Medjugorje Message: June 25, 2022
Dear children! I rejoice with you and thank you for every sacrifice and prayer which you have offered for my intentions. Little children, do not forget that you are important in my plan of salvation of mankind. Return to God and prayer that the Holy Spirit may work in you and through you. Little children, I am with you also in these days when Satan is fighting for war and hatred. Division is strong and evil is at work in man as never before. Thank you for having responded to my call.
River of Light
July 2022
Our Lady’s message was given on her great feast day of the Solemnity of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which was also the 41st anniversary of her apparitions in Medjugorje—an incredible milestone of unprecedented duration. She begins her message by saying: “Dear children, I rejoice with you and thank you for every sacrifice and prayer which you have offered for my intentions.” This gracious acknowledgement from our Blessed Mother should inspire us to offer even more “sacrifice and prayer” for her intentions, knowing that she sees, hears, and knows of every offering we make, however small or seemingly insignificant.
Are we in the habit of offering a daily rosary, or at least a decade, for Our Lady’s intentions? Or offering up our meat or full meals on Wednesdays and Fridays, as is the custom of fasting she requested at Medjugorje? Perhaps a daily offering of the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary (which takes less than 5 minutes), or simply the 7 Our Fathers, Hail Mary’s and Glory Be’s (that she initially suggested to the children in Medjugorje) would be a fitting addition to our PRAYER practice.
And SACRIFICE for Our Lady’s intentions can take many forms: not pressing our own will or preference in a given situation, but yielding to others, “for Mary’s sake” ….forfeiting our usual hour or two of television/internet “screen time” that is mindless/unintentional entertainment—being conscious and intentional rather than randomly haphazard about the influences and impressions we allow into our psyche….practicing an “attitude of gratitude” that prayerfully acknowledges God’s goodness in our everyday life, just as Mary “magnified” the Lord in her soul and “rejoiced” in Him in her spirit….reaching out to others in their moments of need, giving our own time, talent, and treasure to serve our fellow humans while minimizing our own petty likes and dislikes….not missing an opportunity to build up another person’s faith and trust in God by the example of our own inner peace and confident abandonment to Divine Providence. These are just a few examples of “sacrifice and prayer” we can easily offer for Our Lady’s intentions each day.
Her message continues: “Little children, do not forget that you are important in my plan of salvation of mankind. Return to God and prayer that the Holy Spirit may work in you and through you.” Here Our Lady puts her previous thanks for our “sacrifice and prayer” into a much larger context—the “Big Picture” of cosmic proportions that we are living in these early decades of the 21st century. All of us who are living on planet Earth in this uniquely consequential era of the Marian apparitions in Medjugorje—now entering their 41st year—are alive today for a definite purpose and project: “YOU ARE IMPORTANT IN MY PLAN OF SALVATION OF MANKIND.” Throughout these past 4 decades, Our Lady has repeatedly told us of her need for our prayer in order that “her plan” at Medjugorje may succeed and her mission for the salvation of the world be fulfilled.
We are instrumental in this plan and indispensable to Our Lady! What an honor and responsibility we thus carry! It is through our cooperation with Our Lady’s plan that her hope-filled prophecy at Fatima will be realized: “IN THE END, MY IMMACULATE HEART WILL TRIUMPH.” This “end”—an “era of peace,” Our Lady of Fatima said—will not come upon our earth without a preceding great trial of difficulty, struggle, and suffering. But COME it must—just as a pregnant woman cannot escape the terrible pain and travail of labor and childbirth through which a new life will inevitably emerge into the world as a joyful, victorious “Triumph” over the former horrific suffering.
St. John Paul II famously said, “Medjugorje is the fulfillment of Fatima.” Thus we are living in the era of the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and, as Jesus said in describing these turbulent times, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.” (Mt 24: 6-8) If we are now only at “the beginning” of the hard labor of birthing a new world, then we have a certain perspective within which to view the distressing events of our present time. To do our part and play our role in the unfolding drama of the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart and the ushering-in of a new era of peace on earth, Our Lady tells us to “return to God and prayer that the Holy Spirit may work in you and through you.”
We cannot imagine when or how Our Lady’s “Triumph” will manifest in our troubled world, or what exactly our part will be—only that we will have an “important” role in the heavenly “plan” for the “salvation of mankind.” As St. Teresa of Avila taught: “Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good, yours are the hands with which he blesses all the world.” As the living Body of Christ on earth, we must be animated, motivated, and guided by the HOLY SPIRIT in the “work” of all that we think, say, and do—especially now in these times of deep worldly darkness when we ourselves must be the Light by which all can see. In order for this vibrant inner working of the indwelling Holy Spirit of the Risen Christ to happen, Our Lady says, we must “return to God and prayer” —each and every day, again and again—to be “recharged” and “refueled” for the journey toward her “Triumph.”
