Medjugorje Message: June 25, 2021
Dear children! My heart is joyful because through these years I see your love and openness to my call. Today I am calling all of you: pray with me for peace and freedom, because Satan is strong and by his deception, wants to lead away all the more hearts from my motherly heart. That is why decide for God so that it may be good for you on the earth which God gave you. Thank you for having responded to my call.
River of Light
July 2021
On this 40th anniversary of Our Lady’s apparitions in Medjugorje, she said: “My heart is joyful because through these years I see your love and openness to my call.” Sometimes we become impatient and disheartened by the apparent apathy and indifference to Our Lady’s miraculous presence and messages in Medjugorje, yet her heart is “joyful,” seeing “love and openness to her call” —not only in us, but perhaps in many people whom we misjudge harshly or fail to recognize. As scripture says, “Humans look upon the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” (1 Sam 16:7)
Likewise, as Queen of Heaven and Mother of all the living, Our Lady surely sees with maternal “x-ray vision” into the recesses of human hearts, discerning the many who are truly loving and open to her. While we are blinded to all but the most external, superficial signs of “spirituality,” Our Lady is able to see the basic core of goodness at the center of many more people than we can in our jaded cynicism and self-righteousness, for she sees all of us with the penetrating gaze of a mother. To see as she sees, we need to have a “motherly heart,” too.
Our Lady continues: “Today I am calling all of you: pray with me for peace and freedom, because Satan is strong and by his deception, wants to lead away all the more hearts from my motherly heart.” At this time of great darkness and disintegration, chaos and collapse within American culture and beyond, Our Lady spells out clearly our two greatest needs: “peace and freedom.” Ironically, these are the very blessings we celebrate on July 4th in the U.S.A., yet both are sadly lacking within our nation and within ourselves. Our Lady says that “Satan’s deception wants to lead away all the more hearts” from the “peace and freedom” to be found in her “motherly heart.” She says “all the more” because so many have already been led away from peace and freedom by this “deception,” for indeed, as she says, “Satan is strong.”
In what ways has satanic “deception” robbed our PEACE, “leading us away” from Our Lady’s “motherly heart” ? The motherly heart of Mary is above all a HUMBLE heart—a heart full of humility. Humility is truth. It recognizes the Reality of God’s grace in everything: the fact that without God we are powerless, that unaided by divine grace we can do nothing. Humility sees the truth that “self” as a sole operator is an illusion—nothing more than a “false” self powered by satanic ego, which is “deception.”
And yet, our human condition is that this satanic ego/False Self is in the “driver’s seat” of almost every individual person in the world; thus the EGO is also the driving force in all the world’s larger systems made up of self-centered humans: in government/ politics, corporations/ commerce, medicine/health care, infrastructure/ environment, education, energy, food production, entertainment/ media, technology, etc. We are overwhelmed by the sheer volume and scale of problems we now face in all of these areas—baffled by how to enact solutions for the common good of all in the midst of our chronic, ongoing polarization into opposing “camps,” each filled with bitter condemnation for the other.
The dominant emotional climate in America this 4th of July is one of anger, suspicion, disgust, and contentious debate, where the demonizing, weaponizing, and politicizing of many totally non-political realities keep the raging, violent fire of division stoked and fueled throughout our once-great nation. Rather than collaborating humbly with one another in a bipartisan way to find solutions and relief for our urgent common problems, every grave issue becomes a mere political “football” on a field of egoic one-upmanship, a team blood sport ending in D.C.’s paralyzing gridlock where blatant LIES are now accepted in the game of politics as “means” that justify the “end” of “WINNING at any cost.” Although the U.S. is not formally engaged in a war with anyone, we are tragically at war within ourselves and with our fellow Americans. “Peace” has been shattered by the “strong” satanic “deception” of the selfish human ego running our lives and our country—what the addiction recovery community calls “self-will run riot.”
But the humble person is at peace, plunged into the abyss of Truth and Reality, knowing fully their own weakness before God and the radical abandonment and dependence upon God that alone brings acceptance and serenity in any situation. Focused on God and empty of “self,” the humble person, like Mary, sees God and good everywhere, with a heart overflowing in gratitude for the grace of each new day. To pray for this “peace,” as Our Lady asks, means praying for HUMILITY: the gift of a humble heart.
Likewise with the prayer for “freedom” to which Our Lady calls us: Even as we celebrate our “American freedom” on July 4th, we must acknowledge that we are not free. We are enslaved by the pride and arrogance of (False) self-love, while “the glorious freedom of the children of God” (Rom 8:21) eludes us in our egoism. As St. Augustine revealed, we live not as free citizens of the “City of God” within—a city of transcendent joy in the humble attributing of every gift to God—but rather imprisoned in the “city of self” which is under the tyrannical, despotic rule of the satanic ego, restraining us with insatiable yet ever-frustrated needs, desires, and delusions of prideful rebellion.
