Today is the feast day of Saint Therese to the child Jesus, an apostle of love if ever there was one.

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And yesterday Our Lady continued her teaching on being an apostle of love….

“Our Lady 

My dear children whom I call with my motherly heart to be my apostles of love, be not afraid!

Just as Jesus called the 12 apostles do I call you. Jesus did not call highly educated men and neither do I.

I call simple people who will listen to my motherly call and I teach them through prayer, through suffering and through loving.

Be not afraid of rejection and misunderstandings my little ones because this is inevitable. If Jesus who was God was misunderstood then how much more will you be misunderstood and treated as trouble makers.

Let your defence always be love, love for God, love for Jesus, love for me and love for neighbour.

Fear not what others say about you and fear not those priests who will not understand you. There are many wolves in sheeps clothing and many priests who do far more harm to my son’s church and people than good. 

Not every priest has the heart of a priest which comes from the tender heart of Jesus. Do not judge but pray and continue your ministry of love and I will send you my selected priests to help you.

I ask you to pray in a special way for your priests, especially those ones who love me and endeavour to follow me. They come under terrible attacks at times and sadly many through their fellow priests.

Pray that they remain strong, that they remain faithful and most of all that they remain joyful.

Tell my priests about Medjugorje. There are special graces that I pour out on priests when they come to Medjugorje and I will especially bless all priests who promote my messages in Medjugorje and encourage others to visit on pilgrimage.

Do not search my children to be popular but search at all times to be faithful.”

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Our Lady’s message today almost summarises the life of Saint Therese.

She had no big education, her health was fragile and certainly wasn’t the ideal candidate to be a nun.

There seemed nothing special about her to the point that when she died the others didn’t know what they could say about her and yet behind the scenes she was a missionary and a prayer genius!

Our Lady tells us that we will experience similar trials. We’ll be misunderstood, accused unjustly and even accused of following the devil!

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(My secret is out now!).

But perhaps the most striking part of the message today was about priests. On a trip to Rome Saint Therese was shocked by the unholiness of many priests to the point that she was moved to praying for them all her life.

Sadly things are no different today and Our Lady is warning us as her apostles of love to be warey of rogue priests who spread unholiness and who oppose her while at the same time asking us to pray for them.

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And yet she refocuses us on the positive and on the many good priests that suffering many trails as they follow her and remain faithful to the church. She encourages them to visit Medjugorje, her special place of grace!

So overall a wonderful message, so deep, so true, so just, so merciful and so relevant for these times.

Let us pray now once again that by the intercession of both Therese and Our Lady that we may become stronger and stronger as her apostles of love and that her chosen priests will continue to remain strong and faithful to their mission of love!

Blessings

Michael