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Medjugorje
Message: June 25, 2013 Dear children! With joy in the heart I love you all and call
you to draw closer to my Immaculate Heart so I can draw you still closer to
my Son Jesus, and that He can give you His peace and love, which are
nourishment for each one of you. Open yourselves, little children, to
prayer—open yourselves to my love. I am your mother and cannot leave you
alone in wandering and sin. You are called, little children, to be my
children, my beloved children, so I can present you all to my Son. Thank you
for having responded to my call. |
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Published
by the Marian Center of San Antonio / A Catholic Evangelization Ministry This message from Our Lady was given on the 32nd
anniversary of her apparitions at Medjugorje, which
began June 25, 1981. Five times in these few sentences she calls us “children.” Throughout the message she
emphasizes her love for us and the inclusiveness of that love for “all” human beings as her “little children.” At this moment, after 32 years of Our Lady’s messages, we must try
to listen with “fresh ears” and see with “fresh eyes” the significance of her
words to us. There is meaning and importance to the words she chooses
to repeat, and it is high time that we take to heart the words she has used in every single message for the past
32 years….words we have mistakenly passed over. She begins by saying, “With joy in the heart I
love you all and call you to draw closer to
my Immaculate Heart….” Last month we celebrated the Immaculate Heart of Mary on June 8, and this month we celebrate the feast of her parents, Anne and Joachim, on July 26. Both feasts draw our attention to a singular
characteristic of Our Blessed Mother: her state of being immaculately
pure and free of any stain of “original
sin.” This means that Our Lady, from her conception onward, was exempt
from the chief negative hallmark of the human condition: she did not suffer
the entrainment or imprinting of the egoic or
“false” self that all other human beings experience as they grow and develop. Why did Our Lady escape this fate of the rest of humanity? The Church
teaches it was because of her singular privilege of becoming the Mother of
God—that such an honor would be fittingly bestowed only upon an immaculately
pure and ego-free “vessel.” On a more practical level, sacred tradition
has held that Mary was born to elderly yet extraordinary parents who dedicated
and left her at the Temple at the age of three, to grow
up and be raised in exceptional circumstances rather than in the usual
pattern of “family dynamics” through which the egoic
stain of “original sin” is typically passed. Did growing up in the Temple
allow Our Lady to receive the unconditional love of
God and the Divine Indwelling Presence in a way that is impossible for the average human person being
raised in a home by parents who are themselves also wounded children,
stained by the absence of this realization of God’s Love in their own
childhood? Did Our Lady escape this generational cycle (of not experiencing
the Divine Presence of unconditional love) that we now call “original sin”?
The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception asserts that she did escape this
universal fate of the human condition, from her very conception in St. Anne’s
womb. From birth to about age seven, we are all simply “little
children” whose only means of
processing life is through our “heart” or emotional center. Beginning
in early childhood when this “heart” or emotional center is the only aspect of personhood that is operative—prior to the
development of reason and thinking (the mental center) or bodily strength and independence (the physical center), we “little children” simply laugh when we’re happy and cry when we
are afraid, angry or sad. When our parents or other adults do things to scare
or hurt us, we have no way of rationalizing or logically thinking
through our distress, nor the words to communicate it to anyone; we have no
physical size or strength with which to fight off or flee what is hurtful. We
have only our feelings. Unspoken and unprocessed, they remain hidden and buried deeply
within us. To cope with the overwhelming burden of these feelings in early
childhood, we all begin, from about age 7 onward, to develop a “homemade” or
“false” self system (often called “ego”) to deal
with the fear, anger and grief that arise from the outward circumstances of
life. Being older now, we can enlist our mental and physical centers to help build this egoic self and leave
the emotional
center behind, with its childish
trauma permanently “stranded” or “marooned” in the past of our early childhood.
