Medjugorje Message: March 25, 2020
Dear children! I am with you all these years to lead you to the way of salvation. Return to my Son; return to prayer and fasting. Little children, permit for God to speak to your heart, because Satan is reigning and wants to destroy your lives and the earth on which you walk. Be courageous and decide for holiness. You will see conversion in your hearts and families; prayer will be heard; God will hear your cries and give you peace. I am with you and am blessing you all with my motherly blessing. Thank you for having responded to my call.
Annual Message to Mirjana: March 18, 2020
Dear children, my Son, as God, always looked above time. I, as His mother, through Him, see in time. I see beautiful and sad things. But I see that there is still love, and that it needs doing for it to be known. My children, you cannot be happy if you do not love each other, if you do not have love in every situation and at every moment of your life. Also, I, as a mother, am coming to you through love—to help you to come to know true love, to come to know my Son. This is why I am calling you, always anew to thirst all the more for love, faith, and hope. The only spring from which you can drink is trust in God, my Son. My children, in moments of peacelessness and renunciation you just seek the face of my Son. You just live His words and do not be afraid. Pray and love with sincere feelings, with good works; and help so that the world may change and that my heart may win. Like my Son, I am also saying to you: love each other because without love there is no salvation. Thank you for having responded to my call.
River of Light
April 2020
In this Great Lent of 2020, with the whole world plunged into an unprecedented “spiritual desert,” Our Lady’s message was given on the Solemnity of the Annunciation (nine months before Christmas Day). It was delivered to our strange, new, radically altered humanity, living now in the surreal situation of a global pandemic called “COVID-19/novel Coronavirus” —an illness that is striking all nations, terrorizing vulnerable populations, killing many (both young and old), and devastating economies. It is a “Great Equalizer”—afflicting both princes and paupers, prime ministers and politicians, actors and athletes, the rich and famous as well as the unknown poor, elderly and immuno-suppressed of every country.
While the world has suffered numerous plagues in the past, this is the first time that we as one human species have been so closely connected—both physically connected in our mobility to travel (and thus spread the disease); and socially connected, through the technology that now makes of our planet Earth a “small world” or “global village” in which we can see and know what is being experienced everywhere, at least in a “remote” or “virtual” way. This “Great Equalizer” viral pandemic is holding up a mirror before us, showing us many things about ourselves as a species struggling to survive this catastrophe, all in one little “boat” together—realizing, perhaps for the first time, our shared vulnerability, our mutual interdependence and our radical responsibility for each other’s safety and survival.
Through the difficult disciplines of “social distancing,” “sheltering-in-place,” “self-isolating,” and quarantining, we are learning just how much we need the presence of others in our life (especially the many service providers we’ve often taken for granted)—as well as our own power to harm others through our carelessness or lack of awareness and small daily efforts. This is surely a Lenten season of penance and renunciation like none other in our lifetime, made even more challenging by its indeterminate endpoint and our great uncertainty about its overall effects, with everyone wondering daily: “Do I have the virus? If so, will I survive it?“
Our Lady begins by reminding us: “I am with you all these years to lead you to the way of salvation.” So in the bigger picture, this is nothing new, but the project for which Mary has been appearing in Medjugorje for 39 years. Coronavirus is not bringing any “new teaching” on how we may be saved, but perhaps awakening us to listen more deeply and heedfully to the one message given all along: “Return to my Son; return to prayer and fasting.” An old cliche says that “there are no atheists in foxholes,” and now our global “war” on COVID-19 has put everyone into a “foxhole” of sorts. At such a moment as this, when our human frailty and powerlessness has come into sharp focus, hopefully our world will either realize anew, or “return” to a lost awareness that GOD is in control—not us….that GOD has all the answers—not us. For when we reach the limit of our human resources and self-sufficiency, we become willing, at last, from that desperate “foxhole,” to “return” to Jesus, prayer, and fasting.
Our Lady continues: “Little children, permit for God to speak to your heart, because Satan is reigning and wants to destroy your lives and the earth on which you walk.” In saying this, Our Lady is not trying to add another scary layer of terror atop the pandemic horror-movie we’re already living; rather, she is trying once again to awaken us to the reality of our human condition that began in Eden. So how do we identify and escape “Satan reigning” ? We need not fear a horned, red-tailed monster with pitchfork trying to “destroy our lives and the earth,” but rather, beware every moment of the selfish human ego, coiled up and poised to strike, within the THOUGHTS of each human being, beginning with “ME.”
