Medjugorje Message: September 25, 2018
Dear children! Also nature extends signs of its love to you through the fruits which it gives you. Also, you, by my coming, have received an abundance of gifts and fruits. Little children, how much you have answered to my call, God knows. I am calling you—it is not late—decide for holiness and a life with God, in grace and in peace. God will bless you and give to you a hundred-fold, if you trust in Him. Thank you for having responded to my call.
River of Light
October 2018
Given at the time of the autumn equinox and the harvest moon, Our Lady’s message this month is—as always— attuned to the season of the year we are living. Entering fall, farmers are gathering in the fruits of their labor in the produce of their fields, and Our Lady is using this as a spiritual metaphor throughout her message to the world from Medjugorje. Just as “nature extends signs of its love to you through the fruits which it gives you,” Our Lady says, “also, you, by my coming, have received an abundance of gifts and fruits.” Here Our Lady is drawing a parallel between “Mother Earth”—a.k.a. our living biosphere “Gaia” or “Nature”—and herself. Indeed, she is the “New Eve” —“Mother of all the living” —who was appointed the mother of all humanity by her child, Jesus, the “Son of Man” on Calvary before he died on the cross. Like Great Nature itself, Mary is an icon of fertility, fecundity, fruitfulness and abundance, for she above all other humans was found to be “full of grace” and “blessed among women” through “the fruit of her womb, Jesus.”
In the harvest season of the year—September, October and November—crops are ripe for reaping what has been sown, and we “receive an abundance of gifts and fruits” from Mother Nature, represented by the autumn cornucopia or “Horn of Plenty,” overflowing with flowering plants, pumpkins, berries, squashes, gourds, apples, grapes, sweet potatoes, beets, corn, wheat, beans, pomegranates, carrots, cabbages, and every kind of fruit, vegetable and grain that the earth yields up for our pleasure in eating and drinking, by which we grow and thrive through the manifold foods received from the land.
Our Lady likens this cornucopia of edible blessings to the “abundance of gifts and fruits” we “have received by my coming” to Medjugorje for these past 37 years. The gifts of CONVERSION wrought by Our Lady’s apparitions are as many and varied as the multitude of products that Nature bestows in autumn: all the gifts and fruits of the Spirit that Scripture describes—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Galatians 5), wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, fear of the Lord (Isaiah 11), perseverance, modesty and chastity. Through the encounter with Our Lady’s messages at Medjugorje, millions of lives have been touched and influenced toward the conversion of heart that is her primary purpose, and in the process of daily conversion we have grown in all of these scriptural gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit. How extravagant the blessings we have received!
We must realize that, in addition to harvest time being the biggest display of an “abundance of gifts and fruits” from our loving and generous God through Nature’s bounty, it is also the most labor-intensive part of the growing season for the farmer—the HUMAN component of the equation. It is a time of back-breaking physical labor to reap what has been sown by wielding a sickle or scythe for cutting the grain from the field and then hauling the produce to market, storage, or table. Thus the fruit of the earth given by God demands and requires HUMAN COOPERATION and LABOR to be accessible to us as GIFT. Reality operates on the principle of a PARTNERSHIP between Creator and creatures as stewards of creation.
Continuing her harvest metaphor and introducing this human effort aspect, Our Lady says, “Little children, how much you have answered to my call, God knows. I am calling you—it is not late—decide for holiness and a life with God, in grace and peace. God will bless you and give to you a hundred-fold, if you trust Him.” Just as the farmer must first decide what to plant—where and how—and then with trust and confidence begin the hard work of tilling the soil in hopes of a yield of produce at harvest time, Our Lady is urging us to “plan our crop-planting” for a Gospel life that will extend through eternity, and then get to work with a heart full of trust in God who will give us a “hundred-fold” yield for our action taken now in good faith.
For not only will our Gospel life yield us earthly “grace and peace,” but also the “hundred-fold” return on our planting which is eternal life in heaven, “if we trust Him” —i.e. have FAITH. She says, “I am calling you—it is not late,” meaning that, unlike a food crop that must be planted at a specific time in order to bear fruit, in the work of conversion, it is NEVER TOO LATE to begin sowing seeds of eternal joy by “deciding for holiness.” No matter what month, day, or year it is, “NOW is the acceptable time; NOW is the day of salvation!” (2 Cor 6:2)
This month Our Lady teaches us that whether tracking the agricultural planting cycle of nature or the spiritual journey of persons through their earthly life, the message is one of a HUMAN-DIVINE COLLABORATION, a partnership between God and humanity that always involves BOTH faith and works. Just as a crop that is poorly planted, poorly tended, unwatered and unweeded will die and yield no fruit, so “faith without works is dead.” (James 2:26) St. Paul uses the same metaphor Our Lady uses: “For we are God’s co-workers. You are God’s field, God’s building.” (1 Cor 3:9) In an earlier message, Our Lady said, “Begin to work in your hearts as you are working in the fields. Work and change your hearts so that a new spirit from God can take its place in your hearts.” (4/25/85) And: “Pray in order to understand that you all, through your life and your example, ought to collaborate in the work of salvation. I wish that all people convert and see me and my Son Jesus IN YOU.” (5/25/96)
Like the farmer who, joining his sweat and labor to God’s grace of rich soil, sunshine and rainfall, brings forth food for many people beyond his own immediate family, likewise, our collaboration with the graces of Our Lady’s presence at Medjugorje is meant to spread salvation to “all people” —not just ourselves. This involves using the “farm tools” of our spiritual “field work” that Mary has given us these past 37 years. Our “tractor, plow, cultivator, combine, and baler” are the five practices of PRAYER, PEACE, FASTING, SCRIPTURE READING, and SACRAMENTS (daily Eucharist and monthly Confession)—all employed in the service of CONVERSION OF HEART. Do these requested practices from Our Lady seem burdensome or excessive? We may be sure that if we give our time, effort, love and life to them, the promised harvest of a prodigal, abundant, unearned yield—“good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over” (Lk 6:38)—shall be ours. And not only ours, but also the “hundred-fold” of others’ whose fruit-bearing conversions of heart God will produce through our collaboration!
