Medjugorje Message: May 25, 2020
Dear children! Pray with me for a new life for all of you. In your hearts, little children, you know what needs to be changed. Return to God and His Commandments, so that the Holy Spirit may change your lives and the face of this earth, which is in need of renewal in the spirit. Little children, be prayer for all those who do not pray; be joy for all those who do not see the way out; be carriers of light in the darkness of this peaceless time. Pray and seek the help and protection of the saints so that you also could yearn for Heaven and Heavenly realities. I am with you and am protecting and blessing all of you with my motherly blessing. Thank you for having responded to my call.
River of Light
June 2020
Our Lady’s message was given just a few days before the great feast of Pentecost, the birthday of the Church. It was given in the time known as the Church’s “first novena” —the nine days of intense prayer between the Ascension of Jesus into heaven and the Descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. During those days, the apostles and 120 other disciples, together “with Mary, the mother of Jesus,” gathered in the Upper Room in Jerusalem and “devoted themselves with one accord to prayer” (Acts 1:14) as they awaited “the promise of the Father” —the coming of the Holy Spirit about whom Jesus had instructed them repeatedly.
When this loud, powerful, and miraculous event occurred, it “astounded, in amazement” the huge crowd of people staying in Jerusalem “from every nation under heaven,” because each person could hear the apostles “speaking in their own native language of the mighty acts of God.” (Acts 2:11) This incredible phenomenon left the vast international, multi-cultural, multi-racial crowd both “confused” and “bewildered.” Peter and the other apostles then preached to them the Good News of eternal salvation through Christ, and “three thousand persons accepted the message and were baptized.” (Acts 2:41)
What does this event of 2000+ years ago have to do with us today, and with Our Lady’s Medjugorje message this month? Like the Jerusalem crowd “from every nation,” today, we too, from every country, are “confused and bewildered.” We as a whole human species throughout the globe are overwhelmed in amazement and astonishment, by something that—despite our different languages—speaks the same urgent message of danger and death to every single person on the planet, regardless of nationality, race, culture, or religious creed: the COVID-19 Coronavirus that has revealed to all of us, simultaneously, ONE undeniable global predicament that unites us in ONE common battle for our survival of this deadly pandemic. Like that Pentecost wind, COVID-19 has drawn the diverse peoples of the earth together in a totally unprecedented way.
The backdrop of the first Christian Pentecost was DEATH: the crucifixion and death of Jesus and the ensuing fear of further unjust persecution and death among his followers, who hid themselves away, “sheltering in place” with great anxiety. Sound familiar? On the day of Pentecost, these gathered disciples felt ill-equipped and powerless to preach in the midst of peoples gathered from all over the world, with differing beliefs, customs, and languages.
Today, against a similar backdrop of DEATH and FEAR, our external communications technology is so advanced, it has made planet Earth into a small global village, but our inner, spiritual consciousness has not evolved in a proportionate way with our technology. Our scientific and electronic development has far outstripped our level of spiritual consciousness, which is the knowledge of GOD AS LOVE—that saving knowledge of the Gospels that liberates humanity from its slavery to ego / false self / sin / death. Just as on the first Christian Pentecost, what is needed today—2000+ years later—is an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the “Advocate,” the “Spirit of truth who will guide us to all truth,” and “convict the world in regard to sin and righteousness and condemnation…because the ruler of this world has been condemned.” (Jn 16:8-13)
Here is where Our Lady’s message begins: “Pray with me for a new life for all of you.” This prayer to which we are invited is the same prayer of Mary and the apostles in the Upper Room, awaiting the “new life” -giving gift of the Holy Spirit—the inner Advocate who will indwell our inmost being and repel the assaults and temptations of selfish ego at their root within our mind and heart, thus creating for us “a new life.” Shortly after Pentecost, an angel unlocked the prison doors where the apostles had been jailed, instructing them to return to their preaching and “tell the people everything about this NEW LIFE.” (Acts 5:20)
The Coronavirus pandemic we’ve been suffering for over three months now has starkly revealed the need “for a new life for all of [us].” COVID-19 has shined a glaring spotlight upon the inadequacy of ALL our worldly systems: our health care system, our economic system, our political system, our communications/media system, our ecological system, our educational system, our food production system, our prison system, our elder-care system, our social networking system, etc.—touching every facet of human life with the reality of our low-level consciousness driven by greed, selfish ego, and hyper-individualism rather than compassionate concern for the COMMON GOOD (i.e. love).
