Ivan and Marija greet Our Lady at St. Stephen's Cathedral
at a previous Evening of Prayer.
J.M.J.
October 24, 2017
St. Anthony Mary Claret
Dear Family of Mary!
September 25, 2002 "Dear
children! Also in this peaceless time, I call you to prayer. Little
children, pray for peace so that in the world every person would feel
love towards peace. Only when the soul finds peace in God, it feels
content and love will begin to flow in the world. And in a special way,
little children, you are called to live and witness peace - peace in
your hearts and families - and, through you, peace will also begin to
flow in the world. Thank you for having responded to my call."
Today
a very special prayer event is taking place in St. Stephen's Cathedral
in Vienna. There will be testimonies, the prayer of the Rosary, Holy
Mass and Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, all in response to Our
Lady's call from Medjugorje to pray for peace. Here is a description of
the event and the speakers:
The 10th Prayer for Peace in Vienna's St. Stephen's Cathedral
Since
2008, and under the patronage of Christoph Cardinal Schönborn, the
"Message for you" - Prayer for Peace in Vienna's St. Stephen's Cathedral
has taken place once each year. This year, too, our Cardinal will join
together with thousands of people in the cathedral to pray for peace and
to celebrate the Holy Mass.
At
the beginning of August 2017, Cardinal Schönborn, who himself spent New
Year's Eve (2009/2010) in Medjugorje, wrote a message to the thousands
of young people who had gathered from all over the world at the Marian
pilgrimage site in Herzegovina. There they had come together for a youth
prayer meeting and the address the Cardinal wrote for them was
translated into many languages:
Dear young friends,
Once
more you have come to Medjugorje in such great numbers. No one
commanded you to travel here in the heat of summer. You do it because it
is a matter close to your heart. Otherwise, you would have not have
taken this effort upon yourself! What moves you to travel to Medjugorje?
It is not something fashionable, a trend, a fleeting excitement. It is a
special closeness, it is the closeness of the Gospa, which draws you
here. ...
With
great joy, we look forward to having Ernest Cardinal Simoni at this
year's prayer for peace on October 24th. Cardinal Simoni came to give
Pope Francis's blessing to the thousands of young people who gathered in
Medjugorje from sixty-nine countries at the beginning of August. His
Eminence was ordained to the priesthood in 1956 in Albania, was
imprisoned by the atheistic persecution of the Church in 1963, and in
the following eighteen years was twice condemned to death. After he was
released in 1981, he worked as a canal worker and exercised his priestly
ministry in secret. When the communist regime collapsed in 1990, he was
allowed for the first time officially to take up his priestly ministry.
During
the apostolic pilgrimage of Pope Francis to Albania in 2014, then Fr.
Simoni had the chance to meet the Pope. After the Pope heard his
testimony, he embraced him with the words: you are my saint! On November
19th, 2016, Pope Francis appointed him to the College of Cardinals.
The
visionary Marija Pavlovic-Lunetti will participate in the prayer for
peace this year as a special guest from Medjugorje. Marija attests to
seeing the Mother of God daily since June 25th, 1981. Since March, 1984,
Marija regularly brings messages for the parish of Medjugorje and the
whole world, every Thursday at the beginning and since January of 1987
on every 25th of the month. The content of the messages is an invitation
and at the same time an introduction to the spiritual life.
Fr.
Marinko Sakota, O.F.M., studied theology in Sarajevo, Zagreb, and
Fulda, and since 2010 fulfills the role of spiritual director in
Medjugorje. Beginning in 2013, he was made pastor of the pilgrimage site
and has up to this point implemented countless measures to deepen the
spiritual life there.
At
the prayer for peace, Fr. Marinko will give us an insight into his
responsibilities and his encounter with Archbishop Henryk Hoser of
Warsaw-Prague, whom Pope Francis commissioned as delegate for pastoral
care at the pilgrimage site.
The
Swiss artist Hubert Theler has visited Medjugorje on a regular basis
since 2003. In numerous photographs, he has captured the stones on Cross
Mountain and Apparition Mountain, and his conviction grows ever deeper
that here a transformation in the hearts of men is taking place, in the
sense that Fr. Jozo Zovko once expressed: The Mother of God takes our
heart of stone and lays it on the Podbrdo, and gives us a new heart.
Thus, a new man comes down from the mountain. The fascination with the
stones of the two mountains is captured in his book, Living Stones of
Medjugorje, which was presented in January of this year in the parish of
Medjugorje.
Through
the events in Medjugorje, great humanitarian works have been inspired
in the past several years. Mary's Meals, an initiative addressing hunger
and nutrition and placed under the protection of the Mother of God,
today feeds over 1.2 million children on every school day in fourteen of
the poorest countries of the world. Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow, who first
visited Medjugorje as a fourteen-year old and then founded Mary's Meals
as a young adult, will report on the efforts of this initiative in
several countries of east Africa, which are particularly afflicted with
drought and civil war.
This
year the Cenacolo Community celebrates the twenty-year anniversary of
its establishment in Austria. At the prayer for peace, the boys of the
community will, as in past years, put forward a joyful sign of their
gratitude concerning life gifted to them anew.
Because
Mary TV will live-stream this wonderful event, our schedule will
change. There will be no Hour of Mercy today, to make way for the Daily
Rosary which will be live at 3:00 pm Medjugorje time. The Vienna prayer
event will begin at 4:00 pm Medjugorje time on our channel. Here is the
broad outline of the program from Vienna:
Schedule of Events:
4:00 pm- Songs and reports, testimonies and prayer
6:00 pm- Rosary
7:00 pm- Holy Mass with Dr. Christoph Cardinal Schönborn - Followed by Eucharistic adoration and praise and worship
I hope you can join us at www.marytv.tv for this evening of prayer for peace from Vienna!!
In Jesus, Mary and Joseph!
Cathy Nolan
©Mary TV 2017
PS.
Marija's daily apparition will probably take place during the Rosary
from 6:00 pm to 7:00 pm. Our Lady will bless us all during that time!!
"Medjugorje is the spiritual center of the world."
Saint John Paul II
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