Reflection on the Message of March 25, 2003

DO NOT LOSE HOPE

“Dear children! Also today I call you to pray for peace. Pray with the heart, little children, and do not lose hope because God loves His creatures. He desires to save you, one by one, through my coming here. I call you to the way of holiness. Pray, and in prayer you are open to God’s will; in this way, in everything you do, you realize God’s plan in you and through you. Thank you for having responded to my call.” Message of March 25, 2003

Also in this message, the Blessed Virgin Mary tells us: “Pray with the heart and do not lose hope”. It may happen that we lose hope, that we have the impression that God does not hear, as if he withdrew from this world and from his creatures. But can God forget what he has created?

In Our Lady’s words, we can feel an indestructible hope in spite of all the menaces of war, catastrophes and dark prognostics that fill the newspapers. Mary tells us that we are also responsible for peace. Peace does not come without our implication. Surely it is more easy to remember God when we are struck by a hardship or a calamity. War threat and threat against life itself awaken us from spiritual sleep and we remember that there is someone who is absolute, almighty and not threatened as we are. This is why we have to find again the foundations and the source of our life, the rock on which we shall build our life and this world, and on which we shall lean.

In Holy Father’s Apostolic Letter “At the beginning of the new millennium”, we can also feel hope in spite of all that does not awaken any hope in a better future.

In Jesus Christ, our God lived on this earth and had the body, just as us, walked on the paths of our life. Jesus and Mary were not spared from suffering, cross, sorrows and joys of life. We can either give in to despair or cling to faith. Discouragement or faith. We can lean on God, on the world of God, without any other support, just like St. Peter when he jumped into the water counting on the world of Jesus, who said, “Come!” (cf. Mt 14,29) He believed in Jesus. Faith and hope are vary close, almost identical.

This is what Peguy writes: “I am not surprised, says God, that people believe in me. It is enough for them to look at my creatures and they will believe. Love also does not surprise me, because it is a gain for them if they love one another, it us useful for them. But hope, hope amazes me.”

Great saints were not tempted directly against faith or against charity. Jesus himself in the garden of Gethsemane was tempted against hope. Little Teresa from Lisieux, on her deathbed, was also tempted against hope when the devil told her: “My dear, do you really think that there is something after death?” The Cure of Ars, who packed several times his luggage to run away from Ars, has not done it because he was losing faith or love, but because he saw no hope at all.

There is one means to make us learn to hope, the same that Jesus used when he was tempted against hope or provoked to be unfaithful from the will of the Father, which was often so rigid: he spent night in prayer. The source of hope is prayer, and prayer demands from us to be awake. In order to practice hope, we have to become permanently available as Mary, who expressed it through her YES to the will of God. Through her yes, God has done great things. A human yes open the door to God so that he may enter into this world and save it. Today also, Mary pronounces this yes through her coming here, inviting us on the path of holiness.

Our Holy Father invites us on the path of holiness. In his letter “Novo Millennio Ineunte” (31), he says: “It would be a contradiction to settle for a life of mediocrity, marked by a minimalist ethic and a shallow religiosity.” In his Speech on the Mountain, Jesus says: “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5,48). As if he wanted to tell us: be happy as your heavenly Father is happy. In the words of Mary, our Mother, let us hear the echo of the words of Jesus, and let us allow her to lead us to him.

Fr. Ljubo Kurtovic
Medjugorje, March 26, 2003

Reflection on the Message of April 25, 2003

DECIDE ALSO TODAY FOR GOD

“Dear children! I call you also today to open yourselves to prayer. In the foregone time of Lent you have realized how small you are and how small your faith is. Little children, decide also today for God, that in you and through you He may change the hearts of people, and also your hearts. Be joyful carriers of the risen Jesus in this peaceless world, which yearns for God and for everything that is from God. I am with you, little children, and I love you with a special love. Thank you for having responded to my call.” Message of April 25, 2003

