Medjugorje Message: December 25, 2021
Dear children! Today I am carrying my Son Jesus to you, for Him to give you His peace. Little children, without peace you do not have a future or blessing; therefore return to prayer, because the fruit of prayer is joy and faith, without which you cannot live. Today’s blessing which we give you, carry to your families and enrich all those whom you meet, that they may feel the grace which you are receiving. Thank you for having responded to my call.
Annual Message to Jacov Colo: Dec. 25, 2021
Dear children! You are, and you are called, “children of God.” If only your hearts would feel that immeasurable love which God has for you, your hearts would adore and give thanks to Him at every instant of your life. Therefore, little children, today, on this day of grace, open your hearts and implore the Lord for the gift of faith, so that you could truly become worthy of the name “children of God” who, with a pure heart, give thanks to and honor their Heavenly Father. I am beside you and am blessing you with my motherly blessing.
River of Light
January 2022
Our Lady’s December 25th message repeats the theme she shares consistently every Christmas Day in Medjugorje as she appears holding the Christ Child in her arms: “carrying” Jesus so that He may bestow His PEACE on the world, and inviting us to do the same. Our Lady begins: “Today I am carrying my Son Jesus to you, for Him to give you His peace. Little children, without peace you do not have a future or blessing.” In Medjugorje, Mary announced herself in 1981 under the title “Queen of Peace,” and every Christmas message for these 40 years reveals the importance of PEACE—without which, she says, we “do not have a future or blessing.” Can this really be true?
Think about it: no matter how much money, material possessions, company of family and friends, freedom for travel and entertainment, and the finest creature comforts we may have, if we do not have an interior sense of PEACE, there is ultimately no “future or blessing” for us. There are many in our world today who possess all of the above “outward blessings,” but are peaceless inside their troubled minds and restless hearts, riddled with anxiety, depression, addictions, etc. On the flipside, there are also many prayerful people of strong faith who possess none of the above “outward blessings” of life, yet they experience a deep and abiding PEACE of mind and heart. How can this be?
St. Augustine famously wrote, “You made us for yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” Our Lady says, “Therefore return to prayer, because the fruit of prayer is joy and faith, without which you cannot live.” Each human heart has a “God-sized hole” which nothing but God alone can fill; no amount of money, power, control, security, esteem, affection, material wealth, physical health, or sensory pleasure can satisfy our inner need for GOD, who alone can bestow the “peace that passes all understanding.” To attempt to fill our “God-hole” with the cultural symbols of worldly “happiness” that our ego craves only causes us to hunger and thirst for more, never settling our restless hearts and troubled minds at PEACE.
Our Lady continually calls us to return to PRAYER as the only path to filling the “God-hole” within, for “the fruit of prayer is joy and faith, without which you cannot live.” Really? Doesn’t this teaching sound a bit extreme or exaggerated? After all, we know many people who seem to “LIVE” for whole lifetimes without “joy and faith” —sour, bitter, mean, selfish, suspicious, critical, angry people. Yet Our Lady says without joy and faith “you cannot live.” But when Our Lady says, “LIVE,” she means REALLY LIVE and refers to REAL LIFE—that is, to “live forever” in the “eternal life” of Heaven where she herself dwells with the whole Communion of Saints. For this is the TRUE LIFE which alone merits to be called “living” —not the poor, peaceless shadow of this earthly, false self/egoic existence we “live” in slavery to our emotional programs for “happiness” that will never work to fill the “God-sized hole” within us.
In this Christmas season, we celebrate the TRUE LIFE that came into the world through Jesus, giving to all humanity the possibility, the opportunity, the potential to enter into the divine Christ-life which is eternal. The sublime Gospel of John tells us: “This life was the light of the human race” (Jn 1:3), and of a quality of consciousness that no human eye has seen, ear has heard, or mind has imagined. But through PRAYER we can receive the blessings of peace, joy, and faith—the graces by which we can indeed enter into this one-and-only REAL LIFE, the eternal heavenly life.
Our Lady concludes her Christmas message: “Today’s blessing which we give you, carry to your families and enrich all those whom you meet, that they may feel the grace which you are receiving.” What exactly is “today’s blessing” that we are to “carry” ? It is the Christ-child, the Incarnate Word, God-made-flesh, the “hypostatic union” of Divinity with humanity through which we have been given the ultimate, existential GOOD NEWS (“gospel” )! “Today’s blessing” is the monumental Game-Changer of all time, by which conscious animals called “humans” are given a pathway to sharing in the nature of their own Creator’s divinity on an unfathomably superior plane of existence and in an incomprehensibly better realm of Life, Light and Love than we can even begin to imagine—but which we can RECEIVE through faith.
