Annual Message to Mirjana: March 18, 2025
Dear children! With motherly love I implore you: give me your hands folded in prayer, give me your hearts cleansed in confession and I will lead you to my Son. Because, my children, only my Son, with His light, can illuminate the darkness; only He, with His Word, can remove suffering. Therefore, do not be afraid to walk with me, because I am leading you to my Son. Thank you.
Medjugorje Message: March 25, 2025
Dear children! In this time of grace when you are called to conversion, I am encouraging you, little children: offer me your prayers, sufferings and tears for conversion of hearts that are far from the Heart of my Son Jesus. Pray with me, because, little children, without God you do not have a future or eternal life. I love you, but I cannot help you without you; therefore, say “yes” to God. Thank you for having responded to my call.
River of Light
April 2025
Both of Our Lady’s messages given in March—first to Mirjana in her annual birthday apparition, and then to Marija in the monthly message to the world—beckon us into a closer Christ-centered communion and spiritual collaboration with our Blessed Mother through the penitential practices of Lent that support our growing conversion into her Son Jesus.
The parallels in the two messages are striking. To Mirjana, Our Lady says, “Dear children, with motherly love I implore you…” To Marija she says simply, “I love you.” To Mirjana Our Lady says: “Give me your hands folded in prayer, give me your hearts cleansed in confession.” To Marija she says, “Offer me your prayers, sufferings and tears…” To Mirjana, Our Lady says: “Only my Son, with His light, can illuminate the darkness; only He, with His Word, can remove suffering.” To Marija she says, “Pray with me, because… without God you do not have a future or eternal life.”
Thus in both of these messages Our Lady shares three consistent themes: 1) her maternal love for us; 2) her plea that we join in offering to her our penitential practices (prayer, self-denial, voluntary sufferings, confession); and 3) the critical need for God-consciousness: our awareness/realization that salvation and ultimate happiness depend totally upon being in relationship with God—immersed in the glorious web of Divine entanglement.
Our Lady’s message to the world was given on the Solemnity of the Annunciation, the great Marian feast that for many centuries was a Holy Day on the Church calendar. Acknowledging the Lenten season, she begins: “In this time of grace when you are called to conversion, I am encouraging you, little children: offer me your prayers, sufferings and tears for conversion of hearts that are far from the Heart of my Son Jesus.” Over the centuries in various apparitions, Our Lady has urged us to do penance for the sins of the world or on behalf of unbelievers, imploring our prayers of contrition, thanksgiving, praise and adoration for the sake of all those who do not repent, thank, praise or adore God.
This traditional Catholic notion of “offering up” our own suffering or sacrifice for the good of some other part of the Body of Christ is an apt and perceptive foreshadowing of what quantum physics has discovered about our universe: the interrelated, interconnected nature of all Reality—our inextricable linkage and embeddedness in the great web of interbeing through which, as Scripture says, “when one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it, and if one part is honored, all the parts are glad.” (1 Cor 12:26) Quantum physics has shown that a particle vibrating due to the sound of your speaking voice can affect a molecule inside a star at the edge of our universe instantly. This phenomenon is called quantum “entanglement.” The greatest illusion in our human belief system is the illusion of separation.
Today Our Lady asks us to offer her our “prayers, sufferings and tears” —and, indeed, our country and whole global civilization are now in a world of suffering and grief. Our Lady asks us to offer this up “for conversion of hearts that are far from the Heart of my Son Jesus.” In many cases this will be a difficult personal challenge to consciously “pray, suffer and weep” for the conversion of the very people who are hurting us and inflicting upon millions great “sufferings and tears.” Are we humble enough to do this?
When we contemplate “hearts that are far from the Heart of my Son Jesus,” what kind of hearts do we think of? The Heart of Jesus is a heart of mercy, compassion, universal love, humility, boundless generosity, forgiveness, gentleness, and peace. These are the Gospel qualities of heart that every Christian is called to embrace and live. What sort of hearts are “far from the Heart of Jesus“? Hearts full of fear, rage, arrogance, pride, greed, jealousy, envy, vengeance, hatred, resentment, petty grudges, and hostile aggression toward others. These are the qualities of “heart” Our Lady calls “far from the Heart of my Son Jesus.”
