Reflection on the Message of September 25, 2008

DECIDE FOR PEACE

“Dear children! May your life, anew, be a decision for peace. Be joyful carriers of peace and do not forget that you live in a time of grace, in which God gives you great graces through my presence. Do not close yourselves, little children, but make good use of this time and seek the gift of peace and love for your life so that you may become witnesses to others. I bless you with my motherly blessing. Thank you for having responded to my call.” Message of September 25, 2008

Our life is filled with everyday decisions. We always have to make decisions for everything. Some decide for this, some for that. We have to make decisions as long as we live. In her last message Our Lady calls upon us to make our life a decision for peace. Deciding for peace means deciding for Christ: «For he himself is our peace» (Ephesians 2: 14) as St. Paul wrote in his pastoral letter to the saints in Ephesus. Jesus brings peace which is not the superficial or fake peace that people talk about. It is a peace attained through tests and struggles. It fills up human hearts transforming them from within. Jesus says: «Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives» (John 14:27). Jesus came to earth in order to tear down the wall of hostility and unrest that reigned between man and God, and to establish the Kingdom of love, joy and peace. The peace that Jesus gives us is not an absence of unrest or wars, it is a filial and peaceful relationship with God. The peace Jesus brings is peace that touches and changes human hearts thus transforming the world.

All the messages of Our Lady that we have been receiving for the last twenty-seven years are permeated with humbleness, love and peace. On the third day of the Apparitions, while the seers were climbing down the hill, Our Lady appeared to Marija Pavlovic and said: “Peace, peace, peace – and only peace!” “Peace must reign between man and God, and between all people! Our Lady has presented herself in Medugorje as the Queen of Peace. She calls everybody to personally be joyful carriers of peace because we live in the time of grace in which God gives us great graces. These last twenty-seven years have been a true time of grace because Our Lady has been very close to us in a special way. Millions of pilgrims who have found the meaning of life and spiritual peace here are witnesses of that.

Our Lady calls us to be witnesses. Every one of us should become a witness. Faith provides us with strength to be witnesses of Jesus in this world. It is precisely thanks to the testimony of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the apostles and martyrs of the first Church that we have been given the legacy of faith in the Triune God.

True witnesses have left us behind in the Kingdom, especially those who are revered as saints by the Church. They are present even today as a part of the living prayer tradition of the Church since their life, the writings they have left behind or their prayer serve as examples. They contemplate God, praise Him and do not cease to worry about those that they have left on earth. Having entered into the joy of their Lord, they are the true witnesses put above many others. Their mediation is the highest service one may be given according to God’s intention. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us, we can and we must pray to them to intercede for us, as well as for the whole world (cf. CCC 2683).

Therefore, all those who wish to follow Jesus and fight for the truth must know that they may be faced with disapproval. There is only one way to victory, and that is to follow our Lord Jesus Christ because only in this way may we become the tools of peace, as one of St. Francis of Assisi’s sayings goes. May the motherly blessing given to us by the Blessed Virgin Mary – the Queen of Peace – help us attain this.

Fr. Danko Perutina
Medugorje 26/09/2008

Reflection on the Message of November 25, 2008

PRAY FOR THIS TURBULENT WORLD WITHOUT HOPE

“Dear children! Also today I call you, in this time of grace, to pray for little Jesus to be born in your heart. May He, who is peace itself, give peace to the entire world through you. Therefore, little children, pray without ceasing for this turbulent world without hope, so that you may become witnesses of peace for all. May hope begin to flow through your hearts as a river of grace. Thank you for having responded to my call.” Message of November 25, 2008

Advent has been called the time of grace since the very beginning of Christian tradition, as it is the time when the love of God is particularly efficient in making our faith stronger and inspiring us to be holy. In her last message Our Lady calls us to pray for little Jesus to be born in our hearts in this time of grace. There is also another reason to call the time we live in a time of grace: Our Lady has been near us in a very special way for over 27 years. Throughout all this time she has been teaching us in her school of love. In her last message she calls us again to pray as she often calls us to do so because she knows that we do not pray. We are all making a big mistake, and that is that we think we pray a lot and that we are good. The very moment when we realise and accept that it is not so, our conversion will start. John of Damascus says: «To pray is to lift your heart to the Lord». It means enjoying the closeness to God, His presence, love and peace. In recent times the world has been caught in a turmoil and all the leading countries have been faced with a financial crisis. The man of today is restless. Always in a hurry, but unable to catch up, which makes him feel even more uneasy. He is searching for peace in all the wrong places. Our Lady shows us the way to peace. It is Her Son and Our Lord Jesus Christ. In the Gospel of John he says: «Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.» (John 14:27). Those who have God have everything. Those who have encountered God become carriers of the peace of Christ.