We are to “carry” this blessing—just as Our Lady Queen of Peace “carries” little Jesus each Christmas Day—to “our families and all whom we meet,” to “enrich” them, “that they may feel the grace we are receiving” through our PRAYER that is bearing the fruits of joy, faith, and peace. In this way, we will indeed be “Christ-bearers” in our darkened world of sad division and pain. But this can only happen through our willingness to PRAY, as Our Lady has taught ceaselessly at Medjugorje. For if we fail to pray, in our human weakness we are easily sucked into the dark vortex of egoic selfishness and conflict that is tearing the world apart.
Following the example of Mary, rooted in daily prayer, our hearts open to receiving the grace of joy and peace given by the Divine Indwelling Presence of Christ, we shall exude this grace around the circles of people we encounter each day, so that “they may feel the grace we are receiving.” This is a deep metaphysical law and principle—that as we become increasingly centered, through PRAYER, as a centration point of the Christ Spirit, we will manifest a gravitational force-field of PRESENCE which other people can feel and experience in powerful ways, even if not understood or clearly articulated. Thus our little corner of the world (our home, work, school) is a new “Shepherds’ Field” of Bethlehem; our heart is a manger, and our thoughts, words, and deeds are the Christ-child who can make every day “Christmas” for those whom we meet.
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In the Medjugorje visionary Jacov’s annual apparition from Our Lady on Christmas Day, she underscores “the name ‘children of God'” that we are all given as baptized believers in Jesus Christ, calling us to open our hearts to “the gift of faith,” so that we “could truly become worthy of the name ‘children of God.’” She shines a light on what it means to carry this precious name and high honor: “Dear children, you are, and you are called, ‘children of God.’ If only your hearts would feel that immeasurable love which God has for you, your hearts would adore and give thanks to Him at every instant of your life.” (Wow!)
In the first chapter of John’s gospel we hear that at Christmas, “the true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world came to be through him, but the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, but his own people did not accept him. But to those who did accept him, he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born not by natural generation nor by human choice nor by a a man’s decision but of God.” (Jn 1:9-13) Thus our own birth as “children of God” —like the birth of Jesus—results from a supernatural, direct intervention of God in our life; we are the “seedlings” of an amazing GRACE that enables us to believe, accept, and have faith in the gospel proclamation. The ground for receiving this “seed” is a pure heart— “virginal” like Mary’s.
As Our Lady says, this Divine Grace arises from the “immeasurable love which God has for you.” In the First Letter of John we read: “See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. Yet so we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope based on him makes himself pure, as he is pure.” (1 Jn 3:1-3)
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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
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What Christians claim at Christmas is astonishing. We celebrate that God had a body, grew leg hair, cried salty tears, and breathed ordinary air….that the full and actual God was an embryo, a baby, lacking all autonomy, utterly dependent and vulnerable….The story of Jesus represented “a wholly new way of being human.” (St. Maximus the Confessor).
The church slowly discovered (and has had to rediscover, time and time again) that God becoming a specific human being changes our understanding of humanity itself. Therefore, dignity is not reserved to only one nationality, gender, or class. Rather, the human body is a holy thing to be protected, and the value of the weak is more important than the prerogatives of the powerful.
Because of this, early Christians became known for rescuing and raising infants who were left outside to die. They were known for voluntarily remaining in cities amid plagues to care for the sick and the poor. These same ideas eventually motivated the invention of hospitals, mass education, and widespread literacy. They inspired those who opposed slavery and influenced the idea of universal human rights. The ultimate ground of all our freedom is the Christian doctrine of the absolute inviolability of the human person.
Over time, the belief in the dignity of even the weakest in society flowed from people meditating on this shocking story that the church tells at Christmastime today.
Perhaps the best way for us to dust off this story is to see the Incarnation through the eyes of those ancients for whom it would have been a revolutionary reversal of expectations. Can we hear it through the ears of those who had heard “Son of God” applied only to Augustus Caesar, a powerful king and military ruler, not to an oppressed and poor itinerant?…Those who could never have imagined that God would identify himself not with the victors or the strong, but with the hungry, the thirsty and the imprisoned? Those who would be amazed that God found it fit to become a human body that would be beaten and broken?
