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July 15, 2008
Praised be Jesus and Mary!
1 - On July 2nd, Mirjana shared the following message after her monthly apparition: "Dear children, with motherly love I desire to encourage you to love your neighbor. May my Son be the source of that love. He, who could have done everything by force, chose love and gave an example to you. Also today, through me, God expresses immeasurable goodness to you and you, children, are obliged to respond to it. With equal goodness and generosity behave towards the souls whom you meet.May your love convert them. In that way my Son and His love will resurrect in you. Thank you."
Our Lady added: « Your pastors must be in your hearts and your prayers. »
2 - Laura on Mount Krizevac
In the first week of August, thousands of young people will flock to Medjugorje for the Youth Festival. One of them, Laura, from Italy, has a beautiful story from a previous Festival. She shares:
"My conversion took place in 1999. At that time, I started a deep spiritual journey involving all my sincere determination. However I remained a slave to a certain sin that I previously committed often, even though I couldn't stand it. The situation frustrated me immensely because the sin had entered my psyche and I couldn't stop myself from committing it even though, out of my love for Christ, I desperately wanted to stop. A priest had counseled me that I had to face this reality: a healing wouldn't happen since this kind of thing was too deeply nested in my intimate wounds and I would have to courageously endure that weakness my whole life. Today, I would still be committing that sin if the Lord had not intervened with a special grace of inner healing.
"The miracle happened the following year, during the Youth Festival of 2000. Above all, my main goal in going to Medjugorje was to make a "general confession", in other words, a confession covering my whole life, and to place that troubling sin in God's hands and in the hands of Our Lady. After lining up for quite a long time before the confessionals, I finally made it in and I came out of it at 6:40 PM, the exact time of Our Lady's apparition. I felt so happy at seeing this, and I immediately thanked her and asked her to free me from that sin.
"Then on August 5, along with my pilgrims group, I climbed Mount Krizevac to make the Way of the Cross. Since it was Our Lady's Birthday (as she said to the visionaries), I wanted to give her a present, so I climbed up and down the mountain bare foot while praying for her intentions. As usual, our Heavenly Mother showed her boundless generosity. In response to my tiny gift, she gave me a priceless gift, infinitely greater than my little offering! On that day, I was healed from that troublesome sin! Several years now and I haven't committed that particular sin; I am free! Our Lady healed me for good!"
3 - "If only my people would listen!" (Psalm 81:14)
Today more than ever, this cry of God in the Psalms is echoing in our world. On June 25th, Our Lady used a word that comes right from the Bible and that we have to fully understand. She said, "Listen to my messages!" (See PS). In the mouth of a Jewish woman formed by the Scriptures, to 'listen' is not to hear one more information on the Radio nor to relax with a CD on the ears. In order to better seize this request from Our Mother, let me express one aspect of the Hebrew word for 'listen'.
When a scribe asked Jesus about the greatest of all the commandments, the first word that flows from Jesus mouth was, "Listen, O Israel!" (Mark 12:29). Without this listening, the other commandments cannot be lived. In fact, in the spirit of the Bible and in Jesus' context, several realities are indissociable and the following verbs always go together: To LISTEN (Shama) – To KEEP (shamar) or To Remember (zakhar) – To DO, or to put into practice (assah), and we could add : To LIVE (hayah).
For example : "May you hear, Israel, keep and put into practice what will make you happy and will multiply yourself, as Adonai told you, the Lord of your fathers, giving you an earth streaming with milk and honey" (Deuteronomy 6:3). Also Moses told the people: "Hear, O Israel, the statutes and decrees which I proclaim in your hearing this day, that you may learn and take care to observe them" (Dt. 5:1). Also, "Adonai will bless you… only if you pay careful attention to the voice of Adonai your God, keeping and observing all these commandments that I enjoin to you today" (Dt. 15:5). Also Dt. 28:13. In the Gospel, he who has heard the Word and does nothing is like the man who built his house on the soil without a foundation (Luke 6:49). He just harvests catastrophy!
In the Hebrew way of thinking, one may say that the verb "listen" (shama) almost means "obey". For example it is said, "shama be-qol Adonai" (listen to Adonai's voice) in order to say « obey Adonai »!
It is obvious that the Mother of God knows the power of a true listening. Therefore, in the midst of our world, bombarded by 1000 infos but so poor in wisdom, in the midst of a generation disoriented and tormented, she beseeches us to take her messages with seriousness and to live them. It's the cry of a mother who sees her child deaf, distracted, he is going to cross the avenue, there is much traffic and the cars are going fast, he has not seen the lights and he ignores the elimentary rules of security. Then she shouts with all her motherly soul to the child in order to alert him and allow him to walk in safety! In order to do so, she has prescribed for us a daily dose of an excellent medicine, saying, "Dear Children read each day one of my messages and live it during the day." One message a day to listen and to put into practice, this is indeed the true remedy against most of our maladies! I have often witnessed this.
