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Medjugorje
Message: December 25, 2013 Dear children! I am carrying to you the King of Peace that he
may give you His peace. You, little children, pray, pray, pray. The fruit of prayer
will be seen on the faces of the people who have decided for God and His
Kingdom. I, with my Son Jesus, bless you all with a blessing of peace. Thank
you for having responded to my call. Annual Message to Jacov Colo: Dec. 25,
2013 Little children, today in a special way, Jesus desires to come
to dwell in each of your hearts and to share with you your every joy and
pain. Therefore, little children, today in a special way, peer into your
hearts and ask yourselves if the peace and joy of the birth of Jesus have
truly taken hold of your hearts. Little children, do not live in darkness,
aspire towards the light and toward God’s salvation. Children, decide for
Jesus and give Him your life and your hearts, because only in this way will
the Most High be able to work in you and through you. |
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Published
by the Marian Center of San Antonio / A Catholic Evangelization Ministry Our Lady’s Christmas message confronts us with vital existential
questions: Have we “gotten” what Christmas is all about? Have we truly
understood, and—more importantly—begun to LIVE the reality of Christmas? Do we grasp as our very own the fact
of Emmanuel—“God WITH us”? Have we internalized at the deepest core of our being the reality
of the Divine Indwelling Presence of Christ? Our Lady uses three words to describe the unmistakable effects of
this realization: “peace”…“joy”… “light.” In 1981 at Medjugorje, Our Lady announced
herself as the “Queen of Peace” with her first message: “Peace,
peace, peace—only peace!” In the past 32 years she has
shown us the way to peace through her “School of Prayer.” Innumerable times she has called to us: “Pray,
pray, pray!” and she begins the New Year
of 2014 with these same words. Her mission on earth is to bring peace through
the only possible channel: an evolution of human consciousness that
comes with prayer. Again today she tells us: “I am carrying to you the
King of Peace that He may give you His
peace. You, little children, pray, pray, pray.” In Medjugorje Mary is calling us to the contemplative dimension of the Gospel and of our Christian faith—to the ancient disposition
toward “contemplative” prayer, a divine gift that begins in silence and meditation and is given when there
is a heart and mind open in receptivity to God’s presence and action
within one’s soul. Prayer is “our part” of the equation—the opening
of heart and mind in total receptivity,
consent, yieldedness, abandonment, and surrender
to the I AM, the One
Who Is, the indwelling Source of our
Being. The result of this deep level of prayer—the fruit of contemplation—is PEACE, revealed in our ordinary life.
Our Lady says, “The
fruit of prayer will be seen on the
faces of the people who have decided for God and His Kingdom.” What do we see on the faces of such people? Lines of laughter,
joy, mirth, softness, gentleness, and acceptance of others; eyes sparkling
with clarity, insight, wisdom, and mischief; smiling mouths that speak with
kindness and humor rather than sourness or critical judgment. We see not
worry but trust; not fear but faith; not anger but love. What we see in such faces is PEACE. This peace is a combination of “joy” and “light.” Joy
is the consistent feeling of the higher emotional center, which actually registers no negative emotions
at all; unfortunately we live most of
our lives without ever connecting to our higher emotional center. Instead, we
live daily in the clutches of our egoic
personality or false self—the small “i”
that is always reacting to outside influences and conditions, totally dependent
upon external circumstances and forces for its “happiness.” As a result,
we often experience “unhappiness”—sadness, depression, anxiety, anger,
rage, worry, envy, jealousy, etc.—when people, places and
things “outside” of ourselves fail to
be what our egoic little “i”
wants them to be. In contrast to this fleeting and ephemeral sort of happiness, “joy” is an experience of the higher emotional center, rooted in our deepest interior being, “IN”-dependent rather
than beholden to “OUT”side variables beyond our
“control.” Centered in our inmost core through prayer, we discover the Indwelling
Presence of God, the “Higher Power” that sources
all of life in the universe, including our own body and soul. As Our Lady
says, “Jesus
desires to come to dwell in each of your hearts and to share with you your
every joy and pain.” Once we begin to experience
this Divine Indwelling Presence of “Emmanuel-God-WITH-us,” we undergo a profound shift of consciousness and personality
change as “joy” becomes our constant emotional “climate,” no matter what pains or
setbacks occur in our life. Peace is made up of “joy” in the emotional center and “light” in the intellectual center. Just as we have a higher emotional center, we also have a higher