In our own country, these un-Christlike qualities of heart are writ large and loud upon the glaring screen of our national politics every day, with a mounting trail of destruction, insecurity, chaos, “suffering and tears” reverberating across the world from the epicenter of a tragic new “moral gulf of America” that was once seen as a shining “city upon a hill” offering hope, healing, solace, justice and freedom to the world—a beacon and model of “good-hearted” community.
As we answer Our Lady’s call to pray and do penance “for the conversion of hearts that are far from the Heart of my Son Jesus,” let us pray for all those whom we perceive to be “far-hearted” from the Lord in their lost spiritual state. This is a challenging call for us to pray, even for our enemies who are lacking God-consciousness: “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.” Now more than ever, the “radicalized Left” must PRAY for the “radicalized Right” and vice-versa—which is no small feat!
But let us not forget—as our most important STARTING POINT—to “put our own oxygen masks on first” and PRAY FOR OUR OWN CONVERSION OF HEART: our heart that in its own multiple ways is “far from the Heart of Jesus.” Let us pray, suffer and weep first for our own hardness of heart, fear, hatred, unforgiveness, and un-Christlike qualities which, when expressed, only add fuel to the wildfire of misery the world is experiencing today.
Our Lady continues: “Pray with me, because, little children, without God you do not have a future or eternal life.” Here Our Lady bluntly reminds us of the unvarnished truth and terror of our human condition: as Scripture teaches, our life on planet Earth is a puff of wind, “a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes” (James 4:14); “All flesh is grass and all its beauty like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.” (Isa 40:7)
Our Lady reminds us that both our future on this beautiful planet and our eternal future after earth-life ends are completely dependent on being immersed in the LIVING FLOW OF LOVE-WHO-IS-GOD, as “branches” on the “vine” of Christ and “members” of the “Body” of Christ. We separate ourselves from the lifeblood of this vital interconnectedness, this web of unending life, whenever our hearts are “far from the Heart of Jesus”—our “Head” and “True Vine.” The Sacred Heart of Jesus is the living Source of our “quantum entanglement” in Ultimate Reality. To be out of harmony with the Divine Law of Love through a hard, impenitent, and unconverted heart is to be a dead carcass, “without God, a future, or eternal life.”
Our Lady concludes her message of March 25th with a clear reference to the profound meaning of the Annunciation: “I love you, but I cannot help you without you; therefore, say ‘yes’ to God.” With these words Our Lady distills the essence of her own great “FIAT” given to the Angel Gabriel: the extraordinary privilege offered to a human being to become a “God-bearer” (“Theotokos” )—to have one’s frail humanity “overshadowed” and impregnated by the Divine Source-Who-Is-Love. This joining together of the human body, blood, and soul with the Holy Spirit of the Most High Ultimate Reality is what we call “Incarnation.” In Our Lady, this mystery was made manifest physically through her miraculous virginal conception of the child Jesus in her womb, proving that indeed “nothing will be impossible for God.” (Lk 1:37)
But the wondrous twin truth here is the incredible fact that, ALSO, none of this was possible without MARY’S “YES”—her consent, her permission, her “fiat” given to Gabriel: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” (Lk 1:38)
Today, Our Lady directs to us the same essential message that she received at the Annunciation of the Lord: “I love you, but I cannot help you without YOU; therefore, say ‘yes’ to God.” In the unfathomable humility and generosity of our Creator, human beings have been given the gift of FREE WILL which even our Divine Maker respects and regards as sovereign. God loves us immensely, just as a parent loves a child, but “cannot help” us without our “yes” to the Divine Presence and action indwelling our inmost being through the Holy Spirit.
Without our heart being OPEN and CONSCIOUSLY CONSENTING to this Presence and action, we are closed and locked up within our own small, cold and stony hearts of selfish ego—the superficial, false, “me, myself, and I” running the show of our life…into the ground of complete death. This shallow, empty existence devoid of God-consciousness that many are living today best defines Our Lady’s term, “hearts that are far from the Heart of my Son Jesus.”