We are henceforth fixated on acquiring the safety
and security, affection
and esteem, and power
and control that were in some measure
lacking in early childhood, causing us to react in oceanic emotions of
fear, grief, and anger (usually imitating the way we saw our parents or other
adults react to life). The original antidote that would have healed all these afflictive
emotions at their start is unconditional love
and the awareness of God’s indwelling Presence. That is the underlying “solution” we are truly seeking all our life
long, though looking for it “in all the wrong places.” Unfortunately, the
terrible tragedy of our human condition is that no matter how wonderful our
parents may be, it is a case of “the blind leading the blind.” We all grow
from birth through infancy, early childhood and adolescence into adulthood without the interior realization of
the Indwelling Presence of God’s Unconditional Love and acceptance. When Our Lady calls us to “draw closer to my Immaculate Heart,” she
is inviting us to return to our own “heart center” of inner innocence as a
small child during the first seven years of our life. It was during those
years that a great hunger began to form in us, an empty “hole” and an aching restlessness that
nothing would ever fill, except God’s Presence. Our Lady says that if we draw
closer to her Immaculate Heart (through returning to our own childlike heart
center), “I can draw you still closer to my Son Jesus, and He can give you His
peace and love, which are nourishment for each one of you.” Like any good mother, Our Lady is concerned
with feeding us on the food that truly satisfies and nurtures us:
God’s own Real Presence that we receive in the Holy Eucharist and in the
indwelling Spirit of the risen Christ in our hearts. Though we are grown now,
this nourishment is profoundly effective if we can consciously
connect it as food for our starving inner “child” who was abandoned years ago. As adult children, we cannot make this long spiritual journey from
the “head” (where we live fractured lives in slavery to the past and future
and to our false-self programs for security, affection, esteem, power and
control) to the “heart” (of our “stranded” childhood innocence) simply by our own feeble
wish or act of will. There is only one way to make this healing “return
journey” to which Our Lady beckons us: “Open yourselves,
little children, to prayer—open yourselves to my love. I am
your mother and cannot leave you alone in wandering and sin.” For 32 years in Medjugorje, Our Lady has
pleaded, “Pray, pray, pray!” and this is why: only through “prayer of the heart”—the opening of our inmost being to the love of our heavenly Mother—can the
emotional wounds of a lifetime (which began in early childhood) be healed.
Only through opening to the unconditional love of God in prayer can we be made whole again and realize our intrinsic connectedness with all creation and
the fact that we are not separate or alone in the world. Until then, as Our Lady says in anguish, we are “alone
in wandering and sin.” Whenever we are caught in
the web of our cravings for safety, security, affection, esteem, power and
control, we are in the illusory world of the past (where those things
were lacking) or the future (where we anxiously plot to gain them); we
are not living in this present moment, the eternal “now” of God’s kingdom (where “little children” always live). In this
hellish world of “time” that exists in our head, we think we are isolated,
alone, and separate from everyone else; this sense of separation is a lie
that leads us into selfish, misguided choices and actions. Hence we exist in
a miserable state of “wandering and sin.” Our Lady “cannot leave us alone” here. (Thank God!) Our Lady sums up her call with utmost directness and simplicity: “You
are called, little children, to be my children, my beloved
children, so I can present you all to my Son.” Mary wants us to simply “BE”
what we are—her own “BELOVED” little children. After 32 years of hearing Our Lady call us this, it’s time that we live
its reality. So often we gloss over it as a meaningless term of
endearment, a fluffy phrase from a flowery woman—but it is deadly serious and intentional! This month she draws our attention to the words we’ve ignored for so
long and calls us to “BE” these beloved “little children”: to recognize the reality within
ourselves and make the return journey to find and rescue that beloved little
child that we were in our first seven years of life, before the stain of
original sin began to infect our personality with an egoic
false-self driving our life on illusion and fear, trapped in past and future
“wandering” instead of the present-moment awareness that is God’s eternity where all “little children” live. To find that lost “little child”
that we were, inside of us, is to find our True
Self created in the image and likeness of God. In the Gospel, when asked who is the greatest in the kingdom of
heaven, Jesus “called
a child over and placed it in their midst, and said, ‘Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like
children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles
himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever
receives one such child in my name receives me.’” (Mt 18:1-5) Later, when the disciples
rebuked children who approached Jesus, he said, “Let the children come to me, and do not prevent them; for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such
as these.” (Mt 19:14) In fact, “children”—so often
viewed as unimportant—are mentioned over 400 times in the Bible! If we listen
attentively to Our Lady calling us—her “little children,” her “dear children”—for these past 32 years in Medjugorje, we
can see that her School of Prayer is meant to lead us on the journey back
to our innocence, our childhood, our first seven years of life when we lived from our heart only, in the pristine purity of
intention and natural holiness that all children have, before the many
manufactured programs of the false self were formed as our adult coping
mechanisms. This spiritual path of conversion is answering our Lord’s call to
be child-like, which is very different from being child-ish in egocentric reactionary behavior. Finally, Our Lady’s closing remark has been the same for decades: “Thank
you for having responded to my call.” We scarcely notice these final words, repeated month after month.
