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Medjugorje
Message: October 25, 2013 Dear children! Today I call you to open yourselves to prayer.
Prayer works miracles in you and through you. Therefore, little children, in the
simplicity of heart seek of the Most High to give you the strength to be
God’s children and for Satan not to shake you like the wind shakes the
branches. Little children, decide for God anew and seek only His will—and
then you will find joy and peace in Him. 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 month of All Saints and Holy Souls, Our Lady “cuts to the
chase” in her message. Rather than speak about the virtues that constitute
sanctity, she goes to the radical (“rooted”) heart of the matter: prayer. Just as our Holy Father Pope Francis said recently, the lack of
true sanctity—that is, lovingkindness—among
Christians is due to “just
one thing: this Christian does not pray. And if there is no prayer,
you always close the door.” Pope Francis’ focus seems to
be deeply aligned with Our Lady’s message at Medjugorje—the
opening of mind and heart that is the hallmark of Gospel living and contemplative
Christianity. Repeating words she has used many times before, Our Lady begins her
message: “Today I call you to open yourselves to
prayer.” And using the exact same
sentence she gave us last month, she continues: “Prayer
works miracles in you and through you.” As we read these words of our Blessed Mother, let us pause to ask
if this has been our own experience of prayer. Does our prayer
“work miracles” in us and through us? If not, why not? We must allow Our
Lady’s message to arrest us, stop us in our tracks, and penetrate our outer shell or façade when she says things that
don’t match our own lived experience. The Medjugorje
message is meant to be a wake-up call. Our Lady’s words have the power to arouse us from the deep sleep
of our ordinary consciousness, where we drift mechanically from one
activity to the next, one hour and day to the next, without paying attention to our own deepest identity as children of God, or to our own deep essence that is the Holy
Spirit indwelling us—our Divine
“DNA.” Such is our life: a sort of sleepwalking in which we are unaware, unawake, and unconscious of who and what we truly are, and unconcerned
with what matters most—the Divine
Will that alone will give us joy and peace.
Instead, stuck at a superficial and shallow level of egoic
personality, we spend our life scrambling frantically in a fear-fueled
struggle to “get” and “spend” those things we imagine will make us
“happy”—safety and security, affection and esteem of others, power and
control, or sensual pleasure. This enterprise of trying to fulfill the emotional programs for happiness manufactured by the false self as it tries to cobble together an
identity is a complicated, exhausting, and futile effort. Yet it is
how most of us spend our entire little lifetimes on this earth—whether or not
we call ourselves “Christians.” Our Lady says: “Therefore, little children, in the simplicity
of heart seek of the Most High to give
you the strength to be God’s children and for Satan not to shake you like the wind shakes the branches.”
An egoic, self-absorbed life given over to
the pursuit of material security and wealth, other people’s esteem and
affection, and one’s personal power and control is a life given to Satan,
lived under the fearful reign of terror that any of those things will be diminished or
removed. In such an unconscious
existence, totally conditioned by external forces, we will be shaken
“like the wind shakes the branches.” There is no inner core or center of
stability; rather we are tossed about by the savage force of ego and an
imagined self-sufficiency, powerless to claim our true strength as “God’s
children.” In prayer we dismantle
this false self and lay down its complications, strategies, and restless
mental maneuverings, seeking God in “the simplicity of
heart.” We ask only for the strength
to “be God’s children”—that is, who we really are. Through such open-hearted prayer we are led naturally to the only path of authentic joy and peace. Our Lady says: “Little children, decide
for God anew and seek only His will—and then you will find joy and peace in Him.” Through prayer of the
heart we arrive at the end of our own self-will run riot, the end of
our self-made misery: we realize that our only joy and peace will be to
seek and do the Divine Will. “Thy will, not mine, be done.” How can we be in Our Lady’s “School of Prayer” at Medjugorje
for over 30 years, and still not experience that “prayer works miracles in you and
through you”? Why do we still chase after
the complicated false-self programs for safety, security, affection, esteem,
pleasure, power and control, rather than seek only the simplicity of doing God’s will as His children? Clearly something is amiss in our practice of PRAYER. Pope Francis reveals the problem: “I say to
pray, I do not say to say prayers, because these ‘teachers of the law’
said many prayers in order to be seen. Jesus, instead, says: ‘When you pray,
go into your room and pray to the Father in secret, heart to heart.’ It is
one thing to pray, and another thing to say prayers.” Like Our Lady, Pope Francis is calling us to contemplative
Christianity rooted in the silent prayer
of the heart, “in secret”—the kind of prayer that will change
us and thus change
the world. November Musings . . . Death & Dying . . .
