What if Jesus has been reaching out to save us through the heart of Mary, his Mother?
What if Jesus has sent his Mother to us every day – for a period of time longer than the years He lived on earth?
What if, amazingly, God sent His Mother 36 years ago to save us; and He has never stopped sending her to us, because we so desperately need to know Him and His mother’s love for us (in this world so lost in the darkness of sin and death and acts as if God doesn’t exist)?
If this
is all true, how are we to respond to these extraordinary events?
Should
they mean something to us?
Should
the messages that are being given impact our lives?
In Medjugorje, it is
reported that Our Lady first appeared on the feast of the Birth of St. John the
Baptist, June 24, 1981 – covering and uncovering the Infant Jesus in Her arms
from a nearby hilltop. This hill was largely inaccessible to the people who
lived in the villages nearby – especially to young mothers and their infants --
due to the thorn bushes and rocks that covered it.
It wasn’t until the following day that she spoke to
the children and thus, June 25, 1981 became the official first day of
apparitions.
In that visit, Mary told
the children:
“I
wish to be with you to convert and to reconcile the whole world."
As she called us in
Fatima, could she not be calling us again through Medjugorje? Could Mary, like John the Baptist did so long ago, Mary comes
as a voice calling out in the wilderness, “Prepare the Way of the Lord!”?
Pope Saint John Paul II thought
so. He likened Mary’s call in Fatima to John the Baptist’s call for conversion,
saying:
"Can the Mother, who
. . .desires everyone's salvation, keep silence on what undermines the very
basis of their salvation? No, she cannot.
So, while the message of
Our Lady of Fatima is a motherly one, it is also strong and decisive. It sounds
severe. It sounds like John the Baptist speaking on the banks of the Jordan. It
invites to repentance. It gives a warning. It calls to prayer. It recommends
the Rosary.
The message is addressed
to every human being. . . The heart of the Blessed Mother . . . calls us. She
not only calls us to be converted; she calls us to accept her motherly help to
return to the source of redemption."
Not only did St. John Paul
liken Mary’s call to John the Baptist, but he also recognized a connection
between the Fatima apparitions and those of Medjugorje, and said to Bishop
Paolo Hnilica in 1984:
"Medjugorje is the fulfillment and continuation of
Fatima!"
He understood that Our
Lady was coming in Medjugorje to continue her prophetic work in the world, to
save us from war and self-destruction.
Our Lady, herself, also
spoke of continuing her work begun in Fatima in Medjugorje, in her message of
August 25, 1991:
"Dear Children! Today also I invite you to prayer, now as
never before when my plan has begun to be realized. Satan is strong and wants
to sweep away my plans of peace and joy and make you think that my Son is not
strong in His decisions. Therefore, I call all of you, dear children, to pray
and fast still more firmly. I invite you to self-renunciation for nine days so
that, with your help, everything that I desire to realize through the secrets I
began in Fatima, may be fulfilled. I call you, dear children, to now grasp the
importance of my coming and the seriousness of the situation. I want to save
all souls and present them to God. Therefore, let us pray that everything I
have begun be fully realized. Thank you for having responded to my call."
In light
of this, let us listen to an account of the first words of Our Lady, according
to one of the visionaries, Ivan:
“My dear children, I am with you.
I am your Mother. Do not be afraid of anything. I will protect you. I will help
you. I will guide you.”
“I am the Queen of Peace, and I have come my
dear children, because my Son has sent me to help you. My dear children, peace, peace and only
peace. My dear children, there must be peace. Peace must reign on this earth.
My dear children, peace must reign between God and man and among people. My dear
children, this world and this humanity is finding itself in a great danger and
there is a threat that it will destroy itself.”
Ivan says,
“Our Lady’s greatest desire is peace.” In order for us to have peace, she asked
us to decide daily and to persist in accepting the words of Christ and the Gospel.
“To live
this way we will grow in holiness!”
Ivan
continues:
“We are enrolled in school of peace, love and prayer. I
wish to be a good student. I wish to complete the homework assignment on a
daily basis.