In her messages, the Blessed Virgin Mary often mentions the word “today”, now, the present moment. She wants to say to us that yesterday is gone, that tomorrow has not arrived yet, that there is only today, now. Now I can decide for God and for prayer, now I can become believer or unbeliever. How many people live split up between yesterday and tomorrow, without living today, never being present to themselves in this time that God gives us. The majority of the messages of Our Lady start with: ” I call you also today”. Nothing has changed in the force, the love, the challenge of her calls and her messages. She remains the same, because she does not need any change. Let us ask ourselves how much we have changed or how much we remained unchanged. Because, the one does not advance on the way of faith moves back undoubtedly. The spiritual life is neither ease, nor comfort, but a permanent combat on the paths of faith, according to the words of Job: “Isn’t human life on earth a combat?” (Cf. Jb 7,1a) How much combat to ensure the material existence, how much more of it than on the spiritual way of faith in God! Jesus himself invites us and says: ” Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation” (Mt 26,41)

The time of Lent was a gift and an occasion to see ourselves in truth in front of God. In this message, Our Lady calls us to this same truth. In front of God, we are always small and only creatures, dependent in everything on our Creator. It is a grace to recognize and realise how much we are small and how much our faith is small. Nobody can say: “I believe in God hundred percent, I cannot believe more”, “I love God so much that I cannot love him more”. We always discover spaces within us where we did not allow yet God to enter.

Our Lady invites us to make a decision: “Decide Also Today for God”. Each one of us is responsible for his life and decisions. Mary can call us maternally, but she cannot do it in our place. She did all that she could. She can love us, but cannot live our life in our place, nor die in our place. She does not take away from us the freedom of our decision, just like God the Father did not take away from her the freedom of her decision when he sent the angel Gabriel at the Annunciation. In her freedom, Marie could say: “It is too difficult for me, it is beyond my forces and my capacities” Freely, she pronounced her “yes” to God. Today, she speaks and gives witness that she was not mistaken, and this is why she knows that we will not make a mistake if we decide for God. According to words of Sainte Therese of Avila, “God awaits our decision for to do then everything himself in us”. Without our decision, he cannot, he does not want to act against our free will. If we allow it, God can change our hearts and the hearts of the others in us and through us. We cannot do it. We cannot convert anybody by our efforts to convince, our preaching and our fine words, intelligent and human. It is the work of God. What we can do, it is to prepare the ground in our heart for him, it is to create space for God within us. Then only, the Risen One will have place to enter into this peaceless world, which yearns for God and for everything that is from God. In his Confessions, St. Augustin confirms it: “You encourage it to seek joy by praising you, because you created us for you and our heart is without peace as long as it does not rest in you”. (Confessions I,1)

Mary gives us the promise to be and remain with us. She came to us and she continues to come with a heart full of a motherly love, to give it to all those who wish to open and receive her love. Let us allow her to lead us. Let us not be afraid, like she was not afraid to give her life to God.

Fr. Ljubo Kurtovic
Medjugorje April 26, 2003

Reflection on the Message of January 25, 2004

TO COME TO KNOW GOD’S LOVE

“Dear children! Also today I call you to pray. Pray, little children, in a special way for all those who have not come to know God’s love. Pray that their hearts may open and draw closer to my heart and the Heart of my Son Jesus, so that we can transform them into people of peace and love. Thank you for having responded to my call.” Message of January 25, 2004

Our Heavenly Mother, the Queen of Peace, addresses her maternal word to us all, tirelessly, patiently, and with a challenging love. The love of Mary, our Mother, does not leave us passive, but wants to move us to do something beautiful and good for God in our neighbour. We can be moved only if we allow God to touch us and to bring us in motion. Only the one who has met God, and who has made the experience of how much God loves him, will be able to give to the others what he himself has received. We cannot give what we do not have, and we cannot have if we do not ask from God who is not giving in a stingy way, but abundantly.

Nobody can say: “I love God so much that I cannot love Him more”. We can always love more and in as stronger way.

