Medjugorje Message: December 25, 2024
Dear children! Pray, pray, pray that peace may begin to reign in every heart and prevail over every evil and peacelessness. Thank you for having responded to my call.
Annual Message to Jacov Colo: December 25, 2024
Today, on this day of grace, in a special way I am calling you not to live a life striving for earthly goals and not to seek peace and joy in earthly things, because in this way darkness takes over your life and you do not see the meaning of your life. Little children, open the doors of your hearts to Jesus, permit Him to take over your entire life so that you may begin to live in God’s love and mercy. My children, only with Jesus in your hearts will you come to know the true goal of your life and long for eternal salvation. I am blessing you with my motherly blessing.
River of Light
January 2025
Our Lady’s message, given on Christmas Day, is a joyful yet sobering reminder that after 2000 years, our human race has yet to truly receive, accept, embrace, and LIVE the angel’s Good News proclaimed to the shepherds keeping watch on the first Christmas night: “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you glad tidings of GREAT JOY that will be for ALL people. For today in the city of David a Savior has been born for you who is Messiah and Lord….And suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel, praising God and saying: “Glory to God in the highest and on earth PEACE to those on whom his favor rests.” (Lk 2:10-14) “SHALOM” —PEACE—is the great Messianic promise: an enduring peace within all the minds, hearts, and communal relationships on earth, as ALL nations and peoples live as ONE united human family, confident and unafraid of death, in the blessed assurance of eternal life.
This biblical promise was actualized and made manifest by Mary in Bethlehem over 2000 years ago, but remains to be fully realized and ratified by the world at large—including by most who are labeled “Christians.” The nativity of Jesus fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah who said, “On that day they will sing in the land of Judah: ‘A strong city have we….Open up the gates to let in a nation that is just, one that keeps faith. You will keep them in PERFECT PEACE whose mind is stayed on You—in PEACE, for their trust in You. Trust in the Lord forever! For the Lord is an eternal Rock….Salvation we (human beings) have not achieved for the earth, for the inhabitants of the world cannot bring it forth. But Your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise; awake and sing.'” (Isa 26:1-4, 18-19)
As John’s gospel explains, the long-awaited, long-promised Savior of the world had now come: “The true Light which enlightens everyone…was in the world, and the world came to be through him, but the world did not know him…his own people did not accept him. But to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God….No one has ever seen God. The only Son…has revealed him.” (Jn 1:9-18)
This monumental, cosmic, world-changing, peace-bringing event of Christ’s birth in Bethlehem awaits the later mystical teaching of St. Paul to help us assimilate it: “For he is OUR PEACE, he who made both ONE and broke down the dividing wall of enmity, through his flesh…that he might create in himself ONE new person in place of the two, thus establishing PEACE….He came and preached PEACE to you who were far off and PEACE to those who were near, for through him we both have access in ONE SPIRIT to the Father.” (Eph 2:14-18) Through the non-dual, unitive consciousness given by the Holy Spirit, the “relational wholeness” we call “PEACE” can prevail in each individual human heart (the microcosmic “particle” or “fractal” level), and thus also in the communal, international, earth-wide, universal, and cosmic realms (the macrocosmic “wave” or “whole” )!
This is the greatest GOSPEL (“Good News” ) ever announced in human history—but was it received? Fast-forward 2000 years and Mary, Mother of Jesus, who gave birth to the Incarnate Word as our Savior in Bethlehem, appears again on this earth as the “Queen of Peace,” daily visiting the Medjugorje visionaries (for 43 years, so far)—constantly pleading for PEACE on earth through our PRAYER. Her message to the world at Christmas 2024 is one sentence: “Pray, pray, pray that peace may begin to reign in every heart and prevail over every evil and peacelessness.”
Thus we are STILL waiting for the Good News proclaimed at Shepherds’ Field to “land” in the minds and hearts of the human species! Today, the birth of Christ “CONSCIOUSNESS” is our greatest challenge, still lying ahead of us on the evolutionary spiral staircase—that is, the “SHALOM” Awareness of which Isaiah spoke long before the first Christmas night, saying, “You, God, will keep them in PERFECT PEACE (“Shalom Shalom” ) whose MIND is STAYED ON YOU—in PEACE, for their TRUST in you.”