Our Lady continues: “In your hearts, little children, you know what needs to be changed.” This is vital motherly counsel that all parents should give their children—the assurance that within our own hearts we hold the answers to life’s greatest questions and problems. There is a “knowing” of the heart much more profound, important and trustworthy than “head knowledge” or “book learning.” Sadly, many people grow up without ever realizing such a deep well of wisdom exists in the form of the intuitive inspirations of the Holy Spirit within them. This was addressed by John the Baptist, who explained the difference between his baptism and the coming baptism in the Christ—the former being a baptism of repentance for clearing away the wreckage of past sins, but the latter being an ignited “fire” of spirit burning within our hearts to animate a whole “new life” of conversion away from the egoic false self or “old man.” (Mt 3:11)
Upon this failsafe inner Presence of the Holy Spirit rests the Church’s teaching on the primacy of conscience—the inner voice informing us faithfully of what is ultimately best for us in all situations. Through this interior Spirit, Jesus and the prophets said, “They shall all be taught by God.” (Jn 6:45) Tragically, today we are taught instead by “influencers” on Twitter, Facebook, blogs, podcasts, “shock-jock” radio, cable television, and other sources of corrupt sociopolitical propaganda—led by the nose like “sheeple” toward other people’s opinions, rather than listening in prayerful silence for the inner Spirit of truth to enlighten our own minds and guide our hearts to “know what needs changing.”
Our Lady continues to instruct us on how to become receptive to the Holy Spirit: “Return to God and His Commandments, so that the Holy Spirit may change your lives and the face of this earth, which is in need of renewal in the spirit.” This sentence clearly echoes the ancient liturgical verse of the Church, “Veni Sancte Spiritus” : “Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful, and kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit, and they shall be created. And you shall renew the face of the earth.” Indeed, as Our Lady says, “the face of this earth is in need of renewal in the spirit.”
But what will prepare the ground of our hearts—our inner being—to receive the Holy Spirit’s transforming fire of conversion/change of life and renewal? The same thing that prepared the hearts of the first disciples of Jesus, gathered in the Upper Room at Pentecost: a “return to God and His Commandments.” Jesus had taught them that the whole Mosaic law and all the Prophets’ teaching rested upon two foundational commandments—“LOVE GOD” and “LOVE ONE ANOTHER.” (He revealed that “another” is anyone in need; that is, everyone without exception.) To drive home this LAW OF LOVE, Jesus concluded his earthly ministry by repeatedly saying, “This is my commandment: Love one another as I have loved you” —that is, with an unconditional, everlasting, self-sacrificial love. (Jn 13:34, 15:12)
This love is what the first disciples of Jesus were trying to practice after His crucifixion, death, resurrection, and ascension, as they waited with Mary for the promised Holy Spirit. This LOVE is what His followers must be practicing today. But this unconditional, universal love for all is NOT being practiced in our world today—plunged as it is into hatred, intolerance, violence, and bitter division; it is, as Our Lady says, a “dark and peaceless time.”
She gives us four specific instructions for living the commandment of Love that will open a path for the Holy Spirit to “change our lives and the face of the earth.” They are:
1) “Little children, BE PRAYER for all those who do not pray”;
2) “BE JOY for all those who do not see the way out”;
3) “BE CARRIERS OF LIGHT in the darkness of this peaceless time”; and
4) “Pray and seek the help and protection of the SAINTS so that you also could yearn for heaven and heavenly realities.”
In these instructions, Our Lady conveys our Christian vocation to be a “Person for Others,” committed to building a “civilization of love” on earth through helping others experience divine love, along with our need to attend to our own spiritual growth by opening to the help that we ourselves need from the Communion of Saints who have gone before us—those who can, even now, ignite our own desire and passionate “yearning for Heaven and Heavenly realities.” Thus Our Lady’s call covers both our need to HELP and to BE HELPED, both our need to GIVE and to RECEIVE, and both our attention to THIS PRESENT WORLD and to our ETERNITY IN HEAVEN.
In this intensely difficult period of a viral pandemic, Our Lady’s message challenges us to truly LIVE the commandment of divine love by BEING embodied, flesh-and-blood incarnations of God/Love in the world. We are being asked to give the ultimate counter-sign to the darkness and peacelessness of our age by “BEING PRAYER for those who do not pray” —that’s a lot of people! By “BEING JOY for all those who do not see the way out” —the way out of the pandemic sickness, the way out of economic ruin, the way out of hardship and suffering, the way out of anxiety and depression, the way out of death and annihilation; we must “BE JOY” for these millions of people who presently have no hope of the final victory of life and love that we have in “THE WAY out” who is Jesus Christ. And finally, by being “carriers of light in the darkness of this peaceless time” —never adding to the negativity of hateful, spiteful, divisive, destructive speech or action, but instead always building up human dignity and compassion for all creation.
