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Medjugorje
Message: June 25, 2015 Dear children! Also today the Most High gives me the grace to
be able to love you and to call you to conversion. Little children, may God
be your tomorrow and not war and lack of peace; not sorrow but joy and peace
must begin to reign in the heart of every person—but without God you will
never find peace. Therefore, little children, return to God and to prayer so
that your heart may sing with joy. I am with you and I love you with
immeasurable love. Thank you for having responded to my call. |
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Published
by the Marian Center of San Antonio / A Catholic Evangelization Ministry In this 34th anniversary message from Our Lady Queen of
Peace at Medjugorje, she returns to the theme of peace which she first announced on June 25, 1981, saying, “Peace, peace, peace—only peace!” Clearly Our Lady is in touch with the “war,” “lack of peace,” and
“sorrow” that fill our hearts and world today—just as they have done
throughout her 34 years with us, and throughout our human history on this
planet. She invites us to something different, going forward: “Little
children, may God be your tomorrow and not war and lack of peace; not sorrow
but joy and peace must begin to reign in the heart of every person.” Our Christian tradition teaches that “God
is love,” and therefore LOVE is the centerpiece of the Christian life, ethos, and worldview. To
say “God is my
tomorrow” means that “LOVE
is my tomorrow”—not hate, judgment,
condemnation, anger, resentment, intolerance, impatience, cruelty, jealousy,
vengeance, greed, envy, or egoism in its many other negative manifestations.
To overcome war and other forms of large-scale cultural violence that plague
our world, it will not be enough for a few pockets of faithful Christians and
other religious believers to live in “joy and peace” of heart. Our Lady says
these “must begin to reign in the heart of every
person.” Surely every human being has an innate desire to be happy and
peaceful inside. So how have we tried to find joy and peace of heart? And how is it working for us, so far? The way humans
typically seek joy and peace of heart is through the emotional
programs for happiness that are formed during our
developmental process—programs that are doomed to
failure. They are based on the futile attempt to fulfill our unmet
childhood needs for safety and security, affection and
esteem, pleasure, power and control. We pursue these goods by chasing after whatever symbols in our
culture hold out the promise of fulfillment: e.g. guns for “safety and security”; compulsive sexual hookups through pornography or multiple
relationships for “affection
and esteem”; unlimited food, alcohol,
drugs, shopping, or other recreational activities for “pleasure”; and unbridled competition to prevail over others and exalt oneself
for “power and
control.” These emotional programs for happiness are doomed to failure because
they do not bring lasting “joy and peace” to reign within a single human heart, ever. On the contrary, the relentless pursuit of society’s outer symbols
to meet these inner needs only brings frustration, pain, and emptiness, along with serious
addictions and illnesses leading to violence and death. We witness this sad fact every day in ways large and small, from
the individual to the international to the global/environmental level. Our Lady tells us simply and bluntly: “But
without God you will never find peace.” Let this sink in: Without
God, we will never find
peace. Period. End of story. What
could be clearer? God is the missing element in our emotional programs for
happiness that will never work, and the missing ingredient from the
myriad cultural symbols that promise fulfillment of our unmet inner needs.
Our Lady says, “Therefore, little children, return
to God and to prayer so that your heart may sing with joy.” She holds out to us the same solution for our lack of peace that
she held out from the beginning at Medjugorje: “Pray,
pray, pray!” In prayer we have a
real-life, intimate, present-moment experience and encounter with the living God who is Love. Only that experience with Ultimate Reality can bring true,
lasting, genuine joy and peace to “reign
in the heart of the human person.” Thus a daily practice of being silently
present to Presence can change our world—both individually and globally. Just as Our Lady began her message by saying “today the Most High gives me the
grace to be able to love you,” we,
too—as individuals and as a whole species of earthly creatures—can receive “the
grace to be able to love.” This grace comes not from
the many bogus promises of “the world” but from God, and is received through an open heart at prayer. Let us ask anew, each day, not for
safety/security/affection/esteem/ pleasure/power/control, but simply for “the
grace to be able to love.” Spend moments with God in silence daily, and all
else will follow! July Musings . . . Celebrating Freedom . . . the State
of Our World . . . Healthy Religion . . . JULY 4th : Let “FREEDOM” Ring! Jesus has a different understanding
of personal freedom. Freedom is not the capacity to be what you are not, but
the capacity to be fully who you already are, to develop your inherent self
as much as God allows. Spiritual and true freedom is
wanting to do what you have to do to become who you are. – Fr.
Richard Rohr, OFM + + +
+ + +
+ + +
+ + +
+ I think we can say that democracy is
a form of government that demands more virtue of its citizens than any other
form of government. So let us term freedom of choice less a virtue than a necessity,
a precondition to real freedom, which is the ability to make choices that are generous,
loving, and wise. Our wills are not free when they will what
is bigoted, narrow, ungenerous. Our wills
are only free when they can will the will of a loving God. “Thy will be done
on earth.” – William Sloane Coffin + +
+ + +
+ + +
+ + +
Prayer
for a Privileged People: We know that the great powers, while
held in Your hand, are tempted to autonomy and arrogance. In the midst of
war, we ponder modern empire. In these moments, we hold our own
resource-devouring empire up in Your presence. We pray for it: forgiveness
for its violence, authority for its vision of freedom, chastening for its
distorted notion of peace. We pray that our very own empire may be a vehicle
for Your good purposes. Beyond that, we pray the old hope of our
faith: that the kingdoms of this world would become the kingdom of our God
and of his Christ. We do not doubt that You will reign forever and ever.
