Medjugorje Message: October 25, 2019
Dear children! Today I call you to prayer. May prayer be a balm to your soul, because the fruit of prayer is joy, giving and witnessing God to others—through your life. Little children, in complete surrender to God, He will take care of everything and will bless you; and your sacrifices will have meaning. I am with you and bless you all with my motherly blessing. Thank you for having responded to my call.
River of Light
November 2019
In this month of All Saints and All Souls, Our Lady once again teaches that prayer is the path of our own sanctification and spiritual health: “Today I call you to prayer. May prayer be a balm to your soul, because the fruit of prayer is joy, giving and witnessing God to others—through your life.” Here Our Lady clearly connects our own interior prayer life to its inevitable “ripple effect” in the world beyond our inner self—in the impact it has for evangelization or mission in the larger society in which we live.
When we pray, the “balm to our soul” that we experience through conscious contact with God—the Divine Indwelling Presence of Love at our inmost center and at the center of All Reality—inevitably produces a “fruit.” And “the fruit of prayer is JOY,” Our Lady says. This makes sense, for “Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God.” (Leon Bloy) Joy cannot be hidden or contained. It may be loud, flashy and exuberant in those with a bubbly, outgoing personality; or it may be quiet, steady, and warmly glowing in those with a more subtle or placid personality. In any case, our JOY will be visible and apparent, and will consist, Our Lady says, of “giving and witnessing GOD to others—through our life.”
In John 8:12, Jesus says, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” But in Matthew 5:13, Jesus says, “YOU are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.” This illustrates the human/divine ONENESS or Unity Consciousness that PRAYER brings about: When we pray, we are in conscious contact with the Indwelling Light of the World, which gives our whole being “the light of life.” Therefore, we cannot help “giving and witnessing” this LIGHT to others, thus becoming ourselves the “Light of the World” that “cannot be hidden”! Jesus urges us: “Let your light so shine” that others may see and glorify the Indwelling GOD who animates All and Everything. (Mt 5:16)
So our PRAYER will inevitably bear the fruit of JOY, and this joy is manifested to others “through our life” in many ways. This does not mean we’re always blissfully happy, saccharine-sweet, or in a perpetual Pollyanna-cheerleader mood. We are human–both feeling and expressing the normal range of human emotions, just as Jesus did. When we suffer the setbacks, reversals, difficulties, trials, troubles and adversity that are part of the human condition, we experience sadness, frustration, grief, depression, anger, and fear, like everyone else. But if we remain PRAYERFUL through all situations and circumstances, our “prayer-fruit” of JOY will still shine through our suffering and affliction, for it will provide “a balm to our soul,” Our Lady says.
In life’s hard times, how will our “joy” be manifest? Our Lady indicates how: “Little children, in complete surrender to God, He will take care of everything and will bless you; and your sacrifices will have meaning. I am with you and bless all of you with my motherly blessing.” One of the most edifying, encouraging and uplifting experiences in life is to witness the way a person of prayer handles suffering and adversity. Often we observe that “the joy of the Lord is their strength” (Neh 8:10): unflaggingly apparent even in spite of their troubling difficulties.
For PRAYER enables us to rise above our circumstances. Just as an airplane rises through dark clouds and thunderstorms to the sunny blue sky of higher altitudes, a prayerful person rises to a “higher ATTITUDE” toward life’s problems—from the earthbound panic of despair to the “sunlight of the spirit.” Terrible setbacks can even be greeted with humor: smiles, laughter and joking—and most importantly—with “complete surrender to God” and TRUST that “He will take care of everything and will bless you.”
As Jesus told the suppliants when the synagogue official’s daughter had apparently died: “Fear is useless; what is needed is TRUST” (Mk 5:36)…and on many other miraculous occasions: “Go in peace, for your FAITH has saved you.” Only through a committed practice of PRAYER do we experience the “fruit” of an ever-present JOY that can carry us through life’s trials, for it gives us a deep trust and strong faith in the Divine Presence we have experienced daily through our “conscious contact with God.” We KNOW—at the most profound, cellular level of our being—that we are not alone, for we truly have Emmanuel—“God with us”—as an Indwelling Presence we’ve experienced daily.