To live this message from Our Lady is beyond our normal human capacity; thus our great need for “the help and protection of the saints” to keep our focus fixed upon “Heavenly realities” as we await the vital daily inspirations of the Holy Spirit. Our Lady always assures us of her presence, saying, “I am with you.” But this time—knowing what a large task she has conferred upon us—she says, “I am with you and I am protecting and blessing all of you with my motherly blessing.” What a beautiful “bonus gift” for building up our confidence, enthusiasm and resolve to answer Our Lady’s big call on our life during this “Pandemic Pentecost” of 2020!
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Choose to perceive in every event today the Presence of transforming grace.
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Celebrating the Holy Spirit
O God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit instructs the hearts of the faithful, grant that by that same Holy Spirit, we may be truly wise, and ever rejoice in His consolations. Through Christ our Lord, amen.
The law of gravity and the law of love ultimately have the same source and are both driven by the HOLY SPIRIT.
Would that we realized the truth of that! If we recognized how the Holy Spirit is present in everything—physical creation, love, human creativity, and morality—perhaps we could hold more things together in a fruitful tension rather than so often opposing them and having the different gifts of the Holy Spirit fight each other within our lives.
Scripture tells us that the Holy Spirit is both a physical and a spiritual force, the source of all creativity and all morality at the same time. We first meet the Holy Spirit in the opening line of the bible: “In the beginning there was a formless void and the Spirit of God hovered over the waters.” It is presented as a physical force, a wind that comes from the mouth of God and not only shapes and orders physical creation, but is the energy that lies at the base of everything, animate and inanimate alike.
The ancients believed that there was a soul in everything (God’s breath), which held everything together and gave it meaning. They understood that this same breath is also the source of all wisdom, harmony, peace, creativity, morality and fidelity. The breath of God was one force, and it did not contradict itself. The physical and the spiritual world were not set against each other. One spirit was understood to be the source of both. We need to understand things in that same way….
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St. Paul, in his letter to the Galatians, tells us that there are two kinds of spirit—the spirit of the sarx (a spirit that opposes God) and the spirit of God, the Holy Spirit. The former is the spirit of envy, anger, gossip, factionalism, idolatry, impurity, self-centeredness, and bitterness. This spirit brings division and unhappiness.
Conversely, there is the Holy Spirit, the spirit of charity, joy, peace, patience, goodness, long-suffering, mildness, faith, fidelity, and chastity. This latter spirit brings unity and happiness into our lives.
In John’s Gospel, the Holy Spirit is described as the paraclete, an advocate—a lawyer for the poor. What an interesting concept! John tells us that the crucifixion of Jesus will set free the paraclete and that it will convict the world of its wrongness in crucifying an innocent person, Jesus. Among other things, then, the Holy Spirit is the defender of the accused, of the victim, of the scapegoat, of anyone whom society deems expendable for the sake of the culture.
To live in the Holy Spirit, therefore, is to be an advocate, a lawyer, for the poor and for those who are being victimized and scapegoated by the culture. Biblically the Holy Spirit is the person and the principle both of private renewal and of social justice. By living in the Holy Spirit, we come to selflessness and joy in our lives and we, too, become advocates for the poor.
—Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI
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As we consider who and what we are in the mirror of the coronavirus pandemic, we can ask ourselves, what do we hope for? If we think as small, puny individuals, we create a small, puny, individualist world that cannot survive. If we think as holons, smaller wholes who are part of larger wholes, we think in terms of participation, evolution and future. “I have set before you life and death; choose life.” (Dt 30:15) We have a chance to rewire ourselves for a new existence but we must begin to live in a new way.
Here are some tips gleaned from the wisdom traditions that can enlighten our choices. Live each moment as if it were the last because eternity dwells in every breath; live not counting possessions but counting the gifts of the moment; forgive out of an abundance of goodness because the future is our only reality; love without regret, and trust the power of divine presence within. Where there is God, there is change and where there is change, there is future life. It is time to let go of the notion that we will return to “business as usual.” There is no “usual” and the rules of what is normative have been dispensed. We are in a global breakthrough in evolution and if we want a different world, we must become a different people.
—Sr. Ilia Delio, OSF
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I arise today
through the strength of heaven;
Light of the sun,
Splendor of fire,
Speed of lightning,
Swiftness of the wind,
Depth of the sea,
Stability of the earth,
Firmness of the rock.
I arise today
Through God’s strength to pilot me;
God’s might to uphold me,
God’s wisdom to guide me,
God’s eye to look before me,
God’s ear to hear me,
God’s word to speak for me,
God’s hand to guard me,
God’s way to lie before me,
God’s shield to protect me,
God’s hosts to save me
Afar or anear,
Alone or in a multitude.
Christ shield me today
Against wounding
Christ within me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down,
Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in the eye that sees me,
Christ in the ear that hears me.