Mary, our Mother, wants that we understand how much God loves us. The love of God is so tender that it never imposes itself. God never brings confusion to the soul; He prefers to attract it and to fill it with His love. However, God cannot fill what is already filled by something. We must empty ourselves so that He may fill us. Jesus teaches us: “Blessed are the pure of heart, they shall see God”. (Mt 5,8) Only a pure heart can see God and can recognize in his neighbour somebody for whom he is himself responsible. We are all responsible for one another and we are linked to one another by invisible spiritual bonds. We radiate around us the good or the evil. The good of the other is also my good.

Today still, through Mary, God needs our hands, our voice, our feet, to love this world through us. God does not expect from us great and magnificent deeds, He rather asks us to put love in all that we do. We cannot and we should not keep the love of God for ourselves. The goal of our efforts, of our prayers and of our deeds is not to come to God and to remain near Him, but to attract to Him all humanity – all those whom He has put on our way; or rather to allow that He attracts them to Himself through us, and that He grants them health, peace, and freedom.

Blessed Mother Teresa said: “True love always brings suffering. It is always a suffering”. Love and suffering always go together. This is also what Christ showed us. He loved us even in pain. He loved us, but not because it would be pleasant for Him. He went until the death on the cross. Jesus teaches us when He tells us: “There is no greater love than to give one’s life for those whom one loves. You are my friends if you do what I command you”. (Jn 15,13-14)

Today, the world is not hungry of things or money, but of love. We are created for love. If we do not have love, we will seek to fill this emptiness with things and with fleeting pleasures, but we cannot cheat our heart and our soul, because they claim the source that has created them. The greatest hunger of human beings is to love and to be loved. We become sick because we do not love and because we do not make the experience of the love of God. This is why – also in this message – Mary, our Mother, calls us: “Pray”. However, prayer is not a psychological need, but a request of the love of God. Love is prayer. If we do not pray, we will not be able to love, and if we do not love, we will not have the strength to die to ourselves and to our selfishness, which hurts us as well as the others around us.

Let us not become weary to walk on the way to which our Mother calls us, and on which She goes with us, in order to lead us to the source of life – to God.

Fr. Ljubo Kurtovic
Medjugorje, January 26, 2004

Reflection on the Message of February 25, 2004

BE THOSE WHO DRAW SOULS TO GOD

“Dear children! Also today, as never up to now, I call you to open your hearts to my messages. Little children, be those who draw souls to God and not those who distance them. I am with you and love you all with a special love. This is a time of penance and conversion. From the bottom of my heart, I call you to be mine with all your heart and then you will see that your God is great, because He will give you an abundance of blessings and peace. Thank you for having responded to my call.” Message of February 25, 2004

At the beginning of this time of Lent, Mary – our Heavenly Mother – invites us and requests from us: Open your hearts to my messages , to my words, to my heart. As a Mother, the Virgin Mary cannot cease calling, cannot cease loving her children. The desire of the encounter with God and with his love must be born within us. Our duty is to desire this encounter more, and it will take place if we desire it seriously, because God takes seriously our desires and our prayers. Without this desire of our heart, all the maternal cries and calls are useless. A mother cannot do otherwise but call, direct, advise what is best for her children.

In one of her messages, she told us: You, dear children, are not able by yourselves, therefore I am here to help you. (Message of December 4, 1986) By ourselves, we are not able; by ourselves, we do not know how to open our heart nor do we know why it became closed. She opened her heart to God and gave it to him; this is why she knows best which are the means that can help us. She can teach us best, because she also crossed the ways on which we are still walking. She comes to us because she wants us to be where she is.

Through Mary, Jesus knocks today at the door of our heart: Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will enter his house and dine with him, and he with me. (Ap 3,20)

It is necessary to listen to the voice of God and to pray with Saint Augustin, who asked to hear the Lord knocking on the door of his heart. In this time of grace of Lent, it is necessary in particular to listen to the voice of God who speaks to us through his Word in the Scriptures, through people, events and situations of our life, through small and simple things that happen to us daily. It is important to open the eyes of our heart and of our spirit, to ask the Lord to open them. This is why – in this time – it is necessary to decide to read the Scriptures, to go more often to Mass, to make a concrete decision, to cut the bonds that attach us to evil, to hatred, to idleness, to grumbling and any other iniquity.