All of these positive and hope-filled instructions from Our Lady have taken first priority in her message, but then she concludes with some negative “state of the union” remarks about our current sad situation and degenerate human condition at this present time: “Little children, I am with you also in these days when Satan is fighting for war and hatred. Division is strong and evil is at work in man as never before.” War, hatred, division, evil—yes, we see these clearly in every day’s headlines and feel their reverberations in our personal lives, relationships, and even in our finances, as the interconnectedness of our human species in a global community means that wars across the planet from us have concrete ripple effects, such as the price we pay at the gas pump or grocery store. But the much heavier toll is taken upon our anxious, bewildered, fearful, angry, and grieving psyches and oppressed souls, bombarded daily by the toxic environment in which we live.
Body, mind and spirit are all under seige by Satan, Our Lady says, and “evil is at work in man as never before.” NEVER before?! That’s a powerful statement, suggesting that Satanic ego “at work IN man” today is worse than at the time of Hitler’s Nazi Holocaust; worse than at the time of the Civil War, slavery, and racist lynchings; worse than World Wars I and II and Vietnam; worse than the ages of tribal barbarism, cannibalism, and the Roman Empire that crucified Jesus; worse than the bloody Middle Ages, Protestant Reformation, Spanish Inquisition/Crusades era through the Napoleanic Wars; worse than the American and French revolutions; worse than Stalin’s Soviet forced-labor gulags and the scourge of Communism; worse than Rwanda’s genocide; worse than the Cambodian guerrilla warfare of the Khmer Rouge; and worse than the Serbian ethnic cleansing of Muslims in Bosnia. Surely “evil was at work in man” in all of these horrible past epochs of violence and degradation. Yet Our Lady says there is now “evil at work IN MAN as never before.”
What distinguishes “our time” from all of the past epochs of violence and Satanic peacelessness on earth? Why does Our Lady say that in our time “evil is at work IN MAN as never before“? Perhaps because, for the first time in our evolutionary journey, the human brain has been “hacked” in a way that was never possible before the computer age. Indeed, all of the above-mentioned tragic chapters in our world history of violence and inhumanity took place before the advent of the internet and the ubiquitous DIGITAL DEVICES held in everyone’s hand and absorbing everyone’s attention—forming, molding, influencing, directing, dominating, and finally controlling and “frying” the very human ability to think for oneself: that essential interior faculty necessary for the exercise of free will. Our modern technology’s destruction of conscience has opened the gate to evil “IN MAN” as never before, for it has rendered man’s innermost being dark, void and empty of the light of wisdom: a discerning awareness of Goodness, Beauty, and Truth.
In former eras of violence and disaster, evil was raging on the world stage in an external and overt way, with a limited number of despots, dictators, or criminally insane leaders who were eventually vanquished when the “Good”—the arising consciousness of Truth in rationally-thinking people who could discern justice, ethics, and morality in the indispensable atmosphere of personal silence and solitude—overcame the “evil” Satanic egos running riot.
But today no such arresting of evil is likely, or easily accomplished—first, because silence and solitude are practically nonexistent in modern human life. And without them in a healthy measure each day, the human brain’s capacity for independent thinking and judgment atrophies. Secondly, the constant, relentless bombardment of our senses and psyches by digital information, social media, blatant propaganda, and loud, aggressive, dehumanizing “entertainment” has debilitated and disabled our brains’ thinking function, rendering us impotent against the evil surging both “out there” and “in here.”
The good news is that Our Lady has the answer and antidote through which we can be restored to “Peace, peace, peace—only peace!” —which was her very first message given at Medjugorje as the Queen of Peace. The short and simple answer to our conversion of heart—as individuals and as the worldwide Body of Christ—has always been: “Pray! Pray! Pray!” Let us unplug our devices, power-down our screens, silence all of our incoming sounds, and PRAY….for Our Lady’s intentions and the Triumph of her Immaculate Heart.
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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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WE CANNOT SOLVE OUR PROBLEMS WITH THE SAME THINKING THAT WE USED WHEN WE CREATED THEM.
—Albert Einstein
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Has Technology Hijacked the Human Soul?