Our Lord made clear who and what “Satan” is in Matthew 16:23, when he said to Peter, Prince of the Apostles and the first pope: “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; your mind is not set on God’s ways, but on human ways of thinking.” (Or, “You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”) Clearly Peter, whom Jesus had chosen as the “rock” and leader of his church, was not the horned and tailed, red-eyed devil later portrayed as the Prince of Darkness and demonic ruler of fallen angels. Rather, “Satan” is seen by Jesus as the “prince of this world” (Jn 14:30) who is for every human being an “adversary,” opponent, and stumbling block to the reign of God/Love/Heaven. Satan is the principle of worldly thinking called the False Self or self-centered EGO that “tempts” every person to put “self-first” in an individualistic, narcissistic, and arrogant “Edging God Out” (E.G.O.)
To “edge God out” means to edge LOVE out—to edge out compassion, mercy, sympathy, understanding, kindness, forgiveness, self-sacrifice, and redemptive suffering—in favor of one’s own immediate self-interest, materialistic gain, or emotional agenda. This egoic way of thinking that Jesus calls “Satan” is the Great Enemy of humankind, and tragically, is hard-wired into our psyche as “original sin” —part of our human condition. Our Lady says that this “Satan” way of thinking “is reigning and wants to destroy your lives and the earth on which you walk.”
The Coronavirus pandemic is giving us a clear view of Our Lady’s teaching as we see the effects of the radical halt to our normal, business-as-usual way of life on earth. The “reign” of Satanic ego is now exposed in many ways, including the sudden relief that our natural world is experiencing as its skies and waters clear, and its many wounded/endangered life forms begin to heal during this forced “pause” in human activity. The way that human beings have treated “the earth on which we walk” has the destructive imprint of “Satan” —destroying the planet’s protective ozone layer, fouling air and water with pollution, raping the ground for fossil fuels, decimating forests for profit, annihilating thousands of species by dumping toxic waste in oceans, etc.—all activities driven by self-centered ego interests that reflect the “prince of this world’s” values, rather than the God of Creation’s.
Along with the earth’s destruction, Our Lady says, “Satan wants to destroy your lives.” The involuntary “pause” the whole world is presently taking can actually provide an opportunity to observe and take stock of the many different facets of our daily existence, now removed from “automatic pilot” and thrust into the slow, quiet daylight of our “shelter-in-place.” In this chance for a measured and deliberate evaluation—a “Sacred Pause” —each of us can ask: “Where has Satan been reigning in my life through selfishness?” The disruption of families’ normal routine is unveiling much in this regard, as many intimate relationships are healing from neglect and abuse, just as the earth itself is.
In response to the grim reality being revealed, Our Lady says: “Be courageous and decide for holiness.” Here is the great “pivot” point where things can turn around in CONVERSION. Over and over, throughout scripture and Our Lady’s messages, we are told to have “courage” and “be not afraid.” FEAR is the primary fuel for the Satanic Ego or False Self: fear of death, fear of attack, fear of injury or illness, fear of economic insecurity, fear of being alone, fear of not being liked, esteemed, respected; fear of “losing,” fear of being dominated or controlled. FAITH routs out Satan by banishing our fears through TRUST IN GOD. Our Lady tells Mirjana in her annual birthday message: “The only spring from which you can drink is trust in God, my Son.” Without fears and insecurities to feed on, the selfish ego diminishes and our attention turns from myopic self-absorption toward loving care for others who suffer.
At this point, as Our Lady tells Mirjana, “the world may change” as we “love with sincere feelings, with good works”….as “we love each other….have love in every situation and at every moment of life”….for “without love there is no salvation.” So how do we move from egoic FEAR to courageous FAITH that changes the world into LOVE? By “permitting God to speak to our heart” in PRAYER—especially the silent listening prayer of meditation, which is less about “my words to God” but what God is speaking within from the Divine Indwelling Presence. Here, at last, we will find our mind CALM and our heart at PEACE.
This brings us to the “holiness” or “wholeness” of being fully human—i.e. BOTH thinking with our minds AND feeling with our hearts, just as Jesus and Mary have modeled for us the blueprint of total personhood. In contrast, the Satanic Ego truncates and diminishes our full humanity by locking us up in the partial, narrow prison of the thinking mind—selfishly manipulating, scheming, fearful, untrusting, paranoid, suspicious, and desperate to gratify the overblown needs of “Me, Myself, and I” —leaving the heart of Love and Relationship completely out of the equation, thus “Edging God Out.”
