Program 2 of Light for Freedom- With God all is Hope

Cecilia: Thank you for being with us. It is a pleasure to say hello to you. Thank you, Gregory, for being with us.

Gregory: Thank you so much, Cecilia.

Cecilia: Thank you to you. Today we are going to do our program Light for Freedom. Today’s topic is “With God, everything is hope.”

So, I would like Gregory to distinguish for me, what it means ‘God is hope’ from ‘with God, everything is hope.’ Do you see any difference?

Gregory: I believe that it is a choice of perspective because I truly believe that God is hope. But God is hope in everything. I really believe it is important, as you said, to clarify. To say that God is hope in everything is to say that his love is within us and that his love is in all things. And that love, love, love is all things. It is the resolution to life and is the answer to fulfilling all circumstances in life.

In the example of our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave his life in love because without love and first love, then mercy. For without love, there would be no mercy. And that the Cross is love and love is the Cross. He gave himself to us in the purity and the hope of his love to carry us within his arms each day, to purify us in the forgiveness of his mercy through the forgiveness of our sins that we may share in the gift of his passion and resurrection of hope and new life.

For the resurrection is the power of the light of God’s love over all darkness. The darkness has no power over the light of the Cross. God calls us to his heart each day, to love him above all things and to give our hearts fully and wholly to him. Hope is a gift.

Yes, all that we must do is pray and ask God to receive the gift of hope each day, to increase his hope within us and through hope to deliver us from our fears, our despairs, our desolation and our desperations. When we make the choice to live in the hope of God’s love, we make the choice to walk in the example of Christ’s love each day and pray for the power of the Holy Spirit within us, the spirit of God’s love to guide us and strengthen us on his path each day.

Each day I pray for the gift of hope so that I may rise in hope and live through hope in all circumstances of my life, to live with the challenge of hope is to fulfill the challenge of faith each day. Saint Paul said to run the good race and to persevere and through hope to never give up. The hope of God’s mercy transforms our souls.

Yes, it heals our souls to trust in him, to say, Jesus, I trust in you and your eternal mercy that delivers me from sin and darkness. It brings me to the hope of the freedom of the light.

We are all things in Christ in the love of our Lord and Savior, uniting our hearts to his heart each day. Each day I pray to live in the sanctuary of the Sacred Heart of our Lord because by trusting in his mercy, we trust him to give us peace. We seek him to be our peace, especially in our loneliness, in the most isolating moments of our lives, to deliver us through prayer and faith, always seeking to embrace the holiness of the Cross so that we may be made holy through his merciful love and compassion.

I could not live without God and we are all things in Christ who strengthens us. And we are more than conquerors in Christ’s love each day in the battles to persevere in faith between good and evil. Because Satan desires to rob us of our graces and blessings. He desires to destroy our souls so that we do not receive the gift of salvation and to discourage us, to place us in bondage.

Through faith, we are being called to walk in the Light of Freedom, freed by his merciful love, because once again, there is no sin greater than his mercy to forgive.

Do you have any questions, Cecilia?

Cecilia: Gregory I would like to ask you, what can we do to have hope in the most difficult times?

Gregory: I believe that hope is fulfilled by surrendering our lives to God in the most difficult times, uniting our sorrows to him through prayer, and increasing the strength of our prayer lives. Because prayer produces the strength of God’s Spirit within us, and we are united to God’s heart in prayer. We open our hearts to God’s love through prayer.

Last night a friend of mine and I were speaking for the fight for life, for an end to abortion. Then he expressed that we have to pray more. This was an example that we have to pray more in every circumstance in our lives. The bigger the problem, the bigger the need for prayer.

God wants to deliver us through our prayers. He said, ask and you shall receive, and we ask, we trust. He said, seek and you shall find. When we seek him, he draws closer to us each day, praying for his Precious Blood to be poured upon us, to forgive us, to cleanse us, calling upon his Precious Blood to cover us in the protection of his light against darkness. Through the power also of repenting.

Our Lord has so often said, repent, repent, repent and surrender your lives to the foot of the Cross.

Do you understand?

Cecilia: Yes. Yes.  It is not simple, but it is something that we have to do.

Gregory: Prayer is a discipline each day and when I am encountering the most challenging struggles of my life, I understand that I must pray more, that I must enter a state of prayer each day and live in a state of prayer, calling out to God with simple words by saying, God help me, God help me, God help me. Because we are being called to pray with an open heart, with simple words of love to God.

Prayer produces the strength of hope within us because we are choosing to offer our lives to God in prayer and in the holiness of repentance that cleanses us and heals us and strengthens us.  Yes.