Christians since the second century have seen the furthering of universal human dignity as the unfolding triumph of Christ and his kingdom, quietly set into motion by God being born one night in Bethlehem.
This is the season where we recall the scandalous news that the maker of heaven and earth “emptied himself, taking the form of a servant” and became obedient even to death on the cross. The church, like nearly everyone else, tends to want to be more like the comfortable, the successful, and the powerful—more like Augustus Caesar—than the one who became weak, helpless and despised. We often look for God more in the abundance of gifts under the tree or the happiness of our days than in the helplessness of a baby, the worry lines of the poor, or the lonely agony of a dying person. But again this year, this story asks to shock us anew and yet again turn the world upside down.
—Rev. T.H. Warren
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God’s sign is the baby in need of help and in poverty. Exactly the same sign has been given to us. God’s sign is simplicity. God’s sign is that he makes himself small for us. This is how he reigns. He does not come with power and outward splendor. He comes as a baby—defenseless and needing our help. He does not want to overwhelm us with power. He takes away our fear of his greatness. He asks for our love: so he makes himself a child.
—Pope Benedict XVI
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I Will Light Candles This Christmas
Candles of joy, despite all sadness,
Candles of hope, where despair keeps watch,
Candles of courage for fears ever present,
Candles of peace for tempest-tossed days,
Candles of grace to ease heavy burdens,
Candles of love to inspire all my living,
Candles that will burn all year long.
—Howard Thurman
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The Incarnation, for St. Paul, did not mean primarily that God had become a man; it meant primarily that God had become “MAN”—had infected the human race with his divinity. “The Life of Christ” for St. Paul was an energy that radiated all through him, the very breath he drew in his lungs.
—Msgr. Ronald Knox
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This is the season of Christmas. I would like to suggest that those of you who care deeply about the meaning of your lives would do two things during this season. One, that you will seek reconciliation with any person(s) with whom you have now a ruptured or unhappy relationship. Think about such a person, find a way by which you can restore a lost harmony, and gift yourselves with PEACE between you and someone else.
The second is just as simple. With your imagination will you conjure up into your mind a gift of grace that you might give to someone for whom you have no obligation—someone upon whom you might confer a private blessing…saying a word of reassurance, of comfort, of delight…conferring upon some unsuspecting human being a gentle grace that makes the season a good and happy time.
—Howard Thurman
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The Mystery of Christ on Christmas
Jesus did not merely assume a human body and soul; He assumed the actual human condition in its entirety, including the instinctual needs of human nature and the cultural conditioning of his time. By taking the human condition upon himself with all its consequences, Jesus introduced into the entire human family the principle of transcendence, giving the evolutionary process a decisive thrust toward God-consciousness. “To everyone who received Him, He gave power to become the children of God”—that is, to know their Divine Source.
The joy of Christmas is the intuition that all limitations to growth into higher states of consciousness have been overcome. The Divine Light cuts across all darkness, prejudice, preconceived ideas, prepackaged values, false expectations, phoniness and hypocrisy. It presents us with the truth. To act out of the truth is to make Christ grow in ourselves and in others. The humdrum duties and events of daily life become sacramental, shot through with eternal implications.
The light of Christmas in an explosion of insight changing our whole idea of God. Our inmost being opens to the new consciousness that the Babe in the crib has brought to the world.
—Fr. Thomas Keating, OCSO
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Part of the difficulty in believing in the Incarnation is precisely the fact that it is too good to be true: God is not hidden and hard to contact; forgiveness, grace, and salvation are not the prerogative of the lucky few; we don’t have to save ourselves; we don’t have to get our lives perfectly in order to be saved; we don’t have to make amends for sins; human flesh and this world are not obstacles, but part of the vehicle to heaven; we can help each other on the journey; love (even human love) is stronger than death.
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Amid the cruelties of this year, how can we warm up to a season of festivity?… Amid the plight of the millions of refugees today who are journeying without even a stable as a refuge? Amid the polarized nations with millions unable to speak civilly to their neighbors? Amid our own personal tragedies: the death of loved ones, lost marriages, lost families, lost health, lost jobs, lost time, tiredness, frustration. How do we celebrate the birth of a redeemer in a world which looks shockingly unredeemed?
