Medjugorje Message: May 25, 2019
Dear children! God permitted me, out of His mercy, to be with you, to instruct you and lead you towards the way of conversion. Little children, you are all called to pray with all your heart for the plan of salvation to be realized for you and through you. Be aware, little children, that life is short and eternal life waits for you according to your merit. Therefore, pray, pray, pray to be worthy instruments in God’s hands. Thank you for having responded to my call.
River of Light
June 2019
In this month’s message, given in the final weeks of Eastertide, Our Lady returns to her frequent theme of mortality and the shortness of our human life—but as always, it is coupled with the assurance of eternity awaiting us after death. Likewise, in her recent message to Mirjana, Our Lady stated, “The Heavenly Father created man for eternal happiness. It is not possible for you who know the love of my Son and who follow Him to die. Life triumphed; my Son is alive.” This is the GOOD NEWS of our own salvation and resurrection as members of the Body of Christ! If Christ beats death in the “resurrection of the body,” then so do we as members of His body.
Our Lady’s frequent theme of our mortality reflects the great longing of heaven for our presence there, for our “coming to the party” by our own choice. Like all moms, our heavenly Mother wants us to “come home” ; our God longs for us to be fully united with all creation in eternal love—to not be “M.I.A.” from the gathering Love-Fest. Jesus Christ wants to lose nothing that was entrusted to him in the Incarnation: “This is the will of the one who sent me, that I shall lose none of those He has given me, but will raise them up on the last day.” (Jn 6:39)
Our Lady begins her teaching this month by reminding us of her God-given mission in Medjugorje: “God permitted me, out of His mercy, to be with you, to instruct and lead you towards the way of conversion.” So Mary, Queen of Peace, is indeed the “Matrix of Change” sent to earth by God in the twilight of the 20th century to guide humanity towards the “way of conversion” that has been largely and functionally missing from human life in the past 2,000 years since the apostolic era of the early Church. The gospel call to “metanoia” —the Greek word for a radical change of direction, a “U-turn” or “about-face” in the direction in which we’re looking for happiness—is what Our Lady means by “conversion” : a total re-direction and re-orientation of the path we are following in life, away from the selfish, ego-centered programs of the False Self, and toward the sacrificial love of Gospel living.
The Third Luminous Mystery of the rosary—the “Proclamation of the Gospel” —celebrates this call to conversion that opens the teaching ministry of Christ, whose first recorded word of instruction is “REPENT, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Mt 4:17) Again, the word “repent” is also a translation of “metanoia” —in Greek “meta” meaning “CHANGE” and “noia” meaning “THE MIND”: therefore, “a change of mind” in its thoughts, perceptions, and purposes. To repent is an inward, transformative change of mind and heart toward both God and creation. “Re-pent” may be rendered to “re-think, think-again, or think-anew.” A fundamental change in thinking leads to a fundamental change in behavior or way of living. This basic change of both thinking and living is key to the realization of God’s “plan of salvation.”
Our Lady says, “You are all called to pray with all your heart for the plan of salvation to be realized for you and through you.” This “plan of salvation” is, of course, the eternal life of heaven, in which we are to be united completely with God and all creation in Infinite Love. So to recap, Our Lady says I am called to pray that heaven be realized “for me” (i.e. what God must do), and also “through me” (i.e. what I must do). Here we see the intimate, integral cooperation between divinity and humanity that is necessary for the “plan of salvation” to be realized. The final two sentences of Our Lady’s message bring this paradox into sharper focus: “Be aware, little children, that life is short and eternal life waits for you according to your merit. Therefore, pray, pray, pray to be worthy instruments in God’s hands.”
Here we face the theological conundrum of “faith vs. works” : Are we saved by God’s grace through FAITH ALONE, or by our own “merit” and “worthiness” as evidenced by our works and behavior? Which will get us to heaven and eternal life after our “short” life on earth ends? Faith alone, or faith plus works of merit and worth? Upon the horns of this (false) theological dilemma (and a few others), the “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church” suffered a huge splintering division in the 1500’s at the time of the Protestant Reformation, when Martin Luther (a Catholic priest), writing a vernacular German bible focused on “sola fide” (“faith alone” ), sought to “redact” parts of the sacred scripture and canon of the Holy Bible (codified by the Church over 1,000 years before), in order to mitigate or downplay the ancient teaching and understanding held from earliest apostolic times.
