Medjugorje Message: April 25, 2024
Dear children! I am with you to tell you that I love you and to encourage you to prayer; because Satan is strong and every day his strength is stronger through those who have chosen death and hatred. You, little children, be prayer and my extended hands of love for all those who are in darkness and seek the light of our God. Thank you for having responded to my call.
River of Light
May 2024
The month of May has traditionally been dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary and we celebrate Mother’s Day, as well; it is a month of honoring maternity and the powerful influence of mothers in our world—whether through family/biological ties or in the spiritual motherhood we experience through important women in our life. Our Lady illuminates her unique role in the Divine order by reminding us of her relationship to the whole human family and with each one of us individually.
First, she begins with four small words that have been repeated innumerable times in her Medjugorje messages: “I am with you.” Over and over again, since 1981, Our Lady Queen of Peace has been telling us, “I am with you.” But do we ever stop to ponder these few words, so often repeated? Her Son, Jesus Christ, told us the same thing: “Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Mt 28:20) And long before the Lord Jesus spoke these words, the Creator God spoke them through his prophets: “Do not fear, for I am with you.” (Is 41:10) In fact, there are dozens of scriptures that assure us of a PRESENCE here with us from higher realms, from unseen/invisible planes of reality, from more subtle levels of energy and consciousness than our coarse earthly senses can readily discern.
Later in May, we will celebrate Pentecost—the “birthday of the Church,” when the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the followers of Jesus and many others, fulfilling the Lord’s promise: “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth….He lives with you and will be in you.” (Jn 14:15-17) Long before this promise of Jesus, the God of the Old Testament had vowed: “Afterwards I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh” (Joel 2:28)… “I will put a new spirit within them” (Ez 11:19)… “I will put my Spirit in the midst of you.” (Ez 36:27) And every Christmas we hear Isaiah’s prophecy of the virgin bearing a son and naming him “Emmanuel” (Isa 7:14), which means “God with us.” (Mt 1:21) So through the ancient Jewish scriptures, the Incarnation, life, teachings, and Paschal Mystery of Jesus Christ, and then through the Sacraments and mysticism of the Church, our entire Judeo-Christian spiritual tradition has been hammering home one consistent message from heaven to humankind: the message of a True PRESENCE—“I AM WITH YOU!”
What we humans desperately need, in this dark and urgent hour of crisis on our dear planet Earth, is DIRECT PERCEPTION of this timeless truth. DIVINE PRESENCE has already been given: it is “WITH US,” but we are not “present” to it: we are not “present to Presence.” We fail to perceive and discern the Holy Presence, the Sacred Energy in our midst at each moment, animating and empowering each breath we take. This Presence is a vibration of Loving Energy that underlies each moment of our life, but we do not sense or feel it because of our LACK OF AWARENESS. Why this massive unawareness?
Our awareness is blocked by the obstacles of our ordinary state of mind and consciousness, totally cluttered and overwhelmed by a chaotic bombardment of exterior and interior words, thoughts, ideas, beliefs, opinions, and emotional reactions. Our modern technocracy feeds this jumbled inner state constantly, but even “unplugged” from devices, our consciousness is full of loud inner chatter which drowns out the awareness of “I AM WITH YOU”—the vibration of LOVE that underlies all Reality, in each present “Now” moment. The primary “boulder” that forms the many “blockages” of our awareness is the False Self system of our egoism with its faulty programs for happiness based on safety/security, affection/esteem, power/control, and sensory pleasure.
These programs—an “operating system” always running in the background of our consciousness—occupy our every waking minute, ironically assuring that we are never “AWAKE” at all, but sleepwalking through our lives, unaware of the “I AM WITH YOU” Divine Indwelling Presence in each precious moment. We dwell in the “sleep” of our “buttons being pushed”—the automatic thoughts, reactions, associations and conditioned reflexes of behavior and language formed on this coarse earthly level of our existence. This tragic unawareness of the ever-present PRESENCE of Divine Love at a subtler level puts demonic EGO at the helm, in full control of our lives. But it doesn’t have to be this way! Human beings—uniquely among all of creation—were “fearfully, wonderfully made” with a capacity for AWARENESS of Divine Presence at more subtle levels of vibration than ordinary consciousness.
For nearly 43 years, Our Lady in Medjugorje has been revealing the one great ANTIDOTE to this tragic condition of our robotic, sleepwalking unawareness: PRAYER. Again this month, she says: “I am with you to tell you that I love you and to encourage you to prayer, because Satan is strong and every day his strength is stronger through those who have chosen death and hatred.” PRAYER is the only solution for our human dilemma of unawareness because prayer is designed to produce QUIET MIND. In prayer we enter into SILENCE—a place where the clamor of words, ideas, thoughts, beliefs, and emotional reactions are laid to rest, at least for our prayer period.