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! O
beautiful for patriot dream that sees beyond the years thine alabaster cities
gleam, undimmed by human tears! America! America! God mend thine every flaw;
confirm thy soul in self-control, thy liberty in law.
Amen. – Walter Brueggemann + + +
+ + +
+ + +
+ + +
+ + We have freedom to the degree that the master whom we obey grants it to
us in return for our obedience. To obey the law of the land leaves
us our constitutional freedom, but not the freedom to follow our own
consciences wherever they lead. To obey the dictates of our own conscience
leaves us freedom from the sense of moral guilt, but not the freedom
to gratify our strongest appetites. To obey our strongest appetites
for drink, sex, power, revenge, or whatever, leaves us the freedom of an
animal to take what we want when we want it, but not the freedom of a
human being to be human. The old prayer speaks of God “in
whose service is perfect freedom.” The paradox is not as opaque as it sounds.
It means that to obey Love itself, which above all else wishes us well,
leaves us the freedom to be the best and gladdest that we have it in us to
become. The only freedom Love denies us is the freedom to destroy
ourselves ultimately. – Frederick Buechner +
+ + +
+ + +
+ + +
+ + +
+ + + We are not free at all
until we are free from ourselves. – Fr.
Richard Rohr, OFM + +
+ + +
+ + +
+ + +
+ + + The story of humanity is the story
of the evolution from the amoeba to the reptile through the ape to man. This is obviously a movement from
lower to higher, and at the same time an unfolding of our consciousness
and—bound up with that—our religious self-understanding. We humans stepped out of a
pre-mental time period into the Age of Mind. In between the two lies the age
of magical and mythical consciousness. Why shouldn’t evolution continue?
Why shouldn’t it be true, as some saints and mystics have imagined,
that humanity’s next stage of development lies in transcendental
consciousness? We seem to find ourselves in the
middle of our journey toward full and complete humanness—and it is precisely
at this point that we face special danger. No longer animals, we have
nevertheless yet to reach full maturity, namely that mystical dimension of
consciousness in which the future of humanity evidently lies. Till we
get there, we are in a rather tragic stage, as the situation of today’s world
shows. – Fr.
Willigis Jager + + + +
+ + +
+ + +
+ + +
+ What is your sense of the state of the world and where we are
going as a human family? This
requires a rather nuanced answer. I feel that we could be in for some serious
disasters of some kind, such as economic, ecological, technological events.
The future from that perspective does not look promising. Today
technology is way ahead of human moral development. If you are a Christian, I think you
have to be hopeful. What is going on may be part of a broader plan that
goes beyond our immediate perception. We have been put in a place in
history that we didn’t choose. We are part of a massive shift of cultural
and social attitudes. If you believe in the evolution of consciousness, there
have been major shifts over time since we came down from the trees.
The perennial philosophy shows that human possibilities have not gone very
far as yet, which makes our present period rather critical. Higher states
of consciousness are available for individuals. Whether they can be made
available to the human family as a whole is unknown. As a human family we seem to be
quite rooted in sub-human attitudes. We are supposed to be rational,
but not too many people are. Without a spiritual practice and a community
to support it, the further transformation of consciousness is very unlikely.
Yes, there is hope, but it may
require enormous catastrophes to shake people out of their false self systems. I feel it is happening; 9/11 was a
kind of prophetic event. If we are members of the mystical body of Christ,
as Paul teaches, the same divine DNA is present in all the cells, we have
within us the program for transformation; it just hasn’t been activated….David
Hawkins points out that one person who has reached a state of consciousness
of 1000 (on a scale of 1 to 1000) would transform all of humanity. He
says that Christ is one who did just that. The human average according to him
is presently at 207. It seems that God has put us in the
worst possible situation—having the capacity for eternal life and heaven, and
at the same time, no way of getting there. So the cross without the body of
Christ on it is a symbol of the human condition, which is to be
crucified between heaven and earth. We can’t go up to divine union
under our own power and we can’t return to the irresponsibility of animal
life. We are in this transitional period in human evolution. We have to
struggle between two opposites. But that’s exactly what transformation
consists of—of having great capacity for happiness; and then experience shows
us that we can’t do it ourselves, unaided by grace. So you are split
apart, torn apart. We are neither man nor beast. That
realization is a great liberation from a lot of our aspirations in the
wrong direction to deal with the consequences of that struggle. – Fr. Thomas Keating, OCSO
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Mark Your Calendar!
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July 3 |
St. Thomas, Apostle |
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4 |
Independence Day |
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10 |
Our Lady of Fatima 98th
Eucharistic Celebration; 6 pm, Holy Name Catholic Church, 3814 Nash Blvd.;
(210) 823-6601 |
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11 |
St. Benedict |
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15 |
St. Bonaventure |
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16 |
Our Lady of Mount Carmel |
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18 |
“Morning with Mary”: Presentation and Rosary Prayer; 9-11:30 am,
Pilgrim Center of Hope, 7680 Joe Newton; (210) 521-3377 |
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22 |
St. Mary Magdalene |
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25 |
St. James, Apostle |
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26 |
Rosary
Making: 2-5:30 pm; St. Mary’s Church, 202 N. St. Mary’s, free parking &
materials |
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29 |
St. Martha |
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31 |
St. Ignatius of Loyola
(founder of Society of Jesus, Jesuits) |
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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 |
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permission. |