What are the most important things is our Mother calling
us to?
There are 8 Messages she is inviting us to live:
Peace
Conversion
Returning to God
Prayer of the Heart
Penance and Fasting
Strong Faith
Love
Forgiveness
Eucharist
Confession
Hope
Our Lady is leading us through these messages.
She speaks of them simply so we can better understand and
live them.
How necessary peace is to today’s tired world… tired
families… tired young people… tired Church.
“My dear children,
you are the Church. You are my lungs of the Church. You are my living Church.
If you are strong, then the Church will be strong. If you are weak, then the Church will be
weak. There is no living Church without living families.”
That is why every living family must be a living Church –
a family where prayer happens and the sacramental life is being lived out. We
have to bring prayer back in our families.
That is why Our Mother is coming to us…She points out
what is not good and leads us on the path to good. She wishes to encourage us,
and comfort us – she wishes to offer us a divine cure for us and for all our
pain. She wishes to heal our wounds, to bind our wounds with such great love
and motherly tenderness --to lead us to her Son.
“My dear children,
today more than ever before, the world and humanity is going through its
greatest crisis. The greatest crisis is when you are distant from God, you
become distant from prayer. My dear children this world and its humanity have
wished to go into the future without God. They wish to go alone. But know my
dear children, this world is not able to offer you peace. The peace that this
world is able to offer you will soon disappoint you, because peace is of God
and is of Him alone.”
How can we summarize 36 years of supernatural experiences and events? It seems impossible.
But, perhaps, it is as simple as saying that Mary comes to us as our Mother, again and again, tirelessly, as only a Mother can -- in order to call us to conversion "for the last time" (as she said once in her messages).
This constant theme of the urgent need to convert is evidenced
in our Mother’s most recent messages:
"Dear
children! The Most High has permitted me to call you anew to conversion. Little
children, open your hearts to the grace to which you are all called. Be
witnesses of peace and love in this peaceless world. Your life here on earth is
passing. Pray that through prayer you may yearn for Heaven and the things of
Heaven and your hearts will see everything differently. You are not alone; I am
with you and intercede before my Son Jesus for you. Thank you for having
responded to my call." May
25, 1017
She even said in her latest
message that we must "be ready. This time is a turning point":
“Dear children, as in the other places where I have come to you,
also here I am calling you to prayer. Pray for those who do not know my Son,
for those who have not come to know the love of God, against sin, for the
consecrated – for those whom my Son called to have love and the spirit of
strength for you, for the Church.
Pray to my Son, and the love which you experience from His
nearness will give you the strength to make you ready for the works of love
which you will do in His name. My children, be ready. This time is a turning
point. That is why I am calling you anew to faith and hope.
I am showing you the way by which you need to go, and those are
the words of the Gospel. Apostles of my love, the world is in such need of your
arms raised towards Heaven, towards my Son, towards the Heavenly Father. Much
humility and purity of heart are needed.
Have trust in my Son and know that you can always be better. My
motherly heart desires for you, apostles of my love, to be little lights of
the world, to illuminate there where darkness wants to begin to reign, to
show the true way by your prayer and love, to save souls. I am with you. Thank
you.” June 2, 2017
Why
would Mary come to us daily for nearly 40 years?
Is it because Our Lady
wants to save all souls and present them to God?
This task has been given
her by the Father.
And why does she comes daily, asking us again and again to pray, to confess, to go to Mass and adore, to forgive, to read Scripture, to fast...?
Could it be that she
needs us to pray, to fast, to sacrifice and to believe as she needed the three
shepherds of Fatima before us -- in order to save so many souls that are falling into
hell, because there is no one to fast and pray for them?
Could it be that this is an extraordinary time of grace and a gift from God, Who loves us beyond our capacity to understand and Who will do anything
to save us?
If so, are we living Our Mother's messages of repentance, fasting and prayer in this time of grace, while there is still time?
Points
to Consider regarding Pope Francis’ Comments on Medjugorje by Dr. Mark
Miravalle:
