Reflection on the Message of August 25, 2003

GIVE THANKS TO GOD

Dear children! Also today I call you to give thanks to God in your heart for all the graces which He gives you, also through the signs and colors that are in nature. God wants to draw you closer to Himself and moves you to give Him glory and thanks. Therefore, little children, I call you anew to pray, pray, pray and do not forget that I am with you. I intercede before God for each of you until your joy in Him is complete. Thank you for having responded to my call.” Message of August 25, 2003

In this message, Mary, our Mother, invites us to pray in thanksgiving for all that God has given us, and continues to give us. Whatever he has created is for us and because of us. The Book of Genesis tells us: “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth. Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.” (Gen 1:28b-29) God created man because of his immense love. He marked the human heart by the seal of his spirit and of his love in the most perfect way. All the other creatures are only signs of the presence of God, and a human being is the image of God. This is why the human heart does not find peace as long as it does not rest in God; this is why human beings can be pacified only by God alone. For human beings, God is a question impossible to circumvent, because He is the answer to the questions, which we ask: “To whom do I belong and to whom do I go?” Nobody and nothing can choke in us this desire, this hunger and this thirst for God. History shows us that God cannot be eliminated from the heart and the intelligence of men of all the generations. Human beings seek God in various manners and address themselves to different sources, which can be false and poisoned. With Mary, we are sure that we will find the healthy source, God Himself. She promises her intercession until our joy does not become perfect in God.

Like God looked with mercy at the humility of His maidservant Mary, He looks with mercy at each person, he loves each person. Mary invites us to look first at what surrounds us, the marvellous works of God, which themselves – without the Creator – could neither come into existence nor be. From created things and from creatures we can deduce the existence of the Creator. If the creatures can be so beautiful and so perfect, how much more is their Creator? To despise what God has created means to despise the Creator Himself. The world, which surrounds us, each person, and ourselves, are the work of the hands of the Creator and of His love. This world is God’s world and all the universe breathes the breath of life of the living God. All that we are, all that we see and what we have does not belong to us, but to God. This earth is not ours but God’s, it is his work. This is why human beings must unceasingly study this marvellous world and its laws, which he did not scrutinize yet completely. The human being, because he is a foreigner on this earth and because the earth is not his work, must examine and learn to know its laws.

A Slovak writer wrote a novel, “To Whom Belongs the Sun?”, which tells the story of a boy from a very poor family. However, he did not know that they were poor, because they lived happily. He discovered his poverty at school, when the others started to call him poor. Then, the boy asked his mother: “Why do people say that we are poor?” He received this explanation: “Because this house does not belong to us, because these things here and these things there are not ours…” The boy remained stunned. He did not know it. At the end, he raised the last, the decisive question: “And the sun, to whom does it belong?” The answer of his mother delighted him deeply: “The sun belongs to the good God.” This was the revelation of the fatherhood of God, which, thereafter, carried him during his whole life.

Let us begin to give thanks to God. Let us learn how to pray while giving thanks, not only for all that is beautiful and good in our life, but also for what is difficult, painful, and even incomprehensible, knowing that God turns everything into good for those who love Him.

Let us learn with Mary and pray with Mary.

Fr. Ljubo Kurtovic
Medjugorje, August 26, 2003

Reflection on the Message of September 25, 2003

I DESIRE TO LEAD YOU TO THE HEART OF MY SON JESUS

“Dear children! Also today I call you to come closer to my heart. Only in this way, will you comprehend the gift of my presence here among you. I desire, little children, to lead you to the heart of my Son Jesus; but you resist and do not desire to open your hearts to prayer. Again, little children, I call you not to be deaf but to comprehend my call, which is salvation for you. Thank you for having responded to my call.” Message of September 25, 2003

Mary, our Mother, invites also today her children who have ears to hear her call. She isn’t calling us yesterday or tomorrow, but today, at this moment, which is the most important moment of our life. We can stop neither life nor time. Time goes towards its end, or rather towards its new beginning. Our Mother wants that we start to prepare ourselves for our eternity. Our future and our eternity depend on our decision today. The “today” of God resounds in the whole Bible until our days, until our “today” here through Marie.

