Medjugorje Message: July 25, 2021
Dear children! I am calling you to be prayer for all those who do not pray. Little children, witness with your lives the joy that you are mine and God will heed your prayers and give you peace in this peaceless world where pride and selfishness reign. Little children, you be generous and be the love of my love, so that pagans can feel that you are mine and convert to my Immaculate Heart. Thank you for having responded to my call.
River of Light
August 2021
Our Lady gave this message on July 25th, the patronal feast day of St. James parish in Medjugorje, where she has been appearing for 40 years. She begins by saying: “I am calling you to be prayer for all those who do not pray.” What a curious way of calling us—not merely to “pray” for those who don’t pray, but to “BE PRAYER” for them! She is taking the emphasis off of “doing” and putting it upon “being” —a much deeper, existential level of service. As we pray in our our own “inner room, in secret,” as Jesus asked, we are to “BE PRAYER” for the whole of unpraying humanity—surely a quantum physics phenomenon! First of all, we may wonder, how many people are there on our planet “who do not pray” ? Thousands, millions, billions? We have no way of knowing, but much depends on how we define “prayer.”
For Our Lady, prayer is surely about more than words spoken. Undoubtedly there are many in our world who never utter an Our Father, Hail Mary, or Glory Be, and who’ve never prayed a rosary, recited a Creed, or even formulated a single pious sentence addressed to God. But in Medjugorje, Our Lady teaches that “Prayer of the Heart” is primary, and it needs no words at all. Instead, PRAYER is our consciousness of God, our human awareness of relationship or connection to our Source, God-who-is-Love. We might even say that LOVE itself is prayer, for Scripture reveals, “Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love…. Whoever lives in love lives in God and God in that person.” (1 Jn 4) And for those who would limit “prayer” to pious words, St. Paul taught, “If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging symbol.” (1 Cor 13:1)
So when Our Lady calls us to “BE PRAYER” for “all those who do not pray,” she is not so much concerned with our formal language addressed to the Creator; rather, she is asking us to BE LOVE for all who are unloving. This is a tall order that involves our interaction and relationship—a much taller order than merely mouthing words to God “about” those who are “other” than us. To “be prayer” is all about where we put our ATTENTION from moment to moment: with a focus on LOVE in every situation.
Our Lady continues: “Little children, witness with your lives the joy that you are mine and God will heed your prayers and give you peace in this peaceless world where pride and selfishness reign.” Here Our Lady takes the “micro” level of “those who do not pray” —individuals who are sadly unaware of their connection to Source (God-who-is-Love) and thus not experiencing or manifesting loving, giving relationship in their lives—and she unveils the “macro” level or “Big Picture” of what this looks like on a large scale: “this peaceless world where pride and selfishness reign.” This is our world today, made of massive numbers of isolated, alienated, unconverted, self-willed, LOST human beings searching only for their own pleasure, happiness, and material wealth in the exploitative offerings of the dominant, superficial, profit-driven culture.
Seeking their own safety/security, affection/esteem, and power/control outside themselves, without any awareness of the Divine Indwelling Presence of God/Love at their center, these “prayer-less” people who populate our planet cannot possibly be “at peace” for more than fleeting moments. Instead, for them and for us all, it is a “peaceless world where pride and selfishness reign.” The Body of Christ continues to bear and suffer this painful human condition.
Our life on earth is a spiritual journey from the selfishness of our egoic False Self running the show (prideful and peaceless), to the selflessness of being centered in Christ-consciousness: our True Self obediently, happily surrendering to the Divine Will and daily Providence of God-who-is-Love. On this human journey from selfishness to selflessness, our motivation evolves from the selfish ego wanting always to achieve a “higher status” on its own (separate from God and others), to a humble, True Self desire to simply live an authentic life arising from and responding to the GRACE of Divine Love sustaining us—the Indwelling Presence of God shining through our “earthen vessels.”
As we travel this road with Our Lady as guide, we experience JOY. She asks us to “witness with your lives the joy that you are mine.” Then, she says, “God will heed your prayers” (spoken or unspoken!), “and give you peace in this peaceless world where pride and selfishness reign.” With our eyes fixed on Jesus, focused upon God-who-is-Love rather than upon the proud, selfish, greedy, materialistic emptiness of our worldly society, we can radiate the Peace of Christ which “the world cannot give.” (Jn 14:27) With the simple formula of “Less me, more God” we will cover much ground as we move down the road on this journey from toxic glutted ego to clean empty vessel, from False Self to True Self, from selfishness to selflessness.
How will our life look as we respond to Our Lady’s call? She says: “Little children, you be generous and be the love of my love, so that pagans can feel that you are mine and convert to my Immaculate Heart.” If the world is greedy and unloving, we are to “be generous and be the love of my love” —that is, to exude the bountiful, maternal lovingkindness of Mary for every person, serving as her hands and arms and voice in the world, heedless of the cost to ourselves. Our Lady says that in doing so, “pagans can feel that you are mine and convert to my Immaculate Heart.” Here, the word “pagans” refers simply to “those who do not pray” —the “peaceless,” prideful and selfish “lost sheep” who make up a large percentage of planet Earth—unaware of their Source (God-who-is-Love) and thus lacking any conscious relationship of interbeing or interconnectedness with the world around them, totally self-absorbed in a narcissistic prison.
