approached in this way. You can email me at the below email address.

We continue to work hard with you in spreading the many blessings we have received in this Apostolate and we wish to support all lay apostles out in the field working. We thank you for your prayers and remind everyone that this work belongs to Jesus Christ.

Sincerely,

Father Darragh Connolly
Chaplain
Direction for Our Times
chaplain@dfot.ie

Beautiful Article about Direction for Our Times

(Received in email from DFOT) A beautifully written letter from a pastor in the state of Washington . . . 

Pastor’s Column

December 8, 2013

Developing a Personal Relationship with Jesus

Greetings in Christ.

In 1996 at the age of 26, I began to have a conversion experience that ultimately culminated in my becoming a priest. The one defining characteristic of my conversion has been coming to know, love and serve Jesus Christ in what is popularly known as a personal relationship. From polling and antidotal evidence it is clear that most Catholics wouldn’t describe themselves as having a personal relationship with Our Lord. This is unfortunate, even tragic really, because without a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, most people will not give Him their entire life. I certainly would not have become a priest without this personal relationship, and Jesus would have to vie with family, career and my passions for my priorities and focus.

About six years ago I read a book entitled: Climbing the Mountain by Anne: a lay apostle. Finally, I had a book in my possession that I thought could help so many others to know Jesus (God) enough to begin having a personal relationship with Him. Since then, I have read all of Anne’s writings from her publishing moniker: Direction for Our Times. Her books all have a powerful ability to clearly convey how heaven thinks and operates especially in contrast with the incorrect thinking and living in our world today. Because of someone’s generous donation, we have been able to order two thousand of Anne’s first book: Volume # 1: Thoughts on Spirituality. I beg you to read it. Outside of the Bible, I feel that The Volumes are the easiest, surest spiritual reading to a life in God. On November 11, 2013 Anne’s bishop granted an Imprimatur for all of the writings for Direction for Our Times; the books have a Nihil Obstat as well. The Imprimatur and Nihil Obstat are an official declaration that a book or pamphlet are free of doctrinal or moral error and that ecclesiastical permission for its publication has been granted. I encourage you to go on-line to Direction for Our Times and order all of The Volumes. Like scripture they keep on giving, I am now on my third or fourth reading of The Volumes.

Advent has begun, a great time to focus on developing or deepening our personal relationship with Jesus. Advent is a season when the Lord would like us all to slow down and quiet down so as to spiritually prepare ourselves to meet Him on His birthday. Yet the season has been hijacked by consumerism over the decades, and so instead of the silence, etc., we get hustle and bustle. Today we “celebrate” the Christmas season from Thanksgiving until Christmas day. The Church traditionally celebrates the season of Christmas for three weeks: beginning with Christmas Eve night and ending with the Baptism of the Lord. What a wonderful world and life it would be if each of us would use what is left of Advent to grow spiritually instead of stressfully. Here are some helpful ideas. 

1) Reclaim silence. We need it in order to hear God and to be sane. Please cut back on the radio, background music, TV, internet, hand held devices, etc., and reclaim what all of humanity enjoyed from the foundation of the world until the middle of the 20th century – a little silence.

2) Prayer. And Jesus said: “It is necessary to pray always without ceasing.”

3) Spiritual reading. Now that you have one of The Volumes in addition to your Bible, it’s just a matter of discipline. Two or three pages a day of Volume #1 will do you and others wonders.

4) Attend weekday Masses if you can. There is no greater devotional practice nor means to deeper conversion than this. Take advantage of it while priests are still around to offer it.

5) Frequent Confession. The saints and holiest people I know use this sacrament frequently; think there’s any connection? Boundless humility on our part, and boundless grace on God’s part, is the secret to the fruit of the confessional. Use it frequently. Start with once a month and then increase from there.

Yours in Christ’s Love,

Fr. Thomas Nathe Pastor