A personal journey
Friday, March 23, 2001 11:29 PM
Copied here is an edited version of a presentation on True Life in God, given by Mamie Thomson on 8th February 2001 in John Ogilvie Church, Edinburgh.
I have been asked to speak to you on how the “True Life in God” Messages
- coming from God today through a woman called Vassula Ryden, and meant for us all – Orthodox -Catholics – Protestants – how these Messages played a part in my entry into the Catholic Church.
I’ll give you a very brief potted history of my life in churches.
I was christened in a Protestant Congregational Church. As my parents were not attenders at any church, I gravitated towards the Church on the invitation of young friends at school – I was always very curious about “The Church”, and my parents didn’t discourage my going, although they didn’t go themselves.
I met my husband in the Church of Scotland Guild of Youth and we were married in St.Christopher’s Church of Scotland, Pollok, Glasgow.
After marriage, we attended Partick Methodist Church for 13 years and then we moved to a new home in Hardgate, Clydebank, and as a family, with our son and daughter we attended Duntocher Trinity Church of Scotland.
We were a typical Protestant family – my husband was an elder. I had always taught in Sunday School since I was 14, and now I became the Sunday School Superintendent.
When our children were quite young, my husband had a heart-attack, and since he was self-employed, I had to go back to full-time teaching. I landed in a Catholic secondary school – St.Pius, in Drumchapel. There my life took a turn-around.
In that deprived area, where many children came from broken homes, I discovered a richness of the Holy Spirit in the life of that school, in the chapel, in the staff, in the children. I was observing a way of living that I had just not known before – Mary – Mass – Holy Communion, reverence and spirituality that, to me, were missing from the Protestant scene, either in church or in school.
I plied our young minister with questions – why were we so ignorant of Mary? – why did our children have to wait until 18 years of age to take Communion? – why did we have Communion only once in 3 months instead of every day? And so on.
Due to my friendship with one of the nuns in the community attached to the school, I was directed on a 9-month-long course of spiritual direction, using the St.Ignatius Exercises. These were so beneficial to me that I went to Craighead, Jesuit Centre, and studied to become a spiritual director myself. I then took members of the Church of Scotland through the Exercises, to their and my benefit – there’s always a blessing for the Director, too.
So, over the last 20 years, I grew closer to the Catholic Church, joining a charismatic prayer group – The Anamun Prayer Group – run by Marist Brothers in Glasgow, going with them on retreats to Dalmally and Walsingham – both great spiritual centres where wonderful things happen to pilgrims.
I also have belonged to the Church of Scotland Healing Ministry for 10 years – I am on the team there. So that’s my background.
I firmly believed it was God’s Will for me that I should stay in the Protestant Church, commune with the Catholic Church via the Groups and share the treasures of each with my two families Catholic and Protestant, both loving families.
Then I found “True Life in God” 2 years ago, in the Glasgow Group, having been invited there by my Catholic friends. Again my life turned around. I devoured the Books – I gave Volume One to everyone who showed the slightest interest, priests and ministers too.
I believe so much in the Messages that God is sending today – “You all belong to Me”. The Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Mary our Mother, St.Michael, are all communicating with us through these Volumes, with those who have ears to hear and eyes to see.
Gos gave Vassula Ryden a vision of three thick iron bars, saying that these were examples of the three main divisions of Christianity – ORTHODOX, CATHOLIC and PROTESTANT. He said these iron bars would all have to bend towards each other, for Unity to take place, so that the divided Christians would all return to the one Church He had Himself laid down, with Peter as its head; He wanted His Holy Mother honoured; and He wanted His Perpetual Sacrifice of Body and Blood accepted in His Church.
Vassula asked, “Lord, how can this be?” and I echoed these words as I thought of the Protestant Church.
As I see it the Orthodox Church has to bend in sharing Holy Communion with the Catholics, and in accepting the pope, Peter’s successor, as the Holy Father.
Catholics have to bend so that they share Holy Communion with believers in the Protestant Church.
And the Protestants – they have to bend in three ways; (1) to honour Mary, the Mother of Jesus, as our Mother; (2) to receive the True Body and Blood in Holy Communion; (3) to accept that the Pope is the Holy father, and Peter’s successor.
- It was proved to me in Volume 1 of “True Life in God” that Mary really was my Mother. The messages of October 8th and 10th, 1987 convinced me. (Remember, I was already on the way, but these gave me the final proof.)
The words in the second message, “My Body has been torn apart: I want My Body united” – I took these words to mean the great division between Catholics and Protestants at the time of the Reformation. As Brother Paul, a revered Marist Brother in Glasgow, explained to us in the Anawun Prayer Group; Martin Luther was a Catholic monk, and he found many corruptions in the Mother Church, but instead of fighting these from within, he and his followers broke away to found a faith based on protests – completely opposite to Jesus’ teaching.