The other “joy-fruit” of PRAYER that Our Lady mentions is this: “Your sacrifices will have MEANING.” When we pray consistently, we are gradually given the gifts of perspective and discernment when troubles come that require from us a “sacrifice“—a giving up or giving in of some cherished element or aspect of our life. Sometimes we’re called to make a substantial material/financial sacrifice of our usual “standard of living” or preferred lifestyle; or the renunciation/reduction of habits and addictions that are grippingly powerful; or the tragic loss or needed relinquishing of people and relationships that are vitally cherished attachments; or the ending of a professional career path that has given us purpose; or the diminishment of our health and physical strength through illness and aging. All of these sacrifices appear at some point in normal human life and they can be heartbreakingly sad and enormously difficult to bear. But Our Lady says that as a joyful fruit of prayer, “Your sacrifices will have meaning.” What a tremendous gift!
While many of our most challenging life events will remain shrouded in the Mystery of Divine Providence, with no rational or satisfying “explanation” this side of heaven—for those attuned to God in PRAYER, many “answers” and inspirations are given by the Holy Spirit, suggesting to us the ways in which our particular sacrifices are needed for the ripening or maturing of our soul. Often we are gifted, through prayer, with deep insights into our own egoic False Self and our character defects in need of healing, and we are graced with an understanding that the sacrifices and sufferings we are experiencing have been “custom-cut” to fit the specific spiritual growth and development out of selfishness and into Love that we need most. Through these prayerful realizations we can verify and confirm Our Lady’s words: “Your sacrifices will have MEANING.” They are not just random mishaps, but a laser-focused, purifying fire.
In showing us how all things in our life are working (to “credit” our unique “deficits”) for our ultimate and highest good, PRAYER is truly, as Our Lady says, “a balm to your soul.” There is a traditional African American spiritual that refers to the biblical healing medicine of the balsam tree in Palestine. (Jer 8:22) This hymn conveys the power of PRAYER for receiving Christ’s healing Holy Spirit: “There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole; There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin-sick soul. Sometimes I feel discouraged, and think my work’s in vain, but then the Holy Spirit revives my soul again.”
Our Lady’s message ends with this assurance: “I am with you and bless all of you with my motherly blessing.” Through PRAYER we can experience this presence of Mary, especially in meditation upon the holy rosary, where we enter into the particulars of her earthly life and feel her maternal care touching each detail of our own life.
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Choose to perceive in every event today the Presence of transforming grace.
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November: Thanksgiving Reflection
Will we all get along at Thanksgiving Dinner this year? The holiday table brings together family members from disparate locations, both geographical and political—sometimes resulting in tension, conflict, and all-out fighting. Our country is in a tragically polarized condition this year; in fact, it is estimated that the Number One Security Risk for the United States right now is not outside terrorism, but our internal division and enmity toward each other as Americans. Sadly, at this very dark moment in our nation’s history, we are not the “UNITED” States, but the “DISUNITED” States—which makes us very vulnerable to attacks from any direction, for “A house divided against itself cannot stand,” as Jesus said. (Mt 12:22) “United we stand, divided we fall” was a popular slogan during WW II, when Americans were so strongly unified.
Unfortunately, it seems that the toxic media “echo chambers” of both the Far Right and the Far Left have succeeded in keeping easily-led and easily-influenced people separated into “bubbles” of extreme propaganda with no understanding of each other’s perspective possible. In this way, ALL Americans are being “played” by the powerful dividing forces active on social media, cable television, radio, and print.
The Archbishop of San Antonio addressed the difficulty of building up the kingdom of God in our midst in these troubling times:
“There is so much division and polarization, so much anger and hatred, so much enclosing ourselves behind walls with people who think exactly the way we do. But Pope Francis, relying on the Word of God, gives us the antidote to all of this poison: true encounter with others; authentic mutual respect and dialogue; inclusion; recovering respect for Mother Earth, the environment. Jesus accompanies us on our journey together. The Holy Spirit gives us wisdom, prudence, courage, guidance.”
—Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller, MSpS
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“EUCHARIST” means “Thanksgiving”
At his last supper, Jesus gave us an action, a sacred ritual for his community that would summarize his core and lasting message for the world—one to keep repeating until his return, to hold the group and teaching together. This deep message was to slowly sink in….The Eucharistic mime—a story enacted through motions more than words—has four main aspects that we are to imitate:
Take / Give Thanks / Break Open / Eat
- You also should take your full life in your hands. In very physical and incarnational language, table bread is daringly called “my body” and wine is called “my blood.” You are saying a radical “yes” to both the physical universe and the bloody suffering of your own life and all the world’s.
- You then thank God (“Eucharisteo” in Greek), who is the Origin of all life and who allows and uses death. You are making a choice for gratitude, abundance and appreciation for Another, who has the power to radically de-center you. Your life and death are pure gift and must be given away in trust.
- You choose to break your life and death wide open. You let your life be broken, used up, and you don’t use your life protecting yourself. In handing over the small self you discover your True Self in God. The crushed grain and grapes become the broken bread and intoxicating wine. There is no other way for transformation to happen.
- You then chew on this mystery for the rest of your days! Divine truth is known by participation and practice—not by mere thinking or discussing or even believing. You eventually have to “eat” the truth more than understand it.
—Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM
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The future will be what we make it; let us reflect on this thought so that it may motivate us to act. Especially, let us realize that all collective reform must first be individual reform. Let us work at transforming ourselves and our lives. Let us influence those around us, not by useless preaching, but by the irresistible power of our spirituality and the example of our lives. Let us give ourselves generously and try to strengthen our faith and expand our understanding, confident that all will come to us to be rekindled and to enlighten their hearts and minds.
The world is unable to recognize spiritual reality; it does not know how to penetrate the outer covering that veils our inmost self. Any strength, purity, and truth in us is seen in our depths only by Him who lives in us and judges us with more justice and love than men and women. What a reason to be faithful and courageous in daily life! Nothing goes unnoticed by our eternal Guest; the least of our actions has a profound effect on others.
Let us love. Let our lives be a perpetual song of love for God, first, and for all human beings who suffer, love and mourn. Let deep joy live in us. Let us awaken others to the spiritual life. Why do we put off doing the good until tomorrow? Cannot a word from us strengthen someone in distress? Cannot an act of pure love coming from our depths brighten a sad life?
—Elisabeth Leseur
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God has created me to do him some definite service; he has committed some work to me which he has not committed to another. I have my mission—I never may know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next….I have a part in a great work; I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good, I shall do his work; I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it, if I do but keep his commandments and serve him in my calling.
Therefore I will trust him. Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve him; if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve him. My sickness, or perplexity, or sorrow may be necessary causes of some great end, which is quite beyond us. He does nothing in vain; he may prolong my life, he may shorten it; he knows what he is about. He may take away my friends, he may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide the future from me—still he knows what he is about.
—St. John Henry Newman
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Wisdom from Pope Francis
All Saints is “our” feast: not because we are good, but because the holiness of God has touched our lives. Saints are not perfect, but are people whose lives God has crossed. Like stained glass windows in a church, they allow light to enter in different shades of color. The saints have welcomed the light of God into their hearts and have passed it on to the world, each one according to their own “tone.” No matter the color they give, all of them are transparent. They have fought to take away the stains of darkness and sin, so as to let the light of God pass through. This is the purpose of life, even for us.
The saints breathe the air polluted by the evil in the world, but along the way they never lose sight of Jesus’ path, the one indicated in the Beatitudes, which are the map of Christian life. The Feast of All Saints is also for the simple and hidden people we may know, who through everyday holiness help God to carry the world forward.
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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
