Dear Association Members,

I greet you this month through the heart and love of Our Mother. May she help us to reflect further upon our Statutes. May these reflections point us clearly towards her dear Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. And may she continue to nurture us all in the fertile soil of her heart, that as ONE we would be united in our prayer for the teens of the world and for the good work of the Church.

This month we will reflect on the second part of our Spirituality, to ‘PROCLAIM’.
The statutes read as follows:

‘We PROCLAIM the Scriptures and the teachings of the Catholic Church’

And so, we look deeper into the spiritual meaning of proclamation. What does it mean to proclaim the Word in and through our very lives? First, we must understand more fully what the Word truly is. Scripture tells us, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God” (John 1:1) Therefore, to proclaim the Word is to proclaim God, to bring forth the Word is to bring forth God, in all of His glory and truth.

So often we hear encouragement to ‘evangelize’ or to ‘proclaim the Word of God’ and we are unaware of how we, in our own lives could possibly fulfill such a task. We are all, in fact, called to bring forth ‘the Word’. And, so, our true reflection is not for us to focus on the delivery of the proclamation, but, how God has specifically created each of us to complete such a task. It is the question of how He is calling us to surrender and receive. In this way the Holy Spirit can proclaim and draw FORTH the Word from our very beings.

And so we look to the example of Our Mother, whose very creation brought about the greatest proclamation of all human history. She, in the beauty and grace of her being and vocation, brought forth ‘THE WORD” in a physical and tangible way. Scripture tells us “and the WORD became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (John 1:14). Mary was the pure vessel that was chosen for this to come to be. This was completed through her obedience and docility to the Will of God. Mary brought forth the Word simply by her ‘being’. And, in this way, she was the greatest evangelist of all times.

May we reflect upon her relationship with the Word. Our Mother was first in a state of receptivity. In her humility, she was obedient to RECEIVE all God wanted to give her as much as she was to DO all He asked of her. Upon receiving the Word en-fleshed, she held Him most intimately in her very being. And, in the most profound way she pondered Him physically within herself. It was in the months of such gestation that she continuously submitted to His perfect Will for her, and from this, through the love of the Father and the power of the Holy Spirit, the Word was born into the world.

This is our example and our aim. May we pray for the grace to grow into this same relationship with the Word. May we look to the example of our Mother as we seek to PROCLAIM the good news to the world. And so, we take this month to reflect further upon what our relationship is with the Word of God.

Have we taken time to hold ‘the Word’ within our beings? Do we truly ponder the Word of God until it becomes part of us?

Do we reverence the Word as we reverence every other true presence of God?

Do we take time daily to be fed, nurtured and transformed by the Word?

As we proclaim the Word of God have we truly relied more upon our relationship with the Word than with our gifts of speaking?

How has the Holy Spirit drawn forth the Word or good news through who we are?

Know that I am praying for you and trust that God’s Word will complete a beautiful work in you. (Isaiah 55:11)

Peace,

Kristin Niedbala

Life Teen Private Association of the Christian Faithful