But how can a human being “keep his mind stayed” on God? The human mind is riddled with frenetic, chaotic thoughts and distractions 24/7, with an ever-shortening attention span through our modern technology’s overbearing presence, constantly bombarding our brains and senses with rapid-fire images, sound-bytes, and trivial, inane, nonsensical “content.” Amidst such mental distraction, coupled with our fallen condition of having a selfish, demanding ego with its emotional programs for happiness driving all of our decisions by FEAR, how can the “evil and peacelessness” of our world not “prevail”?
Our Lady’s consistent antidote to our impossibly difficult human condition of fearful distrust and retardation of consciousness is PRAYER. Hence, her plea for us to “pray, pray, pray” goes back to the earliest days of Medjugorje. Now, 43 years later, she again calls us to pray “that peace may begin to reign in every heart and prevail over every evil and peacelessness.” This is the very “peace on earth, good will to men” that was sent to rule the world through the “Newborn King” in Bethlehem 2000 years ago! Yet we are still awaiting the evolution of human consciousness that will allow us to “BEGIN” overcoming our fear-based “evil and peacelessness.” PRAYER is the way forward!
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Our Lady’s annual message to the youngest Medjugorje visionary, Jacov Colo, is given every Christmas Day, coinciding with her December 25th message to the world. This time, the two messages are very complementary, as Our Lady’s lengthier words to Jacov provide a helpful elaboration upon her shorter message, above. She begins: “Today, on this day of grace, in a special way I am calling you not to live a life striving for earthly goals and not to seek peace and joy in earthly things, because in this way darkness takes over your life and you do not see the meaning of your life.”
In this illuminating counterpoint to Our Lady’s positive command to “pray, pray, pray,” she gives us some “negative” instructions on what NOT to do, just as all good mothers give specific directions of both “Do’s” and “Don’t’s” to their children. If Our Lady’s aim is that we PRAY for and realize PEACE in our life, thereby discovering life’s true meaning and a desire for eternal salvation beyond the grave, then she steers us AWAY from the things that impede, block, or prevent our experience of PEACE—the true “peace that passes understanding.” (Phil 4:7)
First, Our Lady bluntly calls us “NOT to live a life striving for earthly goals.” This teaching concerns the work that we do in the world. Any type of work can have value and dignity, but an attitude of “striving” can become an obsessive “workaholism.” It is vitally important to ask ourselves what our GOAL is for the work that we do: Is our “striving” labor aimed only at making lots of money? (more than we actually “need”?) Is “money” our #1 goal in life? Or, is our goal in working to gain admiration, status, and esteem in the eyes of the world or of certain people? Is our work done in order to “impress” someone? Or, is the goal of our hard work to put ourselves in a position of power and control over other people? To be the “boss,” large-and-in-charge?
These are three very common aims motivating human labor—but Our Lady warns against them as “earthly goals” ! In fact, these three goals comprise the three energy centers of the False Self system (our fallen human condition): safety/security, affection/esteem, and power/ control. They are the primary motivators for work in most of the human race, yet “success” in achieving them is no guarantee of PEACE; rather, these three “earthly goals” tend to breed an addictive, insatiable thirst for “more” that robs inner peace and contentment.
Secondly, Our Lady tells us “NOT to seek peace and joy in earthly things.” True “peace and joy” are products of LOVE: a healthy connectedness within the natural “flow” of the interrelated web of life that is Reality—our conforming to it and “joining the dance.” Living in harmony with the ever-changing and evolving movement found in all life forms, and together growing in acceptance of the diversity of God’s creation with greater compassion, mercy, solidarity and service towards the suffering: this brings us authentic “peace and joy.”
In contrast to this, what does it mean to “seek peace and joy in earthly things” ? When we begin to fixate, over-use, and depend upon any static “thing” outside of ourselves—e.g. material goods, food, alcohol, drugs, porn, social media, internet shopping, gaming, travel, sports/ entertainment, or even another person playing a dysfunctional, objectified “role” in our life—we are seeking “peace and joy in earthly things.”
