Medjugorje Message: July 25, 2019
Dear children! My call for you is prayer. May prayer be a joy for you and a wreath which binds you to God. Little children, trials will come and you will not be strong, and sin will reign but, if you are mine, you will win, because your refuge will be the Heart of my Son Jesus. Therefore, little children, return to prayer until prayer becomes life for you in the day and the night. Thank you for having responded to my call.
River of Light
August 2019
Once again Our Lady makes clear her primary message to the world at Medjugorje: “My call for you is prayer.” After 38 years of daily apparitions, we would expect this call to be exhausted, but Our Lady finds yet another fresh approach in this month’s message—using a new word and opening up a new metaphorical pathway into her call to prayer: “May prayer be a joy for you and a wreath which binds you to God.” Prayer as a “wreath which binds us to God” : this unusual word and image merits our reflection.
As something which “binds” us to God, we may envision a wreath encircling our neck, in the way Jesus used the image of a “yoke,” saying: “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.” (Mt 11:29-30) In this Gospel image, we are to be “yoked” to Jesus as two oxen are yoked together, side by side, to plow a field.
But in Our Lady’s metaphor, the “yoke” becomes a “wreath,” which invites fresh symbolic references. First of all, the word “wreath” summons up a sense of JOY—as Our Lady begins by saying, “May prayer be a joy for you” —for a living green wreath surely sounds more “joyful” than a big wooden “yoke” binding farm animals together as beasts of burden for heavy labor. In contrast, the wreath’s form—an unending circle made of evergreens or flowers—symbolizes eternity, growth, unity, everlasting life, completion, and perfection. For almost 3,000 years, a wreath has been the winner’s prize at the Greek Olympic games, so it also symbolizes athletic strength and endurance.
The pagan use of wreaths to honor nature’s changing seasons and fertility, and the Roman use of wreaths to mark honor and virtue, were “baptized” in the third century as Christians began to view wreaths as the ultimate sign of victory in the form of the “martyr’s crown” for those who suffered persecution and death by following Christ. The “wreath” that most symbolized this sort of triumph was the crown of thorns worn by Jesus on the cross, and early Christians longed to win the “martyr’s crown” which bestowed an immediate “ticket to heaven.”
Our Lady’s message also mentions “winning,” so clearly she is using the word “wreath” much as St. Paul did in his letters. He says, “Every athlete exercises self-control….They do it to receive a perishable wreath [or crown], but we an imperishable.” (1 Cor 9:25)…”Just one thing: forgetting what lies behind but straining forward to what lies ahead, I continue my pursuit toward the goal, the prize of God’s upward calling in Christ Jesus.” (Phil 3:14) …. “Do you not know that the runners in the stadium all run in the race, but only one wins the prize? Run so as to win.” (1 Cor 9:24)
Our Lady coaches us toward this “win” through PRAYER as our “crowning victory wreath” which binds us to God in a way that is unbeatable: “Little children, trials will come and you will not be strong, and sin will reign but, if you are mine, you will win, because your refuge will be the Heart of my Son Jesus.” Here Our Lady seems to be describing prophetically what our future holds—and it’s not pretty; it looks neither easy nor particularly pleasant. In fact, Our Lady sounds brutally honest and realistic about our human condition in this fallen world of E-G-O: “Edging God Out.” The bad news is: 1) Trials will come; 2) We will NOT be strong; 3) Sin will reign. So—we can dispense with any illusion that our prayerful piety will “spare us” from trials of faith and the tragic setbacks of normal life on earth, OR that our spirituality will render us superheroes of self-will and strength in the face of temptation. No—quite the contrary: Our Lady says bluntly, “Sin will reign.”
She is supported in this assertion, again, by St. Paul: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Rom 3:23) “We know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold into slavery to sin. What I do, I do not understand. For I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate….The willing is ready at hand, but doing the good is not.” (Rom 7:14-19) And our Lord Jesus said himself: “The spirit is indeed willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Mt 26:41) So the truth of the matter is, we live in a fallen world dominated by demonic EGO as weak creatures who will often fail the test of our worldly trials and daily temptations by choosing selfishness over the Divine Will. This will result in continual death on all sides. Wow—not seeing any “victory wreaths” here!
