Medjugorje Message: January 25, 2016
Dear children! Also today I am calling all of you to prayer. You cannot live without prayer, because prayer is a chain which brings you closer to God. Therefore, little children, in humility of heart return to God and to His commandments so that with all of your heart you are able to say: as it is in Heaven so may it be on earth. You, little children, are free to in freedom decide for God or against Him. See where Satan wants to pull you into sin and slavery. Therefore, little children, return to my heart so that I can lead you to my Son Jesus who is the Way, the Truth and the Life. Thank you for having responded to my call.
River of Light
February 2016
In this February message to the world from Medjugorje, Our Lady repeatedly issues the Lenten call to “return“–to return to God, to prayer, to the discipline of a free-will keeping of divine law, and to consciousness of sin. These calls, if we heed them, can form an entire Lenten program of penance and renewal for our spiritual growth and deepening relationship with God. At the same time that Our Lady beckons our penitential “return” in this Lenten season, she also dwells repeatedly upon the word and image of “heart,” calling for our “humility of heart,” our wholeheartedness of sincerity in following God’s will, and our clinging to her maternal heart which leads us into the Way, Truth and Life that is Christ. So this month of “Valentine hearts” does not escape Our Lady’s message, either, as indeed we are invited to integrate the penitential path of the cross with a growing appreciation and deepening understanding of the true meaning of love. Our Lady’s message is a faithful echo of the first Mass reading for Ash Wednesday: “Even now, says the Lord, return to me with your whole heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning; rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the Lord, your God. For gracious and merciful is he, slow to anger, rich in kindness, and relenting in punishment.” Jesus showed the world the human face of this loving God described by the prophet Joel. In this Jubilee Year of Mercy, we seek a deeper encounter with Him.
Our Lady begins with her most familiar and favorite plea at Medjugorje: “Today I am calling all of you to prayer.” (Ho hum…again?) But she ramps it up several notches by adding: “You cannot live without prayer, because prayer is a chain that brings you closer to God.” Do we ever think, “I cannot LIVE without prayer!“? Is prayer a matter of life or death to us, as necessary as air, food and water? It IS in the eyes of Our Lady! Interestingly, despite the falling numbers of those who call themselves “religious” or “churchgoers,” the vast majority of people still say “YES” when asked if they pray. Undoubtedly many pray only in times of crisis; hence the adage of there being “no atheists in foxholes.” Still, there seems to be an innate human intuition of prayer as a basic necessity. Of course, Our Lady sees “life” in broad terms–through the lens of eternity, not just our fleeting sojourn on earth. When she says, “You cannot live without prayer,” she’s talking “Big Picture,” in reference to our immortal soul, for which prayer is as vital as oxygen to our body–for “prayer is a chain which brings you closer to God.” Just as the umbilical cord brings us all the necessities we require to successfully emerge from our mother’s womb into the world of physical life, prayer is the “chain” which enables our soul to make the spiritual journey from the “womb” of this world, passing through physical death into the fullness of eternal life. Question: When we look into our spiritual life, can we find our soul’s “belly button” (i.e. evidence of prayer as our “umbilical cord” to God)?
Our Lady continues: “Little children, in humility of heart return to God and to His commandments so that with all of your heart you are able to say: as it is in Heaven so may it be on earth.” Our Lady knows that before we can keep the commandments or follow the outward, external law, we must first be rooted in loving relationship with God through prayer; hence she refers to the Lord’s Prayer, which Jesus taught his disciples. When we pray the Our Father, do we bring all of our heart to the words, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven“? This ancient formula is summed up, “AS ABOVE, SO BELOW.” Our world could change radically for the better if enough people brought to this prayer genuine humility of heart and wholehearted sincerity, rather than mere lip service that secretly wants only “MY will, not thine be done.” Be honest: which do we really want when approaching God in prayer–“Thy will”…or…”my will”? “Humility of heart” gives us the 20/20 spiritual vision that removes the blinders of selfish egoism, thus enabling us to see that God’s will–“as it is in heaven“–is ALWAYS the ultimate good, no matter how much it contradicts “my will.”
Our Lady concludes by saying, “You, little children, are free to in freedom decide for God or against Him. See where Satan wants to pull you into sin and slavery. Therefore, little children, return to my heart so that I can lead you to my Son Jesus who is the Way, the Truth and the Life.” Here Our Lady empowers us with knowledge of our true estate: we are sons and daughters of the King, created in God’s image and likeness. One of the chief traits of our divine parentage is our freedom. “The Jerusalem above is a freeborn woman, and she is our mother.” (Gal 4:26) “For freedom Christ has set us free; do not submit yourselves again to the yoke of slavery.” (Gal 5:1) Every time Our Lady invites us to “decide for God,” she is reminding us of our great dignity as human beings whose freedom will not be violated or trespassed, even by our Creator. She stresses that we are “free to in freedom decide“–i.e. only in a state of freedom can we make a free-will decision–and thus the great need to “see where Satan wants to pull you into sin and slavery.”