Without being focused on God, empty of self, and living by faith in Divine Grace, we are shackled to the False Self’s “emotional programs for happiness” that can never work—the futile search for “enough” safety/security, affection/ esteem, power/ control, and for the symbols of “success” determined by our equally enslaved culture and the mass media’s hypnotic programming of our brains to be in cultic thrall to membership in some group with its “group-think.” So, again, the “freedom” for which we pray will hinge upon HUMILITY—the gift of a humble, “motherly heart” like Mary’s. Such humility brings a forgetfulness of self that is truly liberating, with a transcendent freedom from the egoic cares, anxiety, and propagandic lies that enslave us in our unhealed human condition.
Our Lady concludes her message by saying: “That is why decide for God so that it may be good for you on the earth which God gave you.” Again, humility is TRUTH, and the truth of our dignity and greatness as human beings created in the divine image is that we have been endowed with agency—the ability to choose. We have been given free will with which we can “decide for God” —or not. Our Lady urges us to activate our agency with humility, just as she did at the Annunciation when answering Gabriel with her freely-chosen “fiat” —a “yes” to mothering the Incarnate Word—which was the ultimate “deciding for God” that we all must repeat: agreeing to bear the Divine Presence into our world in a way that is uniquely our own.
Our Lady’s final words are yet another profound reminder of our need for HUMILITY of HEART: “so that it may be good for you on the earth which God gave you.” How could we see our God-given earth with Mary’s “motherly heart” ? We would see our beautiful blue planet so abused, mistreated and plundered, sobbing in the travail and destruction of its ecosystems—suffering in the land, in the water, in the air, and underground. Our human assault upon “the earth which God gave you” has been TOTAL in our arrogant greed for exploitation and profit. Now the suffering of Great Nature, finally knocked out of balance, is beginning to affect her human tormentors, also, as the effects of climate change and resource-stripping begin to take a toll upon our own selfish lifestyle.
The “deception of Satan” is plain here, too, as our prideful rebellion continues to reject the “green” or “alternative” energy technologies that could heal “the earth which God gave you,” favoring instead the minimizing lies that keep old money-making wealth structures “safe” from change. These deadly delusions of denial will be visited upon our children and our children’s children, to whom we leave the scorched earth of our once-healthy God-given home.
Long ago, St. Paul wrote of this, our moment in history: “Creation awaits with eager expectation the revelation of the children of God; for creation was made subject to futility, not of its own accord but because of the one who subjected it, in hope that creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now; and not only that, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, we also groan within ourselves as we wait for the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved….But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait with endurance.” (Rom 8:19-25)
Even as our dear Mother Earth “which God gave you” now suffers the destroying corruption of our enslavement to satanic ego, we live in HUMBLE HOPE that our ultimate liberation from the dictatorship of the False Self—both within ourselves and in all of society—will also be shared by the whole created world of Nature, one day healed and revived to the wholeness and health of God’s original gift. Summer blessings of humility’s Peace and Freedom!
+ + + + + + + +
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
+ + + + + + + +
Nothing can disturb the humble….The humble person finds his greatest pleasure in life in feeling his own weakness before God. The law of dying to self is the law for every Christian, for Christ said: “If anyone wants to follow me, let him take up his cross and deny himself.” But this doctrine which seems so austere, takes on a delightful sweetness when we consider the outcome of this death—life in God in place of our life of sin and misery.
It seems to me the soul that is aware of its greatness enters into that “holy freedom of the children of God” of which the Apostle speaks. That is, it transcends all things, including self. The freest soul, I think, is the one most forgetful of self. Pride is love of ourselves; well, love of God must be so strong that it extinguishes all our self-love….A soul that lives by faith in God’s presence, it seems to me, would also live in humility.
—St. Elizabeth of the Trinity
+ + + + + + + +
Wisdom is the ability to recognize. To recognize what? Spiritual wisdom is the power to recognize the butterfly in a caterpillar, the eagle in an egg, the saint in a sinner. Only a silent mind is capable of this recognizing power.
—Fr. Raimon Panikkar
+ + + + + + + +
Conscious labor is any intentional effort that moves against the grain of entropy, against the pervasive tendency of human consciousness to slip into autopilot. It means summoning the power of conscious attention (more widely known as “mindfulness“) to swim upstream against that pervasive lunar undertow drawing us toward stale, repetitive, mechanical patterns.
If conscious labor increases our capacity to stay present, intentional suffering radically increases the heartfulness of that presence. It invites us to step up to the plate and willingly carry a piece of that universal suffering, which seems to be our common lot as sentient beings in a very dense and dark corner of the universe. The size of the piece does not matter. It can be as small (though not easy!) as bearing another human being’s unpleasant manifestations, or as vast as “greater love has no man than to lay down his life for his neighbor.”