Our Lady calls us to pray without ceasing for this turbulent world without hope. Hope is a theological virtue that makes us desire the Kingdom of Heaven and eternal life as the sources of our happiness when we place faith in the promises of Christ and relying not on our own forces, but on the help coming from the grace of the Holy Spirit. „Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful“ (Hebrews 10:23). The Holy Spirit „whom he poured on us generously through Jesus Christ our Saviour, so that having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life“ (Titus 3:6-7), as we read in the Catechism (cf. CCC 1817). Thanks to hope it is easier for us to deal with everyday problems. Redemption is offered to us in the sense that we have been given hope, trustworthy hope, by virtue of which we can face our present: the present, even if it is arduous, can be lived and accepted if it leads towards a goal, if we can be sure of this goal, and if this goal is great enough to justify the effort of the journey, as Pope Benedict XVI teaches us in his Encyclical Saved in Hope.

In this short commentary of the message we will remember the eighth death anniversary of the late Fr. Slavko Barbaric. Fr. Slavko was devoted to Our Lady in a true childlike manner. He was tireless in his ministry. He was always ready to offer help to anyone asking for it, either in a spiritual or material way. We will include him in our prayers by thanking the Lord for having given us the chance of knowing him and at the same time learning from him.

Fr. Danko Perutina
Medugorje 26/11/2008

Reflection on the Message of January 25, 2009

INVITED TO WALK THE WAY OF HOLINESS

“Dear children! Also today I call you to prayer. May prayer be for you like the seed that you will put in my heart, which I will give over to my Son Jesus for you, for the salvation of your souls. I desire, little children, for each of you to fall in love with eternal life which is your future, and for all worldly things to be a help for you to draw you closer to God the Creator. I am with you for this long because you are on the wrong path. Only with my help, little children, you will open your eyes. There are many of those who, by living my messages, comprehend that they are on the way of holiness towards eternity. Thank you for having responded to my call.” Message of January 25, 2009

In the encounter with God everybody finds the right path and becomes aware of the truth about oneself at the same time. Prayer is the easiest way in which we can encounter Jesus, who is the meaning of our lives. The basic prerequisites in order to pray in the proper way are: honesty, humbleness and courage, which help us to reach for God in an easier manner. In her message of 25 January Our Lady calls us to prayer, as she has done so many times so far. She is also giving us an answer as to why she calls us by saying: “Prayer will be for you like the seed that you will put in my heart, which I will give over to my Son Jesus for the salvation of your souls.” The way of salvation is the way of holiness. In her message of 28 March 1985 Our Lady says: “Dear children! Today I wish to call you to pray, pray, pray! In prayer you shall perceive the greatest joy and the way out of every situation that has no exit. Thank you for starting up prayer. Each individual is dear to my heart. And I thank all who have urged prayer in their families.” When Our Lady speaks of prayer, what she primarily has in mind is families praying together. The best prayer is the one that we say together with Our lady while following the path to our salvation and to the salvation of the world. The path that we follow through prayer is the path leading us to Jesus. Therefore, it is important to pray with your heart, which means praying with your whole being.

Rarely do we think about eternal life, although man has been created for the eternal life in the fellowship with the love of God. There are various obstacles on our way to eternity. These are primarily earthly things, which are like dust in our eyes preventing us from falling in love with eternal life, which is our future. When reading the Book of Genesis we can see that God called upon man to be his partner on earth. Man received a command from God to subdue the earth: «Be fruitful and increase in number, fill the earth and subdue it…» (Gen 1:28). We are called to use things, such as TV, mobile phones, newspapers, alcohol, cigarettes, drugs and others, not to be slaves to them. Our homeland is not here on earth. We are mere passers-by here. We have been called not only to reign as kings and rule the earth, but to prepare ourselves for eternity.

Our Lady gives the answer to all those who are wondering why she has been appearing for so long. She says: «I am with you for this long because you are on the wrong path». To be on the wrong path means to be far away from God. Clear signs that a person is on the wrong path are restlessness, guilty consciousness and discontent. All those who do not follow the commandments of the Church, who commit grave and deadly sins, who always put themselves first, who always have to be right, are the ones that are on the wrong path. Our Lady has been with us for so long in order to help us open our eyes to see what real values are. At the end of her message she encourages those who have responded to her call. Our Lady says: «There are many of those who, by living my messages comprehend that they are on the way of holiness towards eternity». This message encourages us all to be better and again make the decision to continue to grow in holiness.

Fr. Danko Perutina
Medugorje 26/01/2009

Reflection on the Message of February 25, 2009

CONFESS YOUR SINS

“Dear children! In this time of renunciation, prayer and penance, I call you anew: go and confess your sins so that grace may open your hearts, and permit it to change you. Convert little children, open yourselves to God and to His plan for each of you. Thank you for having responded to my call.” Message of February 25, 2009

On Ash Wednesday, also known as Clean Wednesday we begin Lent, the intensive season of liturgical year when we prepare for Easter. In her message of 25 February Our Lady makes us aware that Lent is the time of renunciation, prayer and penance.

