July 22 Chat Jesus Living in Mary

Ruth (Guest): Hello Dawn and Judy. Glad you are here. Sorry I am late again.

Ruth (Guest): I have trouble with taking the expressions about no longer living as anything but symbolic or pious or a way of expressing one’s feelings.

Ruth (Guest): Mary lived and she lived longer than Jesus. People who love one another a great deal may literally die very close in time to one another and it may be an effect of grief.

Ruth (Guest): Voodoo and similar means of cursing others may literally harm or even kill others who believe that it can a Medical Mission Sister told me. She lived and worked in Zaire.

Ruth (Guest): Love really does bind people together. That is why we can hope that our small sacrifices can do GOOD –– in the larger scheme of things –– at least when united to Christ’s Sacrifice on the Cross..

Ruth (Guest): Of course not. That is not, what you meant, Dawn, is it.

Ruth (Guest): ? And even though Mary held the words about her Son, the WORD of GOD, in her heart, she only gradually came to understand what they meant.

Ruth (Guest): Think about the young Jesus asking, “Mother, did you not know that I must be about my Father’s business.

Ruth (Guest): “ It must not have been easy raising a Divine Child –– even one growing in Wisdom and Grace and being obedient to his earthly parents.

Ruth (Guest): And having to flee and become a refugee in Egypt just to stay alive and protect Him from an king hell-bent on destroying any potential competition for his throne!“

Ruth (Guest): Still human persons, no matter how united in love they are are separate individuals.

Ruth (Guest): We say about marriage, “the two shall become one flesh” and mean it. But it is not like being an embryo that turns into a person or persons with two heads or two bodies. Even when “siamese” twins are separated, and one receives organs vital to both, one dies. Because even with the best of care it is sometimes impossible for one of the twins to survive separation, some go all through life ALWAYS “joined at the _____“ literally.

Ruth (Guest): Judy, did you copy the question correctly?

Ruth (Guest): Opps! Sorry. I see you were answering, not restating. I’m pretty sure that Joseph died before Jesus was crucified. Many art works even show that others think that: Jesus and Mary attending to a dying Joseph, who is considerably older than his wife.

Ruth (Guest): Dawn, that is a very good interpretation, I believe. It is the basis for our considering Mary to be OUR mother, each one of us and the mother of all of us as the Church.

Ruth (Guest): May be so, Judy; what we know about him, or impute of him –– as in the Litany of St. Joseph –– is derived far more from his ACTIONS than from anything said directly about him of any words coming from his mouth. But some of the storied in the Gospel could not have been known to the disciples unless Mary told them.

Ruth (Guest): And it is said that she was with the disciples at Pentecost AND helped encouraging some of the early Bishops –– most of them martyrs. I even have a book (Kindle) that is a collection of the writings of the Church Fathers. A letter appears in it attributed (very likely falsely or we would have heard about it sooner) to Mary . . .

Ruth (Guest): It is actually a collection of books, and not the best translations. I’ll message you.

Ruth (Guest): Yes, Judy. Most Scripture scholars I’ve read agree that Mary told Luke about the birth stories and more.

Ruth (Guest): Yes, even for Parkinson’s Disease PT can be very helpful. Do you have Parkinsonism in addition to MS? or is it a corrected diagnosis? Many years ago I was told by a doctor that I had MS –– but he was wrong. I was also told that I had rheumatoid arthritis, like my mother, but that doctor was wrong, too; I have osteoarthritis.

Ruth (Guest): And I have a friend in Germany who was diagnosed with MS, but has not had any worsening of her condition over more than a decade; also, probably a wrong diagnosis.

Ruth (Guest): Oh, btw,

Ruth (Guest): Sr. Susan Marie did say she would be on retreat and probably not able to attend chat tonight. Kind of her to post the passage to consider and the questions in spite of being on retreat.

Ruth (Guest): I hope Carol Ann is OK; I wasn’t able to get back to her this week.

Ruth (Guest): Blessings to all of you! I wonder how Brian’s daughter is experiencing her visit to Columbia. Keeping all close in my prayers.