Our Mother draws us to her immaculate, holy and maternal Heart. It is the heart that loved Jesus, which believed in Jesus, and with this same heart she loves each one of us. How many times, as today, she already said: “I desire, little children, to lead you to the heart of my Son Jesus”. The path that leads to Jesus is the path of faith and of prayer, to which Mary invites us.

Mary knows well the desires and the aspirations of the human heart. We cannot mislead our heart while proposing to it dead things, food and drink, comfort and pleasure. We need another food, the food that God offers to us. We need God’s love and His word. Today still, human beings are hungry for God, hungry for true and pure love, seek them more than things. Nothing less than God can satisfy human beings or fill their vacuum, release them from restlessness, slavery, fear and sin.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us: “The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for: The dignity of man rests above all on the fact that he is called to communion with God. This invitation to converse with God is addressed to man as soon as he comes into being. For if man exists it is because God has created him through love, and through love continues to hold him in existence. He cannot live fully according to truth unless he freely acknowledges that love and entrusts himself to his creator.” (CCC 27)

It is not only man who desires God; today, in a very special way through Marie in this very place, God desires man. God wants to make man happy, content, filled, but he won’t do it by force or with a stick, but with love, to which we are invited to open our doors in full freedom.

The heart of God was pierced. The sword of pain pierced the heart and the soul of Mary. The heart of Jesus and the heart of Mary do not cease bleeding and suffering because of our sins: our blasphemy, our deafness, our blindness, our resistances and our refusal to receive them. Despite everything, God calls, because he cannot keep silent seeing his creature – human being – going astray.

God did not withdraw himself from man; let us not withdraw from God, because thus, we would withdraw from ourselves and from life.

May the desire of Mary, expressed in one of her messages: “I wish that my heart, the heart of Jesus and your heart one heart of love!” (July 25, 1999) be carried out in the world and in our families in us and through us.

Fr. Ljubo Kurtovic
Medjugorje, September 26, 2003

Reflection on the Message of October 25, 2003

WITH MARY, ON THE WAY OF CONVERSION AND HOLINESS

“Dear children! I call you anew to consecrate yourselves to my heart and the heart of my Son Jesus. I desire, little children, to lead you all on the way of conversion and holiness. Only in this way, through you, we can lead all the more souls on the way of salvation. Do not delay, little children, but say with all your heart: “I want to help Jesus and Mary that all the more brothers and sisters may come to know the way of holiness.” In this way, you will feel the contentment of being friends of Jesus. Thank you for having responded to my call.” Message of October 25, 2003

Today also, in this message, Mary, our Mother, pours out her heart full of love through these simple words. It is almost impossible to express in the words all that Mary, as a Mother, feels towards us who are her children. She wants us to be holy, which means happy, normal and healthy people. Only this is worth to be, only for that to fight with all our strength.

The desire and the prayer of Jesus and Mary are addressed to us, here and now, through Our Lady’s message. I would dare to say that Our Lady implores each one of us to begin finally to believe that God wants our good, that He loves us. God does not love only the good ones and the holy ones, but also wicked people. The problem is that all do not respond to this love. Without love, human life on earth is difficult and almost impossible – not only without the love of God, but also without human love, without human warmth, comprehension and goodness. We could not live if we had not received this love from our very birth in so many ways and in so many occasions. Love is the ground, the soil on which we can lean our life. It is the fundamental condition of life for all.

