Medjugorje Message: March 25, 2021
Dear children! Also today I am with you to tell you: Little children, who prays does not fear the future and does not lose hope. You are chosen to carry joy and peace, because you are mine. I have come here with the name “Queen of Peace” because the devil wants peacelessness and war, he wants to fill your heart with fear of the future—but the future is God’s. That is why, be humble and pray, and surrender everything into the hands of the Most High Who created you. Thank you for having responded to my call.
Annual Message to Mirjana: March 18, 2021
Dear children! In a motherly way I am calling you to return to the joy and the truth of the Gospel, to return to the love of my Son—because He is waiting for you with open arms; that everything you do in life you do with my Son, with love; that it may be blessed for you; so that your spirituality may be internal, and not just external. Only in that way will you be humble, generous, filled with love and joyful; and my motherly heart will rejoice with you. Thank you.
River of Light
April 2021
Our Lady’s Easter message, given just before the start of Holy Week, calls us to joy, peace, hope, humility, and prayer. A few days earlier, she gave her annual birthday message to Mirjana on March 18th, which was, likewise, a call to joy and humility in the Gospel truth of God’s love for us in Christ Jesus. This True Love frees us from all fear, beginning with the ultimate, existential fear of death, which Christ has defeated once for all through his Paschal Mystery of passion/death/resurrection: the pattern of Reality that we are all destined to share. Thus we need not fear the past, present, or future, but can live in unquenchable HOPE. Still, in our human condition we often fall away from this vital truth. The Queen of Peace in Medjugorje calls us back to its light.
Our Lady’s message to the world begins: “Also today I am with you to tell you: Little children, who prays does not fear the future and does not lose hope.” Today there are many who have fallen into gloom, depression and hopelessness through the sadness and difficulties of this whole past year of pandemic—the isolation and loneliness of “lockdowns” on social contact, economic distress of unemployment or under-employment, anxiety about keeping self and loved ones Covid-free and healthy, and the grief of so much loss of life, with the unimaginably high death toll that has touched almost every household, either closely or at a distance.
Compounding this tragic situation has been the exhausting divisiveness and polarization of our nation’s relentless “culture wars” largely rooted in partisan politics and the daily escalations of mass media and social media rhetoric that keep the whole country—a “captive audience” at home on their electronic devices—bombarded by the messages of fury, outrage, hate and intolerance, all rooted in “FEAR OF THE FUTURE.” On the “Left,” there is a continual fear of private-interest/corporate greed and democracy-killing “Fascism” in our future, while on the “Right,” there is a continual fear of government overspending/overreach and democracy-killing “Socialism” in our future. Both sides stay whipped into a frenzy of FEAR that the “other side” will destroy the country—which everyone on all sides loves equally and passionately. Nevertheless, “fear of the future” is preying on everyone’s mind and keeping us at war with each other.
This fear-and-outrage mongering that is hammered home 24/7 by the sensationalist exaggerations of cable “news” and social media platforms leads people to anger; anger leads to rage; rage leads to hatred; hatred leads to intolerance; and intolerance leads to violence in both speech and action. None of this dark process occurs through PRAYER, for those who PRAY are repelled by the media circus of emotional manipulation on all sides, while those who get sucked into the maelstrom find PRAYER difficult and distasteful in its calm absence of the adrenaline-rushing, cortisol-pumping fury that our toxic “info-tainment” has created—like a monster of addiction within us—ever demanding more of the same.
So what is behind this downward spiral of doom, despair, hopelessness and conflict rooted in “fear of the future” —and how are we to respond? Our Lady gives the answer: “You are chosen to carry joy and peace, because you are mine. I have come here with the name ‘Queen of Peace’ because the devil wants peacelessness and war, he wants to fill your heart with fear of the future—but the future is God’s.” Here our Blessed Mother is outlining the situation clearly and bluntly. As her children, “chosen” for such a time as this, we are tasked to “carry joy and peace.” Period. That is our mission in the midst of the world of conflict we inhabit: to be bearers of Gospel “joy and peace” in every situation. She affirms that her title in Medjugorje, “Queen of Peace,” was chosen deliberately as a direct confrontation, contradiction, and countersign to “the devil,” who “wants peacelessness and war,” and “wants to fill your heart with fear of the future.”
So now we know: Whenever we HEAR or READ words that are dramatically inciting within us “fear of the future,” and then addressing those (hand-wringing, pearl-clutching) “what-if” scenarios of fear by encouraging us to “BLAME THE OTHER” through finger-pointing, ridicule, condemnation, vengeful attacks, sarcastic stereotyping, or any other form of “peacelessness and war” —we know we have entered the DEVIL’s den and domain! And when we succumb to the adrenaline-rush of fury or outrage as a reaction to fear, and then produce our own WORDS or ACTIONS to further these reactionary emotions coming from a media-manufactured “fear of the future” —we know we are doing the DEVIL’s work and bidding, fomenting more “peacelessness and war,” even as we hit the “Share” or “Send” buttons on our devices!