Saints-in-the-making . . . Last Things & Afterlife . . . Papal Wisdom The whole-maker, the
one who lives in Christ, embraces death as “sister,” as part of the family of
life. The most catholic reality, therefore, is death, and the mark of
Christian life is to embrace death. Life in the cosmos
is drama, and the next act always anticipates something more creative, something
new emerging out of the chaos of the old.
– Sr. Ilia Delio, OSF + +
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wanted: creatures who would freely love each other
and freely respond to Him with love. In a sense, God had to take that risk.
If He wanted there to be love, He had to give us freedom. And by
giving us freedom, He gave us the possibility of rejecting His love. Freedom
therefore implies the possibility of doing evil. The world was not
created evil. But God took the risk because He wished there to be love. This
is the true meaning of the Christian doctrine of hell, which is so widely
misunderstood. God does not condemn us to hell; God wishes all humans to be
saved. He will love us to all eternity but there will exist
the possibility that we do not accept that love and do not respond to it. And
the refusal to accept love, the refusal to respond to it, that precisely
is the meaning of hell. Hell is not a place where God puts us;
it’s a place where we put ourselves. The doors of hell, insofar as
they have locks, have locks on the inside.
– Bishop Kallistos Ware +
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+ I am blind and do not
see the things of this world; but when the Light comes from Above, it
enlightens my heart and I can see, for the Eye of my heart sees everything. The heart is a sanctuary at
the center of which there is a little space, wherein the Great Spirit
dwells, and this is the Eye. This is the Eye of the Great Spirit by which
He sees all things and through which we see Him. If the heart is not pure,
the Great Spirit cannot be seen, and if you should die in this ignorance,
your soul cannot return immediately to the Great Spirit, but it must be
purified by wandering about in the world. In order to know the center of the
heart where the Great Spirit dwells you must be pure and good, and live in
the manner that the Great Spirit has taught us. The one who is thus pure
contains the Universe in the pocket of his heart. – Black Elk +
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When we are young, in
the full vigor of love, the prayer of the body is a thing of delight, a cry
of joy to God….our five senses like five angels bringing us the messages of
his love with touches and tongues of fire. There is something bracing and
invigorating even in its inevitable wrestling with temptations and its
fasts….As time passes, when we get older, or if we fall ill, or even more
if we gather to ourselves the little crop of ailments that are part of the
wear-and-tear of life, we require more discipline, and of a different kind.
Before, it was to restrain; now it is time to invigorate, or, to drive, though in reality the
discipline we must use now is…so gentle that it brings tranquility. Prayer,
which once did inspire us and give meaning to the tedious things of every
day, becomes so irksome that we are hard-pressed to be faithful even to its
formal expression….It is time to think about the part which the body has
taken in Christ’s prayer in his Church for the last 2,000 years: I mean the Liturgy. The Liturgy is the
expression of Christ’s love, his prayer in his Mystical Body; into which our own
prayer is gathered and integrated. It is not subject, as our personal
prayer is, to moods. It never fails, day after day…in age after age, to
adore God, to offer sacrifice, to petition for peace. It is the perfect
expression of every individual, the voice of the inarticulate….At the same
time it is the chorus of the whole human race made one in communion with
Christ. – Caryll Houselander +
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the end of this present life is rightly called death. More accurately,
it is deliverance from death, separation from corruption, liberation from
slavery, cessation of turbulence, destruction of wars, dispelling of
darkness, rest from suffering, calming of turmoil, eclipsing of shame, escape
from passions and, to sum up, the termination of all evils. The
saints who have achieved these things through voluntary mortification
live as strangers and pilgrims in this life, fighting bravely against the
world and the body and the assaults stemming from them. And, having stifled
the deceit which these engender…they keep the dignity of their soul unenslaved. – St. Maximos +
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All religions in their
own way talk about dying before you die!