Let us use the remaining days of our Lenten desert journey toward Easter in prayer, meditation, examination of conscience, and penitential action for strengthening our “YES” to the Lord. May our growing conversion refine and deepen our conscious contact with God-Who-Is-Love, both in our inmost center and also waiting to be found ALL around us. Thus we, too, will be called into the fullness of Incarnation as “God-bearers” to this wounded world—and into the Risen Life of Easter Resurrection!
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Empty yourself. Sit quietly, content with the grace of God.
—St. Romuald
The purpose of silence is to break through the crust of the false self.
—Fr. Thomas Keating, OCSO
If God is the center of your life, no words are necessary. Your mere presence will touch hearts.
—St. Vincent de Paul
It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than to have words without a heart.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi
Contemplation is a wordless resting in the presence of God beyond all thoughts and images.
—James Finley
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We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking that we used when we created them.
—Albert Einstein
Division begins in the MIND and can be ended by the HEART.
—Robb Smith
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Science can purify religion from error and superstition; religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes. Each can draw the other into a wider world, a world in which both can flourish.
—St. John Paul II
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“Incarnatio continua!”: The Incarnation continues IN you, AS you.
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Find inner peace and thousands around you will find salvation.
The purpose of the Christian life is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit.
—St. Seraphim of Sarov
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LOVE is the most universal, the most tremendous and the most mystical of cosmic forces. LOVE is the primal and universal psychic energy. LOVE is a sacred reserve of energy; it is the blood of spiritual evolution.
—Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
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Our Amma/Abba, Divine Source-Who-Is-Love,
Whole and Holy is Your Name.
May Your reign of Love come, Your will of Love be done
Here on earth, just as it is with You.
You give us each day all that we need
and You hold no accounts against us,
just as we wish to hold no accounts against each other or ourselves.
Leave us not in temptation of believing the lie of separation,
But deliver us from its consequences of acting out in fear
and the evil delusions of ego.
For Yours is the power and the glory of endless Life, Light, and Love
now and forever, amen.
—Aramaic translation of the Lord’s Prayer
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We’re in a turning-point moment in the history of our country. This is a moment when we really have to grapple with: what does it mean to us to be a compassionate society…and say that we believe in the human dignity of every person? Those are the areas of witness that the Church is called to bring.
We can do nothing other than come together and pray and proclaim our belief that the rights of every man, woman, child, and family are suffering violence in our midst. We must speak up and proclaim that this unfolding misery and suffering, and yes, war of fear and terror, cannot be tolerated in our midst.
We are all children of God. And when misery and fear and terror are unleashed upon the land, we cannot stand silent. This is the antithesis of being Christian. (referring to the Trump administration’s massive cuts to Catholic Charities USA and Catholic Relief Services’ humanitarian and refugee aid).
—Cardinal Robert McElroy, Archbishop of Washington, D.C.
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Union with Christ is also union with all those to whom he gives himself. I cannot possess Christ just for myself; I can belong to him only in union with all those who have become, or who will become, his own. Communion draws me out of myself towards him, and thus also towards unity with all people. We become “one body,” completely joined in a single existence.
—Pope Benedict XVI (from “God is Love: Deus Caritas Est”)
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We have entered a time of descent that takes us down into a different geography. In this shadowed terrain, we encounter a landscape familiar to soul—loss, grief, death, vulnerability, and fear. It is not a time of confidence and ease. No. We are hunkered down. From the perspective of soul, “down” is holy ground.
How can we meet these unpredictable times with any sense of presence and faith? To do so, we must become fluent in the ways of soul. We are required to develop another set of skills as we descend further into the collective unknown. We are being asked to hone the faculties of soul that will enable us to navigate through the Long Dark.
—Francis Weller
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Violence is strangely capable of returning characters to reality and preparing them to accept their moment of grace. Their heads are so hard that almost nothing else will do the work. This idea, that reality is something to which we must be returned at considerable cost, is one which is seldom understood, but it is one which is implicit in the Christian view of the world.
—Flannery O’Connor
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He has a price on his head, no place to lay his head, but somehow he keeps his head. He turns his focus to God and finds refuge.
Refuge is a favorite word of David’s in the Psalms: Psalm 57—a song of David when he fled from Saul into the cave, nowhere to turn. But he remembers he is not alone. “Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me! For my soul rests in You, and in the shadow of Your wings I will make my refuge.”