Cecilia: So, Gregory, you are saying that the more problems we have, we have to pray more.

Gregory: Yes, to pray for each problem. How do you do it? Because sometimes we pray very, very general. The scripture says not to worry about anything, but to pray about everything, to tell God your needs. And don’t forget to thank him for his answers. And in this, we will have peace.

So, when I am facing challenges or sufferings in my life, I pray about each individual and each individual need. Yes, because the scripture says pray about everything. So, for me, it is very important to express each individual need and intention in prayer. And by doing so, we are opening our hearts to trusting in God’s mercy and faith. And trust me, it does produce peace.

Yes, there are those moments when I also forget in the greatest storms of our lives, because of the distractions of the enemy in the struggles, because Satan desires that we focus not on prayer, but on the problem. And by doing so, we do not focus on trusting in God and his love, his loving compassion to help us. Because we can become so focused on the issues that we are not able to pray.

It is important to take the footsteps of Christ in desiring to follow him and to pray about each individual need in our life. That will help you out quite a lot.

Cecilia: That will help out quite a lot. So, do you suggest we make a little list?

Gregory: Yes, we can make a list, we can express it from our hearts. But most importantly, we cry out to God.

For me, the Psalms of David are the most beautiful. David is constantly crying out to God throughout his life. He was constantly crying out in need for God to deliver him, to transform him, to save him, to protect him and to take him into the secret place of God’s love, the secret, silent place of prayer, where he wrote the psalms through his great needs, expressing his heart and expressing his love for God and the need of God’s love for him.

Cecilia: Yes. So, we can read the psalms.

Gregory: First, the power of the scripture, is the power of the truth of God’s words. For me, it is most important to read the scripture in the storm. So, scripture in the storm to bring truth, the truth of the presence of our Lord.

He said I am the word made flesh. And as the apostles, when they were in the boat during the great storm and Jesus was sleeping, he was resting peacefully, they were filled with fear. Fear because they had forgotten the presence of Jesus before them.

Can you imagine that, he was simply in front of them and they could not see or feel him? And this is the temptation and the illusion of fear to blind us to God’s presence.

Yes, our Lord said he came to set the captives free, so that the blind may see. But in fear and pride, the pride of not trusting in God, we are blinded to God’s presence and calling upon his mercy to fulfill us, to deliver us. Our Lord sacrificed his life for our deliverance and redemption.

Yes, these are not ideal words that I am expressing, these are words that I have lived to speak from my heart to your hearts so that you may draw closer to the love of God. And through loving him, we receive his mercy and hope.

What a great joy it is to walk into the light. And our Lord said that his joy will be our strength.

Yes, and let the past be the past, trust in the truth of God’s forgiveness and first seek the kingdom of God each day.

Cecilia: It is very important to forget the past.

Gregory: . . . to let the past be the past.

Cecilia: This is very important, Gregory, because most of the time we are thinking, I have done this, I have done that, and then we blame ourselves. It is so important to leave the past behind.

Gregory: Yes, each day I pray for healing of the memory of my past sins and those sins committed against me. And also, that no revenge may be taken upon me. To pray for healing of the memories of our past sins is very powerful. And God heals through his forgiveness and perfecting us through his grace in his time so that we do not live in a state of self-condemnation and guilt.

Through God’s mercy, he forgives all in the moment that we ask. But in our humanness, we must learn to trust and not live in the self-condemnation of guilt. God frees us at that moment but through living in self-condemnation, Satan desires to oppress us. Yes.

Cecilia: That is horrible and then you will not walk in the light.

Gregory: By living in a state of self-condemnation, by not surrendering yourself to the hope of God’s mercy, by living in a state of self-condemnation and not trusting in the forgiveness of God’s mercy, not surrendering ourselves, surrendering all to God, then we live in bondage.

Yes, because freedom is not a place. True spiritual freedom is the liberation of love, of God’s love. So, I am calling each one of you into the light of freedom and the Light for Freedom in following the footsteps of Christ by choosing to live the truth of the gospel message each day and in the practice of the faith, in receiving the holy sacraments that strengthen and sanctify us.

Yes, that transforms and heals us. To receive the sacraments within our hearts is to be resurrected with Christ, is to be made whole and new and holy in his love.

Thank you so much, Cecilia.

And I want to thank each one of you and say that I am united to you in love and compassion for your needs, which is why we have chosen to fulfill this program in God’s love for him and in God’s love for your hearts to know that you are loved and that you are free in love.

Yes, amen.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Cecilia: Gregory, thank you so much.

Gregory:  Thank you, Cecilia.

Cecilia: Until next time.  Bye-bye.