Saint Anne
May 17, 1998
Carolyn’s Description:
The Blessed Mother appears as a young woman. She is wearing a slate gray dress with a mantle and a short white veil. She has dark black hair. Her hands are extended and she is smiling.
St. Anne is with her. She looks older than the Blessed Mother. She is also wearing a mantle and a long gown that is tied about the waist with a sash. Her veil is folded over and pulled back away from her face, and she has very dark hair and blue eyes. St. Anne has her hands on the Blessed Mother’s shoulder and left arm.
The Blessed Mother’s Words:
My dear little one, thank you for responding to my call and gathering again here tonight. You have come to receive these graces of God because you love the Son and the Father who sent Him, and you have loved me as your mother and honored me. Thank you for your prayers and for your sacrifices. I thank you for all of the gifts that you have offered for my intentions, for those gifts which you have offered to console my wounded son. They are a great joy to our father in heaven, He who loves us and who is so merciful that He has allowed you, His little children, to know me and the saints of the heavens in the most miraculous way. Again I thank you for gathering here and for offering your prayers. Continue always, always to place Jesus in the center of your lives, to emulate Him always, for He is the way and the light of the world.
St. Anne’s Words:
Good people of God, it is good to be among you. Let us always praise Him, for He has made great things for us, His people, His chosen ones. Good people, I have been asked to come among you this day and to speak to you that you might know in a most personal way that God does work among you, that the kingdom that He has prepared for you is not far, but so very near to you. God, He is with you. He lives among you, in your prayer, in your worship, in your church. We, those who have served Him and gone on to receive our reward with Him and in Him, we have the joy of eternal unity with Him . . . with the Blessed Trinity. This is a joy that you have yet to know, a most beautiful thing. I wish to impart to you some of that joy in the knowledge of the Trinity, some of the wondrous awe in the knowledge of the Son, He who was made man and came upon this earth and dwelt among us to show us the way to the kingdom that has been prepared.
I lived in a time where I grew up and worked simply, as a wife and a mother. I tended to my husband’s animals. I tended to the house. I tended to his needs as a good wife must. We loved the Lord. We kept the law. We honored the Sabbath. We loved God and yet for so very long He sent us no children. You must under- stand that in this day, to be barren . . . this was seen as a horrible thing. It meant that you had offended God, that He had withheld the very life that is Him, from you. Never the less, I persevered in faith and I prayed that God would send me a child, a little one of my very own that I might protect and guard and love. Often I found my consolation in the tales of our fathers . . . of Abraham, of Sarah, of those who struggled, of those who too were barren . . . and I resigned myself to the fact that the life of a mother was not for me.
One should not limit God in such a way, for He did see fit to send me a child, a beautiful little girl, and I named her Miriam. She was a holy child, holy indeed, and from her first steps learned to love the Lord, to walk with Him, to obey Him. When she was presented at the temple, she knew then that God loved her as her father and I did and she rejoiced, even though so very young. My husband and I, we brought her up to know the law. We taught her by our example what it is to serve one another in a family and, though young, what a perceptive child!
As you know, children learn by watching those around them. This is why it is of great importance that your families be virtuous. It is the very cradle of God’s arms, the very heart of life itself. The family is the place the great gift of faith is nurtured and guided. Mutual service, charity, these things are important in family life. You must serve one another as Christ served you. If you cannot do this among your families, how then could you go out and do it for those whom you do not know? I urge you, strive for a special holiness in your families and pray often in the name of the Holy Family that God would strengthen your families in faith, hope, and love.
Wives, be true to your husbands. Obey them and serve them, for they are as Christ. Husbands, do honor your wives, for they are as His body, the temple of life through which life . . . life, the very presence of God, is brought forth into this world. Children, do obey your parents, for God has commanded this as He gave His law to Moses in the Sinai. Honor your parents and your elders. Love them. Obey them.
My Miriam was a special child and, as you well know, God chose her for a special mission, that she would receive a grace so wonderful, so holy, that no other woman from age to age would share in the special honor that she had received. My Miriam was to become the mother of God, the savior that had been promised to our people for always.
Jesus, a special child, a beautiful one, God made man though hidden . . . hidden quietly in a small child who was like many others in our village. Jesus ran and He played and He laughed and He cried and His mother carefully nursed His wounds, watched Him pray, and helped Him grow. And she taught Him, with her husband, to love God and to serve God. Dear ones, these were the times . . . these were the times of God’s greatest gift, the time when the Christ Child was brought forth into this world to bring light to the darkness, the savior, the Lord. I do tell you that should you have seen Him playing, laughing, with His friends or in His schooling, one might not have guessed the great gift He would give to the world.
Dear ones, it is imperative that you . . . all of you . . . give the gift of faith, the faith that has been passed down from age to age, to your children. Just as the Christ Child was placed by the Father into a family, so too has the Father placed children into your care that you would nurture them and bring them up for God alone. Ultimately, your children are not your own, but they are the children of God given to you for but a while to be taught and instructed. And so then, emulate goodness and purity and humility for them that, like the Christ Child, they would grow to serve God in whatever mission they have been called to do.