But they are deliberate and meaningful. Once we have truly “gotten the
message,” we will indeed RESPOND to the call of each present moment, each situation and person and
circumstance of our life—just as all “little children” do. Sadly, as we are
now, we do not “respond,” but instead we “react” to what happens outside of us. We “react” out of the pre-programmed reflexes of our false self
system selfishly seeking security, esteem and control in every
situation. We “react” with fear, rage, or grief, using many of the outward behaviors that
our own parents used and that were imprinted upon us during those helpless
early years. This is the fallout of “original sin” on being an adult.
However, a little child in its natural, pre-egoic state—without
pretense or agenda for self-protection—does not “react” but instead responds to life in the present moment, without regret for the past or
cynicism toward the future. Through prayer may we each “turn
and become like children”—that is, return to the lost
innocence of the child who is our True Self, facing life no longer with childish “reaction” but with childlike responding to Our Lady’s call. July Musings: Great Nature! . . . Benedict’s Rule . . . . . . Living with Contradictions . . . Independence Day Six Recognitions
of the Lord I lounge on the
grass, that’s all. So simple. Then I lie
back until I am inside the
cloud that is just above me but very high, and shaped like a fish. Or, perhaps not. Then I enter the place of
not-thinking, not-remembering, not- wanting. When the
blue jay cries out his riddle, in his carping voice, I return. But I go
back, the threshold is always near. Over and
back, over and back. Then I rise. Maybe I rub my face as though I have
been asleep. I have been, as I say,
inside the cloud,
or, perhaps, the lily floating on the water. Then
I go back to town, to my own
house, my own life, which has now become
brighter and simpler, some- where I have never been before.
--
Mary Oliver Thankful
Summer Reflections on Great Nature: Fire of the Holy Spirit, life of the life of every creature,
holy are you in giving life to forms.
Rivers spring forth from the waters; earth wears her green vigor. – St. Hildegard of Bingen Reading about nature is fine, but if a person walks in the
woods and listens carefully, he can learn more than what is in books, for
they speak with the voice of God. -- George Washington Carver As long as this exists, and I
may live to see it, this sunshine, the cloudless skies, while this lasts,
I cannot be unhappy. The best remedy
for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside,
somewhere where they can be quite alone with the heavens, nature, and God.
Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God
wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature. As long as
this exists, and it certainly always will, I know that then there will
always be comfort for every sorrow, whatever the circumstances may be. And I firmly believe that nature brings
solace in all troubles. – Anne Frank, Diary of a Young Girl The danger of serious damage to land and sea, and the climate,
flora, and fauna, calls for a profound change in modern civilization’s
typical consumer lifestyle, particularly in the richer countries. –
Pope John Paul II Can we remain indifferent before the problems associated with
such realities as climate change? -- Pope Benedict XVI July 11: Feast of St. Benedict, “Founder of Monasticism” From The Rule of St. Benedict: “Keep death always
before your eyes.” One reason why Christian
tradition has always steered me away from preoccupation with reincarnation
has not so much to do with doctrine as with spiritual practice. The
finality of death is meant to challenge us to decision, the decision to be
fully present here now, and so begin eternal life. For eternity rightly
understood is not the perpetuation of time, on and on, but rather the
overcoming of time by the now that does not pass away. But we are
always looking for opportunities to postpone the decision. So…you might never
live, but keep dragging along half dead because you never face
death. Don Juan says to Carlos Castaneda, “That is why you are so
moody and not fully alive, because you forgot you are to die; you
live as if you were going to live forever.” What remembrance of death is
meant to do, as I understand it, is to help us make the decision. Don
Juan stresses death as the adviser. Death makes us warriors. – Br.
David Steindl-Rast, OSB Living with
Contradictions of the “Other” / “Different” / “Mysterious” We can only learn and
advance with contradictions. The faithful inside should meet the doubtful.
The doubtful should meet the faithful. A human slowly advances and becomes
mature when he accepts his contradictions.