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It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the Earth and in the contemplation of her beauties to know of wonder and humility.
—Rachel Carson
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Professing Christ calls for following Christ. The correct profession of faith must be accompanied by a correct conduct of life. Orthodoxy requires orthopraxis. From the start, Jesus never concealed this demanding truth from his disciples….“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” (Lk 9:23) As it was in the beginning, so it is today: Jesus does not only look for people to acclaim him. He looks for people to follow him.
—St. John Paul II
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October: Month of the Holy Rosary—the “Place” to Go
To linger in the domain of Mary is a divinely great thing. One does not ask about the utility of truly noble things, because they have their meaning within themselves. It is of infinite meaning to draw a deep breath of this purity….this place of holy tranquility. All prayer begins by becoming silent—recollecting scattered thoughts, feeling remorse at trespasses, directing one’s thoughts toward God. We are always in need of this place, especially when the convulsions of the times make clear…the homelessness of our lives. In such times, a great courage is demanded from us; a readiness to dispense with more, accomplish more than usual, and to persevere in a vacuum. So we require more than ever this place, not to creep into as a hiding place, but as a place to find the core of things, to become calm and confident once more.
For this reason the rosary is so important in times like ours—assuming that all slackness and exaggeration are done away with, and that it is used in its clear and original forcefulness. The rosary does not require any special preparation, and we need not generate thoughts of which we are not capable. Rather, we step into a well-ordered world, meet familiar images, and find roads that lead us to the essential.
—Msgr. Romano Guardini
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All our desires, because they aspire to greatness, remind us that to be a Christian is to be great, to be a child of God, to bear God, to be an extension of the Incarnation, and that the Christian has an immense task to perform. Because God dwells in him, he is entrusted with the duty of communicating God to others. For us it is not a question of giving up gifts and talents, but of making them bear fruit to the maximum for the sake of the Kingdom of Jesus. At every moment, rediscover the divine presence, reestablish contact with the Lord, and surrender yourselves into the hands of Jesus so that he may make what can live mature and prune away the dead branches.
—Fr. Maurice Zundel
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We must lay the axe to the root by operating on our very thoughts, as St. Paul advises, “bringing every thought into captivity to Christ.” We need a good brainwashing. Brainwashing is not propaganda; brain-dirtying is propaganda. Our thoughts are wild animals; only Christ can tame them. All we need to do is bring them to him—immediately. Thought is the rudder of life. As the poet Samual Smiles says:
Sow a thought, reap an act.
Sow an act, reap a habit.
Sow a habit, reap a character.
Sow a character, reap a destiny.
—Peter Kreeft
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I long to see us united with Christ’s boundless charity and transformed there, so that we who are sterile, unproductive, fruitless trees may be engrafted into the tree of life and so bear a sweet and flavorful fruit—not of ourselves but because of the Master of grace who is within us. Oh abyss of charity! So that we would not be separated from you, you chose to engraft yourself into me, and this was when you sowed your Word in Mary as in a field. Let’s wait no longer; let’s engraft ourselves in to the productive tree. Let’s run with eagerness, for the infinite Good calls for infinite desire!
—St. Catherine of Siena
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Wisdom from Pope Francis
A Christian must proclaim Jesus Christ in such a way that he be accepted: received, not refused. He knows that the proclamation of Jesus Christ is not easy, but that it does not depend on him. The proclamation of Jesus Christ, the proclamation of the truth, depends on the Holy Spirit. Jesus tells us, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he shall guide you into all the truth.” The truth does not enter into an encyclopedia. The truth is an encounter—a meeting with Supreme Truth, Jesus. No one owns the truth. We receive the truth when we meet it. The Christian who would bring the Gospel must go down this road: must listen to everyone! The Church does not grow by means of proselytizing, but by attraction, by witnessing. Christians who are afraid to build bridges and prefer to build walls are Christians who are not sure of their faith, not sure of Jesus Christ. When the Church loses this apostolic courage, she becomes a stalled Church, a tidy Church, that is without fertility, because she has lost the courage to go to the outskirts, where there are many people who are victims of idolatry, worldliness, weak thought, of so many things. Let us ask for this apostolic courage, so that we might be confident. If you make a mistake, you get up and go forward: that is the way.
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Mark Your Calendar
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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
