Medjugorje Message:  July 25, 2017

Dear children! Be prayer and a reflection of God’s love for all those who are far from God and God’s commandments. Little children, be faithful and determined in conversion and work on yourselves so that, for you, holiness of life may be truth; and encourage each other in the good through prayer, so that your life on earth may be more pleasant. Thank you for having responded to my call.

River of Light

 August 2017

We might summarize Our Lady’s message this month by the famous old saying, “Your LIFE may be the only Bible some folks ever read.” Indeed, Our Lady has always implored us to “LIVE” her messages, to “LIVE” the Mass, to “LIVE” the Gospel—not just listen to them passively or pay them lip service with words alone. We are to lead the way and light a path through the world’s present darkness by our example, above all. Aside from this primary witness of our lived enfleshing of the Gospel in everyday life, we are to “use words if necessary,” as St. Francis said.

Keeping this in mind, we might ask ourselves first of all, who are the people to whom Our Lady refers as “far from God and God’s commandments”? Are they people, for example, who are non-Catholics, non-church-goers, non-Christians, non-believers? Those who are lacking in morals? People who overindulge, who are addicted, foul-mouthed, liars, cheaters, adulterers, greedy, unscrupulous, ill-mannered, ill-tempered, shallow, materialistic, gossips, untrustworthy, hypocritical, self-righteous, mean, violent, aggressive, hateful, spiteful, jealous, intolerant, narrow-minded, racist, sexist, misogynistic, homophobic, egotistical, selfish, narcissistic, unapologetic, unrepentant, proud of wrong views and wrong behavior? All of these might be “far from God and God’s commandments”—or they might simply be those whom we view as “different from us.”

Secondly, how are we to deal with such people? Shun them? Judge them? Criticize them? Avoid them? Attack them? “School” or lecture them in public online forums and social media? Humiliate them? Ridicule them? Sadly, many of us who call ourselves “Christians” participate in all of these responses to those we deem “far from God and God’s commandments.” But none of these responses is in line with Our Lady’s teaching. Instead, she tells us that our position toward “those who are far from God and God’s commandments” is to “BE PRAYER and a REFLECTION OF GOD’S LOVE” for them. (Not a reflection of God’s judgment, wrath, punishment, or vengeance—only a reflection of God’s LOVE.) 

How are we to “BE prayer“? Prayer is not just an “activity” bounded by specific times and spaces, but an overall attitude or state of being—a “God awareness” or “Christ consciousness” that attends us no matter where we go or what we do. It is a quality of “BEING” more than a mere “doing” of prayerful words recited or audibly spoken at certain times. Thus St. Paul tells us to “pray always” and “pray without ceasing“—meaning to keep the Presence of God in our internal conscious awareness at all times, no matter what we’re “doing” externally. When Our Lady tells us to “BE PRAYER” for “those who are far from God and God’s commandments,” she is asking us to keep our interior focus on this Christ consciousness that is ever-prayerful—just as Jesus himself never let the awareness of his Father’s guiding Presence escape him as he lived his life. He said, “I always do what pleases him.” And St. Paul tells us, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” As we allow this same Christ-mind to be in us, and thus “LIVE PRAYER” as ongoing Christ consciousness, we will interact with all people—both believers and non-believers, saints and sinners—in a “prayerful” manner.

What is our attitude when we pray formally? The demeanor of prayer is filled with humility, respect and deference (preferring the other’s pleasure above one’s own). As we show these qualities to our brothers and sisters “who are far from God and God’s commandments,” they will experience from our behavior and treatment of them a “reflection of God’s love.” That is, they will experience God’s Presence—through us! They will have a close encounter with the living God—through us! Our life and example will be the “Bible” they read and through which they may even convert and transform from sinners into saints!

So—all of this is wonderful for the “far from God” folks, but what about the rest of us? How difficult and unpleasant will our life be if we actually try to live this way—being kind, respectful, humble and yielding to ugly, undeserving, “Godless” people? After telling us “what” we must do, the rest of Our Lady’s message addresses the “how” of her instruction. She says, “Little children, be faithful and determined in conversion and work on yourselves so that, for you, holiness of life may be truth.” Knowing that our journey as followers of Jesus will not be easy, given our human condition of satanic ego always dogging us and awaiting any opportunity to break faith with the Way of Love, Our Lady reminds us that ONGOING CONVERSION must be our life’s work. In order to “be prayer and a reflection of God’s love” to others, it is imperative that we “work on ourselves” with faithful determination toward the daily conversion of heart that is necessary for being an authentic “alter Christus” (“other Christ”) in the world.

