Saint Andrew

July 27, 1998

Carolyn’s Description:

The Blessed Mother is dressed in a gray gown and a blue mantle. Her hands are folded and her head is bowed. Her eyes are closed and she is praying. She is surrounded by roses. St. Andrew is kneeling before her. He is a plump man. He has curly, gray hair and a long beard. He has one hand extended in front of him and slightly up. In the other he holds a crucifix.

The Blessed Mother’s Words:

My dear little ones, I bless you and I thank you for gathering here today in such a great number. It is because of your response that God does allow such graces to enter this world, to touch His little ones, to renew their hearts and their spirits that they might come to know Him in a more glorious, more intimate way. I wish to tell you of His love for you, for each of you, and how greatly pleased I am that you have offered prayer with such fervent hearts for my intentions.

My dear little ones, pray always! For through prayer your hearts are changed, nourished, and brought nearer to my son, He who is the light on the road to the kingdom our father has prepared for you. Follow Him. Emulate Him. Walk His way. You shall not be left. You shall not be abandoned, for I will accompany you as your mother always.

Today, I bring to you one who has much to tell of both suffering and life. He has much to tell of his walk with our Lord. He received a gift that many, many of my son’s children would desire with all their hearts, to be with Him on this earth as He taught and healed, as He loved each and every one of His little children who came to Him. There is much you can learn from him. I thank you for hearing me this day, for responding with the fullness of your hearts, and for praying with joy and love for God.

St. Andrew’s Words:

Brothers and sisters . . . lambs of God . . . peace be with you! It is a great joy to be able to share with you this day the good news that our Lord is with you and has blessed you tremendously. Do thank Him and praise Him. Recognize Him in your lives. Know that He is among you. My brothers and sisters, our God, He does nothing arbitrarily, for in every action is such great purpose, such reason as we cannot comprehend. It was not by chance that the Master selected me to follow, for I was in such need of leadership and guidance as all of us were.

My life, before He came into it, was as many of the Jewish men in that day. I worked very hard. I provided for my family. With my brothers, I worked and toiled and offered thanks to our God, our Yahweh, who had provided all good things for us. I knew the prophesies of old, that a messiah would come and deliver us. Many in that day believed that He would come and sit on a throne as an earthly king to rule over all of the tribes of Israel, to rule the world. As you know, it was not that way that God worked on this earth, but in a much grander way, a way that was so simple one who did not know Him, who could not recognize the shepherd who came to gather the sheep, might very well have missed Him.

My brothers and sisters, my life was empty. As much as I worked, I disobeyed and did all that I should not do. And on the Sabbath day I would go to temple and I would give alms and I would thank our Lord who had provided such great, great things for my family, and yet I felt alone.

I would like to tell you that our Christ . . . His love was so beautiful that truly He did not chose those who were most suited to follow Him, to go out and be great teachers, great prophets, great healers. This has never been our Lord’s way. You know well He has chosen the simple, those who are fallen, those who are weak, and through His Holy Spirit has made them strong. It was the same with us, with all of us who followed Him. We were not great men. We accomplished nothing on our own. All that we did, we did because the Spirit of God moved within us. It was His Spirit truly that founded the church, the very body of Christ. It was His Spirit that moved in the martyrs, those who like myself, gave their lives up to follow Christ in the most perfect and most complete act of self-sacrifice. We were not strong. We were like you. We had times of great faith and times of great disbelief, times of great fervor and times when God . . .we felt He was not with us.

I wish to tell you this that you might know that all is possible in the Spirit of God, that it is through Him that great things are accomplished. No man can accomplish what God can do. No man can work the great miracles of the heart that God can. In your times of despair when you desire so much to change yourselves, to change those whom you love, to make a difference in the world, to do God’s work, seek not to do it on your own, but seek to make yourselves a vessel for the Spirit that He might work through you. Open yourselves. Be prepared to accept the mission, the gifts, He gives to you, even if they are not what you had prayed for nor what you expected. For truly, let me tell you, I never, never, never expected that my life . . . my life . . . would come to following a son of a carpenter, a man who was a healer and a gentle teacher, following Him all the way to my own death. God works in mysterious ways.

Brothers and sisters, Jesus our Lord . . . He chose me, I believe, because of my weakness. God chooses those who can do much good for others with His Spirit, but who desperately need the power of His Spirit within themselves. When He came into my life there were profound changes in my very heart and I began to pray and to love God as I never thought I could, as I always desired to do. He taught us great things. He taught us obedience and humility. He taught us to love one another. It was His passion that taught us the greatest . . . the greatest lesson, the lesson of perfect love, perfect forgiveness, of reconciliation as God is reconciled to His people. Salvation! Our God desires for each and every one of you to be with Him. He has designed you and created you for this alone. He loves you so tremendously that He sent His son to die for you, that you might know His glory, as I and those who have gone before do now.

As you have reflected this evening on the sorrowful mysteries of the most beautiful rosary, a prayer that is dear to our Blessed Mother’s heart, she who does intercede so tremendously before her son for each one of you, I wish to speak about each of these events that you have reflected on, to share with you how it is that Christ has fulfilled all prophesy, has forgiven all sins through His own death, and has redeemed the whole world. You know how our Lord agonized. Before His death He prayed, “Father, take this from me if it be your will.” But it was not His will as oftentimes life holds such suffering and, as confusing and troubling as it is, it is good to thank God for the sufferings that you endure. For God, He can make beauty out of all things and cause great change and great fervor in a heart that was once cold.