“But”….Our Lady inserts a “but” in the middle of this gloomy prophetic sentence describing our future: “but, if you are mine, you will win, because your refuge will be the Heart of my Son Jesus.” Here lies the GOOD NEWS of the Gospel! As St. Paul puts it, “Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through justification for eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Rom 5:20-21) But what of our terrible weakness amidst trials? In prayer, St. Paul was told by Christ: “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Cor 12:19) Our Lady says if we are her children (given to her by her Son from the cross on Calvary), we “WILL WIN” ; we “will receive the unfading crown of glory” (1 Pet 5:4), the imperishable wreath of eternal life. Why? Because our “REFUGE” will be the Heart of Jesus.
The Heart of Jesus—the Sacred Heart—so often seen surrounded by a crown of thorns, a “wreath” of sharp, piercing spikelets dripping blood, and ablaze with a living flame of fiery love: this is our “refuge” in the midst of life’s inevitable and imminent “trials,” in our own mortal weakness, and in the overall “reign” of sin in this EGO-soaked world. How is the Heart of Jesus our “refuge”?
Through his teaching Presence in sacred scripture; in the liturgy of the Eucharist, the Sacrament of Reconciliation (Confession), and in all the sacraments of his Presence; hidden under the appearance of bread and wine given to us in Holy Communion—his Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity; in his Mystical Body, the Church, the community of faith; in art and in nature—the whole outpouring of Creation made through him as the Cosmic Christ; and in his Spirit poured into our hearts in prayer—i.e. whenever our conscious intention and attention are directed toward him. There are so many ways that the Heart of Jesus is our refuge—too many to count! Through this “refuge” we WIN the wreath of victory that conquers all our trials, weakness and sin: “Whoever is begotten of God conquers the world. And the victory that conquers the world is this faith of ours.” (1 Jn 5:4)
Our Lady concludes her message by saying: “Therefore, little children, return to prayer until prayer becomes life for you in the day and the night.” In light and airy times, and in dark and heavy times; in the morning and in the evening of every single day, let us pray, so that “LIFE” and “PRAYER” become one and the same reality for us. Let us not forget that one incomparable “wreath” of joyful prayer binding us to God is the endlessly evergreen circle of Our Lady’s rosary!
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Choose to perceive in every event today
the Presence of transforming grace.
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August 15: The Assumption of Mary—A Bodily, Tangible Holiness
Mary’s bodily assumption into heaven instructs us on the nature of holiness. By providing for her Son’s human and material needs, she was in direct relationship with the Mystery of God. Her contemplation consisted of pondering particular events: the shepherds visiting the Christ-Child, the mysterious words of Simeon, the response of her Son after finding him in the temple. She was concerned about particular needs and details of life, as at the wedding feast of Cana. Earthly concerns were not beneath her, but were rather privileged ways for her to welcome and live the mystery of God’s love. Day-to-day life and the significance of those around her were continuations of the Annunciation which made her the Mother of God.
This same earthiness of holiness is played out in our Mother, the Church. Saints whose lives bear witness to their communion with God did not experience themselves as above earthly concerns. St. Francis of Assisi and St. Teresa of Calcutta were intensely concerned for the poor. St. John Bosco and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton passionately sought to educate the young. St. Giuseppe Moscati and St. Mary Alphonsa gave their lives to serve the sick. Holiness is not merely spiritual, but bodily, tangible, sacramental.
—Fr. Richard Veras
We should not conflate the false self with the body and the true self with spirit. Resurrection faith cannot ultimately admit of a dualism between body and soul. The body is a symbol and extension of the true self, not its enemy. One’s body is not a prison of the soul or merely a shell one inhabits temporarily until released by death. Rather the body participates in one’s ultimate identity as an incarnation of God’s love. And it is this love—the love of the incarnate Christ—that manifests the unity of the whole person.
