Medjugorje Message: January 25, 2017
Dear children! Today I am calling you to pray for peace: peace in human hearts, peace in the families and peace in the world. Satan is strong and wants to turn all of you against God, and to return you to everything that is human, and to destroy in the heart all feelings towards God and the things of God. You, little children, pray and fight against materialism, modernism and egoism, which the world offers to you. Little children, you decide for holiness and I, with my Son Jesus, intercede for you. Thank you for having responded to my call.
River of Light
February 2017
Our Lady is clearly well-attuned to our current troubled situation on earth. Once again she calls us “to pray for peace: peace in human hearts, peace in the families and peace in the world.” Indeed this is all one peace, for Reality is an integral, interconnected web of mutual influences operating on all levels at once. The possibility of “peace in the world” is wholly dependent upon the other two peaces–“peace in the families” and “peace in human hearts.” Thus the state of my individual heart is a “microcosm” of the bigger state of the world. If I see a world torn apart by strife, division, hatred, violence, intolerance, and unrest, I can bet that I will also find those same negative influences within my own heart and within my own and other families. We are all inextricably connected and all Reality is of a single piece of netted fabric.
Our Lady continues: “Satan is strong and wants to turn all of you against God, and to return you to everything that is human, and to destroy in the heart all feelings towards God and the things of God. You, little children, pray and fight against materialism, modernism and egoism, which the world offers to you.” Here we see that Our Lady equates “Satan” and “the world” as the destructive adversarial influence that is trying to “take us down.” She acknowledges the malignant and deadly intent of this great enemy of our soul, and the inescapable truth that we are engaged in a battle for our lives. Just as the great cosmic design of PEACE is played out at the individual, interpersonal and global levels simultaneously–so this battle between the “world” and the human soul is played out in the same threefold way: it is the fundamental conflict between the False Self and the True Self which rages at every moment within each individual human being, between persons in families and communities of all kinds, and on the larger world stage, between political ideologies, nations, cultures, races, religions and genders.
Just as there is “one peace” that is simultaneously manifested at the deeply intimate personal level of “my” interior peace, AND at the level of peace between people in small groups or families, AND at the level of peace between large bodies like political parties, nations, ethnicities, religions or genders–so also, there is one basic “BATTLE” being fought at these same three levels at once: the battle between the False Self (“Satanic serpent“) and the True Self (“Mary Immaculate who treads upon the Serpent’s head“). The “Great Battle in Heaven between the Woman and the Dragon“–that iconic biblical image of Revelation 12–operates at dual levels: it is the battle between Mary and Satan, AND the battle between each human being’s TRUE SELF in God (led by the Holy Spirit) and the FALSE SELF, driven by the demonic ego and “everything that is human” only.
Our Lady gives us some specific information about the Satanic attacks we are now undergoing–perhaps without even knowing it. She says they are efforts to “turn us against God” and to “destroy in our hearts all feelings towards God and the things of God.” What does this mean? Clearly our culture is in a “post-religious” era in terms of church attendance and the popularity of the so-called “new atheism” championed in many best-selling books. But on a more personal level, we must realize that our faith is under attack whenever the “True Self” is slapped down by the daily victories of the “False Self”–whether our own or within other people. Especially in these troubled and anxious times when the satanic ego appears victorious at the highest levels of government and leadership, many of us have sunk into depression, negativity, bitterness, cynicism and despair that erodes our faith and confidence in a loving, ever-present God. We find in our hearts that “feelings towards God and the things of God” have weakened, replaced by obsessive worry, vigilant monitoring of current events and public opinion, and desperate efforts to resist or protest what “the world” is bringing.
Our Lady says that Satan wants to “return you to everything that is human“–i.e. to focus our whole attention upon our weak human nature and its needs, rather than upon our dual nature as creatures made in the divine image, with God indwelling the center of our being. To elaborate on this “everything human,” Our Lady says, “pray and fight against materialism, modernism and egoism, which the world offers you. Little children, you decide for holiness.” MATERIALISM, MODERNISM and EGOISM. Each of us must take these three words deeply into our hearts, minds and prayer, asking for the grace to discern where they are lurking in our own lives and behavior. For to rid ourselves of them will lead us back to the “holiness” or “wholeness” of our True Self that, like Christ’s, is designed by God to be BOTH HUMAN AND DIVINE–not simply “everything human” only! In leading us to the wholeness of our dual nature, we will discover LOVE as the animating force of all our thoughts, words and actions, for “God is love.” Centered in the Love that is God, we are freed from satanic “-ism’s.”
