Wednesday, August 20, 2003 5:19 PM
All those loving words, FOR ME???
Prayers are requested for close relations of two active TLIG promoters. The wife of Beneval Rosa from Brazil has been diagnosed with cancer on her face, while the brother of Michelle Gericke from Germany is in a coma with brain damage and is on an artificial respiratory machine.
The following testimony is from a young lady in Romania.
“August is when I started to teach you …
it is a sort of anniversary between us. …
Come, celebrate with Me”
Jesus to Vassula, 10th August 1987
It was in August 2000 when a friend of mine lent me a blue-covered book called “True Life in God”. I began reading it in the subway on my way home and I couldn’t put it down. I read it all the evening and that night I prayed with a strange new feeling – the feeling that my prayer was heard, that Jesus was there right beside me. It was like discovering Him again; so marvelous was the feeling of His loving Presence!
Only later did I realize that one week before getting the “True Life in God” book the I had met a girl freshly returned from Medjugorje. She had given me a detailed account of her pilgrimage, and what moved me most was the way she spoke about Our Lady – an intimate, loving relationship. I was touched. Because my walk with God had been often hampered by fear. I longed for God, but I sometimes had the feeling of being so far away from Him. After talking to that girl, I prayed that I too might have such a relationship with God. And the answer came very quickly with the “True Life in God” book.
I had been searching for God in my way for quite a few years. Jesus fascinated me, and I was trying to live my Orthodox faith, going to Sunday mass, fasting, confessing and receiving Communion. Yet I was still afraid of God, afraid that He might strike me for my sins and make me suffer. I was often anguished at the idea of receiving the Eucharist, because I saw myself so unworthy. I had just celebrated my 18th anniversary and my teenage personality crises were not over yet. Like many teenagers, I couldn’t accept myself and I had a lot of trouble to accept my family. I often had the feeling that nobody could love me. Because I couldn’t love myself, I thought that God would reject me too. Sometimes I felt terribly lonely and misunderstood.
In this frame of mind I read the “True Life in God” book. The first thing that struck me was the tender, intimate dialogue between Jesus and Vassula. Could it be possible to speak to God like that? All those loving words, FOR ME??? My heart yielded quickly. I wrote in my diary:
”Now that I’ve found my Friend, I’ll never hate myself again. I am happy. It’s such and extraordinary thing that sometimes I doubt it’s real. On my way home, I felt the need to smile, to run, and to jump. This Love is impossible to be measured”.
The books I had read, the people around me had repeatedly stated that God is love. But now I had EXPERIENCED Love. I realized that I’ve found the key to my life – the Presence of God beside me. And the comfort of not being alone, no matter what happens. The language of love, which was scorned by some people, was so refreshing for my soul. It gave me the certitude of being loved to folly, totally and unconditionally.
Surely, God still had a lot of work to do with me. Because doubts came again; whenever I failed, I was tempted to say, “I’m not a chosen one. I`m a sinner. Those words are not for me”. But I had been caught in the net of Love. Little by little, I learned how to speak to Him freely, how to love Him, how to trust Him more. I started going to communion with joy in my heart and not with terror. I learned to have my own, personal dialogue with Jesus.
This was the first and most precious treasure I found in this book. But there was something more – the treasure of Unity.
I was living my Orthodox faith without paying too much attention to the other Christians. I had no bad feelings against them, but I didn’t care about them either. When I read in “True Life in God” that Jesus suffers because of our division, I decided to work for unity and asked Him to guide me. I wanted to have an open mind, an open heart and to look for the things that unite us and not for the things that separate us. God first led me to the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity and then made me get in touch with a Catholic charismatic community.
This way I discovered the Catholic Church, an event that meant a lot for my spiritual growth. Among the most important things I achieved were the value of Eucharist and the Heart of Our Lord. The more I learned about the Catholic Church, the more I noticed its common points with Orthodoxy. I understood what Jesus meant when He said “Unity is sharing your riches”. Because sharing our riches is a way of growing in faith and mutual understanding. I read Catholic books, but what a joy I had too when a Catholic priest drew inspiration for one of his homilies from the writings of St Silouan which I had lent him! I believe that such little things done with love can help a lot.
Far from leading me astray from my Orthodox faith, this spiritual quest within the Catholic Church made me love Orthodoxy even more. It highlighted some of its treasures and values that I hadn’t noticed, or to which I would pay less attention. I have a few Orthodox friends who live the unity the same way. As time goes by, I meet more and more people who have the same ideas. We feel no need to make a choice between the two Churches. Instead we pray that the true unity of heart may come.
Having just returned from my first pilgrimage to Medjugorje, three years after I first read “True Life in God” I want to celebrate with the Lord and with our Holy Mother and dedicate Them this testimony as a sign of gratitude. “True Life in God” was and remains indeed a landmark on my spiritual way. Glory be to God for the great work He has accomplished with the Hymn of His Love!
