Medjugorje Message: May 25, 2025
Dear children! In this time of grace, I am calling you to be people of hope, peace and joy, so that every person may be a peacemaker and a lover of life. Pray, little children, to the Holy Spirit to fill you with the strength of His own Holy Spirit of courage and surrender. And this time for you will be a gift and a walk in holiness towards eternal life. I am with you and I love you. Thank you for having responded to my call.
River of Light
June 2025
Our Lady’s message anticipates the great June feast of Pentecost, inviting us to live a Spirit-filled life that can change the world and prepare us for eternity. Twice Our Lady uses the phrase, “THIS TIME,” saying “In this time of grace…” and “this time for you will be a gift…”—pointing out the blessedness of our present moment in history. Surely we feel great happiness and gratitude for the gift of our new Holy Father, Leo XIV, who is poised to honor and continue the ministry of Pope Francis as a bridge-builder bringing together the disparate, divided, marginalized, or overlooked parts of the Body of Christ into one unified whole and holy Earth community of God’s children. His vision of peace, love, and the reconciliation of our many differences is a broad, vast, inclusive, and “catholic” vision—truly “universal” in scope, just like Our Lady’s messages from Medjugorje.
She begins: “In this time of grace, I am calling you to be people of hope, peace and joy, so that every person may be a peacemaker and a lover of life.” At a time when we are witnessing a nihilistic despair towards our future on this beautiful but severely damaged planet—a time when our political rulers have seemingly abandoned all interest or ambition to “save the earth” for future generations, instead marching headlong into nuclear saber-rattling, unrestrained AI development, full-throttle exploitation of the environment for its natural resources and lucrative fossil fuels, a blood lust for personal profiteering, and the wholesale silencing of scientific research and intellectual discourse that can offer wisdom, prudence, understanding and discernment of our true situation and survival options—at such a dark time as this, Our Lady calls us to “be people of hope, peace and joy.” Countercultural, to say the least!
But we are still in the Jubilee Year of HOPE declared by Pope Francis, who saw clearly that our world is teetering on the edge of a nihilistic despair in which many people believe “all hope is lost” for a livable future on earth, so why not grab all we can for ourselves today, no matter who or what is harmed? Such cynical fatalism and dystopian/apocalyptic views fuel our lowest human impulses toward unbridled greed, unethical means to selfish ends, violence, apathy and exploitation of nature, and narcissistic disregard and hostility toward immigrants/refugees and all who are on the war-torn margins of poverty, illness and need. Young people today report high levels of depression, dread, hopelessness, and suicidal despair for their future in this sick and suffering world. Thus ours has become a pitiful, self-absorbed “culture of death” in many ways.
In the face of this situation, both Pope Francis and now Pope Leo XIV, along with Our Lady Queen of Peace, are calling “every person” to be “a lover of life.” If we truly “love life,” each morning we are filled with gratitude upon waking to the gift of another day, appreciating the birdsong, sunshine, or rain shower, the plant and pet life around us, and “all our relations” (human and otherwise). To be a “lover of life” is “to be a person of hope, peace and joy” —and, Our Lady adds, “a peacemaker.”
Yet to be a “peacemaker” is a very high calling, for it requires an understanding of the things that make for peace. At the start of the Holy Week of His Passion, upon the entry into Jerusalem, Jesus “saw the city and wept over it, saying, ‘If this day you only knew what makes for peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes.'” (Lk 19:41-42) Today we might well say the same thing of ourselves—with tears for our peaceless world. For our human consciousness is largely “stalled” at an immature stage of development in which we look for “peace” in the superficial, worldly “emotional programs for happiness” that can never work: our culture’s symbols for safety/ security, affection/ esteem, power/ control, and physical comfort/ ease/ pleasure.
This is the externalized, outward, transitory, conditional “peace” that “the world gives.” But the Risen Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you; MY PEACE I give to you. NOT AS THE WORLD GIVES do I give it to you.” (Jn 14:27) The Peace of Christ promised us by the Risen Savior is not the result of any external, transitory, or conditional object. It is not dependent upon “mammon” or “people, places and things” outside of ourselves, nor upon the satisfaction of our False Self emotional programs and their addictive needs and cravings.
Instead, the Peace of Christ is given to us internally as the HOLY SPIRIT: as an inner “spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (Jn 4:14) While “worldly peace” is the “water for which we will always thirst again,” enslaving us to the external conditions that must constantly be met, renewed, and replaced—trapping us in insatiable compulsions for “more” (more money, status, material goods, romance, praise, pleasure, numbing medication, etc.)—the Peace of Christ is, in fact, the indwelling Spirit of God who liberates us from all bondage. For “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is FREEDOM.” (2 Cor 3:17)
This inner peace is freedom from fear, freedom from worry and anxiety, freedom from crippling anger, bitterness and unforgiveness, freedom from clinging codependency on other people, freedom from addiction to any substance or activity. St. Paul wrote, “For freedom Christ has set us free.” (Gal 5:1) Indeed, only those who live in this spiritual freedom that is the interior Peace of Christ can be “people of hope, peace and joy” and thus qualified to be called “a peacemaker and a lover of life.”