intellectual center of which we are mostly
unaware throughout our life in the
false self or small “i.” Our ordinary thinking
center relates to life via external senses, memory, imagination, reasoning,
and acts of will that are driven and directed primarily by the dim
lights of the superficial, false-self
agenda stuck in “reactionary mode,” spinning off of external conditions,
influences, impressions and events. In contrast, our higher intellectual center—in addition to using those same functions of our ordinary thinking
center—operates through intuitive faculties or “eyes of the spirit” purified by faith and joined with the consistent “joy” of the
higher emotional center. Higher
intellectual center therefore sees the world with
“objective reason” rather than the partial and biased reasoning of the egoic/false self. This “light” is right
perception of reality. When, through a daily practice of deep silent prayer open to contemplative
grace, we begin to think
with our higher intellectual center and objective reason, it is like seeing Reality with a super-charged floodlight rather than with the tiny AAA-battery penlight we’ve always used. Our Lady says, “Little children, do not live in
darkness, aspire towards the light
and toward God’s salvation.” Scripture says, “God
is light
and in him there is no darkness at all.” (1 Jn 1:5) With the coming of the Christ, we are told, “The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light” (Isa 9:2; Mt 4:16); and that “The
true light, which enlightens
everyone, was coming into the world.” (Jn 1:9) When human beings begin to see the world with this Light (objective reason) of the Higher Intellectual Center and feel the world with this Joy of the Higher Emotional Center, PEACE on earth can come at last, person by person. As we “decide for God”
and “give our life and heart to Jesus” from these higher centers, Our Lady
says, finally, “only in this way will the Most High
be able to work in you and through you.” As we live these holy days of Epiphany and the Christmas season,
Our Lady invites us to a prayerful contemplative inwardness: “Peer
into your hearts and ask yourselves if the peace and joy of the birth of
Jesus have truly taken hold of your hearts.”
January Musings: Celebrating Christmas
Properly . . . Epiphany: Feast of Contemplatives . . .
Beyond Ideology for Mary’s Feast & World Day of Peace (Jan 1) . . . Gems of St. Thomas Aquinas (Jan. 28) The text speaks of the
birth of a child, not the revolutionary deed of a strong man, or the
breathtaking discovery of a sage, or the pious deed of a saint. It truly
boggles the mind: The birth of a child is to bring about
the great transformation of all things, is to bring salvation and
redemption to all of humanity. As if to shame the most powerful human efforts
and achievements, a child is placed in the center of world history. A child
born of humans, a son given by God. This is the mystery of the redemption of
the world; all that is past and all that is to come. All who at the manger
finally lay down all power and honor, all prestige, all vanity, all arrogance
and self-will; all who take their place among the lowly and let God alone be
high; all who see the glory of God in the lowliness of the child in the
manger: these are the ones who will truly celebrate Christmas. –
Dietrich Bonhoeffer + +
+ + +
+ + +
+ + +
+ + +
+ + + Jesus did not merely
assume a human body and soul; He assumed the actual human condition in
its entirety, including the instinctual needs of human nature and the
cultural conditioning of His time…. “The Word was made flesh” signifies that by taking the human
condition upon Himself with all its consequences,
Jesus introduced into the entire human family the principle of transcendence,
giving the evolutionary process a decisive thrust toward God-consciousness….The
joy of Christmas is the intuition that all limitations to growth into
higher states of consciousness have been overcome. The Divine Light cuts
across all darkness, prejudice, preconceived ideas, prepackaged values, false
expectations, phoniness and hypocrisy. It presents us with the truth. To
act out of the truth is to make Christ grow not only in ourselves, but in
others. The humdrum duties and events of daily life become sacramental,
shot through with eternal implications. The light of Christmas is an explosion of
insight changing our whole idea of God. Our childish ways of thinking of God
are left behind. As we turn our enchanted gaze toward the Babe in the
crib, our inmost being opens to the new consciousness that the Babe has
brought to the world. – Fr. Thomas Keating, OCSO + + +
+ + +
+ + +
+ + +
+ + +
+ + [Epiphany] is the
feast of contemplatives in the Church, in all the world religions, and in
humanity….Epiphany means revelation. What revelation? The revelation of
Ultimate Reality whom we call God…but who goes by other names, and, in fact,