Our Lady uses an important word to make the point that “pagans” (lost sheep) need to “FEEL” our relation to Mary in order to “convert to her Immaculate Heart.” People’s hearts must be changed from stone to flesh and then purified by the transforming fire of Divine Love. We do not “convert” anyone by heady words of argument, judgment, condemnation, exclusion, discrimination, browbeating, or proselytizing. As St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta said, “KINDNESS has converted more people than wisdom, zeal, or eloquence.” It is our kindness that will reveal that we belong, joyfully, to Mary, and draw others to join the path of God/Love. For as poet Maya Angelou wrote: “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them FEEL.” This is a profound wisdom teaching on human nature that Our Lady wishes to impress upon our extremely rationalistic, over-intellectualizing brains. May we all begin to “FEEL” it!
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Empty yourself. Sit quietly, content with the grace of God.
—St. Romuald
The purpose of silence is to break through the crust of the false self.
—Fr. Thomas Keating, OCSO
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If the mountains bow in reverence, SO WILL I.
If the wind goes where you send it, SO WILL I.
If the rocks cry out in silence, SO WILL I.
If the stars were made to worship, SO WILL I.
If the oceans roar your greatness, SO WILL I.
If Creation sings your praises, SO WILL I.
If Creation still obeys you, SO WILL I.
If it all reveals your nature, SO WILL I.
If you gladly chose surrender, SO WILL I.
If you gave your life to love them, SO WILL I.
If you left the grave behind you, SO WILL I.
If everything exists to lift you high—SO WILL I.
—Hillsong United (Australian worship band)
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AUGUST 15: The Assumption of Mary
In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God. By Mary is the Word with human beings; by Mary are human beings with and in the Word. The power of God is God’s goodness and God’s Word is the word of love. So is Mary with us also, in Lourdes, in Fatima, in the heart of every person. Dwelling with her we are in heaven for she is of heaven the Queen.
—Fr. Elwood F. Smith, O.P.
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THE KEY TO PEACE FOR THE WORLD
is the contemplative work of inner conversion,
inner disarmament,
and inner peacemaking.
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A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical illusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
—Albert Einstein
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GRATITUDE is most powerful as a response to the Earth because it provides an opening to reciprocity, to the act of giving back, to living in a way that the Earth will be grateful for us.
—Robin Wall Kimmerer
We are not separate. We are not separate from the wildfires raging in Sardinia and on the west coast of the U.S. We are not separate from the unprecedented flooding in Germany and China. We are not separate from the far-reaching destruction of the monsoon season in India. And we are not separate from the forces of nature behind these events.
Indeed, we are not separate from nature at all. We are nature as much as nature is us. The wellbeing of one affects the other, and through this relationship we are invited into a system of reciprocity in which caring for nature is an act of caring for ourselves and vice versa. When gratefulness guides the way we approach this relationship, our care comes not solely from a sense of “obligation,” but also from curiosity, awe, and reverence.
Nourishing our nature, we dissolve the illusion of division and become one as part of One Whole. Let us notice and allow ourselves to be moved by the ways we’re connected to all of life through our breath, the food we eat, the ground we move on, and the beauty we take in. What are the ways we can tend this wholeness, and what does that tending make possible?
—A Network for Grateful Living
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Living in a transitional age such as ours is scary: things are falling apart, the future is unknowable, so much doesn’t cohere or make sense. Our uncertainty is the doorway into mystery, the doorway into surrender, the path to God that Jesus called “faith.”
When the crisis is upon us, the self can center in this refuge…. Ultimately, we can trust the leading of the Holy Spirit as it guides us toward mutual care and love of God, neighbors, and creation. It takes great trust and patience to remain stunned, sad, and silenced by the tragedy and absurdity of human events. In the face of horrors visited upon our world daily as we struggle to protect our loved ones, to let in JOY is a revolutionary act.
Mysticism reminds us that our power is not seeded in what is bestowed by politicians and society, but to everyone willing and ready to recognize the moves of an active Holy Spirit.
—Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM
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Our ultimate goal is to integrate the active and contemplative dimensions of reality within us and around us, which some mystics call ever-present awareness, enlightenment, or waking up. To handle the details of living a human life without being distracted from this primary vision is not attained through thinking, but through what might be called the practice of just being.
To take time just to be, which is to do nothing but be in God’s presence for a regular period of time every day seems to be the shortest access to the mystery that is beyond any conceptual thought. It leads to a communion with God that is more intimate than anybody can imagine. Divine love never stops coming but waits for us to shed the obstacles in us to awaken fully to the Divine Presence within us. It takes a while to perceive what the obstacles are. The spiritual journey normally takes a long time.
If we experience emotional suffering, there is probably something we haven’t quite surrendered yet. If we truly surrender everything we possess, we will know the right thing to do spontaneously, in action inspired by the Holy Spirit. St. John of the Cross says that those who practice meditation keep moving to ever-deeper interior levels until they reach their inmost center, where God dwells and waits for us.
At some point in the spiritual journey, there is a shift where you realize that the best knowledge you can have of God is no knowledge. That means letting go of every thought, memory, rigid belief system, harmful forms of cultural conditioning, as well as all possessions. It doesn’t mean you despise the values of belief systems because most people need some kind of discipline of mind and body in the beginning. The process of awakening ends in God, which is to say it never ends.
—Fr. Thomas Keating, OCSO
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Wisdom from Pope Francis
“Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof,
but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.“
None of us is worthy to receive the Holy Eucharist.
“Holy Communion should be viewed not as a prize for the perfect, but as a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak.”
It is far too sacred to be used as a political weapon by modern-day Pharisees whose hypocrisy the Lord will rebuke.
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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