Our Lady is calling us NOT to do this, “because in this way darkness takes over your life and you do not see the meaning of your life.” When we “strive for earthly goals” in our work or “seek peace and joy in earthly things” in our leisure, we succumb to a narrow, limited, partial, and myopic view of life and its true meaning. The vast, limitless PEACE and JOY for which we were created by God becomes constricted, shrunken, and diminished to a pitiful fraction of what it could be. The DARKNESS of this blind ignorance closes in on us as our life becomes small, petty and mean, concerned only for the next transitory material toy, selfish “hit” or momentary “fix,” rather than for our eternal destiny of ever-expanding Light, Life, and Love.
Thankfully, Our Lady lifts us out of this depressing vision of what we’ve become, bringing us from darkness to light: “Little children, open the doors of your hearts to Jesus, permit Him to take over your entire life so that you may begin to live in God’s love and mercy.” In other words, “Pray, pray, pray!” While Our Lady does not use the word “pray” in Jacov’s message, her detailed teachings here make her implicit meaning clear: it is through PRAYER that we “open the doors of our hearts to Jesus.”
It is only in such a dedicated time spent in silence—apart from our distracting activity and devices, focused not on our own mental chatter but upon the Lord, our God-Who-Is-Love, and upon the flow of Divine Love coursing through the universe and through our own body and being—that we can truly “OPEN” our hearts. In prayer, as Jesus instructed, we “go to our inner room and close the door” to the unruly noise of the mind with its thoughts. With the door of our thoughts shut, the door of our hearts can open.
And the Lord Jesus, ever humble and respectful of our free will as human beings, awaits our consent, our permission to begin acting powerfully in our inmost depths—just as He awaited Mary’s “fiat” or “Yes” before taking flesh in her virginal womb. Today Our Lady calls us to give our “fiat” as she did: “Permit Him to take over your entire life so that you may begin to live in God’s love and mercy.” Surely Our Lady permitted God/Love to “take over her entire life,” and she says we can do likewise: we, too, can be “ALL IN” for Jesus as the Divine Indwelling Presence at the center of our being, and we, too, can begin to live immersed “in God’s love and mercy.”
A foretaste of Heaven is available and accessible to us here and now—through “Prayer of the Open Heart.” Divine Love seeks to make a dwelling within each of us as “another Christ”—another Incarnate Word of God. When this happens, “earthly goals and things” are nowhere on our radar anymore. The joy of living “ordinary life with extraordinary love” in each present moment is more than enough!
Our Lady concludes her message: “My children, only with Jesus in your hearts will you come to know the true goal of your life and long for eternal salvation.” Jesus is “the true light that enlightens every person” (Jn 1:9), yet many of us have “preferred darkness to light because our works were evil” (Jn 3:19) due to our blind attachment to “earthly goals and things.” But if we “permit” the Divine Indwelling Presence of “Jesus in our hearts” through PRAYER, this Presence will illuminate us, shock and surprise us, thrill and inspire us with unfathomable new knowledge of “the true goal of our life” and a previously unfelt, unseen, unimagined “longing for eternal salvation.” We will actually “GET IT” for the first time! By keeping our “mind stayed on God,” in the fearless freedom of “perfect peace” we will understand and experience a joyful yearning for eternity!
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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.
Blessed are you who live the Light into this world!
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Where will God go to touch the world? Look deep within Mary for an answer. Better still, look deep within yourself. “Christ in you, the hope of glory!” (Col 1:27) Christ grew in Mary until he had to come out. Christ will grow in you until the same occurs. He will come out in your speech, in your actions, in your decisions. Every place you live will be a Bethlehem, every day you live will be a Christmas. Deliver Christ into the world—your world.
—Max Lucado
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Another meaning of Christmas: God came into the world to save the world, not just the people living in it. The incarnation has meaning for humanity, but also for the cosmos itself. We don’t know exactly what that means, and our imaginations aren’t up to the task of picturing it, but, because of the incarnation, dogs too can go to heaven. Our faith also asks us to believe that God’s saving activity in the Christ extends to more than only human beings with self-awareness and eternal souls, and more than even animals and other living things.