could be called anything, because the God that we worship IS everything. Each
of us is manifesting God, or at least we have that potential along
with every other creature, of doing so….Epiphany is the crown or the full
bloom of the theological idea of divine light. Epiphany is the
Christian celebration of what…other religions call enlightenment. Enlightenment
is the inward realization and consciousness of being identified with who we
really are. We’re not our false selves or egos. Kiss them goodbye,
they have no future. We have to have an ego in some degree to function in
this life, but the most important aspect of our life is the epiphany or
revelation of God that is going on all the time in the details of life….If
we have any existence at all, we must be present to and penetrated by this
presence…. What is being revealed
is that the Divine Nature has united with our human nature and that this is being
discovered and becoming conscious in the lives of ordinary folks like us….Everything that God
does is coming from love with an immense energy that science is just
beginning to suspect. Invisible energies have to become felt or sensed
for us to understand them….The sacraments of the Church are about the
transmission of Divine life and love. They are about the interpenetration of
spirits; they are about the symbols and beauty of sexual love raised to
the level of total gift of self. To be a contemplative is to be willing to
be loved concretely in every detail of life and on every level of human life,
body, soul, and spirit. If you are merely thinking of receiving the
Eucharist as a ritual, go home. That’s not what it is. It may start with
that, but the Eucharist is primarily about
the interpenetration of spirits—all that you are into all that God is,
and all that God is into all that you are, including every detail of your
life….Why be afraid of anything?... Gratitude,
self-surrender, enjoyment of the Divine presence—these are the dispositions
that make you a contemplative. The experience of God’s presence and action within you
leads to a greater and greater capacity to see this action in everybody else
and throughout the cosmos. It creates a marvelous open-mindedness toward
all truth. God then has the freedom to enrich us as He wills….
Contemplation is the experience of God that is becoming continuous and
permanent even in the details of everyday life and amid the distractions of
computers and reports of the horrors of violence throughout the world. The
Divine goodness and the presence of Divine love are there as your
contemplative clarity deepens, and you move from the occasional
experience of it to a permanent state of loving and interaction on a moment-by-moment
basis…. Epiphany, the feast of Divine Light, is not the end of the journey,
but the beginning, in which we begin to see and live with the enlightened
eyes of faith. – Fr. Thomas Keating, OCSO + +
+ + +
+ + +
+ + +
+ + +
+ The Incarnation of the
Word made flesh is the marriage between the divine and human nature in
Jesus Christ. We share in the mystery of the Word made flesh in virtue of
the oneness of the human species and become one body with Christ…. This
season, let us put aside all fear and surrender to the Eucharistic presence
in which Christ (God) gobbles you up….So be yummy!
That is to say, really surrender to God! Turn your life over completely to
love and see what remains—hopefully nothing but God.
So let
God be all in all in you. – Fr. Thomas Keating, OCSO + +
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If the Christian message
means something, it is this experience of the “cosmotheandric” reality of all being, of which Jesus
Christ, true God and true Man, is the paradigm.
In Christ Matter is not on its own, nor is Man on one side and God
on the other; none of these intrinsically united dimensions surpass the
others, so that it does not make sense to affirm that Christ is more
divine than human, more worldly than heavenly, or vice versa. The veil of
separation has been torn, and the integration of reality begins with the
redemption of man. – Fr. Raimon Panikkar + +
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+
The first thing you
have to do, before you start thinking about such a thing as contemplation, is
to try to recover your basic natural unity, to reintegrate your
compartmentalized being into a coordinated and simple whole, and learn
to live as a unified human person. This means that you have to bring back
together the fragments of your distracted existence so that when you say “I” there
is really someone present to support the pronoun you have
uttered. –
Thomas Merton + +
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Every year of life
waxes and wanes. Every stage of life comes and goes. Every facet of life is
born and then dies. Every good moment is doomed to become only a memory. Every
perfect period of living slips through our fingers and disappears. Every hope
dims and every possibility turns eventually to dry clay. Until Christmas comes again.