All sorts of reasons are given to explain our global breakdown. But there is one principal reason: the breakdown of THOUGHT. Our information-driven world has reduced us to algorithms and hijacked our ability to think, to perceive what is true and good. We’ve been hacked. The rapid rise of computer technology and the deluge of information that comes across our screens is fracturing us at a very rapid rate. Our rather primitive brains cannot handle all the information filtering through our neural circuits. Consequently, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for us to think clearly or discern a global ethics or create new structures that foster sustainability and community. Instead, we are technologically tribalized and increasingly polarized. Technology has splintered time into millions of bits of information moving through circuits at high speeds, causing our planet to become like a speeding train out of control.
Studies over the last decade have shown the harmful effects of the uncontrolled internet, including negative brain plasticity, heightened aggression, depression, loneliness, lack of compassion, and narcissistic behavior. Computer technology developed rapidly and we immersed ourselves in it without fully understanding what we were creating or how these inventions might affect human personhood and community. Within several decades, we have created an information-drenched culture, fractured by tribalized and oppositional factions. Technology has sped up evolution, but we are on a blind and random trajectory, with no real common goal. If God is not aligned with evolution, the process does not have a center or goal, and it can readily devolve and become shattered and dissipated fragments.
Much is dependent upon knowing and thinking, which means to make wholes where there are scattered fragments, to gather the dust of experience into a unity. “To think is to unify,” Teilhard de Chardin wrote. But how can this creative act of thinking and unifying happen if our brains’ very ability to think has been impaired by our technology? Seeing the world clearly is difficult when we are inundated with information, images, beeps and blips from social media platforms. Our hyper-connected world competes for the attention of our eyes. One moment we see a war-torn world, and the next moment the latest fad diet. How do we discern what is important in a milieu full of images?
Instead of allowing our vision to move quickly from one image to the next, we need to slow our seeing to an intent focus on one image. It could be life-changing if our first image of the morning could be an outdoor space rather than flipping through social media. Seeing and understanding the whole, and developing a deeper consciousness of what we are becoming requires eyes that are trained to slow down the taking-in of images, evaluating what we take in for its meaning. A slowed vision is critical for movement toward deeper wholeness.
—Sr. Ilia Delio, OSF
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Put all together the thing which afflicts you and your affliction about the thing, and carry this cross without thinking either of throwing it off or keeping it. As soon as you bear it with this indifference about it, in simple fidelity to God, you will have peace, and the cross will become light.
—Bishop Fenelon
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C.S. Lewis came to realize that “God’s compulsion” was his liberation. He became a Christian because, paradoxically, in a moment of genuine freedom, he came to know he had no other choice existentially except to surrender himself to something which presented itself to him as an obligation. “God’s compulsion” is a deep and authentic “should” inside us, and the great paradox is that when we submit to it, we become freer and more mature. It’s also what brings joy into our lives. There’s a great paradox at the heart of life that’s hard to accept, namely, that freedom lies in obedience, maturity lies in surrender, and joy lies in accepting duty and obligation.
Jesus clearly taught and embodied this paradox: He was the freest human person to ever live, yet he insisted constantly that he did nothing on his own, but everything was in obedience to his Father. He was free of false religion, false morality, and false guilt, even as he constantly drew upon the imperatives deep inside of his own soul and his own religious tradition.
—Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI
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The author of The Cloud of Unknowing says that if you find this unexplainable desire welling up within you, a “naked intent” or wish to be empty and still in the presence for which there is no name, simply wanting time without speech with one that you love, then you might have to start thinking of yourself as a “contemplative.” You unavoidably start seeking out people who know more of this simplicity, who voluntarily practice a life of poverty, stripped of the complicated agendas that bind the rest of us so easily. You discover an irrepressible desire for the poor, the marginal, and fugitive as your finest teachers.
—Belden Lane
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Ultimate Reality cannot be seen with any dual operation of the mind that eliminates the mysterious or confusing. Dualistic thinking is not naked presence to the Presence, but highly controlled and limited seeing. Jesus himself consistently honored and allowed Mystery. He so often taught that Ultimate Reality (“the kingdom“) is LIKE something, offering simile and metaphor to invite further reflection, not impose a single understanding…using parables, stories, aphorisms and often deeply obscure riddles.
Healthy religion is always humble about its own holiness and knowledge. It knows that it does not know. The true biblical notion of faith, which balances knowing with not knowing, is rare today, especially among religious folks who think faith is being certain all the time—when the truth is the exact opposite. Anybody who really knows also knows that they don’t know at all. The Buddhists call this stance “beginner’s mind.”