Every human being asks: “Does God love me?” If it is true that He loves me, and if I allow this truth to enter into my heart, into my thoughts, into my feelings, if I allow it to overwhelm my whole life, then my life becomes different and more beautiful. Unfortunately, there are so many negative experiences, so many experiences of evil and wickedness, which tell us the opposite and put on trial our faith in the love of God, in the love that was proved to us by Jesus and His own life. Jesus himself experienced infernal wickedness, but He did not refrain from men or from His love for men. God did not spare His own Son Jesus in order to convince us that we are loved. He allowed Himself to be crucified so that we may realize what God is ready to do for us. As for us, we should answer to the truth of this event with trust. If we respond with faith to the love of Jesus, we become eternal and indestructible.

St Paul says: “The Son of God loved me, and gave himself for me.” (Ga 2,20) Jesus loved us all with a human heart, not with a plastic heart, but with a heart that feels suffering, pain and joy, that feels all that we feel. There is no human feeling that Jesus did not feel; he felt them all, except sin.

In the heart of Mary, the desire to take us on the way of conversion and holiness does not vanish. Since the moment when – through the apostle John – Jesus entrusted each one of us to her, “Woman, behold your son!”, Mary is a Mother who does not give up, who is not afraid of such a heavy and responsible task: to lead us on the way of holiness towards God, towards life, and not just any life, but life in fullness.

“Do not delay”, Mary warns us, because a waste of time is also a loss of grace. Jesus and Mary need us, they need you and me, so that the others also, all of them, may reach life, may reach God. The one who has made the experience of the love of God cannot remain passive and uninterested in all those who have not yet made this experience. The love of God cannot be kept for oneself; one cannot take pleasure in it alone. It wants to be given to all, so that all may experience it, seek it and desire it with the whole heart. Each Christian is a missionary there where he lives, for people whom he meets and who surround him. Let us not become weary and let us not stop on the way on which calls us Mary, our Mother.

Fr. Ljubo Kurtovic
Medjugorje, October 26, 2003

Reflection on the Message of November 25, 2003

BE LOVE, JOY AND PEACE

“Dear children! I call you that this time be for you an even greater incentive to prayer. In this time, little children, pray that Jesus be born in all hearts, especially in those who do not know Him. Be love, joy and peace in this peaceless world. I am with you and intercede before God for each of you. Thank you for having responded to my call.” Message of November 25, 2003

Once again, the Virgin Mary invites us to prayer in this time of Advent that is approaching. Advent and Lent are liturgical seasons in which the Church, as a Mother, invites us to re-examine our life, to make concrete decisions, promises, more decisive turnings on our way towards God. Today, as during all these years, Mary wants that our days do not pass in vain, that our time does not pass beside us, that we do not circumvent God in this time that we live – God who calls us, who seeks us, who stirs us up through Mary.

The greatest joy of a mother is her children. Can we imagine the joy that we are for Mary – the Queen of Peace? She is “the cause of our joy” and she invites us to become the cause of her joy. Her only desire is that Jesus may be born in our hearts. She is most saddened when we lose Jesus, when He is not with us, more precisely, when we are not with Him. It is necessary to undertake everything to return to Jesus, to find Jesus. Humanly speaking, Mary and Jesus suffer when we move away from them, when we abandon them in any way and for any reason. However, our Mother leads us to her Son; with her, it will be easiest for us to find Him and to remain with Him. She has no other more important task than this one, but she can attain it only with our co-operation. This is why she stirs us up and she puts into our hearts the means that the Church offers to her children during the centuries, by leading them to God and by engendering them to a new life in God.

The goal of Our Lady’s messages and of her apparitions is that all know God, that everyone encounters God. She wants that – through us – God may reach everyone. We are all linked to one another and we all are responsible for one another. God can come into this world only through human beings, from one to another. God wants to come into this world through you and me. If He does not pass through us, how will he come? The only full meaning of our life is to enable Him to come. If we do not allow Him, then what is the meaning of our life? And what are we on this earth without Him?

Also in this time of Advent, and in Christmas that is approaching, God wants to come. He has time. He has the whole eternity. But we have only today, the present moment. The eternity does not belong to us – it belongs to God. God needs our naturalness, our simplicity. God needs our nearness, and we need his nearness even more.