Then we are called at the deepest, most subconscious, least cognizant
level to begin once more to live newly again. Christmas brings us back to the
crib of life to start over: aware of what has gone before, conscious that
nothing can last, but full of hope that this time, finally, we can learn what
it takes to live well, grow to full stature of souls and spirit, get it
right. There is a child in
each of us waiting to be born again. It is to those looking for life that the
figure of the Christ, a child, beckons. Christmas is not for children. It is
for those who refuse to give up and grow old, for those to whom life comes
newly and with purpose each and every day, for those who can let yesterday go
so that life can be full of new possibility always, for those who are
agitated with newness whatever their age. Life is for the living, for those in
whom Christmas is a feast without finish, a celebration of change, a call to
begin once more the journey to human joy and holy meaning. – Sr. Joan Chittister + +
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Moving Beyond Ideologies of “Right” and
“Left” to the Center of Compassion: Liberal ideology…doesn’t easily bend
the knee in joyous doctrinal and gospel surrender. Still, it has its own
strong points. It fosters other gospel values. Precisely because it values
human autonomy so strongly, it has been a major prophetic force in helping
overcome intolerance, bigotry, narrowness and rigidity of every sort. The
fight—and it is a gospel
fight—against racism, sexism, ecological insensitivity, and undue privilege
for the rich, has been led by the liberals more often than not. Liberty,
equality, and fraternity…are in the end gospel values….Human autonomy
and the gospel are not at odds. The same types of
things might also be said about conservative ideology. It too has its strengths,
along with an Achilles heel. Conservative ideology is strong
on doctrinal and gospel surrender, and, in theory at least, emphasizes
that this surrender be a joyful one. The problem is that too often, in
practice, that surrender is anything but joyful. The Achilles heel of
conservative ideology is that it often produces the older brother of the
Prodigal Son….Like his or her biblical counterpart, the conservative
ideologue too often stands outside the circle celebration, outside the dance,
and outside the circle of gratitude through anger and judgment at the faults
of others. But conservative ideology also has its strengths….It can
inspire a healthy genuflection to something higher than the individual and
collective ego. Moreover, its emphasis on the fact that, here in this
life, we mourn and weep in a valley of tears…helps make its devotees a bit
more willing to sweat the blood of self-sacrifice, even sacrificing autonomy
and private dreams…. Liberal ideology too often cannot
induce joyful self-surrender….Conservative ideology too often produces
angry, rigid people. Both ideologies have their innate dangers: One can
make for “prodigal sons,” just as the other can make for “older brothers.”…We
can be outside the Father’s house through willful pride or through jealous
bitterness….I doubt that most liberals and conservatives are outside the
Father’s house. Sincerity, integrity and goodness abound on both sides, despite
weakness….Ideology, on both sides, too often puts us outside the
circle of full compassion…. “It is time for the left and the right to
admit that they have run out of imagination, that the categories of liberal and
conservative are dysfunctional, and that what is needed is a radicalism that
takes us beyond the selective sympathies of both the right and the left.
Such radicalism can be found only in the gospel, which is
neither liberal nor conservative but fully compassionate.” How does one
become fully compassionate?...Become post-ideological: post-right,
post-left, post-middle, post-liberal, post-conservative, post-sophisticated,
post-angry, post-neurotic, and post-classifiable. Sound a bit
complicated? Maybe Jesus had a better wording: “The good scribe reaches into the bag and pulls out the new as well
as the old.” -- Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI + +
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January
1: Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of
God We believe that nobody
else can bring us as Mary can into the divine and human dimension of
the mystery of the Redemption. – Pope John Paul II Let us contemplate this
Virgin on the verge of birth, this living tabernacle of the Incarnation, in
order to imitate her blessed expectation…in unique intimacy with her
Son—her God!...Let us learn from her how to await the
coming of our Savior by rejecting all that would distract us from the
humble perseverance necessary to our own personal vocation. Let us
experience with her the constant and joyous vigilance that knows how to
recognize in our own everyday tasks the sweet birth-pangs of his arrival.
Let us understand through her what is the true miracle of Christmas—he
whom, with her, we have so long borne within us,
he whose coming we so ardently desire. – Pierre-Marie
Dumont + + +
+ + +
+ + +
+ + +
+ +
+ + + Maxims of St.