In his 2009 Lent message Pope Benedict XVI says: “At the beginning of Lent, which constitutes an itinerary of more intense spiritual training, the Liturgy sets before us again three penitential practices that are very dear to the biblical and Christian tradition – prayer, almsgiving, fasting – to prepare us to better celebrate Easter and thus experience God’s power that, as we shall hear in the Paschal Vigil, “dispels all evil, washes guilt away, restores lost innocence, brings mourners joy, casts out hatred, brings us peace and humbles earthly pride” (Paschal Præconium). The Pope continues by saying: “Denying material food, which nourishes our body, nurtures an interior disposition to listen to Christ and be fed by His saving word …. Through fasting and praying, we allow Him to come and satisfy the deepest hunger that we experience in the depths of our being: the hunger and thirst for God. At the same time, fasting is an aid to open our eyes to the situation in which so many of our brothers and sisters live… It is good to see how the ultimate goal of fasting is to help each one of us, as the Servant of God Pope John Paul II wrote, to make the complete gift of self to God ».

The center of Our Lady’s tonight’s message is a call to confess our sins because this is the way grace opens our hearts and changes us. Jesus established the Sacrament of Reconciliation for all sinful members of the Church, for all those who fall into a grave sin and lose the grace of Jesus. Confession creates an opportunity for us to convert and to regain grace. That is why the fathers of the Church have referred to confession as «another board for salvation after the wreckage of grace».

A sincere confession always leads to a complete conversion, where the meaning of conversion is a change of one’s entire life, actions and beliefs. It is a complete shift. A shift like that happened, for example, to St. Paul , St. Augustine , St. Francis and to many other saints. Conversion leads us to denying our sinful way of life and pagan customs directing us towards our complete surrender to God, to his plan and actions, as Our Lady calls us to do. Besides the negative side related to denying, as we deny such things like food, alcohol, cigarettes, gambling and other additions, Lent has a positive side too, which is our decision that we shall pray more, forgive more, love our fellow men more, worship Jesus in the most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar more, and help others more. Let us include both sides in our spiritual life in order for us to truly experience the fullness of Easter joy.

Fr. Danko Perutina
Medugorje 26/02/2009

Reflection on the Message of March 25, 2009

AWAKEN YOUR SOULS WITH PRAYER

“Dear children! In this time of spring, when everything is awakening from the winter sleep, you also awaken your souls with prayer so that they may be ready to receive the light of the risen Jesus. Little children, may He draw you closer to His Heart so that you may become open to eternal life. I pray for you and intercede before the Most High for your sincere conversion. Thank you for having responded to my call.” Message of March 25, 2009

If we look around, we see that, although slowly, nature is awakening thus announcing the spring. In her message of 25 March 2009, on the feast of the Annunciation, Our Lady called us to awaken our souls with prayer so that they may be ready to receive the light of the risen Jesus. When Our Lady calls us to prayer, what first comes to our mind is to pray for the conversion of sinners, for this world, and the like. Only a few people realise that the call for prayer refers primarily to ourselves. The words of Our Lady are always permeated with love and again in her latest message she says: awaken your souls with prayer. These words are a call to change our attitude towards prayer that we have had so far. We have been called to pray primarily for our own conversion, and only then for the conversion of others. It is us that need to change first. Only then will our fellow men and the world start to change. When awaken in this way it will be easier for us to open ourselves to God and to receive the light of the risen Christ.

The pierced heart of Jesus is the utmost reflection of God’s love towards man. In all cultures, apart from being an organ of our body, the heart is a symbol of love. That is why Our lady says to us: “May He draw you closer to His heart so that you may become open to eternal life.” Jesus loved people so much that He did not spare Himself. He eventually exhausted Himself and became worn out in order to show people His love. However, in those times Jesus was not accepted. Neither is He accepted today. He is being insulted, hurt, killed with language, curse, slander, hatred. That is why with her tonight’s message Our Lady calls to get closer to Jesus’ heart not only us, Catholics, but the whole world, so that we may become open to eternal life. Will this call get lost yet one more time in the desert and wasteland of this world? Will we miss hearing yet another call of the Queen of Peace from Medugorje?

It is a duty of all those who have experienced the love of God and the love of Our Lady to witness and show not only to Europe, but to the whole world the love that was crucified, that died on the cross, the love resurrected and alive today. Every new day is an opportunity for us to be witnesses of this love. May our greatest advocate, mediator and intercessor Blessed Virgin Mary – Our Lady help us.

Fr. Danko Perutina
Medugorje 26/03/2009