They are all indeed saying that something has to die. We all know
this....In most ancient cultures it was the virgin daughters and eldest sons
that had to be sacrificed; in Biblical times it was an animal, as we see in
the Jewish temple. By the Christian Middle Ages, it was our desires, our
intellect, our bodies, and our will that had to die, which made many people
think that God had created something wrong in us. Religion then became purity
codes instead of transformational systems. Jesus did say very clearly that we
had to “lose our self to find our self”….What really has to die is our
false self created by our own mind, ego, and culture. It
is a pretense, a bogus identity, a passing fad, a psychological construct
that gets in the way of who we are and always were—in God. This is our objective
and True Self. It seems we all live with a tragic case of mistaken
identity. Christianity’s most important job is to tell you that you
indeed already have a True Self,
“hidden with Christ in God.” (Col
3:3-4)
Anything less than the
death of the False Self is useless religion. The False Self must
die for the True Self to live or, as Jesus puts it, “Unless I go, the Spirit cannot come”…. Jesus (a good person)
still had to die for the Christ (the universal presence) to arise. It is the pattern
of transformation, but the letting go of the original “good person” is a
huge leap of faith because it is deemed to be so “good.” What has to die
is not usually bad; in fact, it will often feel good and necessary. Your
True Self is that part of you that is going to live forever and sees
truthfully….Your False Self is that part of you that is constantly changing
and will eventually die anyway. It is in the world of passing forms and looks out with itself as the
central reference point—which is never true. The False Self is passing,
tentative, and…empty. Mature
religion helps us speed up the process of dying to the False Self. This is why saints live in such a
countercultural way. It is a free fall anyway, so we might as well jump
in and cooperate….It is much easier to offer a free yes ahead of time before it is forced on us on our deathbed or in
tragedy. St. Francis says in his lifetime, “Welcome, Sister Death!” -- Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM +
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As long as we wrap ourselves
up in the cloak of virtue, of devotion, of religion, as long as we have not
become detached from ourselves, then, indeed, we affirm our faith by feats of
strength. But the saint, who really exists, who is greater than life, who
is no longer turned in on himself, leads us to a God who is at the core of
the heart of our life, who is the sole real experience….because as long as
man is putting on the act of virtue, of humility, there is no one there.
The wonderful fact about saints is that, in them, there
is someone, there is a man there at last, there is a
source, a freedom, and an intimacy. There is really a mystery
there….We will find God, the true one, only in this liberation of our selves.
As long as it is I, it is not he. When it is he, then he really is there….As
long as we have not met God, as long as we are not a loving gaze turned to
him, God is like a false god….There is no other experience but that one: the
face of a lover turned to his God, a God within himself, a God transforming
him into himself and making his whole life a loving gaze turned to the
Other. – Fr. Maurice Zundel +
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+ Anyone who desires to
regain the purity of heart lost through sin and to win that personal
wholeness beyond all pain must patiently struggle in the contemplative
work and endure its toil whether he has been a habitual sinner or
not. Both sinners and innocents will suffer in this work….And yet it
often happens that some who have been hardened sinners arrive at perfection
of this work sooner than those who never sinned grievously. God is truly
wonderful in lavishing his grace on anyone he chooses. And I believe that Doomsday
will actually be glorious, for the goodness of God will shine clearly in
all his gifts of grace. Some who are now despised and held in contempt
(and who are even perhaps inveterate sinners) shall on that day reign in
splendor with his saints. And perhaps some of those who have never sinned
grievously and who to all appearances are pious people, venerated by others,
shall find themselves in misery among the damned. My point is that in
this life no man may judge another as good or evil simply on the evidence of
his deeds. The deeds themselves we may judge as good or evil, but not
the person. – The Cloud of
Unknowing, 14th c. +
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Wisdom
of Pope Francis: Some of His Latest Teachings! I am not Francis of Assisi and I do not have his strength and his
holiness. But I am the Bishop of Rome and Pope of the Catholic world. The
first thing I decided was to appoint a group of eight cardinals to be my
advisors. Not courtiers but wise people who share my own feelings. This
is the beginning of a Church with an organization that is not just top-down
but also horizontal…..The Vatican-centric view neglects the world around
us. I do not share this view and I’ll do everything I can to change it. The
Church is or should go back to being a community of God’s people, and
priests, pastors and bishops who have the care of souls are at the service
of the people of God. The real trouble is that those most affected by narcissism—which is
actually a kind of mental disorder—are people who have a lot of power.