—Rev. Cynthia Bourgeault
+ + + + + + +
The word “mysticism” simply means experiential knowledge of spiritual things, as opposed to book knowledge, secondhand knowledge, or even church knowledge. Most of organized religion, without meaning to, has discouraged us from taking the mystical path by telling us almost exclusively to trust outer authority—in the form of Scripture, tradition, or various kinds of experts—instead of telling us the value and importance of inner experience. (Trusting the “containers” instead of the “contents.”) In fact, many of us were strongly warned against trusting our own personal experiences of the divine as unnecessary and possibly even dangerous. We were taught to mistrust our own souls—and thus the Holy Spirit within us.
Yet Jesus commonly said, “Go in peace, your faith has made you whole!” He said this to people who had made no dogmatic affirmations, did not think he was God, did not pass any moral checklist, and often did not belong to the “correct” group. Despite all the attempts to over-rely on externals, people end up relying upon their own experience anyway, for we see everything through the lens of our own temperament, early conditioning, brain function, role in society, education, personal needs, and cultural biases. We cannot assume that any experience is 100% from God; we must develop filters to clear away our own agenda and ego. We cannot forget Paul’s reminder toward humility: “We know imperfectly and we prophesy imperfectly.” (1 Cor 13:9)
—Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM
+ + + + + + + +
World religions must align with the principles of evolution and converge, and this new worldview depends on the integration of science and religion. To divide or compartmentalize these disciplines into separate fields of knowledge is to divide the world; and a world divided will fall into ruin. While the first axial period produced the self-reflective individual, the Christian monk, the lone pioneer, this second axial period is giving rise to the hyperconnected person who is the ecological person, the interbeing in search of community.
Technology has fundamentally altered our view of the world and ourselves. People are becoming more aware of belonging to humanity as a whole and not to a specific group. This is an advancement in the whole evolutionary process! Religions are challenged to bring about a new integration of the spiritual and the material, of sacred energy and secular energy into a total global human energy: communal, ecological and cosmic.
A new religious consciousness calls for a new type of person who will find relationship with the divine to be a deep source of inspiration for activity in the world, with a new spirituality divested of insularity and directed toward a planetary consciousness. An entire attitude and mindset has to shift first, before any talk of economic, political, and social arrangements can be made. Anything else is premature, useless and possibly dangerous. The orientation of the axis of consciousness itself must be shifted, including a realignment of science and religion.
The religious principles that originally forged America into a new Eden are now the principles that are dividing the country based on race, gender and religion. The white, male Adam in search of spiritual perfection and God’s blessing is now seen as the racist Adam; the Adam who strove for dominion over nature has crushed nature into fossil fuels and expendable land.
The Adam myth woven into the fabric of America no longer depends on the practice of religion. Yet the roots of our problems are deeply religious and their resolution must be religious, too. Nothing else will suffice; no public policy, no course on racism, no mandate, nothing short of a radical shift in religious consciousness can reset the dial of America’s future.
It is not academic or conceptual religion that needs revision. It is religion as a function of evolution that is at stake. Here all the institutions of religion have failed; we have no understanding of what religion means as a process of the evolution of consciousness. The United States has become a powerhouse of science and technology but institutional religion remains tied to a static past espousing beliefs based on ancient, disproven metaphysical principles.
Pluralism is now normative of our new awareness. Life on “Google Earth” means what affects one part of the globe affects the whole globe. There is a fusion of disparate identities, including race and gender, forging a new type of person: a relational being with fluid boundaries in which no category can adequately define personhood. Human persons today know themselves in connection with others. A new religious consciousness of ultimate concern will draw persons into communities of deepening relationships with all aspects of planetary life, enacting God’s presence in the world from a depth of love, compassion, peace and justice.
Because technology cannot fulfill the longings of the human heart, and science alone cannot give us the ultimate meaning and value we seek, the key to our future lies in relational wholeness, with compassion and forgiveness binding us together. Science needs to be taught with a religious dimension, and religion needs to be taught within a scientific worldview. Meditation is essential to a world in evolution. In a world of chaos and complexity, meditation is essential to how we think and act in the flux and flow of change.
—Sr. Ilia Delio, OSF
(“Co-creating a New America by Remaking Religion”)
+ + + + + + + +
Wisdom from Pope Francis
Nature deserves to be protected. Human interaction with God’s biodiversity must take place with utmost care and respect.
A Prayer for Our Earth
All-powerful God, you are present in the whole universe
and in the smallest of your creatures.
You embrace with your tenderness all that exists.
Pour out upon us the power of your love,
that we may protect life and beauty.
Fill us with peace, that we may live as brothers and sisters,
harming no one.
O God of the poor,
help us to rescue the abandoned and forgotten
of this earth, so precious in your eyes.
Bring healing to our lives,
that we may protect the world and not prey on it,
that we may sow beauty,
not pollution and destruction.
Touch the hearts of those who look only for gain
at the expense of the earth and the poor.
Teach us to discover the worth of each thing,
to be filled with awe and contemplation,
to recognize that we are profoundly united
with every creature
as we journey toward your infinite light.
We thank you for being with us each day.
Encourage us, we pray, in our struggle
for justice, love and peace.
(from the encyclical Laudato Si)
+ + + + + + + +
Mark Your Calendar 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
Subscribe
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
