MY HEART CAREFULLY FOLLOWS YOUR PROGRESS
These six words are from Our Lady‘s message for Christmas Day 1986. They come between two other sentences – a wishful blessing, and an expression of gratitude.
I bless you and I desire that you too, dear children, become alive to the graces and place everything at God’s disposal so that he may be glorified through you... Thank you for having responded to my call.
Anyone blessed with children will know that the heart of the mother and father always follows the progress of their offspring, no matter what the distance is and how far their children may have roamed, or how often they keep in touch. As the years roll by and the child grows, the mother and father still carefully follow the child’s progress in life. Their heart always ponders and silently blesses the child. Their heart always seeks contact with the child and is always grateful when the child responds.
My eldest child, like myself, is pushing on in years., but my heart still ponders on him and looks for his response to my voice. My heart does not stay silent. It still calls out to the one I love. I cannot hold him in the same way as I did when he was a child. The language of communication is also different. And I welcome the time when there are just the two of us, together, talking with each other. This can only be prayer. Every day I ask God to bless him.
My heart is sometimes concerned for my son but I have learned to place these concerns at God’s disposal and instead trust in our Father in Heaven. And I do see God working in his life, perhaps not in the most obvious ways, but I do see my son searching – sometimes struggling – to come to an understanding and acceptance of God in his life. This is God calling.
So when there are times that he is unable to completely open his heart, then mine opens for him, and it is my own heart that I surrender to God for his promised graces; for the love of God is to be shared, especially amongst family. Love your neighbour, said Jesus. And who can be a closer neighbour than our family?