Image via Wikipedia
November 4, 2011
St. Charles Borromeo
Dear Family of Mary!
"Dear children, the Father has not left you to yourselves. Immeasurable is his love, the love that is bringing me to you, to help you to come to know him, so that, through my Son, all of you can call him 'Father' with the fullness of heart; that you can be one people in God's family. However, my children, do not forget that you are not in this world only for yourselves, and that I am not calling you here only for your sake. Those who follow my Son think of the brother in Christ as of their very selves and they do not know selfishness. That is why I desire that you be the light of my Son. That to all those who have not come to know the Father - to all those who wander in the darkness of sin, despair, pain and loneliness - you may illuminate the way and that, with your life, you may show them the love of God. I am with you. If you open your hearts, I will lead you. Again I am calling you: pray for your shepherds. Thank you." (November 2, 2011)
The Father has not left us. He wants us to really know Him, which means to truly experience Him as He is in all His fullness and love. Our Lady has been sent to help us to experience the Father. And this is something she does regularly in Medjugorje, in the depths of the hearts of the pilgrims. Each pilgrim has their own experience, because each one of us is unique. Our Lady can handle that. She knows what each one of us needs.
I want to share an excerpt from the testimony of Milona Von Habsburg de Rambures, which she gave in 2010 at the Notre Dame conference (transcribed by Denis Nolan). It is a bit long, but describes so well her initial encounter with God the Father in Medjugorje:
So in 1984 - with all this background of [being] Catholic and [knowing] Fatima and everything - I went to Medjugorje. I had received a calling in my heart. I didn't read anything about it. I saw a tiny picture in a newspaper and I thought, "We don't need this - we have Fatima we don't need Medjugorje." Well, shortly later, a call began to come in my heart. And it was, "She is there and I must go!" And that "she" was the one I knew from Fatima. The call became very strong, irresistible.
And, thank God, a cousin, who is a priest today, organized some buses and so on we went. We drove from Munich, Germany, collected some of our relatives in Austria, and then went into Yugoslavia, which at the time was under very strong Communist rule. And driving in I could just feel the fear gripping me because the atmosphere in the county was so, so different from our happy Bavaria, where we are all so free to say what we think and to be what we are... Well, when we came into this communist country there was a sadness in the air that scared me. I looked out of the bus and I thought, "Where am I going?!" I just decided not to think.
When we arrived, I remember we could drive with our buses nearly to the church. Those of you who know Medjugorje know that this is a very big place now, with stones, very well built. At the time it was just earth. There was nothing. And we could drive right up to the church with our buses, which we did. When we arrived my first impression was just silence, unbelievable silence. And I saw lots and lots of little people kneeling, little ladies dressed in black with veils like they look in Portugal...people who are from the country. And they were in silence. I went into the church. And the only thing I could do was kneel, kneel down and say, "Here I am!" Because it was so strong in my heart that we had arrived.
And then I saw some children coming out of a room next to the altar, kneeling down behind the altar, saying something in a language of which I understood nothing. [They] got up and left the church. Of course now I know it was the visionaries, and we had arrived just at the moment of the apparition, which was very beautiful, I thought.
We stayed in three green tents in the woods. We didn't sleep in Pansions. There weren't any at the time. Our tents were owned by the Order of Malta, so they had a cross on the outside. Well that didn't last long. The police closed the tents and broke the crucifixes, and made us sleep in the fields. So it was a real pilgrimage. No comfort. It was very basic. But in that emptiness, in that desert that we were living, everything happened.
On one of the days - we had three days there so it must have been on the second day - we went up to Krizevac, which is the big hill with the cross on top. And there - my group went very quickly - this is when my moment came. I sat down between the fifth and the sixth station, because I couldn't move any further. I felt my life was very, very heavy, weighing in on me. And I needed to sit. And while I was sitting in this total silence again I felt a presence coming around me, enveloping me. And I felt eyes looking - looking at me and looking into me, and I saw my own life with those eyes. You see, I had thought I was a Christian...I was a Catholic. I had been defending the Lord. I was the only one going to Mass in my Catholic Youth Group. And so there was a kind of loneliness already there because I was different a bit... And I didn't do everything that my friends did. Some of it I did, but not everything!
So, in that moment, when I looked at my life with those different eyes, I was asked a question. And the question was, "If all this, what is happening here is true, then how can you ever call yourself a Christian?" Well, in that moment, all my Christianity, what I though was being a good Catholic, vanished, was gone. And I could see how clearly interwoven into this little Catholic system were lies, little hypocrisies, feeling slightly better than the others, having little boxes, answers all ready...but it was a kind of moral code kind of faith. I knew what I needed to do to be alright, and I knew what I needed not to do, because I wasn't good if I did those things. I did a bit, but I felt kind of still, goodish... In that moment, I assure you, there was nothing left of that. And I knew I had never even touched the reality of a full Christian life - of this fullness that was obviously being offered in that moment.
The next question that came was "Who is this God that you say you believe in?" I had never thought of who He was for me, of who He was altogether. He was, and He was important, and he had many good effects, side effects, but I had never thought about who He was. And in that moment, when that question was put to me, more came. In that moment He was there! And He was everywhere. And He was so everything. And in that moment I felt that everything of my 25 years of life, all the questions, all the longings, all the prayers, everything was answered right then and there because He was there! And in His presence, everything was still.
The next question was, "Does that God really exist?" Well, He did! I couldn't say anything...I couldn't say, "But, but, but..." Nothing. There was total truth. There was no judgment. There was no nagging... Everything that wasn't right. No. There was just total truth and what can be said? I just felt that this God was looking at me - that He wanted me back! Because my life was His gift to me and I had lived it according to some criteria - a bit social, a bit aristocratic, a bit Catholic, but it wasn't what [I experienced then]. And at that moment He wanted me back, for Himself, because I belonged to Him anyway. But all this was unspoken but clearly understood in that moment.
Image via Wikipedia
And the next thing I remember as I looked down into the valley, it was so silent and green, just vineyards and tobacco fields. And I saw the church without a roof...and there was an amazing light which was alive, so alive, in colors of white and yellow and so warm, it was going up and down between the sky and the church and I saw that the whole sky was filled with that light. It seemed like a funnel, and everything, the whole light and everything went right into the church and the whole of heaven seemed contained in the church. And then, everything vanished.
And I sat on my rock, and my whole inside was not the same anymore. And I didn't know, I didn't think, I didn't know anything anymore. (Milona Von Habsburg de Rambures, sharing her conversion story at the Notre Dame Conference on Medjugorje in 2010.)
While climbing Mt. Krizevac, Milona experienced the weight of her own life, so heavy that she could not climb. God stopped her in her tracks so he could reveal Himself to her. Then He spoke interiorly to her, asking her the questions she needed to ponder, and answering them by His loving presence. Milona was never the same. She now knew that God existed, and that He was very near, in fact deep within her. And she knew that He was everything for her.
This is the gift of conversion that Our Lady brings. May the whole world discover it!!
In Jesus and Mary,
Cathy Nolan
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please no anonymous comments. I require at least some way for people to address each other personally and courteously. Having some name or handle helps.
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.