Imagine how our politics and churches could change if we had that kind of humility in our conversations. Both politics and religion are filled with people clinging to certitudes on every side of every question. This makes civil and humane conversation impossible because there’s no humility. There’s no openness to mystery that is always unfolding. Mystery is not that which is NOT understandable, but that which is endlessly understandable.
To presume we KNOW is always dangerous. There is an arrogance that comes from knowing and thinking that we have the right answer. That’s why great spiritual traditions balance the kataphatic way of prayer (knowing God through words and ideas) with the apophatic way of prayer (knowing God through silence and unknowing).
—Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM
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Grateful Living Practices
+ TUNE IN TO YOUR BREATH
Close your eyes and notice how your breathing takes care of itself, nourishing your whole body, keeping you alive. What is it like to become present to your breath? Commit to not taking this miracle for granted most of the time!
+ WAKE UP GRATEFUL
Notice 3 things you can be grateful for before getting out of bed….like the things you don’t have to do or earn or receive from anyone else—things you are already receiving from Life.
+ SEE OBLIGATIONS AS OPPORTUNITIES
Look at the commitments and responsibilities in your life as your riches, blessings and privileges—the good fortune of having people and things to consider and care for. A shift of perspective!
+ THINK OF SOMEONE GRATEFULLY
Bring to mind someone for whom you are grateful, noticing the effect in your emotions and body as well as your mind.
+ TAKE A GRATITUDE WALK
Walk a short path meditatively somewhere nearby. Bring awareness and celebrate the gifts offered to each of your senses.
+ CELEBRATE WHAT YOU ARE LEARNING
Reflect upon one important thing you have learned in the past 24 hours, and write it down. Be grateful for the imperfection that led to this learning.
+ LIGHT A CANDLE
Light a candle as a powerful practice for nourishing presence, perspective and possibility. Sit quietly and allow a sense of peace to enter your heart; set a grateful intention and settle into gratefulness for a few precious moments.
+ DISCOVER THE OPPORTUNITY IN THIS MOMENT
Make the decision to see your most challenging moments in the day as opportunities, asking what the hard time might be making available to you and what gifts are coming with the struggle. Reflect on this at the end of the day.
+ SAVOR WAITING
Turn any “waiting” moments of the day into moments of heightened awareness. Be fully present in these moments to discover their hidden blessings, and to see that the time between things is a gift.
+ SEND A CARD EXPRESSING YOUR GRATITUDE
Let someone know you are thinking of them today with appreciation and acknowledgement—either email or snail mail.
+ READ A POEM
Choose a poem that speaks to you and read it a few times throughout the day, noting what each reading awakens within you. Share the poem with someone if possible.
+ NOTICE YOUR HANDS
Think of all that your hands do for you, how they facilitate what you love in life. Take care of them.
+ CONNECT WHOLEHEARTEDLY
Reach out to someone you know is going through a difficult time, simply offering your listening ear, a hug, your presence, or a kind text message, email, or voicemail.
+ PRESS “PAUSE”
When you catch yourself racing somewhere, take 30 seconds to stop, take a breath, look at the sky or the environment around you. Notice what is begging for your attention.
+ ASK A SINCERE QUESTION
Give the gift of true inquiry and deep listening to those around you, and see how it unleashes a ripple of gratefulness.
+ SET AN INTENTION
Start your day with an intention to show up wholeheartedly to the different things you will do and experience. At day’s end, contemplate if anything changed as a result of this intention.
—Gratefulness.org Team
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Wisdom from Pope Francis
Very often nowadays we need silence. Silence is important. It is important to think about silence in this age in which it does not seem to have much value. St. Augustine writes: “To the extent that the Word—that is, the Word made man—grows in us, words diminish.” To the extent that Jesus, the spiritual life, grows, words diminish. “Parroting” diminishes. Silence invites us to leave room for the Presence of the Word made flesh, for Jesus.
St. Joseph’s silence is a silence full of listening, an industrious silence, a silence of great interiority. Jesus was raised in this “school,” in the house of Nazareth, with the daily example of Mary and Joseph. Thus he himself sought spaces of silence in his days and invited his disciples to have such an experience. How good it would be if each one of us were able to recover this contemplative dimension of life, opened wide in silence.
But silence frightens us a little, because it asks us to delve into ourselves and confront the part of us that is true. Many people are afraid of silence, they have to speak and speak, or listen to radio or television….Let us learn from St. Joseph how to cultivate spaces for silence in which another Word can emerge…that of the Holy Spirit who dwells in us—given to regenerate us, to console us, to correct us.
Profoundness of the heart grows with silence. We are afraid of moments of silence. Let us not be afraid! It will do us good.
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Mark Your Calendar
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