My message to you is one of trust. It was difficult for me to trust God. I endured many trials in my life. At a very young age, I found myself without parents. I trusted God as my father that He would father me and that He would take the place of my family, my cradle of love. I endured many illnesses and a long period of trusting in God’s grace and goodness as I prayed for a child of my own. My husband, he too was a holy man and served God each day.
You know that we both share in God’s glory as part of the Church glorified in heaven. I tell you, it is not that difficult to join the Father here. You must choose to serve, to serve in your families, to serve your spouses and your children, to serve your parents, your neighbors. You must choose to love God. It is not something that can be thought about, that can be decided with the mind, but something that must be chosen with the soul, an act of the will, of the mind, of the heart and the soul together. A conscience choice to love. Once you have done this, it is not difficult, for God gives many graces to those who are persistent in their efforts. He has created each of you. He knows your strengths and your weaknesses as He knows His own hands. He has molded you and shaped you to be who you are and called you to receive many graces to strengthen you.
Do choose to love Him and discipline yourself to do so. My husband and I, we did no great things in our lives other than serve one another and our children and those around us. This is all that is required of you. You need not go out and perform great miracles, though there are many who are called to such a vocation. You need not become a priest or religious, though this is a holy sign of God’s love and of Christ on earth. You need not do great things, only simple acts of love and charity and humility.
Each day start anew, for there will be many times when you will fail to love as you have decided to do. Each day, rise with the words upon your lips, “Jesus, grant me the grace to serve you this day in the little things in my life, in the times of disappointments and trials, and in joys.” I assure you, were you to ask for His guidance and grace, it shall not be denied to you.
Each day, serve in little ways, with little sacrifices. In this way, you truly will become holy and you will find yourself drawing nearer to God. Keep Him always in your mind and in your heart and throughout the day offer to Him your sacrifices, offer to Him your joys. Share your life with Him as He has shared His with you, His eternal life, and you will find yourself growing very near to Him. You will find a love of prayer grow in your heart. You will find a love of peace where there was not peace before. You will find a perfect joy where there was bitterness and regret, and the true desire to love better, more perfectly, and more diligently, than you had the day before.
Simple acts of service, this is the way to the kingdom of God. This is the way to be near to God, He whose very incarnation was a vast grace, an ocean of love, and the greatest service that ever has been and ever shall be performed upon this earth. Emulate His life. He did not go out and proclaim the Lord in a way that was large, in a way that was loud. He did not shout it out from the mountain tops, but through His services, through the laying on of His hands upon the sick, through the touch of love, through eating with the poor and the lame. Sharing, laughing, loving, did He live His life and give all glory to God. Even in His death, it was not grand, but a simple act of service as He died upon a tree with criminals. There is no more humble an act.
Many did not gather there. There was no one there to sing out praises to God, though many there knew He was the messiah. There was no one there to proclaim the great gift that was being offered at that moment, but a few who were faithful to Him and those who were His executioners. In simplicity did He live and in simplicity did He die. Even in His resurrection, He came again and dwelt among His followers and ate with them and taught them and embraced them. He touched them and He allowed them to touch the very wounds that were their salvation.
The simple ways, good people, are the ways of God. Christ, He is humility born to my daughter, Miriam, a Jewish girl of no esteem. She did not stand out apart from her peers except for her joyful love of God. He grew up as every Jewish boy. He played and He laughed and He loved. He went out and answered the call of God, served in simplicity, and died a humble death.
You are asked to do the very same thing. None of you were born with esteem. Your parents and families could not be distinguished from the others, nor could you as children be distinguished from your peers except that like Christ you bear a mark, the mark that was placed upon your soul at your very baptism, the mark that defines you as a child of God.
You too, have a vocation and a mission. Follow Christ’s example to grow and to serve in your mission, simply and with great love, that you would live a holy life and die a humble death giving all things that you do, that you say, that you feel, for the glory of God. In this way, by placing all of your trust in Him, by allowing Him to guide you and Him alone, you will come to join us here, those who do now experience His great glory.
Good people of God, I thank you for having listened to what I have taught you this day and I urge you to place your trust completely in the Lord. He is the master of humility. He is such love that He gives His whole self to you. If you would only throw yourself before Him in great trust and simplicity as a child does in his family, you will be guided and led to a life of holiness, virtue, and love.
The Blessed Mother’s Words:
Dear children, praise God for the gift He has allowed this day and for all gifts He has given. He is a generous God and gives His grace to His children in a miraculous way. Dear little ones, as ever I am with you as a mother and an intercessor. May I extend to you my blessing in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit that you would be strengthened and renewed in your trust and love for God, and filled with faith and Holy Spirit. My little ones, be at peace this day and always.