In PRAYER, our intention is to simply OPEN ourselves to the Presence and action of God within, who is always-already PRESENT, but blocked by our distracted/cluttered unawareness. Our intention in prayer is to have a LISTENING HEART, wholly RECEPTIVE to the Divine Presence in the moment, with whatever the moment contains—not adding anything of “me, myself, and I” to it, but rather LETTING GO of all that arises from our small self or ego in the moment—interested only in the Divine Presence acting secretly within our inmost being to transform us into whomever we were created to be.
As we spend time each day in PRAYER, this discipline of LETTING GO (of self) and RETURNING (to God) over and over during our prayer period begins to bear fruit in our everyday life in the world, where the habitual detachment and disengaging from demonic ego in prayer starts to build a spiritual “muscle” within us, enabling us to make more Godly CHOICES in our actual behavior—i.e. in what we choose to see, hear, read, watch, say, and do. With consistent daily PRAYER in which we have direct perception of the Divine PRESENCE of Sacred Love vibrating energetically beneath all Reality in each moment, we find that we no longer “choose death and hatred” in our thoughts, words, or deeds.
Having grappled with the “monkey mind” that relentlessly chatters and distracts us during our prayer, we become acutely AWARE that “Satan is strong” in the destructive power of NEGATIVE THOUGHTS: fear, anger, insecurity, jealousy, resentment, unforgiveness, greed, injured pride, revenge, etc. And we are able to look upon our non-praying, unaware brothers and sisters with greater COMPASSION than ever before, realizing that Satanic ego is “stronger every day through those who have chosen death and hatred”—that is, those in our world who do not pray and thus do not perceive in QUIET MIND the PRESENCE of “I AM WITH YOU.” Therefore, they bring into actual, physical manifestation all the dark, negative thoughts of satanic ego, “choosing death and hatred” in many ways: verbal, physical and sexual abuse, domestic and gun violence, infidelity, abandonment, emotional domination, criminal corruption, abortion, euthanasia, war, terrorism, destruction of nature, etc.
Having developed a prayer practice ourselves and faced the inner demons of our own persistent thoughts, we come to realize our own sharing in the dangerous egoic seeds of negativity that can produce real-world harm if left unchecked. With compassion, we see that the unawareness of Divine Presence—rooted in our failure to PRAY in the silence of a quieted mind that disengages from satanic ego—leads inevitably to the ACTING OUT, in our physical world, of the darkness and destruction, “death and hatred” that flourishes in the trap of our human condition, riddled with narcissistic False Self programs. In compassion we wish to help those trapped in this darkness.
Our Lady concludes her message: “You, little children, be prayer and my extended hands of love for all those who are in darkness and seek the light of our God.” Once again Our Lady calls us not only to “pray,” but to “BE” PRAYER and her “extended hands of love” in the world. What is this quality of “BEING” that she invokes? If we understand the two main qualities of PRAYER which dissolve Satanic “death and hatred” —SILENCE and AWARENESS OF DIVINE PRESENCE—then we know how to “BE” prayer for those in darkness.
First of all, by our SILENCE. For those who do not yet pray or experience the God of Love, may spending time with us provide them an experience of QUIETED MIND: a person in whom all fearful, negative, critical, paranoid, suspicious, unkind or unloving speech and action have been silenced, so that nothing but kind, loving, giving, merciful, wise, and enlightened words and behavior come forth.
Secondly, we can “BE” prayer for others through our AWARENESS OF DIVINE PRESENCE. May time spent with us expose people to a new level of conscious sensitivity toward the wonders of ordinary, everyday life that is permeated by God’s grace in each moment. In us, may they see a new view of the world, where “Earth’s crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God” (Elizabeth Barrett Browning)…where we “Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” (Mary Oliver) Through both our silence and our wakeful/mindful awareness, we can fulfill Our Lady’s call to “BE PRAYER for all those who are in darkness.” Even without “praying,” other people can have an experience of prayer simply by being in our quiet, “present-to-Presence” company.
