Reflections on Holy Week
Letter to the community
March 27, 2018
My Beloved Community,
As we live this Holy Week as ONE HEART in Jesus crucified with Mary, many of the Mothers and Missionaries of the Cross are suffering greatly with very difficult situations that God is permitting. I sent you a document yesterday to encourage you in your identities and mission as God’s little victim souls. Today I write to you from my heart to encourage you to PERSEVERE and not allow one drop of your sufferings to be wasted, for it is truly a drop of Jesus’ Precious Blood that we do not absorb with the living cloth of our lives. My reflection comes from the Gospel of John 12 and 13:
Jesus is glorified on the Wood of the Cross and through Him the Father is glorified. (12:23) Jesus tells us to follow Him (12:26), therefore, we too must follow Him to the Cross to die as one with Him ((12:24). In this way, we are resurrected, not only in heaven with the crown of glory, but also on earth, as the new creation of the Father—the new Adams and new Eves glorifying the Father on earth. These are the men and women, Christ’s disciples, living “Thy Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven”, and only they, God’s apostles of Light, can usher in “Thy Kingdom come”.
All of us, because we have not yet died to self, desire to be great preachers, healers, miracle workers, teachers, prophets, administrators, apostolic workers, heroes and so on, without the Cross. Therefore, our works bear little fruit—our egos are what’s being glorified. We struggle following Christ daily to the Cross to die to self, to what we have become that we are not, through humiliations, accusations, discriminations, rejections, difficulties, sufferings, illnesses, piercings, abandonment, and so on, suffering ALL as one with Christ’s sacrifice of love.
Jesus gives us a new commandment: Love one another, even as I have loved you (Jn 13:34).
How does Jesus love me?
He receives upon His Body my wounds and transgressions. He willingly, as the Father’s Victim Son, suffers my infidelity, unfaithfulness, lukewarmness, indifference, brokenness… hanging silently and patiently on the Wood of the Cross. He becomes the Victim Sacrifice for me, so that I can become the new creation in the image and likeness of God.
I then must choose to love the most difficult ones in my life—the boss, superior, spouse, who humiliated, accused, betrayed, and fired me. The person who used me and ditched me. The people—mother, father, brother, sister—who wounded me by disrespecting and dishonoring me. I must choose to love by willingly receiving their brokenness into my heart, cleansed of all resentment, frustration, anger, revenge and hatred, and suffer with Christ solely for Love as I pray for them daily, especially in the Sacrifice of the Mass.
During Holy Land pilgrimage, day 8, Thursday, Nov 2, 2017, at Gethsemane, before the rock where Jesus prayed:
Love Crucified has been called to REMAIN with Me as I continue to shed tears for Jerusalem, to remain with Me in My continuous agony for souls, to participate with Me in the salvation of the world, as you choose daily to receive the brokenness of the souls I have placed in your lives and to suffer with Me for them. The time of the great destruction draws near, many souls will be lost, you will hear the wailing of Jerusalem throughout the world. Bring Me victim souls to suffer with Me in order to obtain graces of conversion for many souls, who otherwise will be lost. Believe in the power of your hidden lives of suffering with Me.