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April 15, 2013
Dear Children of Medjugorje, praised be Jesus and Mary!
1. On April 2nd, Mirjana received
her monthly apparition in her home, with only a few visitors because of
heavy rain on the village. After the apparition, she gave us the
following message:
"Dear children,
I am calling you to be one with my Son in spirit. I am calling you,
through prayer, and the Holy Mass when my Son unites Himself with you in
a special way, to try to be like Him; that, like Him, you may always be
ready to carry out God's will and not seek the fulfillment of your own.
Because, my children, it is according to God's will that you are and
that you exist, and without God's will you are nothing. As a mother, I
am asking you to speak about the glory of God with your life because, in
that way, you will also glorify yourself in accordance to His will.
Show humility and love for your neighbor to everyone. Through such
humility and love, my Son saved you and opened the way for you to the
Heavenly Father. I implore you to keep opening the way to the Heavenly
Father for all those who have not come to know Him and have not opened
their hearts to His love. By your life, open the way to all those who
still wander in search of the truth. My children, be my apostles who
have not lived in vain. Do not forget that you will come before the
Heavenly Father and tell Him about yourself. Be ready! Again I am
warning you, pray for those whom my Son called, whose hands He blessed
and whom He gave as a gift to you. Pray, pray, pray for your shepherds.
Thank you."
2. "Without the will of God, you are nothing" ?
In this message, the Blessed Mother wasn't afraid of provoking us so
much so that some people even started being astonished. All the better!
This helps us to move forward!
Jesus said to Saint
Catherine of Siena "I am He who is, you are she who is not". And yet,
she was a great saint! Some might think that Jesus is being
contemptuous. In fact, it is the opposite. He is telling her, I am on
the side of Being, you are on the side of the Void, we are therefore
made for one another, I will give you the gift of my All, and you will
give me the gift of your Nothing, and thus we will be unfailingly
united! He also told her, "Make yourself a vessel and I shall make
myself a torrent." That is the key to this message! If we humbly open
our heart to God, but wide open, we enable him to become a torrent
inside of us, to give himself entirely to us and pour his grace into us,
which is already like being in the entranceway of heaven. If our Ego doesn't dominate everything within us, then we leave all the room free for God and we can enjoy His bliss.
We know that true peace, Shalom
in Hebrew, means to be "complete", entirely filled with the presence of
God, and with no emptiness inside of us. Then God is "all in all", as
Scriptures says.
Blessed Maryam of Bethlehem, a great mystic from Galilee, called herself the "little nothing", and this was her joy.
The holier a man is, the
more that man is aware of his nothingness before God, but also the more
comfortable he is with that nothingness. True humility consists in
being before God in all one's truth, and this truth makes us free,
happy. For God, there is no difference between people in terms of how
important they are, rich or poor, VIPs or not VIPs, the winners and the
losers. We are all poor, but some may have already realized this,
whereas others not yet. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is
the Kingdom of Heaven," Jesus tells us. And all He wants is our
happiness!
A wonderful guiding light is
given to us by Saint Therese of Lisieux, ''the Little Flower''. By a
stroke of genius, she tells us about the "little way", how to walk
safely with God until we reach heaven. She knew she was poor, small,
incapable of doing any good on her own. But instead of being sad about
it, on the contrary she experienced great joy! "What
God likes to see in my little soul is the way I love my littleness and
my poverty; it is my blind hope in His mercy, this is my only
treasure...." And then later she says, "The weaker one is, without desires or virtues, the more ready he is for the operations of this consuming and transforming love." (Letter of 17.09.1896, to Sr Marie du Sacré-Coeur.)
She knew how Jesus loved children and those who resemble them, and a
child is after all the one person who knows that he must receive
everything from adults.
The world teaches just the
opposite! In order to please people, you must be ''somebody''. What an
illusion! How I thank the Mother of God for her message! Once again, she
cures us from the false pictures of happiness that the world enforces
on us, and she plunges us into the reality that never wanes and that
will make us men and women who may stand and boast not for ourselves,
but for God who lives within us! Mary makes of us Christians who are not
afraid of losing the root of our joy, because this joy is placed in God
and is completely secure. While the world is offering us fleeting and
superficial satisfactions which eventually plunge us in anguish, God
offers to quench our deepest thirst, and that enables us to be who we
truly are, children of God who possess everything. "My child, everything
that is mine is yours!" says the Lord (Luke 15).
3. Good News From the Franciscans. A new provincial was appointed in Mostar, Father Miljenko
Steko, 44 years old. We appreciated his wonderful service as a vicar in
the parish of St. James for six years. May God bless his new
assignment! We remain united with him in prayer!
On April 8th, the Franciscans also welcomed the nomination of Father Jose Rodriguez Carballo, General of their Order, as the head of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life by Pope Francis.
This is the Holy Father's first appointment. He had planned to first
set aside some time for thought and prayer before choosing the new
leaders of the various Roman Congregations. Father Jose came to
Medjugorje in October 2007, for a "brotherly visit". While here he was
interviewed on Radio-MIR: "I can say that I am satisfied with the
services rendered by the Brothers in this parish of Medjugorje," he
said. Of course, he did not take an official stand on the authenticity
of the apparitions, nor did he give his personal opinion, but he did
add: "In my view, the fact that so many people come to Medjugorje
reveals the thirst for God that our contemporaries feel...My hope is
that those who come to Medjugorje are able to truly meet God, that they
may become closer to Christ, and follow him."
Onthe Feast of the Annunciation, April 8, the Prime Minister of Croatia,
Mr. Zoran Milanovic, visited Medjugorje during his 2-day stay in Bosnia
Herzegovina. Mr. Milanovic doesn't hide that he is an atheist and acts
accordingly. He actually knew about the apparitions of Medjugorje and
was especially interested in the first days. He was taken to Apparition
Hill by the friars and was also given a Rosary. Let us pray that the
Mother of God may inspire him with the choices that will support God's
plan for his country. Heads of state bear a heavy responsibility before
God; this is why we have to pray a lot for them.
Dearest Gospa, you
are the perfect example of trust in God and of humility. Please grant
us your most precious treasures, because, as Saint Thérèse of Lisieux
said, "The treasure of the mother belongs to the child!"
Sister Emmanuel +
(Translated from French)
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