Even in the midst of this anxious and difficult time for our world, Our Lady ends her message with great encouragement and hope for us, if only we will “decide for holiness” by “permitting God to speak to our heart” through PRAYER. She says: “You will see conversion in your hearts and families; prayer will be heard; God will hear your cries and give you peace. I am with you and am blessing you all with my motherly blessing.” What comforting words of promise and potential these are, strengthening us for the remainder of our Lenten journey toward Easter. During this time of pandemic, let us enter more deeply into the Paschal Mystery of salvation that forms the universal human pattern of spiritual evolution: Suffering-Death-Resurrection.
We grow spiritually through the conscious experience of pain that teaches us to die to ego/False Self. The Coronavirus pandemic provides a unique opportunity for our spiritual evolution through our consciously suffering a death to the “old self” and then rising in rebirth to a new level of consciousness in the True Self. There, “transformed by the renewing of our mind” (Rom 12:2), we can “let this mind be in us, that was also in Christ Jesus.” (Phil 2:5) We will see for ourselves that within the Paschal Mystery pattern of life, suffering and death are doors leading to new levels of Love. God can always bring good out of tragedy. Through this worldwide catastrophe we are suffering together as One, may we all be the “grains of wheat that fall to the ground” in humility and death to our selfishly-chosen divisions. In dying to our old form, may we be regenerated to a new life of Love in Christ our Risen Lord.
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Choose to perceive in every event today
the Presence of transforming grace.
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Lockdown
Yes there is fear
Yes there is isolation
Yes there is panic buying
Yes there is sickness
Yes there is even death.
But—
They say that in Wuhan after so many years of noise
You can hear the birds again.
They say that after just a few weeks of quiet
The sky is no longer thick with fumes
But blue and grey and clear.
They say that in the streets of Assisi
People are singing to each other
across the empty squares,
keeping their windows open
so that those who are alone
may hear the sounds of family around them.
They say that a hotel in the west of Ireland
is offering free meals and delivery to the housebound.
Today a young woman I know
is busy spreading fliers with her number
through the neighborhood
So that the elders may have someone to call on.
Today churches, synagogues, mosques and temples
are preparing to welcome and shelter
the homeless, the sick, the weary.
All over the world people are slowing down and reflecting.
All over the world people are looking at their neighbors in a new way.
All over the world people are waking up to a new reality.
To how big we really are.
To how little control we really have.
To what really matters.
To love.
So we pray and we remember that
Yes there is fear.
But there does not have to be hate.
Yes there is isolation.
But there does not have to be loneliness.
Yes there is panic buying.
But there does not have to be meanness.
Yes there is sickness.
But there does not have to be disease of the soul.
Yes there is even death.
But there can always be a rebirth of love.
Wake to the choices you make as to how to live now.
Today, breathe.
Listen, behind the factory noises of your panic
The birds are singing again.
The sky is clearing.
Spring is coming.
And we are always encompassed by Love.
Open the windows of your soul
And though you may not be able
to touch across the empty square,
Sing.
—Richard Hendrick, OFM Cap.
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Maybe one of the gifts of the present moment is the invitation to return to the inner self, the personal core of our unique personhood. The current crisis is creating conditions for a new type of desert spirituality. Just as men and women in the early church went out to the desert to fast and pray so as to be transformed in the love of God, so too we are being impelled to return to the deserts of our hearts. While we are all sitting at home, plugged into our devices, hoping to connect with the wider world, we may be missing the opportunity to come to grips with ourselves. Our contemporary techno-culture has created selves melded with electronic devices; we find it difficult to unplug and watch the breath of our own being-in-stillness. Yet to do so can liberate us from the institutional God of dogmas and canons and return us to the living God of evolution. Here we will find a different type of God, who is at home with change, chaos, and breakdown. God is the name of over-flowing life, the name of Future, and one who lives in God knows oneself to be free and oriented toward the future fullness of life.
—Sr. Ilia Delio, OSF
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Prayer in a Time of Coronavirus
Jesus, you traveled through towns and villages, “curing every disease and illness.” At your command the sick were made well.
Come to our aid now in the midst of the global spread of coronavirus, that we may encounter your healing love.
Heal those who are sick with the virus. May they regain their strength and health through quality medical care.
Heal us from our fear which prevents nations from working together and neighbors from helping one another.
Remove our pride, which can make us claim invulnerability to a disease that knows no borders.
Be with those who have died from the virus and let them know eternal peace.
Be with families who mourn, that they know your consolation through the love of others.