I arise today
Through the mighty strength
Of the Lord of creation.
—St. Patrick
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It is the Spirit who causes us to be one in the Body of Christ. We have all received the same Spirit, enlivening us….We are in God and God is in us, and the unifying force is the Spirit. To live in the Spirit is the fulfillment of every law and commandment, the sum of every duty to each other, and the joy of oneness with everything that is.
—Fr. Thomas Keating, OCSO
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June 14: Corpus Christi—The Body and Blood of Christ
A Prayer Before Mass
Here is my body. Take it. Here is my blood. Take it. Here is my soul, my will, my energy, my strength, my property, my wealth—all that I have. It is yours. Take it! Consecrate it! Offer it with yourself to the heavenly Father. Consecrate these trials of my life. Transubstantiate me so that like bread which is now your Body, and wine which is now your Blood, I too may be wholly yours. My station in life, my routine duties, my work, my family—all these are but the species of my life which may remain unchanged. But the substance of my life—my soul, my mind, my will, my heart—transubstantiate them, transform them wholly into your service, so that through me all may know how sweet is the love of Christ. Amen.
—Archbishop Fulton Sheen
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LONELINESS
What does loneliness do for us? Very intense loneliness destabilizes the ego and makes it too fragile to sustain us in the normal way. We begin to unravel, feel ourselves become unglued, become aware of our smallness, and know in the roots of our being that we need to connect to something larger than ourselves to survive. That’s a very painful experience and we tend to flee from it.
However, and this is a great paradox, this experience of intense loneliness is one of the privileged ways of finding the deep answer to our quest for identity and meaning. Because it destabilizes the ego and disorients us, loneliness puts us in touch with what lays below the ego—namely, the soul, our deepest self. The image and likeness of God lies in there, as do our most noble and divine energies.
And so, the lesson is this: Don’t run from loneliness. Don’t see it as your enemy. Don’t look for another person to cure your loneliness. See loneliness as a privileged avenue to depth and empathy.
—Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI
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“Sitting Without Sitting”: from Reactive Mind to Receptive Mind
Practice is both simple and simplifying. By sheer grace something precious opens up from within our practice itself. All of the joys and difficulties of life, be they cause for rejoicing, utterly mundane, or completely derailing ARE the prayer bench, the chair, the bed that illness has turned into a home, the prayer cushion themselves.
We are liberated from our impatience with the line of people before us at the grocery store. This is our prayer cushion. People doing the most curious things in traffic need not provoke ire, but can be met with calm abiding in the present moment in which all this potentially dangerous nonsense is occurring.
We are accustomed to practicing with thoughts that arise from within as we sit in silence. But because practice itself is inherently self-effacing, receptive, and generous, external situations that provoke impatience, fear, or embarrassment are included in the wide embrace of practice itself. We are this practice whenever, wherever, and with whomever we are. This is what the phrase “sitting without sitting” refers to. Life itself has become a prayer bench, an invitation to practice, simply because we are.
This is especially good news. For whenever the reasoning mind…is not doing what it is created to do (reason, invent, create, etc.) it is usually up to no good. The invitation is to donate ourselves to practice outside of official times. Doing the washing, the ironing, folding laundry, vacuuming, setting the table, walking from the car into work, grocery shopping are each gracious invitations to practice just by being.
There are so many times during the day when our minds are not absorbed by reason’s purpose. Instead of giving ourselves the opportunity to blend and shake a reactive cocktail of anxious worry, frothy with commentary on how everybody else ought to behave, we donate our intention and attention to practice. This is a really obvious thing to do; in receptive mind there is a subtle deeply alluring quality to practice when, decluttered of self-consciousness, it has become a simplifying way of being. In due time, “sitting without sitting” establishes certain conduits of very loving light that render us vulnerable enough to see.
—Fr. Martin Laird, OSA
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Wisdom from Pope Francis
How many people every day are exercising patience and offering hope, taking care to sow not panic but a shared responsibility. How many fathers, mothers, grandparents and teachers are showing our children, in small everyday gestures, how to face up to and navigate a crisis by adjusting their routines, lifting their gaze and fostering prayer. How many are praying, interceding for the good of all. Prayer and quiet service: these are our victorious weapons. “Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?” Faith begins when we realize we are in need of salvation. Let us invite Jesus into the boats of our lives. Let us hand over our fears to him so that he can conquer them. With him on board there will be no shipwreck. Because this is God’s strength: turning to the good everything that happens to us, even the bad things. He brings serenity into our storms, because with God life never dies.
—To be continued…from the “Urbi et Orbi” Message given by Pope Francis on March 27, 2020, along with an extraordinary Blessing and Plenary Indulgence for Everyone in the World who prays for an end to the COVID-19 pandemic
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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