A great lack of peace in our American culture today seems to flow from the election of a new Administration in Washington, D.C. that many feel embodies these “-ism’s” of materialism, modernism and egoism–the “materialism” of billionaires with financial conflicts of interest; the “modernism” of communicating by social media and P.R. manipulations like “fake news” and “alternative facts”; and the “egoism” of grandiose bragging, vindictive bullying, uncontrollable temper, and petty narcissistic concerns. While the peace of many people worldwide may be shaken by these satanic “-ism’s” defined by Our Lady, few of those who protest and decry them stop to consider deeply in what ways we as individuals and private citizens may be under the same worldly spell of “materialism, modernism and egoism.”
Because of the integral, interrelated nature of Reality, we will not be able to defeat Satan and restore peace on a global level without also addressing these issues on the personal and interpersonal levels of our own lives. In fact, integral reality says that the leadership we elected in Washington is a projection and accurate mirror representation of what is in the hearts of us all, regardless of political party. So again, in prayer we must take stock of our own False Self dynamics of “materialism” (MY overblown love of money and things or MY prioritizing of “finance” above all other factors when I vote?); “modernism” (MY unquestioning acceptance of shallow mass media propaganda or superficial group-think?); and “egoism” (MY self-centered disregard for the Common Good and fixation on MY image or narcissistic programs for happiness?). Our Lady instructs us to BOTH “pray AND fight against” these three satanic forces in our life. So hers is not a pietistic/quietistic passivity in the face of injustices rooted in the deadly “-ism’s” of our day. Our Lady’s approach is integral and holistic–the “both/and” of prayer *AND* action on behalf of the True Self made in the image of God. Any successful resistance to an outer oppressor must start with prayerful activism against our own inner tyrant, the False Self.
“In a nation of millions, and in a world of billions, the individual is still the first and basic agent of change.” — LBJ
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God Our Valentine: Reflections on LOVE
In a world so torn apart by rivalry, anger, and hatred, we have the privileged vocation to be living signs of a love that can bridge all divisions and heal all wounds. — Fr. Henri Nouwen
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Divine Love has the power to effect lasting and real change. Alignment with such truth is to live under the “Reign of God.” The simple and pure motivation for all morality and religion is simply the imitation of God who is love. We are transported to this Reign of God through a purifying journey into powerlessness and back. Jesus taught it by walking through it himself, and then invited us to trust this Paschal Mystery in ourselves. Therefore a disciple needs to learn these lessons: To refuse total allegiance (“idolatry”) to all false power, while still working with the power structure in service to justice and love; To refuse to idealize one’s private self, which props itself up by myths of importance, control, power, money and wealth; To offer ourselves trustfully to a much larger pattern, because our lives are not about us! — Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM
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Love people even in their sin, for that is the semblance of Divine Love and is the highest love on earth. Love all God’s creation, the whole and every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you have perceived it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
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The spiritual life that is based on thought alone is likely to be as dry as dust. The spiritual life based on emotion alone is likely to lead us to the sort of religious intolerance that arises when our feelings escape from their moorings. Our call is to be rooted and founded in love. Thought and feeling are essential elements; but the call of Jesus, to each of us, is to pass beyond them to the reality of God’s all-powerful, ever-loving presence in our hearts. What each of us has to discover if we are to live our lives to the full, is that the reality of God is the only foundation we can build on. Any thought of God, any emotion concerning God, is subject to the shifting sands of our impermanent levels of consciousness. Meditation is the awakening to the reality of God at that level in ourselves where we do not have a shrine-image of him or a cult-devotion to him, but where God is, in pure and gracious self-giving. This presence is the only ultimate sanity because God is the ultimate reality. In God alone can we find uncompromising gentleness. In God alone can we find the courage to see what is to be seen, to travel the road we must travel. In God alone can we find the strength to take up our cross…and find that cross a burden sweet and light. — Fr. John Main, OSB
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Duty without love makes one morose.
