Medjugorje Message: February 25, 2018
Dear children! In this time of grace I am calling all of you to open yourselves and to live the commandments which God has given you, that they may lead you through the Sacraments on the way of conversion. The world and worldly temptations are testing you, but you, little children, look at God’s creatures which He has given to you in beauty and humility and, little children, love God above everything and He will lead you on the way of salvation. Thank you for having responded to my call.
River of Light
March 2018
Once again, Our Lady calls the Church’s Lenten penitential season “this time of grace.” Modeled upon Christ’s forty days in the desert and Israel’s forty years in the wilderness, Lent is to be a time of heightened awareness and confrontation with the temptations that are testing us throughout life on earth. Any season of increased awareness, consciousness, wakefulness, and mindfulness is indeed a “time of grace”—even if it involves uncomfortable truths, troubling realizations, and painful renunciation of our disordered desires.
Our Lady begins: “I am calling all of you to open yourselves and to live the commandments which God has given you, that they may lead you through the Sacraments on the way of conversion.” It is entirely possible to read the commandments of God in scripture, write about them, talk about them, preach or be preached-to about them, and quote them verbatim in arguments—all without ever “OPENING OURSELVES.” Our minds and hearts can stay tightly closed while “discussing” the commandments of God. But to “LIVE the commandments,” as Our Lady says, absolutely requires that we “open ourselves.” No one can sincerely and authentically “LIVE” the commandments without a receptive openness of mind and heart. Such openness to the beauty of God’s law is the essence of humility. With openness, the words will come off the page and enlighten our life with the beautiful truth of living in love as the only proper path for human beings created in the image of God.
For all the commandments of God, whether written on the stone tablets of the Mosaic decalogue, in other world religions’ scriptures, or upon the fleshy hearts of men and women—ALL are centered upon LOVE. Jesus said that the twofold love of God and love of neighbor as oneself is a complete summation of both the Law and the Prophets. (Mt 22:40) All the sentences, paragraphs, volumes and libraries about God’s commandments that have ever been written can be boiled down to one word: LOVE. The commandment of God to LOVE, if followed with an openness of mind and heart, will lead us, Our Lady says, “through the Sacraments on the way of conversion.” How so? In all of the sacraments of the Church, we celebrate “the sacred mysteries” of God’s love. At the beginning of every Mass we “prepare ourselves to celebrate the sacred mysteries” by making a penitential act, confessing to God and neighbor our faults and sins against the divine commandment to love in its many forms.
Thus our open-hearted awareness of God’s commandments leads us, through the Sacraments, toward conversion or transformation of life. The biblical commandments against false gods and idolatry, the misuse of God’s name, murder, adultery, theft, lying, and the envious coveting of others’ goods, as well as the commandments to keep the Sabbath rest and honor one’s parents—are all enshrined, not just as words on a page, but as living stones of our everyday behavior through the graces given us in the Sacraments of Baptism, Eucharist, Confirmation, Reconciliation (penance), Matrimony, Holy Orders, and the Anointing of the Sick. These sacraments are the great gift Christ gives His Church to strengthen and enable us to not merely “know” the commandments of God who is Love, but to “LIVE the commandments” and to be lifted back onto their path whenever we fall.
Our Lady continues: “The world and worldly temptations are testing you, but you, little children, look at God’s creatures which He has given to you in beauty and humility….” Here Our Lady is encouraging us to have a right perception and healthy ordering of the many influences and relationships in our life. How can we see that “the world and worldly temptations are testing us“? Our human condition has always been subject to worldly temptation, and Jesus confronted its various forms in the gospel accounts of His “desert testing” experience. Today, these same temptations bombard us in many “super-sized” versions manufactured by our modern technological culture. Always it is a genuine GOOD of “the world” that God created in beauty and perfection that is offered to us in a seductive “temptation” packaging that invites us to misuse, over-use, exploit, distort, or abuse the genuine good in a greedy, egocentric way, for the aggrandizement of our False Self.
Thus Satan presented to Jesus the objectively wonderful created goods—stones and bread, the splendid Herodian Temple, and the glorious kingdoms of the world—but not simply for the sake of His admiration, reverence and awe-filled worship of the God who was behind them all. Rather, these goods of the good “world” were dangled as satanic “bait” and “worldly temptation” to be accepted only for the sake of egoic exaltation and the self-centered human drives for safety and security, affection and esteem, power and control. Citing sacred scripture, our Lord defied, debunked, and rebuked all three satanic temptations by which He was “tested.”