Thomas Aquinas, “Angelic” Doctor of the Church Feast Day:
January 28 1) In the field of human science, the argument
from authority is weakest. 2) There is nothing that does not share in
goodness and beauty. Each thing is good and beautiful
by its own proper form. 3) Evil does not exist, except in a good
subject. 4) In every good, the supreme good is desired. 5) All desires presuppose love as their first
root. 6) All fear springs from love. Ordered love is
included in every virtue, disordered love in every
vice. 7) Malice consists in emptiness. 8) Love is absolutely stronger
than hate. 9) No human truly has joy unless that person
lives in love. 10) The human person has
a natural urge toward complete goodness. 11) Sins are as
preposterous in morals as monsters in nature. 12) Every judgment of
conscience, be it right or wrong, be it about things evil in themselves or
morally indifferent, is obligatory, in such wise that whoever acts against
conscience always does moral evil. 13) It must be said
flatly that the will that disobeys conscience as reason’s dictate is always in the wrong. 14) It is against reason
to be burdensome to others, showing no amusement and acting as a grouch.
Those without a sense of fun, who never say anything ridiculous and are
cantankerous with those who do, these are vicious and are called grumpy and
rude. 15) Justice without mercy
is cruelty; mercy without justice is a waste. 16) Two main reasons why
people fall short of justice—deference to the powerful and deference to the
mob. 17) “Person” signifies what
is noblest in the whole of nature. + +
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Mark Your Calendar!
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January 1 |
Mary, the Mother of God;
World Day of Peace |
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4 |
Portraits
of World Mysticism Class: Meister Eckhart with Prof. Bernard McGinn;
9:00 am-12 pm, Oblate School of Theology Whitley Theological Center, 285
Oblate; $40; call (210) 341-1366 x 212 |
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5 |
Epiphany of the Lord |
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6-17 |
2-week Spirituality Course:
Mysticism with Ed Alcott, PhD; M-F
6:30-9:30 pm; Oblate School of Theology, 285 Oblate Dr.; available
face-to-face or online, for credit/audit/enrichment; call (210) 341-1366 ext.
226 |
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11 |
African American Pastoral
Leadership Lecture Series: Black
Theology Today with Dr. Dwight
Hopkins; 9 am-12 pm; Oblate School of Theology Whitley Theol. Center; 285
Oblate Dr.; $20; call (210) 341-1366 x 222 |
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12 |
Baptism of the Lord |
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20 |
M.L.K., Jr. Day |
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21 |
Spirituality Course: Reading Religious Experience &
Discernment of Spirits with Frank Santucci, OMI;
Mondays
thru May 9, 7-9:30 pm; Oblate School of Theology, 285 Oblate Dr.;
available face-to-face or online, for credit/audit/enrichment; call (210)
341-1366 ext. 226 |
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22 |
Day of Prayer for the Unborn |
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23 |
Spirituality Course: Earth Insights—A Nature-Based Christian
Spirituality with Linda Gibler, PhD; Thursdays
thru May 9, 7-9:30 pm; Oblate School of Theology, 285 Oblate Dr.;
available face-to-face or online, for credit/audit/enrichment; call (210)
341-1366 ext. 226 |
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25 |
Conversion of St. Paul the Apostle PEACE
MASS: 12 pm, St. Mary’s Church, 202 N. St. Mary’s; Rosary at 11:30 am |
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26 |
Rosary-making:
2:00-5:30 pm, St. Mary’s Church, 202 N. St. Mary’s; free parking &
materials |
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28 |
St. Thomas Aquinas, Doctor of the
Church |
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31 |
Discovering
the Roots of Liturgy: A Jewish Sabbath Experience at Temple Beth-El; 5 pm-8:45 pm, 211 Belknap; $36
includes classroom instruction, shared worship and a traditional Shabbat
(Sabbath) dinner; call SoL Center at (210) 732-9927 |
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God is now on earth and humanity
in heaven; on every side all things comingle.
God has come on earth, while being fully in heaven; and while complete in
heaven, God is without diminution on earth. Though being the unchanging Word,
God became flesh to dwell amongst us. – St. John Chrysostom The birth of Christ in our souls
is for a purpose beyond ourselves: It
is because his manifestation in the world must be through us. -- Evelyn Underhill |
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Copyright, Marian Center of San Antonio. All
rights reserved. No part of this newsletter may be reproduced without
permission. |