Make God your refuge. Not your job, not your spouse, not your reputation, or your retirement account. Make God your refuge. Let him encircle you. Let him be the foundation on which you stand. And that foundation will support you right into eternity.
—Max Lucado
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The practice of stopping, of coming back to ourselves and the present moment, is a way of connecting with the divine within us and around us. It is a way of cultivating a deeper sense of presence, awareness, and gratitude for the gift of life. The simple act of pausing, of taking a conscious breath and a step back from our habitual reactivity, can be a powerful tool for awakening. In that moment of pause, we open a space for self-awareness and self-observation to arise. We become more conscious of our thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations, and we can choose how to respond, rather than simply reacting out of habit.
—Rev. Cynthia Bourgeault
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My two decades of work in science and religion have led me to approach Catholic theology through the lenses of cosmology and philosophy, which is how theology developed before the Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325). Theology is inherently dynamic and historically embedded; attempting to constrain it within rigid institutional boundaries inevitably distorts its natural evolution.
Contemporary Catholic theology has struggled to engage meaningfully with modern science, maintaining an uneasy distance from evolutionary theory. It has largely remained anchored in Aristotelian philosophical principles and Thomistic medieval metaphysics, functioning more as a “rearview mirror” discipline than a forward-looking enterprise.
Yet if we accept the medieval notion that philosophy serves as theology’s handmaid, then in our postmodern context, science must be recognized as philosophy’s mother. The Jesuit scientist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin recognized this crucial insight, warning that Christianity risks irrelevance if it fails to align itself with evolution…a fundamental theoretical framework to which all sciences and knowledge must ultimately conform.
“Catholicity” inherently suggests openness and universality, in contrast to the partial, sectarian or exclusive. The term’s Greek roots—“kata” and “holos“—literally mean “wholly.” This emphasizes movement toward universality and wholeness. Catholicity is a way of knowing that sacralizes the world as the work of God’s Spirit groaning through us, as creation yearns for its fulfillment, preventing Catholic theology from becoming a mere mechanism for filling empty minds with outdated doctrines. Catholicity distinguishes the Catholic intellectual tradition from its doctrinal tradition, emphasizing thinking itself as a unifying act that brings coherence to fragmentation. It reflects both human and divine Spirit, actively engaging mind with world.
If Catholic theology is to remain viable as a discipline of deepening faith, then it must engage with evolution and quantum physics as the primary drivers of change. Complexity and consciousness are reshaping our understanding of reality. The future lies not in historical preservation or ecclesiocentrism but in dynamic engagement with an evolving world of connectivity, complex systems and emerging life.
—Sr. Ilia Delio, OSF
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Inaction is sometimes the greatest action we can take. Stillness is sometimes the most important move we can make. Life is within. Love is within! Pausing and being still enough to notice love within and around is a deeply powerful and countercultural act. For contemporary society, stillness is a prophetic act, defying that which demands we move quickly and upward. It challenges the notion that it is better to be busy and occupied. It refuses the call to be constantly distracted and perpetually plugged in.
—Charles Lattimore Howard
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Every being exists in intimate relation with other beings and in constant exchange of gifts with each other.
—Fr. Thomas Berry, CP
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Most people think they are their thinking, with no clue who they are apart from their thoughts. In contemplation, we move beneath thoughts and sensations to the level of pure being and naked awareness. We calmly observe our own stream of consciousness and see its compulsive patterns. We wait in silence with an open heart. It doesn’t take long for our usual patterns to assault us. Our habits of control, addiction, negativity, tension, anger, and fear assert themselves. When Jesus is “driven” by the Spirit into the wilderness, the first things that show up are “wild beasts.” Contemplative prayer is not consoling at first. Truth will set us free, yes, but usually it first makes us miserable.
Many insist on at least twenty minutes for a full contemplative “sit,” because for most people the first half (or more) of any silent prayer time is just letting go of those thoughts, judgments, fears, negations and emotions that try to impose themselves. We become watchers, stepping back, observing, and letting go without judgment. We gradually realize those thoughts and feelings are not who we really are.
—Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM
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God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.
