IF JESUS CAME TO YOUR HOUSE

If Jesus came to your house
To spend a day or two,
If He came unexpectedly,
I wonder what you’d do.

Oh, I know you’d give your nicest room
To such an honored guest
And all the food you’d serve Him
Would be the very best.

But when you saw Him coming,
I wonder what you’d do.
Would you rush right to the door to let Him in
Or would you first hide a magazine or two
And put the Bible and crucifix back where they’d been?

And I wonder – if the Saviour
spent a day or two with you,
Would you go right on doing, the
things you always do?

Would you go right on saying, the
things you always say?
Or would life for you continue
as it does from day to day?

Would you take Jesus with you
everywhere you go?
Or would you maybe change your
plans for just a day or so?

Would you be glad to have Him
stay forever on and on?
Or would you sigh with great
relief when He at last had gone?

It might be interesting to know,
the things that you would do,
If Jesus came in person
to spend some time with you.

(. . . * adapted from the work of Professor Lois Kendall Blanchard Eades).

John 19:25-27

Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary of Magdala.
When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved, he said to his mother, "Woman, behold, your son."
Then he said to the disciple, "Behold, your mother." And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.

The Church teaches that at this particular moment, our Lord, Saviour and brother Jesus, gave Mary his Mother, not only to John, but to each one of us- to be our Mother also ; a real, tender, loving Mother who wishes to share/participate in the lives of each of her children.

At Garabandal, Mari Loli said that our Lady was even interested in the animals the children tended to. No event of the lives of the children of Garabandal – no matter how minor it may have seemed to others, escaped our Blessed Mother’s attentive regard. So why would we ever think Our Lady would be less attentive to us ?

Excerpt :

The girls spoke with the Virgin with the utmost naturalness. "We were telling her," they said, "about our tasks, how we were going to the meadows..." and "She smiled at the little things we told her." Our Lady showed them how to treat her: "Like children who speak with their mother and tell her everything...Children who rejoice to see her when they have not seen her for a while."

Sister Emmanuel of the Beatitudes Community, who has published a proliferation of material (tapes, books, CD’s, DVD’s, speaking tours) promoting the messages received at Medjugorje, makes reference to that passage from St. John’s Gospel when she speaks about consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. And she stresses the importance of the last half of verse 27.
Everything from verse 26 to the first half of verse 27 expresses what we believe as Catholics about our Blessed Mother’s maternal dominion :

When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved, he said to his mother, "Woman, behold, your son."
Then he said to the disciple, "Behold, your mother."

. . . But the last half of verse 27 provides us with the key to actually living out this belief to the max :

And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.

This, Sr. Emmanuel explains, is what “consecration” to our Blessed Mother’s Immaculate Heart means : To invite Her into our homes to be a part of our lives each day ; to take Her into our homes and allow Her to guide us like a mother guides a little child. And Sister Emmanuel advises us not to be too surprised that when we do take Her home, Our Lady decides to move some of the furniture around and gets us to do a little clean-up – discarding those things her Motherly Heart deems harmful to our spiritual progress – hazardous to the “health” of Her children.

Each and any time we honour Mary as our Mother, we honour Jesus and it is pleasing to Him. Our Lady is so happy even when we wish to share the most minute detail of our lives with Her and ask Her intercession for ourselves, or for one of our brothers or sisters. Yet all of this excellence of love concerning our Blessed Mother, as wonderful as it is , cannot stop at Her. It grows into something greater ; and She is the one who, as a Mother , can cultivate this growth in each of us because She knows better than any other human being, what is pleasing to Her Son and what is beneficial to us - Her children . Our Lady’s job, Her mission, is always to help draw us closer to Jesus. So it would be logical if this “Consecration” to our Blessed Mother bore, as a prime fruit, the same type of love for our Blessed Lord. That is to say specifically: To invite our Lord and God, Saviour and Brother – Jesus, to come into our homes, so to speak, and to be a part of our daily lives as well. . . . similar to the sentiments expressed in the poem in the first section of this reflection.

How ?



In a major symposium held here in Montreal ( I believe in the vicinity of 1998) called a FIRE rally (Faith, Intercession, Repentance & Evangelism) , Father Michael Scanlan ,TOR (then President of Franciscan University Steubenville) told us:

The most natural thing a Catholic can do is to talk to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.”