Our Lord, He agonized . . . suffered. And this took place that those who have sinned in the mind might receive forgiveness and salvation. His agony, His mental anguish, forgave those poor souls who do in their mind turn from God, who seek their own will, who do not do as God has done . . . our Lord and our Master . . . and say, “Father your will be done and not mine.” It is all right to pray that your sufferings might be taken from you. It is good, for our Father has spoken, our Lord has spoken. “Ask! Seek!” Our God, He is ready and willing to give to us all that we need, but you must always pray that His will would become yours, as our Lord did in His time of anguish.

You have reflected also on His scourging, when His flesh was striped and He suffered so tremendously, that salvation might come to those who sin in the body. My little ones, His blood redeemed the whole of the world. Through His sufferings, those who are trapped are freed. This fulfilled the prophesies. This, the shedding of His blood, this lamb that was led to the slaughter . . . it was as our forefathers had said it would be. And in His anguish and in His suffering, our Lord had only love in His heart for those who would come to see the face of God through the conversions possible through grace . . . great grace . . . that our Lord merited through His suffering, that our Lord gave to the whole world as a beautiful gift. There were no people . . . no people there who could do what He did. There was no one there to shed holy blood. And so our Lord, He came to touch and to heal and to love and to die that we would die no more, but live always.

Our Lord was humiliated and stripped and crowned with thorns. And through this humiliation, salvation was gained for those whose pride and arrogance and lack of humility has led them wayward. Our Lord, He was born in a humble place, a place where animals fed, in the dark with no heat and no light save for the stars and the moon that shown above. He lived with a mother and a father. He learned a trade as all Jewish boys did then. He was schooled. He lived a humble life to teach us humility. This humiliation . . . this terrible cruelty He suffered at this time . . . was the ultimate lesson in being humble before God. For God, He loves a humble heart, a heart without pride and arrogance and disobedience, but ready to embrace all that God gives for His glory alone.

Our Lord was taken and given a cross of wood and made to carry that cross. With this tree upon His back, He walked and made the journey to the place of His execution. Three times He fell and continued on. This act of such love made possible the salvation of those who do not believe, who refuse to walk the way of God, who will not take up their cross and follow the Lord to Golgotha, but for one or two moments in their life when they are given the grace to see the truth and they pray, “Please, Father, do not reject me! Though I have lived my life as a sinner, accept me! Though I have not walked the road to life, change me.” I assure you, any man who speaks such words, even in the last moment of his life, will know salvation because our Lord walked this most painful journey for each one of us.

Finally, He was hung from that tree. And His side was lanced and His heart pierced as His blood once again was shed upon the earth. In this action, salvation was gained for those who sin in the heart, who do not desire to love God or their neighbor, for those who do not act with love. This is a great sin that prevails in the world today . . . lack of love. This is a primary sin, for when you do not love yourself, your God, and your neighbor as you should, it is easy to become prideful and disobedient, selfish, lukewarm or cold in faith, undisciplined. Lack of love . . . it is a great sin against the very Spirit of God who is love! To refuse to love is to refuse God. It is a most private sin, a sin of the heart. It is the sin that Christ . . . He took upon himself in the piercing of His own heart.

My brothers and sisters, the story of Christ’s passion is not one of sole suffering and death and tragedy. For you do recall that with the blood, water . . . renewing, purifying water . . . flowed, came forth, that we might be baptized in it into life. Through the water and the blood that poured forth from His side, our Christ gave to us the great gift of salvation and renewal. Truly this is what life must be . . . to accept God, to be baptized into His life, to receive salvation through His blood. It is the greatest gift that God has given to us. But on our journey when we, like Christ, fall and stumble and perhaps we even walk wayward . . . when we come to know that we have gone far from God who seeks us out with such fervency that no father could ever seek a son more diligently, when we come to see how we have fallen, there is water to purify, to renew, to give new life.

We must seek resolution and peace in our lives. Peace is so sorely needed today. Make peace with God. He has come to you in so many ways, reached out to you, called to you. He has instituted for you His sacraments . . . His holy body and blood that He sheds for you again on your altars, His forgiveness and re-conciliation, the renewal of the water, the new life of the Spirit . . . His church to guide and direct you, and your brothers and sisters to strengthen you in your faith and walk with you on your journey, whether it be a time when you are strong in God or feel wayward. Rely on one another. Help one another. Know that we who are in heaven do pray for you. Pray for one another and for those who are in purgatory.

The church, the body of Christ, beckons to you as Christ Himself called each one of us, His disciples, from lowly places. Our God has purpose and reason. Such great reason you cannot even imagine! As He called to me and renewed me and gave me new life, He beckons to you that He would do the same for you. He seeks you. Find Him and answer Him! Ask for His peace and His love. And each time you fall away . . . each time . . . flee to Him. Run to Him, for He will deliver you. He will caress you as a father loves his son. You will know peace and joy when you are with Him.

I thank you for having heard me this day and I do ask that you reflect on what I have said and do remember that God seeks you out, desires you, to share in His glory. Do not turn from Him, but accept Him with the fullness of your hearts that you might know perfect joy.

The Blessed Mother’s Words:

My dear little ones, again I thank you for your prayers and I do wish to offer to you my motherly blessing. Know peace in your lives and joy in your hearts . . . in God. Continue to pray. Pray always for my priests and young people, those who are in purgatory, and those who do not yet know my son as their Lord. Continue to pray that the world may be renewed in God’s love. I bless you in His name . . . the name of the Father and Son and Spirit on high. Be at peace. May Christ always be with you.