Be with the first responders, doctors, nurses, technicians and all those who care for the ill, that they may be protected.
Be with families as they cope with the added stresses of caring for one another.
Give each of us compassion and solidarity as we pass through these difficult times.
Jesus, heal us! Amen.
—Kerry Weber
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All great spirituality is about what we do with our pain. We can obey commandments, believe doctrines, and attend church services all our life and still lose our souls if we run from the necessary cycle of loss and renewal. Death and resurrection are lived out at every level of the cosmos, but only the human species thinks it can avoid it….By trying to handle all suffering through willpower, denial, medication or therapy, we have forgotten that we do not handle suffering; suffering handles us—in deep and mysterious ways that become the matrix of new life.
The cross or crucifix became the central Christian logo, even though its obvious message of inevitable suffering is aggressively disbelieved. So the cross became a piece of jewelry…instead of a very personal and intense at-one-ment process, the very reality of love’s unfolding. We missed out on the positive and redemptive meaning of our own pain and suffering. We thought it was something Jesus did for us, but not something that revealed and invited us into the same pattern. But in reality, we are not punished for our sins, we are punished by our sins.
Nothing less than some kind of pain will force us to release our grip on our small, self-serving illusions. Resurrection will always take care of itself, whenever death is trusted. It is the cross of which we must be convinced, and then resurrection is offered as a gift. In this time of suffering we have to ask ourselves, what are we going to do with our pain? Are we going to blame others for it? Are we going to try to fix it? No one lives on this earth without it. It is the great teacher, though none of us want to admit it. If we do not transform our pain, we will transmit it in some form. How can we be sure not to transmit our pain to others?
—Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM
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Pandemic
What if you thought of it
as the Jews consider the Sabbath—
the most sacred of times?
Cease from travel.
Cease from buying and selling.
Give up, just for now,
on trying to make the world
different than it is.
Sing. Pray. Touch only those
to whom you commit your life.
Center down.
And when your body has become still,
reach out with your heart.
Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.
(You could hardly deny it now.)
Know that our lives
are in one another’s hands.
(Surely, that has come clear.)
Do not reach out your hands.
Reach out your heart.
Reach out your words.
Reach out all the tendrils
of compassion that move, invisibly,
where we cannot touch.
Promise this world your love—
for better or for worse,
in sickness and in health,
so long as we all shall live.
—Lynn Ungar
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Prayer for a Pandemic
May we who are merely inconvenienced
Remember those whose lives are at stake.
May we who have no risk factors
Remember those most vulnerable.
May we who have the luxury of working from home
Remember those who must choose
between their health and making the rent.
May we who have flexibility to care for our children while
the schools are closed
Remember those who have no options.
May we who have to cancel our trips
Remember those who have no place to go.
May we who are losing our margin money
Remember those who have no margin at all.
May we who settle in for quarantine at home
Remember those who have no home.
As fear grips our country,
let us choose love.
During this time when we cannot physically
wrap our arms around each other,
Let us yet find ways to be
the loving embrace of God to our neighbors.
Amen.
—Cameron Bellm
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Wisdom from Pope Francis
For weeks now it has been evening. Thick darkness has gathered over our squares, our streets and our cities; it has taken over our lives, filling everything with a deafening silence and a distressing void….We find ourselves afraid and lost. Like the disciples in the Gospel we were caught off guard by an unexpected, turbulent storm. We have realized that we are on the same boat, all of us fragile and disoriented, but at the same time important and needed, all of us called to row together, each of us in need of comforting the other….We too have realized that we can’t go on thinking of ourselves, but only together can we do this….
The storm exposes our vulnerability and uncovers those false and superfluous certainties around which we have constructed our daily schedules, our projects, our habits and priorities. It shows how we have allowed to become dull and feeble the very things that nourish, sustain and strengthen our lives and communities. The tempest lays bare all our prepackaged ideas and forgetfulness of what nourishes our souls; all those attempts that anesthetize us with ways of thinking and acting that supposedly “save” us, but instead prove incapable….We deprive ourselves of the antibodies we need to confront adversity.
In this storm, the facade of those stereotypes with which we camouflaged our egos, always worrying about our image, has fallen away, uncovering once more that blessed common belonging: our belonging as brothers and sisters.
—To be continued…from the “Urbi et Orbi” Message given by Pope Francis on March 27, 2020, along with an extraordinary Blessing and Plenary Indulgence for Everyone in the World who prays for an end to the COVID-19 pandemic
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Mark Your Calendar [ai1ec view=”agenda”]
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