For the one who has received the Peace of Christ is uniquely free to love ALL of life—not just moments when the required external “goodies” are flowing. Rather, to be “a lover of life” is to live in the magnificent stream and interior “flow” of the Indwelling Spirit of God-Who-Is-Love, a spring of eternally life-giving water that makes every moment—whether “happy” or “sad”—a fresh outpouring of Life, Light, Love, and the Peace of Christ. Outer circumstances cannot touch the inner peace of a true “lover of life.” Only such a one can be a “peacemaker.”
Our Lady continues by telling us exactly what to do in order to become this “peacemaker and lover of life“: “Pray, little children, to the Holy Spirit to fill you with the strength of His own Holy Spirit of courage and surrender.” As always, the bottom line for Our Lady is PRAYER. How vital it is for us to PRAY EACH DAY to the Holy Spirit of Love—the “connective tissue” of the universe who joins all reality in a network of relational wholeness—by consciously and sincerely asking for His 7 Gifts: Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety, Fear of the Lord; and for His 9 Fruits: Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self-Control. (Gal 5:22-23)
In addition, Our Lady identifies three qualities we will need in order to become “a peacemaker and a lover of life” : “strength, courage, and surrender.” We will need “strength” and “courage” to boldly choose the Peace of Christ over “the peace that the world gives.” As we choose this for ourselves, we may encounter criticism, rejection, opposition or conflict from those who know only “worldly peace” —the outward, conditional “peace” that comes from temporary gains of safety/security, affection/esteem, power/control, money/ things, and comfort/pleasure.
This difference in the two types of “peace” (inner and outer) led Jesus to say: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have come not to bring peace, but a sword…to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.” (Mt 10:34-36) For the Peace of Christ relies on nothing external in “the world” —only upon trust in the Divine Indwelling Spirit of God/Love—while worldly peace relies on a constant, cutthroat competition and restless pursuit of the dominant culture’s symbols and goods to fill our human needs and neuroses. Indeed, as Our Lady says, we must pray for the “strength” and “courage” to withstand and even confront or challenge the exploitative, selfish, greedy, and destructive forces that operate in the name of bringing “peace as the world gives” —a peace which is often at best a “partial” peace for only the wealthy and privileged.
And Our Lady reminds us that we will need the Holy Spirit of “surrender,” as well. First, we need the Spirit’s “flow” within us to “surrender” our own deeply-engrained conditioning and cultural myths about “worldly peace” and our habit of “chasing it down” externally, as something outside ourselves. Conversion to “peacemaking” must begin with our own “surrender” of the false ideas of “peace as the world gives” that we have held for a lifetime.
Secondly, as “peacemakers,” we need the Holy Spirit’s help to be able to “surrender” our egoic need to assert our own will and opinions in a way that conquers, controls, dominates, coerces, or forces others to live “our way.” This is the Peace of Christ that our Lord modeled in both his life and death—a peace born of sacrificial love for all humanity that empowered him with the Holy Spirit’s “strength” and “courage” to boldly challenge the Pharisees and money changers in the temple, but also to “surrender” his divine ability to dominate and control others, instead weeping over the false choices that people continued to make with the gift of their free will. If GOD so respects our human freedom to choose (even wrongly), we must have the humility and spirit of “surrender” to do the same for each other. This is the hallmark of a “peacemaker” —nonviolent acceptance of each person’s human dignity.
Our Lady concludes her message: “And this time for you will be a gift and a walk in holiness towards eternal life. I am with you and I love you.” Like the first apostles in the early Church, we too, pray to be “clothed with power from on high” (Lk 24:49), so that, filled with the Holy Spirit’s fruits and gifts, we may experience the Indwelling Peace of Christ which the world cannot give. In the Spirit’s “strength, courage, and surrender,” we can live “this time” in history—even with its dark and distressing aspects—as a “gift,” walking with Our Lady’s love for us, “in holiness towards eternal life,” filled with an inner peace untouchable by any outward forces.
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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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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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Recognizing “enoughness” is a radical act in an economy that is always urging us to consume more.
—Robin Wall Kimmerer
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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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In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus proclaimed, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” This is a Beatitude that challenges all of us….Peace begins with each one of us: in the way we look at others, listen to others and speak about others. The way we communicate is of fundamental importance: we must say “no” to the war of words and images, we must reject the paradigm of war.