Why do we call “fear of the future” and all of its negative behavioral consequences the domain of the DEVIL? Our Lady sums it up in five words: “But the future is GOD’s.” Fear of the future buys into the ancient, egoic lie of the serpentine devil in Eden—that God is not truly “in control” of what will happen next; that things could go in any direction, so why not take a spin at the roulette wheel of life and gamble on other “future” prospects that attract us? OR, why not worry obsessively and fight with each other over “future” possibilities that scare us? All of this satanic speculation belies the Truth that WE don’t know what the future holds, but we DO know Who holds the future: “The future is God’s.“
And while we don’t know the details of the future, God has promised us it is GOOD: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jer 29:11) We also believe, along with the great prophetic preacher, Martin Luther King, Jr., that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Thus we know how the story ends! With the assurance of our FAITH that “the future is God’s” —and thus ultimately GOOD, for we are God’s Beloved—we are not to engage or participate in the devilish darkness of the current hateful “culture wars” rooted in “fear of the future.” So what are we to do in order to be “carriers of joy and peace,” as Our Lady asks?
She concludes by saying: “That is why, be humble and pray, and surrender everything into the hands of the Most High Who created you.” (Here Our Lady returns to her opening statement of this month’s message: “Who PRAYS does not fear the future and does not lose hope.”) To “be humble” is, perhaps, the single most powerful defense against the devil, for nothing disarms and dissolves his egocentric tactics used against us, or routs his attacks and victories over us, more completely than HUMILITY. A person who is humble presents an impregnable fortress where the devil can find no foothold. Not being disposed to pride, superiority, a condescending or patronizing attitude, or susceptibility to flattery, a humble person gives no temperamental opening for the demonic seeds of “peacelessness and war,” divisiveness, contentiousness, or “fear of the future” to be sown.
On the contrary, centered in PRAYER and the continual consciousness of a Higher Power: the Divine Indwelling Presence of God—in ourselves and everyone/everything else—a humble person “surrenders everything into the hands of the Most High.” In this complete “abandonment to Divine Providence,” we carry an acute awareness (as St. Francis said) of “who I am and who God is” into every daily activity and encounter, spurning selfishness, petty complaint, and judgmentalism—always raising our eyes instead toward that Higher Love and Higher Truth of Reality as It IS, far beyond the comprehension of any creature, ideology, or sociopolitical agenda. By humbly surrendering all our own ideas, opinions, and theories to the “Cloud of Unknowing” we meet in silent prayer, we can fervently TRUST and HOPE in the future given by the ONE who knows all.
Does such humility make us despise ourselves in our human weakness? Not at all. While it can rout and repel the devil, humility will only INCREASE our love and appreciation for the Creator’s “work of art” that we discover more fully each day within ourselves and within everyone we meet on the journey. This Creator continues the work of creation within us through the seasons of our life, in PRAYER inspiring us from within to carry out the Divine Will in ways that will heal the world and all its ills, thus paving the way for our good and hopeful future!
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Mirjana’s birthday message contains this added jewel from Our Lady: “that your spirituality may be internal, and not just external. Only in this way will you be humble, generous, filled with love and joyful.” External spirituality is focused on “me and what I am visibly doing” in terms of my religion. Internal spirituality is focused on God and what the Divine Indwelling is doing within the hidden recesses of my heart, and perhaps calling me to do in the world. It is said that “religion” is about the human striving toward God, while “spirituality” is attentive to how God is reaching toward and inhabiting the human. While many active efforts may be made in the practice of “religion,” the primary effort in “spirituality” is contemplative: opening one’s heart and mind to the (mostly unknown) Divine Presence and action within. Indeed, it is this hidden divine action that makes us “humble, generous, filled with love and joyful” as we move about in the external world. Alleluia, alleluia!
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Regarding the wickedness of the world: the remedy is very simple. You and I must first be what we ought to be; then we shall have cured what concerns ourselves. Let each one do the same, and all will be well. The trouble is that we all talk of reforming others without ever reforming ourselves.
—St. Peter of Alcantara
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“Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” —Mt 16:25
The contemplative journey, because it involves the purification of the unconscious, is not a magic carpet to bliss. It is an exercise of letting go of the false self—a humbling process, because that is the only self we know.
—Fr. Thomas Keating, OCSO
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Jesus & All Our Other Scapegoats: Holy Week (& Lifelong) Reflection
Human nature, when seeking power, either plays the victim or creates victims of others. When we read today’s news, we realize the pattern has not changed much in all of history. Hating, fearing, or diminishing someone else holds us together for some reason. Scapegoating, or the creating of necessary victims, is in our hard wiring. The “scapegoat mechanism” has been called the central pattern for the creation and maintenance of cultures worldwide since the beginning.