—Fr. Vincent Pizzuto
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August 29: The Martyrdom of St. John the Baptist
“He must increase; I must decrease,” observed John the Baptist. (Jn 3:30) What does that mean? What does “decreasing” look like in daily life?
To decrease doesn’t mean being a doormat, but it does mean that we stop fighting anybody and anything, even evil. “Resist not evil,” said Christ: in other words, let’s not waste our energy fighting. Let’s use our energy to learn how to love….reflecting on the strangeness, the astonishment, the upending nature of Christ. The scandal of Christianity—that the antidote to violence is not more violence, but LOVE—is so extreme, so radical, that in 2,000 years we have not begun to accept it. Our egos can’t bear such invisibility.
John, a voice crying in the wilderness, proclaimed: “Repent and believe the Good News.” And the Good News, almost unbelievably—the antidote to the mindless brutality that would kill first him, then Christ—is to love one another as Christ loved us….Transforming our anger, rather than transmitting it. Refusing to respond to violence, whether physical, psychological, or spiritual, with more violence. Therese of Lisieux, Francis of Assisi, and Maximilian Kolbe understood this Good News well. That is why we made them saints.
That the Savior of the world should be proclaimed by a man viewed by the world as a crackpot, who died alone in ignominy, tells us much about what we can expect for ourselves. Then, as now, the voice saying, “Look at the violence and dishonesty in your own heart” is the most dangerous voice of all. The most rare. The one we least want to hear. “The Kingdom of God is at hand.” Let us sit for an hour with John.
—Heather King
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Living with Hope, in a Dark Time
I really don’t know if our civilization will survive the century. But important for me is not if our civilization will survive or not, but if we can continue to live with hope, and I really think we can because our Lord has given us his promise that he will stay with us at all times. He is the God of the living. He has overcome evil and death and his love is stronger than any form of death and destruction. That is why I feel that we should continually avoid the temptation of despair and deepen our awareness that God is present in the midst of all the chaos that surrounds us and that Presence allows us to live joyfully and peacefully in a world so filled with sorrow and conflict.
—Henri Nouwen
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A Morning Body Prayer of Gratitude
(Adapt the movements of this prayer practice to your body’s needs.)
[BOW]
Holy Earth, Holy Cosmos,
I bow before you with my whole being.
[KNEEL]
Holy Creatures, Holy Nature,
I kneel upon the earth in honor and thanksgiving of your bounty.
[LIE DOWN]
Holy Waters, Holy Mountains,
I lay my body on your temple in gratitude for nurturing my soul.
[RISE TO STAND]
Holy Passion, Holy Longing,
I rise up before you a devotee of truth, following where you lead me.
[HANDS OVER HEART]
Holy Silence, Holy Solitude,
I place my hands over my heart, breathing in serenity, breathing out your peace.
[HANDS TOGETHER]
Holy Sorrow, Holy Suffering,
I close my hands in prayer: may I bear every wound with compassion.
[BOW YOUR HEAD]
Holy Humility, Holy Emptiness,
I bow my head before you: I have become open for your All to shine in my soul.
[OPEN ARMS WIDE]
Holy Freedom, Holy Rejoicing,
I open my heart to the world, offering myself to this day, in joyfulness and gratitude.
—Beverly Lanzetta
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Wisdom from Pope Francis
Mary’s assumption into heaven was a special sign of God’s favor, but it also indicates God’s desire to save all people, body and soul. To Mary, consoler of the afflicted, I want to entrust the anguish and torment of those who, in many parts of the world, suffer in body and spirit. The assumption of Mary was a divine privilege given to her because of her close union with Jesus from the very beginning. It was a corporal and spiritual union that began at the Annunciation and matured throughout Mary’s life, leading finally to the cross. While Mary was given a special grace, the feast day should remind Catholics that the church professes faith in “the resurrection of the body” for all who are saved by Christ. The stupendous assumption of Mary manifests and confirms the unity of the human person and reminds us that we are called to serve and glorify God with our whole being, body and soul. Serving God only with our body would be the action of a slave; serving God only with the soul would be contrary to our human nature.
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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