We are living in times that are both difficult to navigate and to recount. They demand that each of us, in our different roles and services, never give in to mediocrity. St. Augustine reminds us of this when he said, “Let us live well and the times will be good. We are the times.”
Today, one of the most important challenges is to promote communication that can bring us out of the “Tower of Babel” in which we find ourselves—out of the confusion of loveless languages that are often ideological or partisan….I repeat the invitation made by Pope Francis: Let us disarm communication of all prejudice and resentment, fanaticism and hatred; let us free it from aggression. We do not need loud, forceful communication, but rather communication that is capable of listening and gathering the voices of the weak who have no voice.
Let us disarm words and we will help to disarm the world. Disarmed and disarming communication allows us to share a different view of the world and to act in a manner consistent with our human dignity….I ask you to choose consciously and courageously the path of communication in favor of peace.
—Pope Leo XIV
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What does it mean to “bind and loose”?
Among other things, it means that as Christians, as members of the Body of Christ, like Jesus when he walked this earth, we have the power to dispense God’s mercy and forgiveness and be a salvific cord that connects others to God’s family. If someone is connected to us, (s)he is connected to Christ and to the community of salvation.
If you love a person who is indifferent or hostile to religion, and they don’t reject your love, they cannot be lost. If a bond of love exists, they are connected to the Body of Christ and to the community of salvation. It’s true, only Christ has the power to do this, but we are the Body of Christ. It is Christ, not we, who are doing this. The incarnation gives us that power.
We are the Body of Christ. When people touch us, they are touching Christ. Jesus assures us, “whoever believes in me will perform the same works as I do and will perform even greater works.” (Jn 14:12) LOVE is the ultimate power within life. God is love, and in the end, there will only be love. When we love someone and they respond to our love, being members of Christ’s body empowers us to say, “My heaven includes this loved one.”
—Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI
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Litany of Liberation (inspired by the Buddhist Heart Sutra)
A Message of Hope for Letting Go of the False Self
All the centuries before me:
Gone, gone, entirely gone!
All the nations of the earth:
Gone, gone, entirely gone!
All kings, generals, and governors:
Gone, gone, entirely gone!
All the wars, plagues, and tragedies:
Gone, gone, entirely gone!
All human achievements by individuals or groups:
Gone, gone, entirely gone!
All sickness, sin, and error:
Gone, gone, entirely gone!
All our identities, roles, and titles:
Gone, gone, entirely gone!
All hurts, grudges, and memories of offense:
Gone, gone, entirely gone!
All enslavement, abuse and torture:
Gone, gone, entirely gone!
All diseases, afflictions, and lifetime wounds:
Gone, gone, entirely gone!
All rejections, abandonments, and betrayals:
Gone, gone, entirely gone!
All human glory, fame, money, and reputation:
Gone, gone, entirely gone!
All comforts, luxuries, and pleasures:
Gone, gone, entirely gone!
All ideas, information, and ideology:
Gone, gone, entirely gone!
All image, appearance, and privacy:
Gone, gone, entirely gone!
All superiority, self-assuredness, and expertise:
Gone, gone, entirely gone!
All personal power, self-will, and self-control:
Gone, gone, entirely gone!
—Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM
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I abandon all that I think I am, all that I hope to be, all that I believe I possess. I let go of the past, I withdraw my grasping hand from the future, and in the great silence of this moment, I alertly rest my soul.
—Howard Thurman
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Deep within us, amid our differences as individuals and nations and species, is the desire for oneness. This holy longing is found not only in the human soul but in the soul of the universe, at the heart of everything that has being. We are not an exception to the universe; we are an expression of the universe. Our longings are a unique manifestation of the universe’s longings.
In listening to the depths of life—our lives and every life—we will hear the longings of the One that are deeper than the fears that divide us. There is no such thing as ultimate separation between one part of the universe and another, between the well-being of the human species and earth’s other species, between the life of one nation and the rest of the world. We and all people and creatures of all times are traveling together in one river of life. We carry each other within us, and the universe carries us within itself.
—John Philip Newell
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I had wondered what he was doing behind the closed door of his study at an early morning hour. Now I knew. He was not just reading and praying. He was following a discipline which focused him and made it possible for him to realize his full potential. He was lining up his center with the integrating principle at work in the universe, the principle which was ultimately stronger than the drive to fragment. He was tapping into the power of light which would allow him to live dynamically, surfing the chaos, splitting the darkness, serving the creator by serving others again and again.
—Susan Howatch
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The need is for the connection to nature within ourselves; only then can we understand how to act toward nature outside ourselves. Along with the obvious crimes our culture is committing against the natural world, we would be wise to remember that the main crimes are the crimes against our inner nature. From these inner crimes all the outer evil arises.