How do we “work on ourselves” in terms of this “faithful and determined conversion“? Any and all of our goodness is a GIFT of God and we are saved by His GRACE, yet our part in the divine economy of salvation is to OPEN OURSELVES to this grace, becoming receptive and docile to God’s Presence and Action within us and within the circumstances of our life. The “work on ourselves” Our Lady requests is the work of removing the many egoic obstacles inside of us that block the flow of higher energy, Light, Life and Love that are always waiting to be poured into us by our loving God. This is a daily work that involves some form of spiritual practice. In Medjugorje, Our Lady has called us to “pray, pray, pray!” Our daily prayer practice may include Holy Mass, Rosary, Lectio Divina (sacred reading of Scripture), the Liturgy of the Hours (chanting of the Psalms), spiritual reading, Centering Prayer and other types of silent meditation opening to contemplation, walking meditation, and practices of continual awareness or mindfulness of the Divine Presence (Jesus Prayer, etc.).

The goal of a consistent daily prayer practice is the opening of our heart so that God, the “Divine Therapist,” can dismantle the False Self programs within us that derail our conversion into distracting blind alleys of desire for safety/security, affection/esteem, and power/control—the “Programs for Happiness” that deceive us into pursuing things in the popular culture that will never ultimately satisfy or fulfill us. These are the things sought by “those who are far from God and God’s commandments.” If we are to be a countersign and a light amidst the darkened consciousness of our world—a “reflection of God’s love for all“—then we must “be faithful and determined in conversion” away from these False Self values of the ego, and ready to “work on ourselves” daily through the spiritual practice of prayer that opens our heart to God’s saving grace.

Our Lady says we must do this, “so that, for you, holiness of life may be truth.” In today’s tragically corrupt and chaotic moral atmosphere, the very word “truth” has become a lightning rod for intense confusion and controversy. When Jesus mentioned the word “truth” after his arrest, his political executioner, Pontius Pilate, famously replied, “What is truth?” In a similar way today, “truth” itself is on trial and being executed at the highest levels of government; it is being ridiculed, doubted, distorted, scourged and beaten as the enigmatic victim of “alternative facts” and “fake news” proclaimed by double-talking political leaders and “shock-jock” extremist cable networks. Rather than getting ourselves mired in the sociopolitical muck of our polarized partisan debates on “truth,” Our Lady invites us to a higher, broader, and clearer vision: “that, for you, HOLINESS OF LIFE may be TRUTH.”

This is a sure and genuine guiding light or North Star for our daily discernment of truth—that in any issue or question of truthfulness, we ask: “Does this lead to holiness of life?” When we can answer “yes,” we know that it is leading us toward “BEING PRAYER and a REFLECTION OF GOD’S LOVE.” If Divine Love is our ultimate measuring stick of “truth,” the task of sniffing out what is true (a sweet aroma of LOVE) or false (a foul stench of unkindness) becomes much simpler. We can know what is “truth” in other people’s words and behavior, and what is “truth” in our own words and behavior by a basic acid test: Is it building up kindness and love in the world….or not? Thus Our Lady gives us LOVE as the “gold standard” of what is “TRUTH.”

Finally, Our Lady says, “Encourage each other in the good through prayer, so that your life on earth may be more pleasant.” Painfully aware of how lonely, difficult, frustrating, sad and “unpleasant” life on earth can feel as we struggle with our own interior darkness (of the sinful False Self or ego), as well as the deep darkness shrouding our external surroundings (filled with people “who are far from God and God’s commandments”), Our Lady points us toward the solace and support of communal and intercessory prayer, so that all of us who are “working on ourselves” and trying to “be faithful and determined in conversion” may “encourage each other in the good through prayer.” This mutual support includes asking for prayer and offering prayer for those in need, as well as gathering with others in groups of two or more to build up our common faith, hope and love in Christ. These practices strengthen us in our spiritual journey with the realization that we never walk alone. Indeed, as Our Lady says, with this prayerful support in the Body of Christ, “our life on earth [WILL] be more pleasant”!

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August 15:  The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

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Wisdom from Pope Francis

Those who today always look for disciplinarian solutions, those who long for an exaggerated doctrinal  “security,” those who stubbornly try to recover a past that no longer exists—they have a static and inward-directed view of things. In this way, faith becomes an ideology among other ideologies.

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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