During Lent we examine our conscience deeply and take what we find to the great Tribunal of Mercy, the Sacrament of Reconciliation (Confession), there to be set free and have our liberty restored. Otherwise, shackled by chains of addiction, obsession, compulsion and sin, we have lost our freedom; in this sad state, our ability to choose God is impaired and we become spiritually sick and disabled. Why turn to Our Lady’s heart when this happens? Because she is the Mother whom Jesus Christ gave us from the cross, the Woman of Revelation clothed with the sun, the New Eve who crushes the “serpent’s head”–the ancient devil or Satanic ego that would place us into bondage to sin. She is the one who (just as at Bethlehem, Cana, Calvary, and the Upper Room), will “lead us to Jesus who is the Way, the Truth and the Life“–our older brother through whose Spirit we have all become adopted (but nonetheless REAL) and anointed children of God. We can always ask Our Lady–Mary Our Mother–to safeguard our freedom from satanic ego. This is “the glorious freedom of the children of God.” (Rom 8:21 ) Our Lady will help us to prepare for and receive the graces of her Son in the sacraments and in our daily life. Blessings of a happy and holy Lent as we live together the Paschal Mystery of Passion-Death-and-Resurrection!
Lenten Valentine
Be mine O Lenten Valentine
you saint of potted violets
In flowery verses o’er the miles
rebuke my lustful violence–
the grasping, cloying smiles
that ever blur my vision
imagining romance of chance
and not good will decision
Dear Mind, please fill with clarity
this love that murders charity!
Be mine O Lenten Valentine
ever beyond my reach–
chasing you frantically o’er the desert
through the forest and on the beach
Now pierced and bleeding, my fisted hand,
by needles of cactus and pine,
my greedy feet in stinging heat
swollen as red as wine
Dear Body, please heal with continence
this love that murders confidence!
Be mine O Lenten Valentine
melt the ice freezing my sea
to hardened stone, paralyzed —
the I AM that is to “BE.”
Un-dam the Passion that is real
flooding from the cross
Teach me how to kindly feel
each sacrificial loss;
to flow unfettered through the dark and anxious fears
in open, free expression–with laughter and with tears
Dear Heart, with feeling please replace this love that murders “we”
’til the TRUTH of Love I can embrace: Christ living in me!
— m.m.
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When our love meets the suffering of the other person and breaks through our own egocentric fear, we no longer think of the other person as a “poor thing”; we think of them as ourselves. They are not separate from us. The meaning of compassion is that we recognize that we mourn with those who mourn, we die with those who die, we suffer with those who suffer. This is the compassion of Christ which has united all humanity in himself.
The only way to deal with the complexity of human relations is the simplicity of love. We learn that love is the unifying force in every human relationship whether it is a relationship with those closest to us or those who have hurt us…or the way we relate to humanity at large, from the person down-and-out on the street to the vast suffering we see across all media. We learn that it is the same love that relates us to all of those. The only way to cope with the complexity of human relationships is the simplicity of love. In love we do not judge, we do not compete; we accept, we revere, and we learn compassion.
True human community is only made possible by the commitment we each make in solitude to the most profound relationship in our lives which is our relationship with God. There we learn that love is the essential dynamic of every relationship, from the most casual, to the most intimate, to the most antagonistic. It’s the very ordinariness of our daily meditation that reveals to us how universal is the way of love. In learning to love others we come to a new insight into the unity of creation and into the basic simplicity of life. — Fr. Laurence Freeman, OSB
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Prayer of Pope Francis for the Jubilee of Mercy
Lord Jesus Christ, you have taught us to be merciful like the heavenly Father, and have told us that whoever sees you sees Him. Show us your face and we will be saved. Your loving gaze freed Zacchaeus and Matthew from being enslaved by money; the adulteress and Magdalene from seeking happiness only in created things; made Peter weep after his betrayal, and assured Paradise to the repentant thief. Let us hear, as if addressed to each one of us, the words that you spoke to the Samaritan woman: “If you knew the gift of God!”
You are the visible face of the invisible Father, of the God who manifests his power above all by forgiveness and mercy: let the Church be your visible face in the world, its Lord risen and glorified. You willed that your ministers would also be clothed in weakness in order that they may feel compassion for those in ignorance and error: let everyone who approaches them feel sought after, loved, and forgiven by God.
Send your Spirit and consecrate every one of us with its anointing, so that the Jubilee of Mercy may be a year of grace from the Lord, and your Church, with renewed enthusiasm, may bring good news to the poor, proclaim liberty to captives and the oppressed, and restore sight to the blind. We ask this of you, Lord Jesus, through the intercession of Mary, Mother of Mercy; you who live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit for ever and ever. Amen.
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To reject the contemplative dimension of any religion is to reject the religion itself, however loyal one may be to its externals and rituals. This is because the contemplative dimension is the heart and soul of every religion. It initiates the movement into higher states of consciousness. The great wisdom teachings of the Vedas, Upanishads, Buddhist Sutras, Old and New Testaments, and the Koran bear witness to this truth. Right now there are about two billion Christians on the planet. If a significant portion of them were to embrace the contemplative dimension of the gospel, the emerging global society would experience a powerful surge toward enduring peace. If this contemplative dimension of the Christian religion is not presented, the Gospel is not being adequately preached.
– Fr. Thomas Keating, OCSO