—Jacob Needleman
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To know love we have to tell the truth to ourselves and to others. Creating a false self to mask fears and insecurities has become so common that many of us forget who we are and what we feel underneath the pretense. Breaking through this denial is always the first step in uncovering our longing to be honest and clear.
—bell hooks
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June 22: Corpus Christi Sunday
Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament. There you will find romance, glory, honor, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves on earth.
—J.R.R. Tolkien
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EVOLUTION in our Catholic Faith
Creation did not spring forth complete from the hands of the Creator. The universe was created in a state of journeying toward an ultimate perfection yet to be attained, to which God has destined it.
—Catechism of the Catholic Church #302
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Pope Francis introduced the term “integral ecology” in his encyclical “Laudato Si,” calling for a new paradigm that recognizes the interconnectedness of environmental, economic, social, cultural, and ethical dimensions of life. Integral ecology supports the idea that “everything is connected.” The ideals of integral ecology challenge us to move beyond the unhealthy human-centeredness that defines our age and invite us to embed ourselves within the relationships of nature and culture.
However, ecological sustainability faces significant challenges from the dominance of computer technology, artificial intelligence, and social media. Numerous studies show that excessive computer use can lead to attention loss, diminished critical thinking, dopamine addiction, impatience, forgetfulness, and narcissism. The Catholic Church’s position on AI is cautious and ethically driven, acknowledging its potential to be a powerful tool for good, provided its development and deployment are guided by ethical principles that prioritize human dignity and the common good.
In 1967, historian Lynn White said, “We shall continue to have a worsening ecologic crisis until we reject the Christian axiom that nature has no reason for existence except to serve us. Since the roots of our problems are religious, the remedy must be religious as well.”
This is where (Jesuit priest) Teilhard de Chardin’s vision is vital to today’s world. Teilhard saw evolution as a dynamic unfolding of mind and matter, both open to greater complexity and consciousness. He identified LOVE as the core energy of the universe because it simultaneously attracts and transcends, a unitive energy through which elements make their way toward union. He believed that matter has an innate propensity toward spirit—evolution’s religious dimension. He said, “Religion and evolution should neither be confused nor divorced; they depend upon and complete one another.”
—Sr. Ilia Delio, OSF
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Being Franciscan-hearted is knowing and feeling oneself as part of everything—from the smallest molecule, to the tree, to the sun that was out this morning. This vast soul connection then interweaves us all together in a community.
—Joan Brown
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How do we survive in a time when madness levels are reaching flood stage? One answer might surprise you: contemplation. In a world overwhelmed by uncertainty, how do we become a calming presence for ourselves and others? Explore contemplative Christianity—its origins, emphasis on practice over beliefs, how it speaks to our challenges today. A practice-centered spirituality can enrich your life and relationships.
—Brian McLaren
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Let me seek, then, the gift of silence, and poverty, and solitude, where everything I touch is turned into a prayer: where the sky is my prayer, the birds are my prayer, the wind in the trees is my prayer, for God is all in all.
—Thomas Merton
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Wisdom from Pope Leo XIV
I was chosen, without any merit of my own, and now, with fear and trembling, I come to you as a brother who desires to be the servant of your faith and your joy, walking with you on the path of God’s love, for he wants us all to be united in one family.
Love and unity: these are the two dimensions of the mission entrusted to Peter by Jesus.
Peter is entrusted with the task of “loving more” and giving his life for the flock….It is never a question of capturing others by force, by religious propaganda or by means of power. Instead, it is always and only a question of loving as Jesus did.
Peter must shepherd the flock without ever yielding to the temptation to become an autocrat, lording it over those entrusted to him…for all of us are “living stones” in the coexistence of diversity….Brothers and sisters, I would like that our first great desire be for a united Church, a sign of unity and communion, which becomes a leaven for a reconciled world.
In this our time, we still see too much discord, too many wounds caused by hatred, violence, prejudice, the fear of difference, and an economic paradigm that exploits the Earth’s resources and marginalizes the poorest. For our part, we want to be a small leaven of unity, communion and fraternity within the world. We want to say to the world, with humility and joy: Look to Christ! Come closer to him! Welcome his word that enlightens and consoles! Listen to his offer of love and become his one family: in the one Christ, we are one.
This is the path to follow together, among ourselves but also with our sister Christian churches, with those who follow other religious paths, with those who are searching for God, with all women and men of good will, in order to build a new world where peace reigns!
This is the missionary spirit that must animate us; not closing ourselves off in our small groups, nor feeling superior to the world. We are called to offer God’s love to everyone, in order to achieve that unity which does not cancel out differences but values the personal history of each person and the social and religious culture of every people. Brothers and sisters, this is the hour for love!
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
