Medjugorje Message: December 25, 2015
Dear children! Also today I am carrying my Son Jesus to you and from this embrace I am giving you His peace and a longing for Heaven. I am praying with you for peace and am calling you to be peace. I am blessing all of you with my motherly blessing of peace. Thank you for having responded to my call.
River of Light
January 2016
Our Lady’s Christmas message not only exudes peace, but also illustrates the transmission of peace to which we are called as followers of Christ. Throughout the years of her apparitions at Medjugorje, Mary has always appeared on Christmas Day with the infant Jesus in her arms. This year she makes an important comment on this: “Also today I am carrying my Son Jesus to you and from this embrace I am giving you His peace and a longing for Heaven.” There is supernatural power and divine energy released through an embrace (“un abrazo” in Spanish). If we know and experience the flow of peace, love, comfort and joy that can result from the embrace of two ordinary humans, just imagine the force for good that emanates in healing ripples from an embrace between our Lord and His Mother–God and the Mother of God! From this embrace, Our Lady says, “I am giving you His peace and a longing for Heaven.” We can imagine a brilliant force field of energy particles cascading upon us in a shower of light, life and love from the Christ-child’s own infinite peace as the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, and from His own intense “longing for Heaven” while voluntarily exiled upon this earth for the next 33 years through the mystery of the Incarnation.
Let us enter into an “embrace” (“abrazo“) with Christ as often as possible. How? Our Lord embraces us powerfully through His word in the Gospels, and with overwhelming intimacy in the Sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist. In confession, we meet Him as the Divine Mercy, ready to transform our life from the inside-out through His infinite tenderness and compassion. In Holy Communion we encounter Him entering into our very flesh with His own Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in an intimacy beyond all understanding. In meditative and contemplative prayer, we open ourselves to a mystical embrace with Christ that is always and only however He chooses to hold us in transforming union with Himself. Having received divine peace and love through these “abrazos” with Christ, let us carry these graces forward consciously whenever we hug or embrace another person, transmitting this healing energy to them, as well.
Our Lady continues: “I am praying with you for peace and am calling you to be peace.” In Medjugorje Our Lady has identified herself as the “Queen of Peace” and has asked us to pray for peace and for her intentions in this unpeaceful world. Undoubtedly those intentions are to build and restore PEACE on our beautiful blue marble of a planet. But we see that prayer alone is not enough to achieve her intentions; Our Lady also says, “I am calling you to BE peace.” As St. Teresa of Avila wrote: “Mary and Martha must join“–i.e. the contemplative and active must exist and operate together in a life. So, beyond our praying, how are we to “BE” peace? One moment at a time, in every situation staying awake and attentive to our soul’s inner promptings in alignment with the Holy Spirit. Most especially in a moment of emotional distress in which our ego is offended or frustrated, to not react reflexively by lashing out in rebellion or revenge to perceived insults or violations. To remain silent or speak our truth calmly, clearly, and respectfully without sinking to a low level of self-indulgent, immature retaliation that would do more to harm our soul interiorly than any perceived outward slight can do. And when we fail at these moment-by-moment efforts to “be peace” (as we surely will!)–to apologize and promptly admit our wrongs to those we hurt is another vital part of “being peace.”
Because we are part of an integral, holistic universe in which everything is connected by a complex web of interrelatedness (what Thich Nhat Hanh calls “interbeing“), each of us striving to “BE PEACE” in our own little corner of the cosmos has a real, measurable effect and profound impact upon every other little corner and upon what we vaguely call “world peace.” Far from being a distant, theoretical fantasy much-removed from reality, “world peace” is a realizable possibility for us as we potentially evolve to the full stature of the humanity of Christ. But this step up in human evolution, like peace itself, can only begin here and now, with “me“–a holon or microcosm of the whole macrocosmic universe, a cell in the Body of Christ that must be healthy if the whole body is to be well.
