I MAKE YOU FAMILY

Transforming Suffering
An Interview with Basil Pennington
By Mary Nurrie Stearns

 PT: We have talked about suffering, particularly as we experience and relate to it in our personal lives. Let’s shift to social issues. First, I would like you to talk about suffering in a social context. Then I would like your comments on the war in Kosovo and Yugoslavia. Can we have any impact on suffering in Kosovo and Yugoslavia?

Pennington: We all suffer because of our parents. One element of maturing is realizing that our parents were poor stupid sinners like we are. Even if they did their best, they failed in ways. However, we can never thank them enough because they have given us, with God, the gift of life and being. Along with that comes struggling. If that happens in the individual, it also happens in the social level. The failures of many, or the limitations of many, build up and become our inheritance. Kosovo is an example of that. The suffering in the Balkans, except for the short time that Tito held it in an iron grip, goes back centuries to the time when Islam invaded and conquered parts of the area, leaving this heritage of strife. The willingness to live together and share was never engendered, which is what we have to learn to do everywhere in the world today. They are not the only ones who did that. We did it to the Native Americans, the Scotch Presbyterians did it to the Irish Catholics in North Ireland, and the Jews have done it to the Palestinians in the Holy Land. We can find instances of it all over history.

When you take away people’s land, when there is not a willingness to live and work together in some way, inevitably there begins to be a minority group and that minority suffers, like the Native Americans in the United States. At some point that minority revolts or seeks violent means, after decades of non-violent means not getting them anywhere. Sometimes just a few turn to violence, but it involves all the others. Then there is the problem of what the oppressive majority does in the face of that violence. They usually react with even more violence. These days the human community steps in to try to relieve that situation, often making it worse before it makes it better.

It is out of the complex heritage of our poor sinful struggling human family that these situations arise. Sometimes media makes us intensely aware of things going on and sometimes it doesn’t. There is less awareness of what is going on in Afghanistan and East Africa. When we hear about violent oppression we are confronted as fellow humans. Those of us who are Christians should be conscious of how Christ suffered and died for every human person. Therefore, these people are precious to Christ and they are precious to us.

PT: Then comes the question, what can I do about it?

Pennington: We believe in the power of prayer. God and Christ have told us that our prayer is effective. "Ask and you shall receive." God, who constantly brings this creation forward in his creative love, is affected by what we ask and seek of Him. Prayer is important because of the deep intersolidarity of the human family and the whole cosmos. Creating deeper peace in ourselves creates a level of peace for the whole human family. By giving up violence in our own attitudes, feelings and spirit, and seeking peace, we can become an instrument of peace. We are just one among billions and that may seem little, but sometimes we have to be content with doing the very little that we can. There is always political action. We have to discern, in each case, the appropriate political action we need to take. Certainly we should try to move our own government toward a less violent attitude. It is extremely difficult, when the situation is occurring, to say what we can immediately do, apart from prayer to try to bring peace. We can do whatever is possible to provide relief for the people suffering. This kind of suffering brings us into strong and painful contact with our limitations.

 

A MEDITATION ON
Living On The Edge of Eternity    

We have made Our Point. Have We not?  You catch Our Drift. Do you not? Living on the Edge of Eternity is akin to walking a tight rope.  Our Love is your Safety Net. We will catch you should you fall and set you back on Our Path for you 24/7 throughout your life.  

Rejoice!  Be renewed by My True Presence in your heart, in your soul and in your mind. I have loved you with an Everlasting Love and you are Mine. I call you friend. I make you family. Rejoice! Be filled with My Love.

Acknowledging Me, Jesus, as your Messiah opens you to Life Eternal in My Love! That is what your journey in the world of man encompasses. You decrease. I increase. You freely choose to make Me Lord of your life. You struggle daily to do just that. Your humanity fights against your ability to accept what you believe as your internally directed way of life. That is the struggle every human being faces. This struggle requires perseverance.

 I say. Blessed is the person who learns to persevere. That person lives with Me in Love Eternal in My New Jerusalem forever more. Today in your time I tell you to rejoice for I make you family. I draw you closer to Me in the Love that always is.

Will you lose this closeness? No! You may not feel this closeness 24/7. Yet, I tell you  this closeness to Me always is. You may not think you are close to Me. Yet I tell you. This closeness to Me always is. It no longer depends on what you think. It just is.

Does that mean that your problems in life in the world of man will disappear? Of course not! What it means is that you will deal with them differently because; deep down in the inner recesses of your being, you know and accept that I make you family. That inner knowledge enables you to persevere against any trial, even death, that life in the world of man may send your way. That is Salvation alive in you. That is My Friendship saving you.

Oh My friends! You know the secret of Life Eternal internally. You are Family! You are Mine forever more. Evil has lost its hold on you. Victory is yours through your continual acceptance of My Love in you.

I come to give you My New Life. I ask you to accept My Gift. You do this continuously. You walk with Me despite what you may think or feel. You will yourself to Me. Eternal Life is your legacy. You are at Mass. I am alive on this altar. Transubstantiation occurs. I call you to receive what you believe. I wish to nourish Our Love that dwells always in you. Come. Be in Communion with Us.

Pause

Thus I seal our meeting with My Heavenly Kiss. I renew your inner supply of Our Love spiritually, mentally  and physically. I draw you as close to Me as you can possibly
be.

 Love,

 Jesus

I LIFT YOU UP

Now it is time for you to get on with your day. You accept My Way for you in your today. You make Me your number one priority. You decrease. I increase. You start your day in quiet prayer in My Presence. You receive My True Presence in The Eucharist. You throw human intellectual caution to the wind. You defy human logic. You receive Me, Jesus the Messiah, in a piece of bread and in a cup of wine. How ridiculous to nonbelievers! How sublime to believers!

You do not know what I do in you when I mix My Divinity within your humanity. You do not care. You only know that you love Me. You accept this is what I ask. "Do this in remembrance of Me!" You do this for Me. I do everything else for you.

I am alive, My friend. You accept this as fact. I dwell in
you. You know this is true. I interact with you. You love these interactions. There is nothing more for Me to say today.

Do you see how each day is different when you walk with Me? It would be just as different if you did not walk with Me. Life's events in your world would still occur. You would confront them defenseless. You would fade to nothingness.

With My Love in you the outcome of life's events would change. Oh the actual events would occur. However your spirit remains in tact. You draw your inner strength from My Love that dwells always in you. I lift you out of the ashes of even life's greatest defeats. I do so out of Love for you. I died on a cross just for you. I rose out of death just for souls like you.

I am Jesus the Messiah who speaks in you at this very moment in your life in the world of temporary. I love you. I save you. I make you family.

Love,

Jesus

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