Often bosses are narcissists. Heads of the Church have often been narcissists,
flattered and thrilled by their courtiers. The court is the leprosy of the
papacy….Clericalism should not have anything to do with Christianity. + +
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+ + + Proselytism is solemn nonsense. It makes no sense. We need to get to know each other, listen to
each other and improve our knowledge of the world around us….This is
important: to get to know people, listen, expand the circle of ideas….I
believe that our goal is not to proselytize but to listen to needs,
desires and disappointments, despair, hope. We must restore hope to young
people, help the old, be open to the future, spread
love. Be poor among the poor. We need to include the excluded and preach
peace. I believe in God, not in a Catholic God; there is no Catholic God. There is God and I believe in Jesus Christ, his incarnation.
Jesus is my teacher and my pastor, but God, the Father, Abba, is the light
and the Creator. This is my Being. Each of us has a vision of good and of
evil. We have to encourage people to move towards what they think is Good. Everyone has his own idea of good and evil and
must choose to follow the good and fight evil as he conceives them.
That would be enough to make the world a better place. Agape, the love of each
one of us for the other, from the closest to the furthest, is in fact
the only way that Jesus has given us to find the way of
salvation. We will also discuss the role of women in the Church.
Remember that the Church is feminine. -- Interview with Eugenio Scalfari of La Repubblica,
Italian daily newspaper Ideology does not beckon. In
ideologies there is not Jesus: in his tenderness, his love, his meekness. And
ideologies are rigid, always. Of every sign: rigid. And when a
Christian becomes a disciple of the ideology, he has lost the faith: he is no
longer a disciple of Jesus, he is a disciple of this
attitude of thought. For this reason Jesus said to them: “You have taken
away the key of knowledge.” The knowledge of Jesus is transformed into an
ideological and moralistic knowledge, because these close the door with many
requirements. The faith becomes ideology and ideology frightens. Ideology
chases away the people. It creates distances between people and it distances
the Church from the people. But it is a serious illness, this ideology of
Christians. It is an illness, but it is not new. Already the Apostle
John, in his first Letter, spoke of this. Christians who lose the faith and
prefer the ideologies. His attitude is: be rigid, moralistic, ethical, but without kindness. This can be the
question, no? But why is it that a Christian can become like this? Just one
thing: this Christian does not pray. And if there is no prayer, you
always close the door. When a Christian
does not pray, this happens. And his witness is an arrogant witness. He
who does not pray is arrogant, is proud, is sure of
himself. He is not humble. He seeks his own advancement. …And, I say to pray,
I do not say to say prayers, because these teachers of the law said
many prayers in order to be seen. Jesus, instead, says: “When you pray, go into your
room and pray to the Father in secret, heart to heart.” It is one thing to pray, and another thing to “say prayers.” These do not pray, abandoning the faith and transforming it
into moralistic, casuistic ideology, without Jesus. And when a prophet or a
good Christian reproaches them, they do the same that they did with Jesus: “the
scribes and Pharisees began to act with hostility toward him.” They are ideologically
hostile….they are insidious….They are not transparent. Ah,
poor things, they are people dishonored by their pride. We ask the
Lord for grace, first: never to stop praying to never lose the faith; to remain
humble, and so not to become closed, which closes the way to the Lord.
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Mark Your Calendar!
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November 1 |
All Saints (Holyday) |
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2 |
All Souls Day Portraits
of World Mysticism Class: Sufism & Rabia of
Basra with Prof.
Bonnie Thurston; 9 am-12 pm, Oblate School of Theology Whitley Theological
Center, 285 Oblate; $40; call (210) 341-1366 x 212 |
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11 |
Veterans
Day; St. Martin of Tours |
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21 |
The Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary |
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24 |
Christ the King Sunday Rosary-making:
2:00 pm – 5:30 pm, St. Mary’s Church, 202 N. St. Mary’s; free parking & materials |
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28 |
Thanksgiving Day |
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30 |
St. Andrew, Apostle PEACE
MASS: 12 pm, St. Mary’s Church, 202 N. St. Mary’s; Rosary at 11:30 am |
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Praised be You, My Lord, through our Sister Bodily Death from whom no living person can escape. Woe to those who die in mortal sin! Happy those whom death finds doing Your most holy will. The second death can do them no harm. Praise and bless my Lord, and give Him thanks, and serve Him with great humility. -- St. Francis of Assisi, Canticle of the Creatures
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rights reserved. No part of this newsletter may be reproduced without
permission. |