God’S Ways - Behold Your Mother: And with Music

By J A Russell

In the 1960s, Vatican II brought renewed grace and blessing for many within the Catholic Church. For me personally, it also brought the experience of Gods healing power in the Eucharist, increasing my love of mass and personal prayer life. As a mother of young children, I was then invited by my parish priest to become a catechist; this in turn led to serving Christ as a Eucharistic minister and becoming more involved in the work of Christian Unity. What I have been shown time and again is that throughout our ordinary everyday lives, the Light of Christ never goes out. This book shares some of the insights the Mother of Jesus gives on our journey. Mary, who first followed her Son, today helps to walk in the Light of her Son, supporting and guiding as the model of faithfulness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Nov 6, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496993007

J A Russell

With the coming of Vatican ll in the 1960s, the author, as a Catholic mother of young children, welcomed the invitation to become a catechist involved with preparation for the sacraments of first confession and holy communion. She found that the more she expressed her faith, the more her faith was strengthened. It was certainty in God’s presence in the sacraments that enabled her to continue practicing her faith in times of adversity, with constant awareness of living in the light of God’s presence on the journey back to him. It is through a deep and continuous relationship as daughter of a loving father who is here with us in every aspect of our lives—whether serving him at home in the kitchen or at the altar in church, suffering in illness, or running freely along a beach—that the author wishes to encourage the reader to also seek a personal encounter with the Holy Spirit of God, holding on to the promises Jesus gives in the gospels. As a young person, the author found a great sense of God’s omnipresence through traveling widely and attending mass in foreign countries (mass still being said in Latin), being greatly influenced by the beauty and wonder of creation. Throughout a time of suffering, it was a great comfort to her to experience this same God present in her difficulties—still loving, still guiding, and patiently leading her into a deep experience of his powerful healing and grace. The author has great devotion to the mother of God and over the years has found immense joy as a Eucharistic minister. As a Catholic, she has seen the coming together of Christians in shared services. She has love of prayer, singing, and composing sacred music and is author of several inspiring books on God’s powerful presence, having a long-held desire to share the wonder of God’s life and healing light, which remain with us throughout even the simplest of things in our everyday life.

Book preview

God’s Ways

cover.tif

Behold Your Mother

9832.png

and with music

by J A Russell

image062.tif

AuthorHouse™ UK

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403 USA

www.authorhouse.co.uk

Phone: [phone]

© 2014 JA Russell. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 10/16/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4969-9299-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-9300-7 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

9842.png

Contents

God’s Ways

‘Behold your Mother’

The Greatness of The Lord

Our Lady, Our Mother

Daughter and Mother

God’s Instrument

The Path

His Enlightened Ones

Gold and Silver Have I None

The ‘Jesus Shop’

Waiting on God

Team Leader

Easter Light

God’s Holy Church

Holy, Holy, Holy

God’s Way

Contemplation

Nothing Less

A Great Sign Appeared

Trust

The Magnificat

They will See Him Whom They Pierced Isa.53

1.tif

She, the most pure Virgin,

was to bring forth a Son, the innocent Lamb

who would wipe away our offences;

You placed her above all others to be for Your people an advocate of grace and a model of holiness

on those You made Your adopted children

by uniting them to Your only begotten Son.

From the Preface for the ‘Solemnity of

The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary’

The Greatness of The Lord

God shows to us most supremely

His works in Jesus, who

as the Second Person of the Holy Trinity

became man so that

through His Cross and Resurrection

we may one day be totally raised up to

share with Him eternal Life.

cover.tif

‘Behold your Mother’

God shows us His most wondrous creation

in the person of ‘The Immaculate Conception’,

a human being like any other,

although without original sin, able to bear His Son.

(see page 33)

We can do nothing for God but we can become

His instruments, allowing Him to blow His life

through us for ourselves and for others.

The Virgin Mary was the most finely tuned instrument ever created by God, allowing the very Word to slip through her. By her beautiful openness to His will we receive God’s Son. Without the Son, our Saviour, we are less than we became, (through Him), still an unsaved world, an unredeemed people, a people searching in darkness.

With God we have hope. With God we can cope. With God we can survive the trials of this life. With God there is purpose as we walk in His Light as His redeemed, with Him as Lord, and Father to the child treading a path lit by His Love, treading a path paved by His pain, treading steps carved by The Word, treading the victorious Way.

For the Christian, this on-going experience of life surrendered to the Spirit, this joyful way of the Cross, is the New Life given through the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. We become the Father’s adopted and beloved children through the Son and, as Mother of the Son, the Virgin Mary tenderly beckons us to see the glory of the mystery God revealed in her by Himself becoming man. The Mother of God is a constant witness to God, to the power, to the might and greatness of God, our Father to Whom all things are possible. This ‘greatness’, this marvel, this magnificence of the Lord who has worked such wonder in her is what she tells out to us. (Lk.1:46). This Lord who has ‘shown the power of His arm’ is proclaimed to us as her soul glorifies Him. (Lk.1:51).

Mary’s joy is in God her Saviour and she gladly invites God’s children to praise and worship Him ever more devoutly. When we look at the world, its troubles, its brokenness, its cruelty, its destructive greedy attitudes, the Virgin Mother of God is an enduring sign of ‘God who IS’, of God’s omniscience, of God’s ways, of His Kingdom, of His means and His ‘Almightyness’.

When the world doubts our Mother says ‘Believe.’

When the world halts our Mother says ‘Follow.’

In the Virgin Mary God shows us the difference between His ways and our ways, between His thinking and our thinking, the difference between His power and our power, between His mind and our understanding, between His Divinity and our humanity. To look at the Virgin Mother is to see beyond this world to see the Kingdom proclaimed by her Son. For to see the Virgin Mother is to remember quite Whom she bore in her womb and quite how her Virgin womb became the carrier of God’s Son. To see the Virgin Mother is to realise that truly God’s ways are not our ways for in her He performed the impossible.

image008.tif Hail Mary

image006.tif

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.

Blessed art thou among women

and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now

and at the hour of our death. Amen. Amen.

Through her He came.

The Virgin Mother is God’s handiwork.

She is His perfect creation.

Unmarred. Unclouded.

God needed no second attempt with the Virgin.

To see the Virgin Mother is to realise God’s Word for what it really is - Truth beyond our reasoning, Truth which joyfully magnifies faith, faith in