Our Lady reminds us that we, too, are subject to the “testing” of the world and worldly temptations, and in this Lenten “time of grace” we focus on how best to answer them in our daily life. How often do we meet the test of our mainstream culture’s tempting symbols of safety and security, affection and esteem, power and control—and fall into the trap that has been laid for us to selfishly misuse them? Yet Our Lady provides the solution: “You, little children, look at God’s creatures which He has given to you in beauty and humility.” Here she invites us to view and assess the good things of “the world” about us—the grandeur of Nature, the marvels of each human being, the joys of innocent animals and children, the wonders of technology that make life easy and entertaining, the inspiration of great art, music, literature, theater, architecture, and so much more—and realize that all are “God’s creatures” given to us to be seen “in beauty and humility.”
What does it mean to look at something “in beauty and humility“? It means that we see the goods of the world for what they truly are: creations and gifts of God—not personal possessions which we are “entitled” to exploit for selfish ends. To see the goods of the world through the lens of their “beauty” and our “humility” means having a genuinely GRATEFUL/ APPRECIATIVE yet totally NON-POSSESSIVE attitude toward them—without coveting, craving, or obsessively pursuing “ownership” of our consumeristic culture’s advertised “symbols” targeting our ego needs to feel safe and secure, loved and esteemed, or powerful and in control. A person who lives in this gospel freedom of seeing the world “in beauty and humility” is a person: A) free of any fixation upon guns, alarms, or surveillance gadgets for the sake of gaining “safety and security,” for they rely on God’s unfailing Protection; B) free of any fixation upon landing a “trophy” (sex object) romantic partner, popularity polling, or thousands of Facebook friends for the sake of gaining “affection and esteem,” for they rely on God’s unfailing Love; C) free of any fixation upon “winning” at any moral cost or exerting self-will above the common good for the sake of gaining “power and control,” for they rely on God’s unfailing Power rather than their own.
Our Lady concludes her message by saying, “Little children, love God above everything and He will lead you on the way of salvation.” In the desert of temptation, Jesus exemplified this ordered love that prioritizes “GOD ABOVE EVERYTHING.” He defeated every seductive testing of Satan by referring every created gift to the divine Giver, the loving Creator of all, who is to be loved first and foremost, before and above any of His creations. He had undoubtedly learned from His mother Mary, as a young child, the “Shema” (“Hear, O Israel“)—the Torah prayer from Deuteronomy that every devout Jew is taught to memorize and recite morning and night, along with the promises of salvation attached to its faithful and heartfelt recitation: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One. And you shall LOVE the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength….” Love, Love, Love, for in loving any created thing on this earth, we are ultimately loving its Creator! May we develop the eyes to see this great truth and order all our loves during this “time of grace” that is the Lenten season.
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Do You Want to Fast This Lent?
- Fast from hurting words and say kind words.
- Fast from sadness and be filled with gratitude.
- Fast from anger and be filled with patience.
- Fast from pessimism and be filled with hope.
- Fast from worries and have trust in God.
- Fast from complaints and contemplate simplicity.
- Fast from pressures and be prayerful.
- Fast from bitterness and fill your hearts with joy.
- Fast from selfishness and be compassionate to others.
- Fast from grudges and be reconciled.
- Fast from words and be silent so you can listen.
—Pope Francis
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The Dalai Lama’s Morning Prayer
May I be a Guard for those who need protection;
a Guide for those on the path;
a Boat, a Raft, a Bridge for those who wish to cross the flood.
May I be a Lamp in the darkness,
a Resting Place for the weary,
a Healing Medicine for all who are sick,
a Vase of Plenty, a Tree of miracles,
and for the boundless multitudes of living beings
may I bring sustenance and awakening,
enduring like the earth and sky,
until all beings are freed from sorrow and are awakened.