God’s saving activity in Christ reaches so deep that it saves creation itself—the oceans, the mountains, the soil, the desert sands, and the earth itself. Jesus assured us that nothing is ever ultimately lost. No hair falls from someone’s head and no sparrow falls from the sky and simply disappears forever. God creates, loves, cares for, and ultimately resurrects every bit of creation for all eternity.
—Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI
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Whether you call it Sacred Unity, God, Universe, Ground of Being, the Source, or One, it is not “out there” somewhere, but is written into what we are and where we are. Where could the Source of this loving, relational reality, the luminous web connecting all things, ever not be? When we discover and live from the coherence in our being, we see that we are in a relational field with all beings, with a mystical spark at the center that connects us all. Merton saw this clearly at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, and Teilhard de Chardin saw this when he wrote: “To live the cosmic life is to live dominated by the consciousness that one is an atom in the body of the mystical and cosmic Christ.”
—Joy Andrews Hayter
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All of nature is endowed with the energy of love, and yet only by being open to love can one know love as the precious gift of nature itself. In this receptivity of love I began to let go of my fixed ideas and narrow definitions of God, church, and world, and I invited into my heart and mind a new universe of life and a new way of seeing the world. I did not seek a new worldview; rather, I went in search of truth and found love at the heart of all things. I have come to realize that all knowledge is true knowledge—whether in the sciences or in the humanities—if it moves one to fall more deeply in love.
Love is the most mysterious and unknown energy in the universe. There is no logical explanation for this core energy of life…an energy field that is somehow entangled with an infinite energy of divine love. God alone, who is absolute love, is completely personal and ineffable intimacy. Love is rooted in the fundamental nature of reality itself. Love forms every star, atom, leaf, daffodil, bird, earthworm, cat, giraffe, tiger, and human; everything that exists is born from love. Even consciousness is born of love, so that mind is not intellect alone but includes the body and senses and emotional life.
—Sr. Ilia Delio, OSF
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God as known in the Christ is not the stereotypical Supreme Being of traditional theology. That Supreme Being was characterized first by controlling, dominating, dictatorial power—not limited by any law except the will of the Supreme Being Himself: omnipotence.
In sharp contrast, the God imaged by Jesus exerts no dominating supremacy. In Christ we see an image of a God who is not armed with lightning bolts but with basin and towel, who spewed not threats but good news for all, who rode not a warhorse but a donkey, weeping in compassion for people who do not know the way of peace. In Christ, God is supreme, but not in the old discredited paradigm of supremacy; God is the supreme healer, the supreme friend, the supreme lover, the supreme life-giver who self-empties in grace for all.
In the aftermath of Jesus and his cross, we should never again define God’s sovereignty by analogy to the kings of this world who dominate, oppress, subordinate, exploit, and marginalize. Instead, we have migrated to an entirely new universe, “a new creation” in which old ideas of supremacy are subverted. We are rising to a higher and deeper understanding of God as pure light, with no shadow of violence, conquest, exclusion, hostility, or hate at all. We are becoming ready to let Jesus’ radical new vision replace the old vision instead of being accommodated within it.
—Brian McLaren
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January 1: Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God
There is such blessed reason to seek out and remain near this great teaching force known worldwide as Our Lady, Nuestra Senora, and most especially called with love, Our Mother, Our Holy Mother. She is known by many names and many images, and has appeared in different epochs of time, to people across the world, in exactly the shapes and images the soul would most readily understand her, be able to embrace her and be embraced by her. She wears a thousand names, thousands of skin tones, thousands of costumes to represent her being patroness of deserts, mountains, stars, streams, and oceans. If there are more than six billion people on earth, then thereby she comes to us in billions of images. Yet at her center is only one great Immaculate Heart.
In Blessed Mother’s view, all are lovable; all souls are accepted, all carry a sweetness of heart, are beautiful to the eyes; worthy of consciousness, of being inspired, helped, comforted, and protected—even if other humans believe foolishly and blindly to the contrary.
—Dr. Clarissa Pinkola-Estes
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“I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in them will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.” (Jn 15:5)
The motivation, meaning, and energy of any action comes from it source, which is the person’s core vantage point. What is their real and honest motivation? What does the seeing? Is it the cut-off branch, the egoic self, trying to work on its own? Is it a person needing to be right or is it a person who wants to love?