Finally, because the Divine Presence—both described in Sacred Scripture and experienced through our direct perception—is LOVE, we must embody and incarnate this Love in everything we think, say, and do. This loving Presence, vibrating as the Creative and Sustaining Source of all, the energy humming beneath every second of our life and in every atom of our world, is poured out without distinction or discrimination, upon “the bad and the good, the just and the unjust,” like the sun and rain. (Mt 5:45) Thus we, too, must be the “extended hands of love” not just for those with whom we share bonds of affection, religion, race, class, nationality, or political views—but for ALL who are in darkness and seek the light of our God.” In answering her call, may we emulate Our Lady’s maternal love without borders!
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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
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It is far better to relate to the risen Christ on the basis of pure faith that rests not on appearances, feelings, external evidence, or what other people say, but on our personal experience of the Christ-life rising up and manifesting its fruits in us. This is the living faith that empowers us to act under the influence of the Spirit—the same Spirit that Jesus breathed upon the apostles on the evening of his resurrection.
—Fr. Thomas Keating, OCSO
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A very powerful and earthy mystical image: at the Last Supper, the beloved disciple was reclining with his head against Jesus’ chest….The historical identity of the “Beloved Disciple” is deliberately left an open question because the Gospel wants that concept—to be the beloved disciple of Jesus—to be a designation that beckons and fits YOU…and beckons and fits every Christian in the world.
Who is the beloved disciple? The beloved disciple is any person, woman, man, or child, who is intimate enough with Jesus so as to be attuned to the heartbeat of God and who sees the world from that place of intimacy, prays from that place of intimacy, and sets off in love to seek the Risen Lord and grasp the meaning of his empty tomb.
—Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI
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Practice is an essential “reset button” that we must push many times. When we operate by our habituated patterns, we strengthen certain neural pathways, which makes us “set in our ways.” But when we stop using old neural grooves, these pathways die off! Practice can literally create new responses and aid the genuine newness of transformation.
It’s strange that we’ve come to understand the importance of practice in sports, therapies, successful business, and creative endeavors, but most of us do not see the need for it in the world of spirituality. Yet it’s probably more important there than anywhere else. “New wine demands fresh skins or otherwise we lose both the wine and the container,” Jesus said. Practices, more than anything else, create a new container for us, to protect the new wine we wish to receive.
Many believe that rituals and “practices” like daily Eucharist, the rosary, pilgrimages, chants, genuflections and prostrations, physically blessing oneself, singing and silence have operated as a sort of body-based rewiring. Such practices allow us to know Reality mystically and contemplatively from a unitive consciousness.
But over time, as these practices turned into repetitive obligations, they degenerated; many people came to see them magically as divinely required transactions. Instead of inviting people into new consciousness, the practices froze people in their first infantile understanding of those rituals, and transactions ended up substituting for transformations.
Mindless repetition of any practice, with no clear intention, can in fact keep us quite unconscious—unless the practices keep breaking us into new insight, desire, compassion, and an ever-larger notion of God and ourselves. Automatic repetition of anything is a recipe for unconsciousness and spiritual immaturity. If spirituality does not support real growth in both inner and outer freedom, it is not authentic spirituality. The “unfreedom” of an immature, fear-based “magical” consciousness has made many people dislike and mistrust religious folks. Yet with conscious intention and mindfulness, all of these traditional practices can be spiritually fruitful and transformative.
—Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM
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Like the disciples of Emmaus, we, too, have our own ideas of Jesus Christ, his message and his church. We, too, are conditioned by our upbringing, early education, culture and life experience. The disciples could not recognize Jesus as long as their mindsets about who he was and what he was to do were in place. When Jesus demolished their blindness with an explanation of the scriptures, their vision of him began to assume a more realistic tone. The price of recognizing Jesus is always the same; our idea of him, of the church, of the spiritual journey, of God himself has to be shattered.
To see with the eyes of faith we must be free of our culturally-conditioned mindsets. When we let go of our private and limited vision, he who has been hidden from us by our prepackaged values and preconceived ideas causes the scales to fall from our eyes. He was there all the time. Now at last we perceive his Presence. With the transformed vision of faith, we return to the humdrum routines and duties of daily life, but now, like Mary Magdalene, we recognize God giving himself to us in everyone and everything.
—Fr. Thomas Keating, OCSO
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The present moment has no competition; it’s not judged in comparison to any other. It has never happened before and will not happen again. But when I’m in competition, I’m not in love. I’m looking for a way to dominate. This mind is not the truth because God does not deal with us like this. Mystics know this. Those who enter deeply into the great mystery do not experience a God who compares, differentiates, and judges. They experience an all-embracing receiver who recognizes the divine image in every individual.