This ancient truth is what Our Lady still teaches today: that our eternal salvation is indeed dependent upon BOTH the initial Divine assistance of God’s GRACE given in the gift of FAITH, *AND* our human cooperation with this grace, by which we live the law of love through our free will choices, decisions, words and deeds performed as evidence reflecting an interior faith in Christ as his followers.
Perhaps the clearest scriptural text for this teaching is James 2: “Faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead….For just as a body without a spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.” Throughout the gospels, Jesus first invites belief and trust in Him—“faith” —and then issues the call to “follow me” by living the risen life in action as “other Christs” in the world. As St. Paul clearly taught, “We are co-workers with God.” (1 Cor 3:9) The first letter of John states: “Whoever says, ‘I know him,’ but does not keep his commandments is a liar….This is the way that we may know that we are in union with him: whoever claims to abide in him ought to live just as he lived.”
This scripture is echoed perfectly in Our Lady’s words to Mirjana: “It is not possible for you who KNOW the love of my Son [receive the divinely-given grace of faith] AND FOLLOW Him [give the human free-will response of cooperation] to die.” Clearly the “faith/works” question is a BOTH/AND mandate in Christianity—not an “either/or” issue, which presents a false and unbiblical controversy. Both sacred scripture and Our Lady’s messages make clear the ancient truth of an inclusive, nondualistic approach to the Human/Divine need for BOTH faith and works in the plan of our eternal salvation.
And so Our Lady urges us, once again—as she has since the beginning of her apparitions in Medjugorje 38 years ago—to “pray, pray, pray.” But this time she succinctly articulates our exact needed prayer petition: “TO BE WORTHY INSTRUMENTS IN GOD’S HANDS.” This phrase brilliantly captures the twofold, all-inclusive “both/and” of faith and works: We must pray BOTH to humbly know that we are creatures made by a loving Creator, whose life is “in God’s hands“—AND—to be (through our own God-given free will choices, agency and ability) “worthy instruments” that bring to full realization the potential and purpose for which we were created. With St. Francis we can pray to God, “Make me an instrument of your peace.” And through a practice of intense daily prayer (contemplation, meditation, adoration), may we come to both KNOW and BE what we truly are in this life. Then we can say with St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta: “I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world.”
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As the contemplative mind begins to shift from thinking about God to being in God, so too is there an evolution from praying to Christ as an object of devotion to living in the Spirit as members of Christ’s body. Christ is no longer an object of analytical thinking, imaginative projection, or external devotion outside and beyond ourselves, but the very subject of our subjectivity, the heart of our heart, and the soul of our soul. If Jesus remains no more than an external, historical figure whom we attempt in some way to emulate, or whose teachings we seek to apply to our lives, our objectification of him inevitably becomes a barrier to our internal transformation. Instead, there must be an internal shift from analytical thinking to a simple contemplative resting in God beyond the use of words, discursive thought, or imagination. Christ’s mediatorial role between humanity and divinity is rooted in his person—his Body—of which we are members. Herein lies the distinction between saying prayers and becoming prayer.
—Fr. Vincent Pizzuto
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Pentecost: June 9—Feast of the Holy Spirit PRAYER PRACTICE
“And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Comforter and Advocate to be with you forever, the Spirit of Truth….You know this Spirit, for it abides with you and will be in you.” —John 14:16-17
Litany of the Holy Spirit (to awaken & strengthen this Presence within us)
Pure Gift of God . . . . alive in me,
Indwelling Presence . . . . alive in me,
Promise of the Father . . . . alive in me,
Life of Jesus . . . . alive in me,
Pledge and Guarantee . . . . alive in me,
Defense Attorney . . . . alive in me,
Inner Anointing . . . . alive in me,
Homing Device . . . . alive in me,
Stable Witness . . . . alive in me,
Peacemaker . . . . alive in me,
Always Already Awareness . . . . alive in me,
Compassionate Observer . . . . alive in me,
God Compass . . . . alive in me,
Inner Breath . . . . alive in me,
Mutual Yearning . . . . alive in me,
Hidden Love of God . . . . alive in me,
Implanted Hope . . . . alive in me,
Seething Desire . . . . alive in me,
Fire of Life and Love . . . . alive in me,
Truth Speaker . . . . alive in me,
Flowing Stream . . . . alive in me,
Wind of Change . . . . alive in me,
Descending Dove . . . . alive in me,
Cloud of Unknowing . . . . alive in me,
Uncreated Grace . . . . alive in me,
Filled Emptiness . . . . alive in me,
Deepest Level of Our Longing . . . . alive in me,
Sacred Wounding . . . . alive in me,
Holy Healing . . . . alive in me,
Will of God . . . . alive in me,
Great Compassion . . . . alive in me,
Inherent Victory . . . . alive in me,
It is You who pray in me, through me, with me, for me, and in spite of me, Amen, Alleluia!
—Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM
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June 16: Feast of the Holy Trinity
“The Trinity is infinite unity and infinite diversity at the same time.”
—Fr. Thomas Keating, OCSO
God is a flow, a radical relatedness, a perfect communion between Three—a circle dance of love. God is not just a dancer; God is the dance itself. All of creation is invited to sit at the divine table, called to consciously participate in the divine dance of loving and being loved that is the Trinity.
—Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM
Our God is family: three persons in love with each other; our God is communion. And this loving God is calling us humans into this life of love. We are called together to drop barriers, to become vulnerable, to become one. The greatest thirst of God is that “they may be one, perfectly one, totally one.” But we have to die to all the powers of egoism in ourselves in order to be reborn for this new and deeper unity where our uniqueness and gifts and creativity are not crushed but enlivened….A community is not an abstract ideal; it is people. We are called to love people just as they are with their wounds and their gifts…in a spirit of dying to oneself so that the other may live, grow and give.
—Jean Vanier
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June 23: Corpus Christi Sunday–Feast of the Holy Eucharist
Accepting the sacraments means first of all agreeing to be sought out by God and accepting the opportunity offered us by Christ to rejoin God. Practice suggests to a person that he should not be merely a spectator, but a co-worker in his destiny. This is the great novelty of Christianity, as St. Paul proclaimed it: “We are co-workers with God.” God gives us our freedom so that we may use it at each moment of our human experiences. We are led to be co-workers in humble, day-by-day, coherent acts, for example, in sharing the meal with the friends of Christ.
—Fr. Bernard Bro, O.P.
On the healing strength of the immortal Food, given us in Word and sacrament, and by it made one with the Incarnate Word, we will surely find all the vitality and joy we need to fully live out our genetic identity, our divine DNA as “offspring of the Most High.” Dying Christ’s death with him, we will rise with Christ and have his very Blood circulating in our veins. Then, motivated by the same impulses that motivate him, we shall be able to achieve the apparently impossible: Love our enemies, do good to those who hate us, bless those who curse us, pray for those who abuse us, and give, expecting nothing in return. We will stop living by the deadly logic of our unredeemed impulses and begin to live by the saving logic of God.
—Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis
Christ’s Passover is the eternal event of love which generates a new pulse or rhythm in the human heart. The celebration of the Paschal Mystery creates a bonding in friendship, because it contains the source and summit of communion with the Father in the Lord’s Spirit. Conversion involves the transformation of all our fragmented experiences….In every eucharistic celebration the Church’s proclamation of Christ’s new and eternal covenant calls us to receive the grace of conversion, which means “being turned“ together towards Christ’s living Passover, that eternal instant of his love’s dynamism manifest in human history.
—Fr. Michael Gaudoin-Parker
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Wisdom from Pope Francis
Plenty of people promise change, new beginnings, prodigious renewals, but experience teaches us that no earthly attempt to change reality can ever completely satisfy the human heart. Yet the change that the Spirit brings is different. It does not revolutionize life around us, but changes our hearts. This change does not take away all our problems, but liberates us within so that we can face them. To bring about real change in our lives, we should pray to the Holy Spirit. Who among us does not need a change? A powerful jolt, a reinvigoration of the Spirit who is the “giver of life.” How good it would be for us each day to feel this jolt of life! To say when we wake up each morning, “Come, Holy Spirit, come into my heart, come into my day.”
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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