Our Lady concludes by saying, “I am blessing all of you with my motherly blessing of peace.” At Medjugorje when Our Lady gives to the assembled crowd a “special blessing,” the visionaries have explained that this blessing of Our Lady is completely “transferrable” or “transmittable”–in fact, it is meant to be passed on to others and paid forward as often as possible. We have all been blessed with Our Lady’s “motherly blessing of peace.” Let us transmit this blessing to everyone we meet, every day and in every way possible in this New Year of Our Lord, 2016.
The Advent Sanctuary
Emerging from the confessional
a new creation
I was sent to the crib
to lie a while with Baby Jesus
as swaddle-mates in the feed trough
cuddling and cooing together in the innocent cold.
Then I gazed up from our hay-filled bed
to what lay ahead:
A tall torturous cross
cast its long shadow beside a beaten bloody
man
writhing in agony upon it, pinned to the wood hand and foot.
Another ironic iconic image of divinity
to complement
the helpless shivering infant in the straw
warmed by the breath of barn beasts
But wait, there’s more!
Pivoting my eyes to the altar above our creche
I see a gleaming gold monstrance
enshrining a white disc of bread–
a victory lap for the Crucified!
Landing him in this little glass bauble
at the mercy of whoever handles,
ignores or adores him.
But for him no hollow victory, this–
so desperately does he love and want
me
that he shrinks down to something bite-size
(“manger”: “to eat” in French)
starting out as fodder for fools
then preparing a body for sacrifice
to be pounded into man-manna for the many.
From crib to cross to cracker–
the humility of our God in the Advent sanctuary
playing host to the host of humanity!
This Christmas will we return to him the gifts of
Radical Dependency and
Extreme Self-abandonment
that once he gave
to us?
–m.m.
Annual Message from Our Lady of Medjugorje to Jacov Colo: December 25, 2015
Dear children! All these years that God permits me to be with you are a sign of the immeasurable love which God has for each one of you and a sign of how much God loves you. Little children, how many graces he desires to give to you. But, little children, your hearts are closed and live in fear, and do not permit Jesus to have His love and His peace overcome your hearts and to begin to reign in your lives. To live without God means to live in darkness and never to come to know the Father’s love and His care for each of you. Therefore, little children, today in a special way pray to Jesus that as of today your life may experience a new birth in God and become a light which will radiate from within you, and thus that you may become witnesses of God’s presence in the world to every person who lives in darkness. Little children, I love you and daily intercede before the Most High for you. Thank you for having responded to my call.
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Mark Your Calendar: FEBRUARY
2 Presentation of the Lord
6 Lecture Series on Mysticism, Spirituality & Contemplation: Befriending Silence with Carl McColman, lay Cistercian; 9 am-12 pm, Oblate School of Theology Whitley Theological Center; 285 Oblate Dr.; $40; call (210) 341-1366 x 212
10 ASH WEDNESDAY
11 Our Lady of Lourdes
21-25 Lenten Retreat: The Cross of Christ–Revealing Secrets Hidden Since the Foundation of the World with Fr. Ron Roheiser, OMI; Oblate Renewal Center, 5700 Blanco Rd; $590 incl. all meals; optional tours to Enchanted Rock & SA Missions; call (210)341-1366 x 212
25 3-Thursday Class: Monastic Foundation for a Spiritual Life with Fr. John Markey, OP; 7-9 pm, SoL Center, 300 Bushnell; $45; call (210) 732-9927
27 PEACE MASS: 12 pm, St. Mary’s Church, 202 N. St. Mary’s; 11:30 am Peace Rosary
28 ROSARY MAKING: 2-5:30 pm, St. Mary’s Church, 202 N.
St. Mary’s; free parking & materials
29 Class: Religious Views of America’s Founding Fathers with David Crockett, Ph.D.; 7-9 pm; SoL Center, 300 Bushnell; $25; call (210) 732-9927
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.