For Jesus, prayer is waiting in love. Returning to love. Trusting that love is the deepest stream of reality. So prayer is not primarily words; it’s primarily an attitude, a stance. Thus Paul said, “Pray always; pray unceasingly.” (1 Thes 5:17) Using words, this would be impossible. However, we can pray unceasingly if we find the stream and know how to wade in its waters. The stream will flow through us; all we must do is keep choosing to stay there.
—Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM
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Inner agreement with God belongs to a happy life. Only if this fundamental relationship is right can all the other relationships be right. It is important throughout one’s life to learn and to practice thinking with God, feeling with God, willing with God, so that love may grow from this and become the keynote of our life. If the keynote of my life is love, then as far as concerns those whom God has placed on my way I can once again only live on the basis of this assent, this trust, this agreement, and this love.
—Pope Benedict XVI
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See Mary’s total unity with the will of God. In this respect she bore the consequences of sin in union with her Son, our Lord. She held her Son, and she is holding the Church. She is our Mother of Perpetual Help. She is total, continuous help, always for others….Only in heaven will we know how many mistakes we avoided, how many accidents we avoided, how many sins we did not commit because she was with us helping us, interceding for us, giving so much to us out of the goodness of her heart.
—Servant of God Sr. Ida Peterfy
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“The Jerusalem above is freeborn, and she is our mother.” (Gal 4:26)
Mary is Mother of the Church, and all the special graces she has received—freedom from the stain of sin, intimacy with Christ, and bodily Assumption into heaven—are foretastes and promises of what God intends for all those sanctified by Christ to be part of his body. Mary calls us to join her in the heavenly Jerusalem, and to be a people of holy ardor during our earthly pilgrimage.
—Magnificat
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Divine providence assigned a very special role to the Virgin of Nazareth. He made her all-holy, full of grace. At her acceptance of the divine plan, the mystery of the Incarnation of the Word of God took place. The Mother of the Redeemer was an associate of the Savior from the Annunciation to the Visitation, from the birth of Jesus to his presentation in the temple, from the flight into Egypt to the years in Nazareth, from the wedding at Cana to Calvary. And with the newborn Church, Mary was in the midst of the apostles on the day of Pentecost.
Jesus chose Mary to participate in our redemption. And she will lead us to Jesus. We ask her to obtain for each of us the light, the grace of the Holy Spirit, so that we may see what the Lord wants. We ask her to obtain for us the grace of lives oriented completely toward God. Mary knew how to reply: “Let it be to me according to your word.” May her disposition be ours also. The life of the Blessed Virgin was entirely Christocentric. She lived for Christ and with Christ. Let us ask the first one who believed to obtain for us an unshakable faith in Jesus, the Savior for all humanity.
—Francis Cardinal Arinze
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There is another nature within us that participates in another dimension—something universal. Attention is the element that allows the relation with that other nature. Being awake and attentive to this finer energy is prayer.
Presence is the teacher. Direct experience is all. There is a sacred force, and more and more you can recognize it.
We talk too much. Attention needs to be strong and free in order not to be distracted by associations or outer events. There is an external silence and an inner silence. With an inner silence a higher energy can come down from Above, and I can function, think, speak, from this Intelligence. To receive the current from Above. It is what we are made for.
It is a shock sometimes to see how I am. To see the lack, the poverty. The vulgarity of the ego. Seeing the poverty—thoughts, feelings: it’s the human condition. I must be present to it. To accept oneself no matter how one is—it is a very great thing. Just to see, and accepting as it is, permits another quality to enter. Acceptance in seeing attracts higher forces.
Breathe in the finer energies through the head….. “Lord”
Breathe out, as they circulate through the whole body…. “Have Mercy.”
Lord….Have Mercy….
Work is not something you can “do.” The higher energy does the work. One has to open to it, and allow it to flow, to penetrate one’s being. The most important thing? It is to let the higher energy manifest in me so that all my functions serve the Light.
If I can stay, all is given. When I can stay, the force of this higher Intelligence from Above has authority. The body, mind, feelings submit. There is unity.
—Jean-Claude Lubtchansky
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Wisdom from Pope Francis
The message of hope was fully realized in a woman, Mary, who was destined to become the Mother of God, and it was fulfilled in her before any other creature. Our journey of faith is the same as that of Mary, and so we feel that she is particularly close to us. She is that woman who rejoiced in the PRESENCE of God, who treasured everything in her heart, and who let herself be pierced by the sword. Mary is the saint among the saints, blessed above all others. She teaches us the way of holiness and she walks ever at our side. She does not let us remain fallen, but at those times she takes us into her arms without judging us.
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
