Rejoicing in Heaven

Dear Sisters,

I spent the last two days at the "Do What Love Requires" 2015 Arizona Marian Conference.  There were the usual number of outstanding speakers among which was Christine Watkins.  Christine had been an atheist, militantly anti-christian and later looked for meaning in life through the New Age.
She lived a deeply immoral life.  Her choices had led her to be diagnosed with terminal cervical cancer.  She had lost her hair, was bleeding internally and was scarecrow thin.  She was in terrible pain and it seemed that her life would end in her twenties.  One day a Catholic friend visiting her was praying intently over her.  She felt a strong feminine presence and she heard a loud "pop".  Her eyes flew open and she asked her friend what had happened to her.  He told her that Mother Mary had taken pity on her and had asked her Son to cure her, which He had done.

The deeper more profound and eternal healing that took place, was that Our Lord allowed her to see the condition of her soul.  She had always considered herself a good person, but the Lord showed her that being nice and living a moral life were two completely different things.  Christine was filled with remorse and called out for forgiveness from the depths of her soul.  She sobbed out her regrets on her knees.  A beautiful music sounded in her room.  She opened a window, but the sound wasn't coming from outside.  The room didn't have a clock radio and she didn't have a phone in the room.  It was then that she was given to understand that the music was coming from heaven as the Lord and all the angels and saints were rejoicing that she a sinner had repented.  They had given her a glimpse to the joy that was being felt in heaven because she, the prodigal, had been embraced by the Lord in His Awesome MERCY!

I find that God, who is a GENIUS, always has a way of tying these kinds of lessons with a bow for me.  I've been spending the last couple of weeks reading The Return of the Prodigal Son  by Henri J.M. Nouwen.  I picked up the book this evening, still profoundly moved by all that I had experienced at the conference and read these words, "Celebration belongs to God's Kingdom.  God not only offers forgiveness, reconciliation, and healing, but wants to lift up these gifts as a source of joy for all who witness them.  In all three of the parables which Jesus tells to explain why he eats with sinners, God rejoices and invites others to rejoice with him.  'Rejoice with me,' the shepherd says, "I have found my sheep that was lost.' 'Rejoice with me,' the woman says, 'I have found the drachma I lost.' 'Rejoice with me,' the father says, 'this son of mine was lost and is found.'  All these voices are the voices of God.  God does not want to keep his joy to himself. He wants everyone to share in it.  God's joy is the joy of his angels and his saints;  it is the joy of all who belong to the Kingdom."

There you have it my friends.  The words spoken by Christine Watkins and the words of Henri Nouwen, all tied up in a beautiful LOVE bow.

With God's grace I hope to look into my own darkened soul and offer the greatest healer of all my bad habits, sins of omission and the sins that I commit due to family sins.  I too want so much to be 'found'.  And maybe, in some little corner of heaven, beautiful music will sound as this sinner repents!

Look deeply into your soul sisters, let's give God the JOY of being our savior!   I will meet you at the confession line.

Love to all!
Prayer Warrior