The sequence goes like this: we compare, we copy, we compete, we conflict, we conspire, we condemn, and we crucify. If we do not recognize some variation of this pattern within ourselves and put an end to it in the early stages, it is almost inevitable. That is why spiritual teachers of any depth will always teach simplicity of lifestyle and freedom from the competitive game, which is where it all begins. It is probably the only way out of the cycle of violence.
It’s hard for us religious people to hear, but the most persistent violence in human history has been “sacralized violence” —violence that we treated as sacred, but which was, in fact, not. Human beings have found an effective way to legitimate their instinct toward fear and hatred. They imagine that they are fearing and hating on behalf of something holy and noble: God, religion, truth, morality, their children, or love of country. It takes away all guilt, and one can even think of oneself as representing the moral high ground or being responsible. It never occurs to most people that they are becoming what they fear and hate.
Holy Week is the name we give to the days leading up to Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection. As long as we deal with the real meaning of evil and sin by some means other than forgiveness and healing, we will keep projecting, fearing, and attacking it “over there” (scapegoating), instead of “gazing” on it within ourselves and “weeping” over it. The longer we contemplate the cross, the more we recognize our own complicity in and profit made from the sin of others.
Forgiveness demands three new “seeings”: I must see God in the other; I must access God in myself; and I must experience God in a new way that is larger than before.
–Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM
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Prayer, as it deepens, will affect our intuition of the ONENESS of the human race, and indeed, the ONENESS of all creation. As one moves into one’s own inmost being, one comes into contact with what is the inmost being of everyone else. Although each of us retains our own unique personhood, we are necessarily associated with the God-Man, Christ Jesus, who has taken the whole human family to himself in such a way as to BE the inmost reality of each individual member of it. And so, when one is praying in the Spirit, in one’s inmost being, one is also praying in everybody else’s spirit, too.
—Fr. Thomas Keating, OCSO
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The Prophetic Viewpoint is From “Outside the Camp”
Moses had the foresight and courage to move the place of hearing God “outside the camp” and at a distance from the court of common religious and civic opinion—this was the original genius that inspired the entire Jewish prophetic tradition. It is a position “on the edge of the inside” which is described by the early Israelites as “the tent of meeting outside the camp.” (Exodus 33:7) A tent that is foldable, portable, and disposable was the meeting place for “the holy,” which is always on the move and out in front of us.
The free and graced stance found in “the tent of meeting outside the camp” is what allowed Jesus and all the prophets to speak from the privileged minority position. It is always less desirable, compared to the comfortable enjoyment at the top of society; yet it is the “Jesus stance” that we should try to follow. The prophet’s path is of descent and is never popular or easy. It is about letting go of illusion and toppling false gods. The prophet is endowed with sensibility, enthusiasm, tenderness, passion for justice, and a way of thinking imaginatively, with God/Love as the center, standard, and axle around which the world spins. Because the “system” wants to silence, banish, or eliminate such unwelcome, challenging intrusion, prophets find “standing ground” outside the totalism, from which they can think the unthinkable, imagine the unimaginable, and utter the unutterable.
This position will be quite different from the heavily-defended liberal and conservative “encampments” of our contemporary politics and religion, and often at odds with them. Prophecy and Gospel are rooted in a contemplative and non-dual way of knowing—a way of being in the world that is utterly free and grounded in the compassion of God. We must avoid the temptation to join today’s narrow, defended camps of “Right” and “Left,” but rather work at restoring the Divine Center by holding it and fully occupying it ourselves— safeguarding, through contemplation, that “little piece of God within.”
—Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM
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The Oppressor Within
In many places of the world, oppressed and oppressor share the same color. Many times, here and now, oppressed and oppressor share the same gender. Right now, a man who is himself victimized, wounded, hurt by racism and class exploitation is actively dominating a woman in his life, and women who are exploited, victimized, are dominating children. It is necessary to remember, as we think critically about domination, that we all have the capacity to act in ways that oppress, dominate, wound (whether or not that power is institutionalized). It is necessary to remember that it is first the potential oppressor within that we must resist—the potential victim within that we must rescue. Otherwise we cannot hope for an end to domination, and for liberation.
—bell hooks
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Wisdom from Pope Francis
Jesus’ Pasch is not a past event; rather, through the power of the Holy Spirit it is ever present, enabling us to see and touch with faith the flesh of Christ in those who suffer. We must continually return to this mystery in mind and heart, for it will continue to grow within us in the measure that we are open to its spiritual power and respond with freedom and generosity.
Putting the paschal mystery at the center of our lives means feeling compassion towards the wounds of the crucified Christ present in the many innocent victims of wars and violence, in attacks on life, in environmental disasters, in the unbridled thirst for profit, and in poverty….Keep your eyes fixed on the outstretched arms of Christ crucified, let yourself be saved over and over again.
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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