—Shantideva
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Consent is the heart of contemplative prayer. When we sit down for silent prayer, we are actually consenting to God and allowing God to be God freely in us. This is the basic disposition for receiving the transmission of divine life mediated through Christ’s redeeming activity. It is not limited to Christians because Christ’s redeeming activity has been applied backwards and forwards in time to include every human being that ever existed. It is also available to everyone through a variety of channels outside of religion, including nature, creativity, art, service to others, genuine science, conjugal love, and other ways. Religion remains, however, the best conveyor of divine life.
Abraham’s willingness to surrender what he most loved at God’s request enabled him to become the father of the Abrahamic religions: Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. What these religions essentially teach is an acceptance of God as God is. We allow him, through daily life and the unfolding of our lives, to bring us to an ever-deeper capacity to surrender who we think we are and to accept who we actually are. Union with God involves the letting go of our self-image as a fixed point of reference. By the repeated sacrifice of Isaac in our lives—what we most love—we gradually let go of our self-image and allow God to be God in us. We prepare for the self-surrender that culminates in the sacrifice of life itself in the dying process. The latter is not the end of the journey but the fullness of the transformative process.
Jesus provided us with an example of how this relationship can be worked out in practice. The great figures of the Old and New Testament are examples of how it succeeded in human lives and showed us that it is possible for everyone to manifest the divine life in one’s particular human nature.
—Fr. Thomas Keating, OCSO
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Lent is a time when we refine and purify the spiritual senses and identify the habits or patterns that pollute them. The means of doing this are the exercises we undertake in this season. It is not a time for self-punishment or repression. It is not condemnation but “repentance” that works to accelerate the spiritual journey. To repent means not to feel guilty, which is a waste of time and spirit. It means to be honest, clear-sighted and courageous enough to change direction. Before changing direction it is best to pause. It is better to slow down gradually before changing direction or you may simply go into a spin. The aim of Lenten discipline is to reverse the momentum of actual or implicit self-rejection and to allow the experience of knowing that we are loved to arise and envelop us. This knowledge is in fact the “knowledge of God.” The changing of momentum is stillness: “Be still and know that I am God.” (Psalm 39) —Fr. Laurence Freeman, OSB
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Contemplation is not and cannot be a function of the superficial, external self. We must remember that this “I” is not our real self. It is our “individuality” but it is not truly the hidden and mysterious person in whom we subsist before the eyes of God. The “I” that works in the world, thinks about itself, observes its own reactions and talks about itself is not the true “I” that has been united to God in Christ. It is at best the vesture, the mask, the disguise of that mysterious and unknown “self” whom most of us never discover until we are dead. Our external, superficial self is not eternal, not spiritual. Far from it. This self is doomed to disappear as completely as smoke from a chimney. Contemplation is precisely the awareness that this “I” is really “not I” and the awakening of the unknown “I” that is beyond observation and reflection and incapable of commenting upon itself. Its very nature is to be hidden, unnamed, unidentified in the society where men talk about themselves and about one another. In such a world the true “I” remains inarticulate and invisible, because it has too much to say—not one word of which is about itself.
—Thomas Merton, OCSO
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The spiritual life has more to do with subtraction than addition. But in the capitalistic West, we’ve turned the Gospel into a matter of addition instead of subtraction. When we are so full of ourselves, we have no room, and no need, for God or others….We aren’t really free until we’re free from ourselves: our ego, our reputation, our self-image, our need to be right, our need to be successful, our need to have everything under control, even our need to be loved by others or think of ourselves as loving. The word “human” comes from the Latin humus, which means earth. Being human means acknowledging that we’re made from the earth and will return to the earth. For a few years we dance around on the stage of life and have the chance to reflect a little bit of God’s glory. We are earth that has come to consciousness. If we discover this power in ourselves and know that we are God’s creatures, a particle that reflects a fragment of God’s glory, that’s enough. If we have not experienced that connection, knowing that we are indeed a fragment of the Great Flame, we will need to accumulate more and more outer things as substitutes for self-worth. This is the great spiritual illusion. We need not acquire what we already have. Our value comes from our inherent participation in God. —Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM
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Wisdom from Pope Francis
There’s something about Ash Wednesday that draws us in, calls us to return to sanity, to a change of heart and mind. Lent doesn’t take us away from our ordinary lives, but rather it invites us to bring a new and holy attention to those activities. This should be the way with all of our spiritual practices.
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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