To listen, it is first of all to be quiet. When God says "Listen O Israel!" it is also a nice way to tell them, "Shut up I have to talk to you!" To listen is to find the inner silence and dwell in ones own heart. This may talk hours! But to repair the damages when we have not listened takes a lot more time, it can take even years!
To listen, it is to seize the murmurs of Jesus's voice who wants to talk to each soul, and to let him guide us on the way that leads to Heaven. It is to hold His hand and never be alone anymore.
To listen, it is to allow the Creator to remake our inner unity and heal us from that dislocation which promotes in us a subtle anguish. We have to be violent with ourselves when our ears hear one thing and our hands do a different thing! In the Talmud, a rabbi challenges his colleagues saying, "Have your ears heard the word that comes from your own mouth?"
To listen, it is to do what we hear. Doing so, we are then capable to understand why we were right to do so. Judaism insists on this aspect: one has to listen and do in order to understand. We have to enter the intelligence of the Scriptures. To hear is the right order which gives true peace: 1) to listen, 2) to put into practice, 3) to be able to understand. Then we give thanks to God!
4 - The Priests Retreat was very blessed and at the end some powerful testimonies were shared. I will mention the exhortation of Father Bennet Tierney, (Legionary of Christ), one of the priests present:
"There were five men who arrived very late for their flight at a German airport and were about to miss it. They ran like the wind through the airport and one of them accidently knocked over a basket of apples that a woman was selling. All apples poured out and scattered on the floor, but these men were so late that they did not stop. They shouted, "We will make sure it's taken care of!" and then disappeared. Once they arrived at the check-in desk, the man who knocked over the basket was seized by guilt and told his friends to go on without him. He would catch the next flight. First, he had to pick up the apples and compensate the woman.
He found her doubled over as she silently tried to gather her scattered fruit, some of which were damaged. The man did not look at her while he busily tried to pick up as many apples as possible and to express how sorry he was. He simply noticed that she had an awkward way to handle the apples. After he successfully gathered the last of the apples into the basket, he stood up and handed a 20 euro note to her as a compensation for the damaged fruit. Only then, he looked at her eyes and was amazed by what he saw. Her eyes were glazed with a grey color - the woman was blind! Our friend remained puzzled for a minute while looking at her. She thanked him with a big smile. He apologized again and as he started to leave the woman called him back, saying, "I have something to ask you, sir!" Then she calmly asked him, "Are you Jesus?"
Thus, the International Retreat ended with Father Bennet challenging the 200 attending priests, "We priests, are we Jesus?"
Dearest Gospa, Mother of priests, Mother of the High Priest, pray for us!
Sister Emmanuel +
(Translated from French)
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PS 1 – "Dear children! Also today, with great joy in my heart, I call you to follow me and to listen to my messages. Be joyful carriers of peace and love in this peaceless world. I am with you and I bless you all with my Son Jesus, the King of Peace. Thank you for having responded to my call." (Message of June 25, 2008)
PS 2 – Can you please help us spread Sister Emmanuel's new book, The Hidden Child of Medjugorje? Read it and offer it, you won't regret it! In the US go to our COM store: www.childrenofmedjugorje.com then click "Shop COM". $19 + postage. In Medjugorje at "Devotions", 9€. Tel. +387 36 651 497, or "Catholic bookstore", Tel. +387 36 650 917. In UK, 7£, Tel +44 2920 460 189. In Ireland, Veritas, Dublin, Tel: 01 878 8177 - sales@veritas.ie In South Africa, Tel: +27 393 172 825
Other languages: French, 17, 50€ www.editions-beatitudes.fr Spanish, 7€, "Hijos de Medjugorje", Barcelona, Spain - +34 629 79 28 49 - gsba15@yahoo.es The Portuguese version obtained the Imprimatur! At Diel, Lisboa, www.dielnet.com. German, 22€, Parvis Verlag, Swizerland. Tel: +41 269 159 399 - www.parvis.ch Polish, 7€, Wyd. Marianow, Warsaw - Tel: +48 22 642-5082 - www.wydawnictwo.pl Italian, Editrice Shalom, Ancona, 9€ - Tel: +39 071 745 0440 - www.editriceshalom.it Dutch, 15€, n.imkamp@tele2.nl or veys.stefaan@skynet.be - Tel: +32 56 777373.
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