Medjugorje Message: August 25, 2026
Dear children! Today I am calling you: return to God, return to prayer, so that you may become carriers of peace. Pray, little children, for peace that is in danger; and may prayer begin to flow anew from your hearts and from your families, so that, in joy, you may feel the voice of Jesus in your hearts: “Peace be with you.” Be, little children, carriers of peace and prayer for all those who do not pray. I am with you and I pray for you before my Son Jesus. Thank you for having responded to my call.
River of Light
September 2026
Pigeons to Doves
“Today I am calling you: return to God, return to prayer, so that you may become carriers of peace.”
Oh, to be your white-winged dove, olive branch in my mouth,
bearing peace to all I meet—east, west, north, and south.
But now just make me your homing pigeon in this trouble-flooded world.
It’s all I can do at this primitive stage—my peace often shattered by grief and rage.
Just call me back—“Return! Return!”—to the center of your Heart.
To God, to prayer—my homing flight that can make of peace an art.
“Pray for peace that is in danger”
And let me see the danger in me
as my scornful derision of our division bleeds red into the common sea:
words dripping poison—in carnage they pool;
heal nothing, wound further, add hate’s fiery fuel.
Lord, have compassion on this Beast I’ve helped to fashion!
Prayerless, I am danger—a bird of prey to Your peace.
“May prayer begin to flow anew from your hearts and from your families, so that, in joy, you may feel the voice of Jesus in your hearts: “Peace be with you.”
The pigeon’s return means flying fresh with prayer:
a practice that is daily—not something stale and rare.
Not just from lips, but from the heart, joined with kin we make a start:
together invoke the Mysteries and recite the beads.
In unison a Presence comes—of unsurpassing Peace.
Closed doors of upper rooms unlock in the joy of fright’s release;
the Lord Alive in our midst is here—Love casting out every fear!
“Peace be with you” : we’re Hearing it and Speaking it—
always aware that the whole world is seeking it.
“Be carriers of peace and prayer for all those who do not pray.”
Has this homely homing pigeon returned to you enough
to be sent out anew as a dove on the wing?
With an olive branch of heavenly peace and a prayer of Joy to sing?
Can we touch the hearts of the unbelieving—the angry, lonely, lost, and grieving?
Carry a peace that comes from above: a new Earth-story of faith, hope, and love?
Make up what is lacking in the Body of the Christ
that “those who do not pray” may be drawn to his Light!
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PERENNIAL PEARLS…
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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SEPTEMBER PEARLS…
My faith is my rod and my shield. And I’ve just always been very spiritual because I grew up in the mountains and where God is your only hope, really. I learned early on that there’s a great strength to be found and to draw from, about anything in life—I mean, prayer got us through, and it does to me today. I pray every day that God will let me be a light in the world and He’ll let me shine and radiate with His love and light, to uplift people and to glorify Him. That’s my prayer every day!
—Dolly Parton
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I have a very spiritual base, and I’m confident in who I am. I remember those old sayings, “Through God all things are possible” and “To thine own self be true.” I try to stay inside myself and let that God-wheel and that God-light kinda radiate. And every day I just ask God to lead me and to direct me and to bring all the right things and people into my life and take all the wrong things out. I just go with confidence every day and say, “Lord, it’s up to you now, I’m out—just use me and let me do whatever.”
I’m no angel, I’m no saint. I’m just a seeker like everybody else. But I try to do my best and I just try to love people. I try to find the God-light in everybody and not look at all the stuff that’s going on. I just try to find the goodness in people and try to put as much of whatever is good in me out there for people to play off of.
—Dolly Parton
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Undertake courageously great tasks for God’s glory, to the extent that he’ll give you power and grace for this purpose. Even though you can do nothing on your own, you can do all things in him. His help will never fail you if you have confidence in his goodness. Place your entire physical and spiritual welfare in his hands. Abandon to the fatherly concern of his divine providence every care for your health, reputation, property, and business; for those near to you; for your past sins; for your soul’s progress in virtue and love of him; for your life, death, and especially your eternity—in a word, all your cares. Rest in the assurance that in his pure goodness, he’ll watch with particular tenderness over all your cares, arranging all things for the greatest good.
—St. John Eudes
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September 8: Birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary
The Trinity, Christ, Mary: these can never be separated, for without Mary there would have been no revelation of Christ, no man Jesus, and no Christianity. She was as necessary for the revelation of Christ as Almighty God. Her Assumption reveals the true nature of resurrection as the revelation of Christ, that Jesus and Mary ascended to the same glorious estate God willed for all humanity. Considering Christianity depends on Mary, it is important to understand not merely “who” she was, but “what” she is. As the heart of God, Mary is as transcendent as the Trinity itself. Of all the terms for the extraordinary mystery of Mary, “Theotokos” (God-bearer) best epitomizes the true nature of her eternal, maternal transcendence in God.
—Bernadette Roberts
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Contemplative prayer relativizes our dependence on external practices in order to go to God. We no longer do them to “placate” God. Placating is a primitive kind of religious response based on an unhealthy attitude toward God. Unfortunately, God is often introduced to a child in an unhealthy way. The fear of God is sometimes used as a club in order to get children to behave. This is not good religious instruction.
The best parenting is done by parents who really love each other. No education can replace that example of mutual devotion. If it is there, the seeds of deep religious understanding are sown in children, and their personal relationship with God takes on the tone they have observed in their mother and father’s relationship.
Parenting is the greatest vocation there is. Most of us are still recovering from childhood and the experience we had there. But our parents were also recovering from their childhood. This is one of the consequences of the Fall. We repeat the same mistakes that damaged us. Unless we undertake the spiritual journey seriously, we are likely to lay the same misguided trips on the next generation.
—Fr. Thomas Keating, OCSO
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Meekness is the summary of all Christian virtues: it is made up especially of benevolence and patience, of friendliness and respect for all souls, and even for all creatures, since a meek person treats things meekly as he does human beings. The art of contemplating divine things is the art of being calm. Meekness is made up of leniency and mercy, also, and a lucidity that sees human beings individually in the divine clarity, noticing only the reasons to trust and to love.
—Carthusian monk in “Amour et Silence”
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It would be the greatest mistake to imagine that God wants us to lie down under every suffering that comes…or equate Christian sacrifice with supine acceptance. Neither stoicism nor fatalism are Christian perfection. The Christian ideal is shown to us in the garden of Gethsemane: our Lord asks that the suffering might pass from him, while at the same time being ready to bear it if this is the Father’s will. Suffering and the providence of God must be understood in faith….
We have to believe that we are all the time objects of God’s love, that God’s wisdom is being brought to bear upon our affairs, and God’s power is there to help us. We must understand how by suffering willingly ourselves, we can share in the work of the Passion. The more we pray and try to see Christ in others the more we shall come to appreciate the connection between: God’s love and our pain, the Father’s love and the Son’s mission, the Son’s Passion and our own trials, feeling sorrowful and possessing peace, the horrors in the world and the essential harmony of God’s design.
—Dom Hubert van Zeller, OSB
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We are living in a world of war. Across continents, people are dying every day. Across borders, survivors are forced to migrate. They do not leave by choice, but because of violence, hunger, fear, and oppression. This is the world in which I write this pastoral letter to you….
This letter addresses an unprecedented moment in the United States that directly affects our Archdiocese, our parishes and families we know by name….The Church evaluates policy and the enforcement of laws through the lens of the Gospel, asking whether they uphold the dignity of the human person, the integrity of the family, the common good, and the protection of the most vulnerable. I write to comfort the afflicted, to ignite the comfortable, and to confront injustice with the full conviction of the Gospel….
The truth must be spoken. A misleading public narrative has done much to to sustain the failure of our immigration system. We are told repeatedly that enforcement targets the criminally dangerous, yet 73% of those in detention have no criminal conviction, and only 5% have been convicted of a violent crime….Our sisters and brothers are workers, parents, neighbors, and parishioners. Research shows that mass deportation would subtract more than $1 trillion from the economy. These families do not weaken the nation but rather sustain it. The narrative of fear deceives many….
The Gospel and our best national traditions call us to build, not to tear down…To the People of God and all people of good will: the sisters and brothers in migration are not a threat but a gift the Church must never take for granted. Listen to the Holy Spirit as we step beyond our fears and extend Christ’s love to every person we meet. We are all missionary migrants and we are all sent.
—Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller, MSpS
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By listening deeply to the message of any given moment, I shall be able to tap the very Source of Meaning and to realize the unfolding meaning of my life. To listen in this way means to listen with one’s heart, with one’s whole being.
The heart stands for that center of our being at which we are truly “together.” Together with ourselves, not split up into intellect, will, emotions, into mind and body. Together with all other creatures, for the heart is that realm where I am paradoxically most intimately myself, but also most intimately united with all. Together with God, the source of life—the life of my life, welling up in the heart.
In order to listen with my heart, I must return again and again to my heart through a process of centering, through taking things to heart. Listening with my heart I will find meaning.
—Bro. David Steindl-Rast, OSB
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Wisdom from Pope Leo XIV
Every human being is a child of God! He or she bears the image of Christ! We ourselves need to see, and then enable others to see, that migrants and refugees do not only represent a problem to be solved, but are brothers and sisters to be welcomed, respected and loved.
The Church, like a mother, accompanies those who are walking. Where the world sees threats, She sees children; where walls are built, She builds bridges. She knows that her proclamation of the Gospel is credible only when it is translated into gestures of closeness and welcome. And she knows that in every rejected migrant, it is Christ Himself who knocks at the door of the community.
A litmus test for social justice today is the treatment of migrants, refugees, and those forced to move due to poverty, violence, climate change and environmental disasters. The way a society treats them reveals whether its sense of justice is driven by fear or by the spirit of fraternity.
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