The Christmas story is not easily made credible as having “altered the course of human history.” Incarnation is not yet the resurrection. Flesh in Jesus, as in us, is human, vulnerable, weak, incomplete, needy, full of limit, suffering. Christmas celebrates Christ’s birth into these things, not his removal of them. Christ redeems limit, evil, sin and pain. But they are not abolished.
Thus we can celebrate Christ’s birth without in any way denying the real evil in our world and the real pain in our lives. Christmas is a challenge to celebrate while still in pain. The incarnate God is called Emmanuel, which means “God-is-with-us.” That does not mean immediate festive joy. Our world remains wounded, and wars, selfishness, and bitterness linger. Pain lingers.
For a Christian, like everyone else, there will be incompleteness, illness, death, senseless hurt, broken dreams, cold, hungry, lonely days of bitterness. The incarnation does not promise heaven on earth. It promises heaven in heaven. Here, on earth, it promises us something else: God’s presence in our lives.
—Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI
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That the infinity of God should take upon itself human narrowness, that bliss should accept the mortal sorrow of the earth, that life should take on death—this is the most unlikely truth. When we say, “It is Christmas,” we mean that God has spoken into the world his last, his deepest, his most beautiful word in the Incarnate Word. And this word means: I love you—you, the world, and human beings.
—Fr. Karl Rahner, SJ
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An eternal promise came into the world at Christmas, “full of grace and truth.” Jesus is the gift totally given, free for the taking, once and for all, to everybody and all of creation. Henceforth humanity has the right to know that it is good to be human, good to live on this earth, good to have a body, because God in Jesus chose and said “yes” to this planet and this humanity. As the Franciscans say, “Incarnation is already Redemption.” The problem is solved. Now go and utterly enjoy all remaining days.
—Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM
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Wisdom from Pope Francis
Like the Magi, we too must allow ourselves to learn from the journey of life. We cannot let our weariness, our falls and our failings discourage us. Instead, by humbly acknowledging them, we should make them opportunities to progress towards the Lord Jesus. Life is not about showing off our abilities, but a journey towards the One who loves us.
We become worshipers of the Lord through a gradual process. Experience teaches us that at fifty we worship differently than we did at thirty. Those who let themselves be shaped by grace improve with time: on the outside, we grow older, as St. Paul tells us, while our inner nature is being renewed each day (2 Cor 4:16), as we grow in our understanding of how best to worship the Lord.
Our failures, crises and mistakes can become learning experiences: often they help us to be more aware that the Lord alone is worthy of our worship. Life’s trials and difficulties, experienced in faith, help to purify our hearts, making them more humble and open to God. Even our sins…will help us to grow and to worship the Lord better.
(Homily for the Feast of the Epiphany)
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Mark Your Calendar Dec 28 Sat 
PEACE MASS: 12 pm, St. Mary’s Church, 202 N. St. Mary’s; 11:30 am Peace Rosary
Jan 25 Sat PEACE MASS: 12 pm, St. Mary’s Church, 202 N. St. Mary’s; 11:30 am Peace Rosary
Feb 22 Sat PEACE MASS: 12 pm, St. Mary’s Church, 202 N. St. Mary’s; 11:30 am Peace Rosary
Mar 29 Sat PEACE MASS: 12 pm, St. Mary’s Church, 202 N. St. Mary’s; 11:30 am Peace Rosary
Apr 26 Sat PEACE MASS: 12 pm, St. Mary’s Church, 202 N. St. Mary’s; 11:30 am Peace Rosary
May 31 Sat PEACE MASS: 12 pm, St. Mary’s Church, 202 N. St. Mary’s; 11:30 am Peace Rosary
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PEACE MASS: 12 pm, St. Mary’s Church, 202 N. St. Mary’s; 11:30 am Peace Rosary
PEACE MASS: 12 pm, St. Mary’s Church, 202 N. St. Mary’s; 11:30 am Peace Rosary
PEACE MASS: 12 pm, St. Mary’s Church, 202 N. St. Mary’s; 11:30 am Peace Rosary
PEACE MASS: 12 pm, St. Mary’s Church, 202 N. St. Mary’s; 11:30 am Peace Rosary
PEACE MASS: 12 pm, St. Mary’s Church, 202 N. St. Mary’s; 11:30 am Peace Rosary
PEACE MASS: 12 pm, St. Mary’s Church, 202 N. St. Mary’s; 11:30 am Peace Rosary
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