– Shams Tabriz On the day when you are
wearing your certainty like a cloak and your sureness goes before you like a
shield or like a sword, may the sound of God’s name spill from your lips as
you have never heard it before. May your knowing be undone. May mystery
confound your understanding. May the Divine rain down in
strange syllables yet with an ancient familiarity, a knowing borne in the
blood, the ear, the tongue, bringing the clarity that comes not in stone or
in steel but in fire, in flame. May there come one searing word: enough to
bare you to the bone, enough to set your heart ablaze, enough to make you
whole again. – Jan Richardson The truly other
is essential to the mystical and loving mind.
Otherness stimulates the mind to let go of its fixed points and expand
beyond itself, enlarging the view we have of the world and of ourselves
within it. In the face of the other we
have to give up the fame of dramatizing them. This is…what I understand by
the term “a catholic mind,” because
it has faced the other that we cannot describe or control. The
catholic mind intuitively seeks to include rather than reject, even
when it meets an abyss of difference in the other that it recoils from and
finds wrong and threatening. We become catholic in this full and embracing
sense only by means of growth, which is a passing through the stages of
healing and integration. So none of us is catholic yet, not even the
pope. There is a way to go. But the alternative to the process of forgiveness
is the sectarian mind that objectifies the other, and, through fear and the
pleasure of power, denies it its pure…otherness
and is-ness. Socially and historically, we have done this to immigrants,
to Jews, to gays and other easily targeted minorities, but also to even half the
human race through the violent patriarchal exclusion of women. By doing such
things, we exclude ourselves from the whole and therefore from the holy
One. God is always subject, the great “I AM,” impervious to our attempts
to objectify and manipulate. We meet this pure emanation of being in our own
deep silence, not in ideology or abstraction, but in diverse ways: basically
in each other and in the beauty and wonder of creation, the ocean of being,
of suffering and bliss that we have swum in. To think of
contemplation as a kind of luxury, relaxation or spare time occupation
entirely misses the meaning of human development as the only essential way
we have to glorify God. How can we “glorify God” by what we say or do? We
can only reflect back to God the divine glory potentially stored in our own
being. St. John of the Cross says the soul is like an unopened parcel. Unwrapping it is the way we glorify God—ultimately through
participating completely in God’s life and vision. We meditate to become
the person God knows us to be. Become one with the giver of the gift by
returning the gift to the giver.
– Fr. Lawrence Freeman, OSB + +
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4: Independence Day Moving spiritually from “Independence” to “Interdependence”: Poverty is not only
the absence of things but the awareness of our need for others, for God. Human neediness is
universal. The richest and the most powerful, like the poorest and most
marginalized, are all equally in need. Need is simply the strong feeling that arises in response to
the fact of interdependence. We are not separate from each other or from God. Wisdom is
the recognition of our inter-relatedness. Compassion is the practice of our connectedness. In meditation we
dive to a level of reality deeper than that of our surface, ego-driven minds
which are caught in the net of illusion of our independence and isolation.
Untangling from that net is the daily work of silent prayer and the new
pattern of the practice of the presence of God in ordinary life.
– Fr.
Lawrence Freeman, OSB
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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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11 |
St. Benedict |
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16 |
Our Lady of Mount Carmel |
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22 |
St. Mary Magdalene |
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25 |
St. James, Apostle |
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26 |
St. Joachim & St. Anne (parents of the
Blessed Virgin Mary) |
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27 |
PEACE
MASS: 12 pm, St. Mary’s Church, 202 N. St. Mary’s; Rosary at 11:30 am |
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28 |
Rosary-making:
2:00-5:30 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 the Society of Jesus/Jesuits) |
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Prayer for Our Shepherds Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior and High Priest, through the loving
hands of your holy Mother Mary, please guide and protect all priests,
bishops, cardinals and Pope Francis, your Vicar on earth. Help them to live
out the dignity of their priestly vocation with all its challenges,
difficulties, temptations, and personal sacrifices, always united to You with
eyes fixed on the cross of
self-emptying love which alone can sustain them. Help them to repair, rebuild and renew Your Church with
courage and humility, united to your Sacred Heart of all-inclusive love, with
a penitential soul and docility to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit for
any changes ordained by Your Divine Will. Give them strength and joy to labor
in Your vineyard for the salvation of souls. In Jesus’ name, amen. |
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Copyright, Marian Center of San Antonio. All
rights reserved. No part of this newsletter may be reproduced without
permission. |