Catholic priests in Scotland led the Reformation here, and the division was a great one.
Speaking personally, I feel that my ancestors took me out of the Mother Church – without my permission – and lost for me the wonder of having a Heavenly Mother. We are all ignorant of Mary in the Protestant Church, except when we trot her out at Christmastime for the children’s story.
Jesus was not just speaking to John – as it was explained by a local Catholic priest in our area, Father Philip Tartaglia, we are all the Beloved Disciple. Jesus was speaking to all of us when he said these words to John.
I believe this, and now, in my sixties, I have become fully aware of where Mary has been in the whole of my life, and how ignorant of that I have been. And I delight in my knowledge of her now – and how I long for my Protestant brothers and sisters to have Her love in their lives as I do.
- The “Second Bending”, for Protestants, is to be to Holy Communion.
When I was attending Mass in the Catholic Church, I felt more than a bit resentful that I wasn’t allowed to partake of Holy Communion. I was given a Blessing. This is a cause of resentment to Protestants. The Orthodox Church doesn’t share with Catholics and Catholics don’t share with Protestants.
It is hard to come to terms with this when we know Jesus died for all of us. He didn’t make the divisions between us – we did.
I received consolation on this from a retreat in Dalmally where Jesus made it known to me, as I was being blessed for the third time that weekend, that “it was not necessary for me to take His Body and Blood through the mouth, but I could absorb it through my faith and the Blessing.
I felt as though I belonged a little more in the Catholic Church with this explanation and I felt that Jesus had made a way for me where the Catholic Church had rejected me – because it does feel like a rejection. I couldn’t understand why the Church rejected all Protestants, even those who believed, as I did, that the bread and wine were elements changed miraculously during the Mass, through the offices of the priest, and were not merely “symbols” of the Body and Blood, as the Protestant Church teaches.
So I went along for a while.
And then I found “True Life in God”, thanks to my Catholic friends.
God has said to Vassula, and to us, in a Message:
“I shall show you to the world as a sign of Unity; you are contradicted and rejected but you now know why – because Unity is unwelcomed, as Love is unwelcomed, in many hearts. Sincerity is missing.”
I thought God’s Will for me, like Vassula, was to stay in my own Church, and to share the treasures of each with the other.
Then I found many more references as to Holy Communion, such as this one in Volume 7, p108 Nov 2, 1997
“so long as you are still on earth, remain in Me to perfect your union with Me and receive Me as often as you can in Holy Communion, magnifying your love on Me, and abandoning yourself to Me; remain in this Resting Place for ever, allowing Me to keep you in this Furnace of Love, to make you taste the sweetness of My Love.”
These references to Holy Communion kept jumping out at me until one day, at the end of last year, someone from whom I was having prayer ministry invited me once again to join the Catholic Church. She told me that Jesus was holding The Host out to me and saying, “Come”.
Turmoil. I felt that God’s Will was for me to stay in the Church of Scotland, although I had felt for a long time that the Catholic Church was my spiritual home. I prayed about it and received my answer from Mary, my Mother, through words in the Novena that I was praying the next morning.
Again in prayer ministry, I had been asked to obtain a Rosa Mystica statue to use in prayer for priests, and it was as I was praying the Novena that I received my answer, very definitely.
I then had to face wrenching myself away from the church that had played a big part in my life and those of my family. However, the whole way was smoothed wonderfully for me, and I left one loving family for another loving family, at the end of the Jubilee Year. I am still devoted to both, still sharing the treasures of each church with the other, and I am being strengthened spiritually in every way, every day receiving Holy Communion.
- The “3rd Bending”, for Protestants, is to the Pope.
There are many references by Jesus in “True Life in God” to His “Vicar” – Pope John Paul II – “My beloved Peter”, He calls him.
In Volume 4 of “True Life in God” Jesus tells of how “The Enemy is on his way, with a noose in his hands, heading for the one who is appointed by Me (i.e.The Pope) and who holds the rebellion back from bursting out.” (This is a rebellion in the Catholic Church, which would bring down the Pope, sell Jesus’ Blood, and remove His Perpetual Sacrifice)
There is a growing respect in Protestant churches for John Paul II and his fearless speaking out for God’s people. He is a leader on earth for all of us and I hope, trust and believe that Jesus’ words will come true
- that we will, all of us, unite again in one church, honouring Mary, the
Mother of God, and of us all, all partaking of Holy Communion together
and all gathering under his beloved Peter’s successor.
Mamie Thomson, “True Life in God” Glasgow Group, Scotland.