Through Mary, God calls us and leads us to fasting, to renouncement, to brotherly love, to prayer, in order to break in us the tendency to count on human power, and in order to attach us to himself. As long as we are governed by vice, sin, covetousness, idleness, human attachments, lack of dignity, it is a sign that we are not yet free, but under the power of the sin.

Penance always implies a renouncement. The renouncement means not to take always what we like, to leave what hurts us, not to offend the other, not to allow to each small desire of our body to be satisfied, not to procure to oneself every comfort. To give up means to become free. The Fathers of the Church teach us: Do what is contrary to your corrupted human nature , so that God can make in us his works of peace, of love and of freedom.

Fr. Ljubo Kurtovic
Medjugorje, February 26, 2004

Reflection on the Message of March 25, 2004

EXPRESS YOUR LOVE TO THE CRUCIFIED

“Dear children! Also today, I call you to open yourselves to prayer. Especially now, in this time of grace, open your hearts, little children, and express your love to the Crucified. Only in this way, will you discover peace, and prayer will begin to flow from your heart into the world. Be an example, little children, and an incentive for the good. I am close to you and I love you all. Thank you for having responded to my call.” Message of March 25, 2004

The Blessed Virgin Mary begins her message, also today, with a call: Dear children, open yourselves to prayer. Throughout the years of her apparitions, Mary taught us and she still teaches us to put the prayer at the first place and to pray, until prayer becomes a joy for us. There is no other way towards God but the way of prayer. This way can appear difficult and not very attractive, and yet: whatever has value, whatever is precious in our life is difficult and require an effort. By nature, human beings do not decide so easily for prayer. Our nature is wounded and we tend towards idleness, pleasures and the choice of what is rather easy. This is why we must make a decision and an effort, for prayer and for all that is good and positive.

This is why we need prayer and all the means that our Mother is giving us, in order not to become sick. If the doctor tells us to take a bitter but useful remedy, we obey to him. How much more should we obey to Mary, our Mother, who knows best what we need in our life.

Together with the Church, she calls us and tells us that this time is a time of grace. It is a time when God is in a particular way favorable to his people. This is why she tells us: Open your hearts. Pray with the heart. Express your love to the Crucified.

The heart is the place of prayer. Our prayer must go down from our head to our heart. The heart is the place into which we want to invite Jesus through prayer. The prayer with the heart gets hold of the entire person and the entire person is in prayer. The heart is the symbol of life, of love, of all that is noble in us. Inside of us, we are not poor but rich, because God dwells in us. The more we know God, the more we can believe in Him and more we can love Him.

This is why Mary, our Mother, untiringly invites us to make the experience of the love of God in which she believed and of which she is living. This desire makes her come to us, so that we also may desire and experience what she possesses by the grace of God.

It is only through love that we can know Jesus who was crucified for us and because of us. Let us learn how to know his heart with which he loved us. The heart of Jesus is meek and humble. He is not forcing us, but he wants that we came to him freely. All that God is asking from us is trust and faith. Jesus wants to give his heart only to those who come to him with trust. He comes towards us first. He said it clearly: “It is not you who have chosen me, it is I who have chosen you”. (Cf.: Jn 15,16) Jesus believes that our heart – wounded and marked by sin – has the capacity to come closer his heart. He has done everything to show us his love and the love of his Father. The apparitions of Our Lady, her calls, her simple and maternal messages, are an expression of the love of Jesus towards us, his love that is not forgetting us. This is why, in this message, Mary our Mother invites us to look at the Crucified with the heart. This is the heart that knew neither hatred nor greed nor envy, but only love which embraces all the humanity, and which wants to touch your heart and my heart. God became vulnerable in order to be able to touch all our wounds, to be able to receive the love of vulnerable men and women. God wants to be loved by those that he came to save. His heart is completely open to give and to receive love.

Today still, God is crucified with all those who are abandoned, scorned and rejected in this world. He has identified himself with the smallest person of this world in order to rise it and make it enter into his glory.

As Mary is with us, let us be with her – and through her with her Son Jesus and with one another.

Fr. Ljubo Kurtovic
Medjugorje, March 26, 2004