Mary's March 2nd Medjugorje Message

When times get tough, people usually 'go back to the basics'. Our Mother's words in Medjugorje strike deep in my heart this month again. She was the one who started the ball rolling in our family (remember those years when every 6 months or so someone in our family was over in 'Yugoslavia'?) May we truly listen to Her voice and follow Her lead. Notice that again, she's asking for prayers for priests.

Dear children; through the immeasurable love of God I am coming among you and I am persistently calling you into the arms of my Son. With a motherly heart I am imploring you, my children, but I am also repeatedly warning you, that concern for those who have not come to know my Son be in the first place for you. Do not permit that by looking at you and your life, they are not overcome by a desire to come to know him. Pray to the Holy Spirit for my Son to be impressed within you. Pray that you can be apostles of the divine light in this time of darkness and hopelessness. This is a time of your trial. With a rosary in hand and love in the heart set out with me. I am leading you towards Easter in my Son. Pray for those whom my Son has chosen that they can always live through him and in him the High Priest. Thank you.

I could comment -but what are my words in light of our Mother's?

Medjugorje Message -Feb. 2, 2012

"Dear children; I am with you for so much time and already for so long I have been pointing you to God’s presence and His infinite love, which I desire for all of you to come to know. And you, my children? You continue to be deaf and blind as you look at the world around you and do not want to see where it is going without my Son. You are renouncing Him - and He is the source of all graces. You listen to me while I am speaking to you, but your hearts are closed and you are not hearing me. You are not praying to the Holy Spirit to illuminate you. My children, pride has come to rule. I am pointing out humility to you. My children, remember that only a humble soul shines with purity and beauty because it has come to know the love of God. Only a humble soul becomes heaven, because my Son is in it. Thank you. Again I implore you to pray for those whom my Son has chosen - those are your shepherds."

Humility is truth –the truth of ourselves and the truth of God’s love. Truth separated from Jesus’ crucified Love (that deep love of forgiveness, mercy, gentleness, understanding, patience –especially with those we find ‘difficult’ - giving others the benefit of the doubt and LOVING others while forgetting ourselves and preferences) is actually not truth. Jesus is truth. So real ‘truth’ has to be connected with Love. True humility has to be connected with Love… a Love that makes us little and last before God and others. When we do this –without bitterness –but with Mary’s ‘gentle heart’ –then Jesus our Good Shepherd swoops down to lift us close to His Heart.

In order to receive such a merciful, loving, saving gesture –we need to recognize our failings and ask Jesus to ‘be our Savior’. And we must remember His words, ‘The measure with which you judge will be measured back against you.’ Humility is the ‘primer’ of ALL VIRTUE. As God tries to paint the icon of His Love upon our lives, the ‘paint’ He uses will only stick if our hearts are coated and filled with His Own Humility on the Cross –a Humility not only willing to be a witness of truth, but also willing to ‘lesson Himself’ and take on our dirt and be called dirty on account of loving us –in order to save us. I pray that this Lent our Kloska Family –more than anything else –will grow to imitate Jesus’ Humble, Selfless, Pure Love to a new degree. We can always grow in our ‘littleness’ before God and others. May Jesus help us to recognize those in our lives who most need the witness of our merciful love (not those easy to love, like babies, but those who need us to reach out our hands as He reaches them out to us even after we nail them to a cross). What the world needs most, right now, is His Mercy… and only a ‘humble, contrite, pure heart’ can be a vessel for such powerful and refreshing Love. Who is He asking us to embrace with His Humble, Gentle, Merciful Love today? We must first open our hearts to others in order to be ready to receive His embrace...

Swicks at the Super Bowl made the News!

South Bend family of 11 celebrates mom's 46th birthday at Super Bowl XLVI
Indianapolis, Ind.
Hundreds of thousands of fans have invaded Indianapolis for Super Bowl XLVI, including plenty from Michiana. Friday night, a South Bend family of 11 reunited for a super evening.

Click on link to see full story...

23-year-old with 14 adopted Ugandan children...

No, I'm not kidding. This girl is awesome... because she lives Jesus' words fully. How beautiful... if you can only watch the first 20 minutes -it will change your life.

This is incredible...

(Thanks to Brendan who passed it on...click on headline for full story)

Palm-sized baby, 2nd smallest in US, is growing

This undated photo provided by Melinda Guido's family shows Melinda, with her mother's fingers in the scene, in the neonatal intensive care unit at the Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center. Melinda was born premature at 24 weeks weighing 9.5 ounces. She's believed to be the second smallest surviving baby in the United States and third smallest in the world.

Now 14 weeks old, Melinda Star Guido holds her mother's little finger while lying in an incubator at the same hospital on Dec. 14, 2011.

Melinda holds her mother's little finger on Dec. 14.

Haydee Ibarra holds Melinda on Dec. 14, 2011.

Aunt Mary's Birthday Party

The families who came over to Mom and Dad's last night were able to partake in Aunt Mary's yearly birthday party -including pizza, the 'Cross cake' and the yearly debut of the guitar (with 'praise and worship' in Polish and Russian). As anyone with a musical ear can hear -the guitar had not been tuned in quite a while and the kids were not going to wait for me to try to remember how to do that. Much fun was had... thanks to all who were present. (And a special thanks to Anna and Mary Clare for decorating the cake with me -the roses around the base were a wonderful touch).

(I just loved Jeff Murphy's hermit card.)

I wonder if Dad had a clue at what he was creating when he called me the 'sunshine child'... over the years I'm sure he wished I had a little less 'fire'.

Thankfully, God can use all things for His Own good purposes. And so with that, I'll take this opportunity to share a prayer I love by Cardinal Newman:

RADIATING CHRIST

By Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman

Dear Jesus,

Help me to spread Your fragrance wherever I go.

Flood my soul with Your Spirit and Life.

Penetrate and possess my being so utterly

That my life may only be a radiance of Yours.

Shine through me, and be so in me

That every soul I come in contact with

May feel Your Presence in my soul.

Let them look up, and see no longer me but only Jesus.

Stay with me,

And then I will begin to shine as You shine,

So to shine as to be a light to others.

The light, O Jesus, will be all from You.

None of it will be mine.

It will be You, shining on others through me.

Let me thus praise You

In the way in which You love best:

By shining on those around me.

Let me preach You without preaching,

Not by words but by example,

By the catching force,

The sympathetic influence of what I do,

The evident fullness of the love

My heart bears for You. Amen.

(This prayer was a favorite of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta (1910-1997).

She said it made a great difference in the lives of the Missionaries of Charity.)