Fr. Slvako Barbaric, OFM
J.M.J.
We continue with Fr. Slavko's reflection on the December 25, 1994 message:
December 25, 1994 "Dear children! Today I rejoice with you and I am praying with you for peace: peace in your hearts, peace in your families, peace in your desires, peace in the whole world. May the King of Peace bless you today and give your peace. I bless you and I carry each one of you in my heart. Thank you for having responded to my call."
PEACE IN YOUR FAMILIES
When
Mary says 'family' we think of husband and wife, mother and father and
when they together create the conditions for peace. It becomes a call
for unconditional love, for forgiveness, for respecting one another and
for accepting one another. Whenever the parents are wounded or wound
each other it, of course, falls upon the children and in such a
situation peace is NEVER possible. Therefore, it is the parents who are
first called upon in the family unit to have peace with each other, to
have peace in their desires toward themselves, each other and toward
their children.
Of
course we can only imagine what is in the hearts of many parents while
they are trying to guide and raise them, with all their worries of what
the children will be doing and what will the world be bringing to them!
These doubts and questions are justified but we will not react with
fear, with panic or with mistrust. These will not solve the problems. It
is not in this way that we will be able to help the youth. The best
help that can be offered to them is when the parents have decided for
peace themselves and when they thereby stand in front of the children as
witnesses of peace.
Only
when life becomes a gift from God the Creator and when we therefore
learn to love everything more within the family will it become easier.
It will also become easier when one removes all that which threatens
peace and these things become even more difficult when the children
reach puberty. The suffering of the parents then becomes extreme and
often unimaginable but peace is still possible because Mary also is
praying for peace with us.
This
is the reason that we very consciously must renew this prayer for peace
in our families every day. Yet more than on anything else this peace
depends on the parents, on husband and wife, and then finally also on
the children. If only one is there as an agent of interference,
confusion or division, then the peace of the entire family is at risk.
Then seen on a merely human level, peace becomes impossible. Then Our
Lady addresses a very important level of peace and that is...
PEACE IN YOUR DESIRES
With
this, I believe, she is touching upon our inner-freedom. The freer we
are from ourselves, from other people and from the material, the more we
will have a true peace within us. When we are dependent upon ourselves
or when we have pride in our hearts, then we will only with great
difficulty, if at all, be able to have true peace. When we are dependent
on things, people, wealth, influence, alcohol or drugs, then it is
impossible to have peace within us because the mind or the body come to
control everything. All of these only hinder the heart from coming to
peace.
It is therefore good when we ask ourselves this. What is it that we are
really seeking in our lives? Is it to meet with God and then out of Him
and with Him to meet other people and all of His creation? This is not
easy. It is difficult and it means daily attention and daily straining,
but it is only this search that keeps us in a deeper peace. When we
become free in this sense we are bringing peace into our desires and
thus it is ONLY peace that controls us.
Here
it becomes important to think of this message that Mary gave us. "Work
on your hearts as you work in your fields." This is a valuable
assignment for the coming New Year as well for all the coming years. We
have all been wishing each other peace when we were sending Christmas
cards and meeting so many people over these holidays. We want this to be
our desire, our ONLY desire in our hearts all year long!
The
simpler our desires become, the stronger we yearn to love God, to love
freedom and to love other people. Then it will become easier for us to
take upon us all that helps us come to inner peace in our desires. It
will then also be easier to accept all those things that are not all
right and that are not helping us to be in contact with God...
(Fr. Slavko Barbaric, OFM. "Mother! Lead us to Peace!! P. 306)
The Final installment will be tomorrow!
Peace in our hearts, Peace in our families, Peace in our desires...and Peace in the whole world!!!
In Jesus, Mary and Joseph!
Cathy Nolan
©Mary TV 2017
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Saint John Paul II
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