A branch that has remained consciously connected to its Source (God, Jesus, Higher Power) offers a very different perspective. When Jesus spoke of a cut-off branch, he meant a person who can only see from the small position of me and what meets my needs. Our society is largely populated by such disconnected branches, where a commitment to the common good is rare.
Seeing through a lens beyond our own self is participative seeing. This is the new self that can say with St. Paul, “I live now, no longer I, but Christ is living in me.” (Gal 2:20) This primal communion gives a spaciousness, joy, and quiet contentment—not anxious because the illusion of a separation between “me” and “the world” has been overcome.
A mature believer knows that it’s impossible NOT to be connected to the Source, “on the vine.” But most people are not consciously there yet, not saved from themselves yet, not yet living out of their totally given and unearned identity, “hidden with Christ in God.” (Col 3:3) Religion’s primary job is to bring this foundational truth of our shared identity in God to full, grateful consciousness. This is the true meaning of holiness, which we can only receive; it is nothing we can achieve, which humiliates the ego of we willful achievers.
—Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM
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The spiritual journey is not a success story. It is a series of humiliations of the false self. These make room inside us for the inflowing of the Holy Spirit, and this brings true freedom and transformation. Each time we consent to God’s presence and action within, we are dismantling the old structures of our ego. This is not a comfortable process—it often feels like dying. Yet, it is in this very letting go that we discover the immense freedom and joy of our true self, united with God.
Centering Prayer is a practice that trains us in this consent. In silence, we surrender to the reality of God’s love, which can be both healing and disorienting. Over time, this surrender becomes a way of life, enabling us to respond to God’s will with greater openness and trust. Just as Christ set aside the old order to establish the new, we too are invited to relinquish the attachments of our false self and embrace the new life offered in Christ.
—Fr. Thomas Keating, OCSO
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Deep within us all there is an amazing inner sanctuary of the soul, a holy place, a Divine Center, a speaking Voice, to which we may continually return. Eternity is in our hearts, calling us home to itself. It is a dynamic center, a creative Life that presses to birth within us. It is the Shekinah of the soul, the Presence in the midst.
Practice comes first in religion, not theory or dogma. And Christian practice is not exhausted in outward deeds. These are the fruits, not the roots. A practicing Christian must above all be one who practices the perpetual return of the soul into the inner sanctuary, who brings the world into its Light, who brings the Light into the world with all its turmoil and recreates it.
—Thomas Kelly
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Christmas marks Divine Love’s emergence in our shadowed world. Every conflict, act of violence, and human suffering speaks to an unborn God yearning to be loved, for love finds its completion only when received and returned. We’re called to sense Earth’s yearning for love—the trembling trees, thirsty grasslands, birds seeking sanctuary. All creation voices its need for love.
We serve as midwives to the future, to an unfolding world in life’s infinite capacity for growth. Everything needed to create a world of justice, peace, dignity, shared abundance, and planetary harmony already exists within us. The cosmos of tomorrow lies in our hands. To fully embrace love requires radical surrender—loosening our grip on control and allowing love to flow without restriction or condition. Staying faithful to love ultimately leads us to profound freedom.
—Sr. Ilia Delio, OSF
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Today, more than ever before, life must be characterized by a sense of Universal Responsibility, not only nation to nation and human to human, but also human to other forms of life.
—H.H. the 14th Dalai Lama
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Wisdom from Pope Francis
There is faith in humor. Irony is medicine, not only to lift and brighten others, but also ourselves, because self-mockery is a powerful instrument in overcoming the temptation toward narcissism. Narcissists are continually looking into the mirror, painting themselves, gazing at themselves, but the best advice in front of a mirror is to laugh at ourselves. It is good for us. It will prove the truth of the proverb that there are only two kinds of perfect people: the dead, and those yet to be born.
Children are examples of spontaneity, of humanity, and they remind us that those who give up their humanity give up everything. When it becomes hard to cry seriously or to laugh passionately, then we really are on the downhill slope. We become anesthetized, and anesthetized adults do nothing good for themselves, nor for society, nor for the church.
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