Responsibility without love makes one callous.
Righteousness without love makes one hard.
Truth without love makes one hyper-critical.
Upbringing without love makes one inconsistent.
Cleverness without love makes one cunning.
Friendliness without love makes one deceitful.
Order without love makes one petty.
Expertise without love makes one a know-it-all.
Power without love makes one violent.
Honor without love makes one arrogant.
Property without love makes one stingy.
Faith without love makes one fanatical.
— Lao Tzu
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The only way to deal with the complexity of human relations is the simplicity of love. In love we do not judge, we do not compete; we accept, we revere, and we learn compassion. In learning to love others we release the inner joy of being that radiates outwards through us, touching others through our relationships. This is why communities, families, and marriages do not exist solely for the perfection of the people in those relationships. They exist also to radiate love…beyond themselves, radiating joy, that simplicity of love–to touch all who come into contact with it. In learning to love others we come to a new insight into the unity of creation and into the basic simplicity of life. We see what it means to say that love covers a multitude of sins. Forgiveness is the most revolutionary and transforming power of which we are capable. It teaches us that love is the essential dynamic of every relationship–the most intimate, the most antagonistic, as well as the most casual. It’s the very ordinariness of our daily meditation that reveals to us how universal is the way of love. — Fr. Laurence Freeman, OSB
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Prayer of the Heart
Abba Poemen said, “Teach your mouth to say what is in your heart.” Many of the Desert Fathers and Mothers described prayer as bringing your thinking down into your heart….Jesus pointing to his Sacred Heart and Mary pointing to her Immaculate Heart–what do people actually do with these images? Are they mere sentiment? Are they objects of worship or objects of transformation? Such images keep recurring because they are speaking something important from the unconscious, something necessary for the soul’s emergence. Love lives and thrives in the heart space. It has kept me from wanting to hurt people who have hurt me. It keeps me from obsessive, repetitive, or compulsive head games. It can make the difference between being happy and being miserable and negative. Could this be what we are really doing when we say we are praying for someone? Yes, we are holding them in our heart space. Do this in an almost physical sense, and you will see how calmly and quickly it works:
Next time a resentment, negativity, or irritation comes into your mind, and you want to attach to it, move that thought or person literally into your heart space. Dualistic commentaries are lodged in your head; but in your heart, you can surround this negative thought with silence. There it is surrounded with blood, which will feel warm like coals. In this place, it is almost impossible to comment, judge, create story lines, or remain antagonistic. You are in a place that does not create or feed on contraries but is the natural organ of life, embodiment, and love. Now the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart have been transferred to you. They are pointing for you to join them there. The “sacred heart” is now your heart, too. — Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM
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Wisdom from Pope Francis
(regarding those in “irregular” sexual relationships)
The Church…turns with love to those who participate in her life in an incomplete manner….Although she constantly holds up the call to perfection and asks for a fuller response to God, the Church must accompany with attention and care the weakest of her children, who show signs of a wounded and troubled love….Let us not forget that the Church’s task is often like that of a field hospital….
Christian marriage…a reflection of the union between Christ and his Church….Some forms of union radically contradict this ideal, while others realize it in at least a partial and analogous way….The Church does not disregard the constructive elements in those situations which do not yet or no longer correspond to her teaching on marriage… A merely civil marriage, or even…simple cohabitation…when such unions attain a particular stability, legally recognized, are characterized by deep affection and responsibility for their offspring, and demonstrate an ability to overcome trials, they can provide occasions for pastoral care with a view to the eventual celebration of the sacrament of marriage….The choice of a civil marriage or, in many cases, of simple cohabitation, is often not motivated by prejudice or resistance to a sacramental union, but by cultural or contingent situations….St. John Paul II proposed the so-called “law of gradualness” in the knowledge that the human being “knows, loves and accomplishes moral good by different stages of growth”….
The Synod addressed various situations of weakness or imperfection. Here I would like to reiterate something I sought to make clear to the whole Church, lest we take the wrong path: There are two ways of thinking which recur throughout the Church’s history: casting off and reinstating. The Church’s way…has always been the way of Jesus, the way of mercy and reinstatement….The way of the Church is not to condemn anyone forever; it is to pour out the balm of God’s mercy on all those who ask for it….Consequently, there is a need to avoid judgments which do not take into account the complexity of various situations and to be attentive to how people experience distress because of their condition….No one can be condemned forever, because that is not the logic of the Gospel! Here I am not speaking only of the divorced and remarried, but of everyone, in whatever situation they find themselves….