These are the words we dimly hear:
You, sent out beyond your recall,
Go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.
Flare up like flame
And make big shadows I can move in.
—Rainer Maria Rilke
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Jesus compares our growth and transformation to a tree that is expected to bear fruit—and it is given time to do so. This School of Divine Love we call life provides infinite opportunities for this transformation, for metanoia and awakening. The spiritual journey, which is the whole of life, is a training in consent to God’s presence and to all reality.
Centering Prayer, other contemplative practices, and 12-Step recovery programs are some of the ways we can train and strengthen this muscle of consent, saying “yes” to the work of the Divine Therapist and to new growth. With faithful practice of resting in God’s grace, the fruits of the Spirit begin to manifest in inner healing, new choices, new ways of perceiving, practical caring for others, and all manner of goodness. The God of no name and no place is all in all, indwelling and animating every particle and subatomic particle of the universe.
—Fr. Thomas Keating, OCSO
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To inhabit my body in all its grace and its flaws appears as a gift for the new territory I’m in. Aging is the ultimate slow motion loss, inevitable for all, yet somehow coming as a surprise. You hit a point where it’s no longer so incremental, and no longer amenable to cover up. The original dance between order and chaos takes over bodies inside and out. But we can make a decision to be fascinated rather than terrified as we watch our children move into adolescence, or our own metamorphosis of aging.
There is grief, to be sure, and fear, and simple dismay. But I also experience a wholly unexpected gift of contentment. This is the body’s grace—a gift of physiology, right alongside fading hair and skin. In youth the brain is tuned to novelty. At this later stage it inclines to greater satisfaction in what is routine.
Slowing down makes space for noticing. I am embodied with an awareness that once eluded me. I become attentive to beauty in ordinary, everyday aspects of life. There is nothing more delicious than my first cup of coffee in the morning; no view more breathtaking than the white pine that stands day in and day out behind my backyard.
—Krista Tippett
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A prophet cannot know that all will be well, that those in power will wake up and mend the damage they have caused, and that peace will prevail. The mystic must rest in unknowing, which is not always comfortable and can feel like grief. And yet that emptiness, that waiting is sacred. It’s what distinguishes a prophet-mystic from a self-righteous activist or a spiritual narcissist. It is in the interior desert, where the landscape appears barren, that patience reveals the miracle of life teeming just below the surface.
The more we mindfully observe what is, the more beauty comes into focus. There is nothing broken here, nothing to fix. Rather, the prophet-mystic practices sitting with reality as it is. From that place of quiet listening we may perceive what is ours to do and tap into the vitality we need to do it. We take up our birthright of belonging and we mend the broken world and restore wholeness to the web of interbeing.
—Mirabai Starr
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Wisdom from Pope Francis
I lament the increasing irrelevance of international bodies and short-sighted attitudes concerned with protecting only the particular and national interests of the few. International organizations must be given power to provide for the global common good, the elimination of hunger and poverty, and the defense of fundamental human rights. This is an urgent task which regards the whole of humanity. We must beware of politics being in the hands of the richest and most powerful and forgetting the common good of the entire planet.
It will not be technology that saves us: endorsing utilitarian deregulation means imposing the law of the strongest as the only rule; and it is a law that dehumanizes. Technological progress has not been accompanied by a development in human responsibility, values, and conscience.
Today we are witnessing a “polycrisis” which includes ongoing wars, climate change, migratory phenomena, and technological innovation. The intertwining of these critical issues which touch on various dimensions of life, lead us to ask ourselves about the destiny of our world.
We must avoid remaining immobile, anchored in our certainties, habits and fears. We must listen carefully to the contribution of scientific knowledge. We need to overcome our profound resistance to change and pay greater attention to our representation of the world and the cosmos. We must realize that our parameters regarding anthropology and culture require profound revision and attention to new ways of interpreting the world and its evolution, with the unprecedented forms of relatedness that correspond to it.
These new perspectives that reveal the interconnectedness of humanity, not just among ourselves but with the entire system of living things, can provide us with signs of HOPE. And this HOPE does not consist of waiting with resignation, but of striving with zeal towards true life, which leads well beyond the narrow individual perimeter.
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