Such persons need to feel not as excommunicated members of the Church, but instead as living members, able to live and grow in the Church and experience her as a mother who welcomes them always…If we consider the immense variety of concrete situations, neither the Synod nor this Exhortation could be expected to provide a new set of general rules applicable to all cases. What is possible is simply a renewed encouragement to undertake a responsible personal and pastoral discernment of particular cases, which would recognize that , since the degree of responsibility is not equal in all cases, the consequences or effects of a rule need not necessarily always be the same….What we are speaking of is a process of accompaniment and discernment which guides the faithful to an awareness of their situation before God. Conversation with the priest, in the internal forum, contributes to the formation of a correct judgment on what hinders the possibility of a fuller participation in the life of the Church, and what steps can foster it and make it grow….For this discernment to happen, the following conditions must be present: humility, discretion and love for the Church and her teaching, in a sincere search for God’s will and a desire to make a more perfect response to it….
One thing must always be taken into account, lest anyone think that the demands of the Gospel are being compromised. The Church possesses a solid body of reflection concerning mitigating factors and situations. Hence it can no longer simply be said that all those in any “irregular” situation are living in a state of mortal sin and are deprived of sanctifying grace. More is involved here than mere ignorance of the rule…factors may exist which limit the ability to make a decision….Imputability and responsibility for an action can be diminished or even nullified by ignorance, inadvertence, duress, fear, habit, inordinate attachments, and other psychological and social factors….For this reason, a negative judgment about an objective situation does not imply a judgment about the culpability of the person involved….Under certain circumstances people find it very difficult to act differently….
Individual conscience needs to be better incorporated into the Church’s praxis in certain situations which do not objectively embody our understanding of marriage….Conscience can do more than recognize that a given situation does not correspond objectively to the overall demands of the Gospel. It can also recognize with sincerity and honesty what for now is the most generous response which can be given to God, and come to see with a certain moral security that it is what God himself is asking amid the concrete complexity of one’s limits, while yet not fully the objective ideal. Let us recall that discernment is dynamic; it must remain ever open to new stages of growth and to new decisions which can enable the ideal to be more fully realized….
A pastor cannot feel that it is enough simply to apply moral laws to those living in “irregular” situations, as if they were stones to throw at people’s lives. This would bespeak the closed heart of one used to hiding behind the Church’s teachings….Natural law could not be presented as an already established set of rules that impose themselves on the moral subject; rather, it is a source of objective inspiration for the deeply personal process of making decisions….It is possible that in an objective situation of sin–which may not be subjectively culpable, or fully such–a person can be living in God’s grace, can love and grow in the life of grace while receiving the Church’s help to this end. In certain cases, this can include the help of the sacraments…The Eucharist is not a prize for the perfect, but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak…..By thinking that everything is black and white, we sometimes close off the way of grace and of growth….Let us remember that a small step, in the midst of great human limitations, can be more pleasing to God than a life which appears outwardly in order, but moves through the day without confronting great difficulties….Fraternal charity is the first law of Christians…for love covers a multitude of sins.
I understand those who prefer a more rigorous pastoral care which leaves no room for confusion. But I sincerely believe that Jesus wants a Church attentive to the goodness which the Holy Spirit sows in the midst of human weakness…The Bride of Christ must pattern her behavior after the Son of God who goes out to everyone without exception….the Church is not a tollhouse; it is the house of the Father, where there is a place for everyone, with all their problems….At times we find it hard to make room for God’s unconditional love in our pastoral activity. We put so many conditions on mercy that we empty it of its concrete meaning. That is the worst way of watering down the Gospel….We must avoid a cold bureaucratic morality in dealing with more sensitive issues…filled with merciful love, which is ever ready to understand, forgive, accompany, hope, and above all integrate. That is the mindset which should prevail in the Church.
(from Amoris Laetitia—Apostolic Exhortation on the Synod on the Family, ch. 8)
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Mark Your Calendar
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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