It is only through the nearness of God that we will be able, from day to day, to become love, joy and peace in this world, as Our Lady tells us. Because works of love are works of peace. And when love is shared, we feel peace that gets hold of the one who gives love and of the one who receives love. When peace is there, God is there, and thus, God touches our hearts and shows his love for us by spreading peace and joy in our hearts.

Blessed Mother Teresa was praying: “Lead me from death to life. From lie to truth. Lead me from despair to hope. From fear to trust. Lead me from hatred to love. From war to peace. May peace fill our hearts, our world and our universe, peace, peace, peace.”

We are not alone; Mary is with us, with her presence and the strength of her maternal love, desiring that peace of her heart may enter each heart. Let us allow her that.

Fr. Ljubo Kurtovic
Medjugorje November 26, 2003

Reflection on the Message of December 25, 2003

I LOVE YOU ALL

“Dear children! Also today, I bless you all with my Son Jesus in my arms and I carry Him, who is the King of Peace, to you, that He grant you His peace. I am with you and I love you all, little children. Thank you for having responded to my call.” Message of December 25, 2003

The Blessed Virgin Mary, the Queen of Peace, tells us: “Dear children! Also today…” Also today, as during all these years for Christmas, the Mother of Peace comes to us carrying in her arms her Son Jesus, King of Peace. Also today, like the first day of the apparitions when the visionaries saw her for the first time on the hill called Crnica, Our Lady comes with the Child Jesus in her arms, as if she wanted to say: I bring Jesus to you and I lead you to Jesus. What do we need more? Let us desire the utmost; let us languish for that, because God does not want to give us a little but everything, not any kind of life but a life with Him, which begins already here.

Nobody could imagine how many hearts – during all these years – would make their experience of God, of a new birth and of a rebirth here; as at the beginning so today. We also cannot measure or imagine the power and the depth of the love of God and of his patience with us. God is patient with us; he waits until we finally trust him, so that He may give us nothing else but Himself. This is why, for Christmas, it is important to look forward to somebody and not to something. Here, the Virgin Mary does not bring something to us. Peace is not something but somebody. It is a person who has a name; it is the King of Peace – Jesus Christ, the Newborn Baby. Let us not be content with mediocrity, tepidity, traditions and customs that go along with Christmas, but let us desire the essence of Christmas. When we arrive to that, then everything has a meaning: feast day garments, food and drink and all decorations that accompany Christmas, according to the proverb: “What is the use of speed if you do not have a goal?” The same applies to our faith. What is the use of all external religious customs if we do not know their foundation, the core and the meaning of all that?

Christmas is a day that belongs to Jesus, and to us too. He is the one who has given us this solemnity, this feast. He, the King of Peace, did not come only to live with us but also to die for us to remain forever with us, to remain Emmanuel – God with us. God did it for us and for our salvation.

Only the small and the humble ones discover God. So many of them discovered Jesus through Mary and through her presence here, among us. Only the humble ones see that the heart of child can see further than the heart of the adult. But the adults also can have a heart of child. The humble ones – those who have a heart of child – see that something incredible has happened among us, something that exceeds our intelligence, something majestic. Also for this Christmas, Jesus comes to tell us, that our sins are forgiven, that God has nothing against us, that He has come to lead us out of darkness, out of restlessness and out of confusion. He penetrated our tombs to lead us to life. He penetrated our hatred to introduce us to love. Jesus Christ – He is Christmas, indeed. God descended on our earth; He was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Also today, He comes to us through Mary.

When we look at a child, including the Child Jesus in the manger, it seems to us so fragile, so weak and so incredible. Just like His Church: weak, too human, sinful and frail. However, under external appearances is hidden the invincible force of heaven, which wants to live in each one of us, if only we allow it to approach us. Mary, the Queen of Peace, tells us again and again: “I am with you and I love you all.” She loves us all, whether we want it or not; she loves us, whether we receive her or not. If we receive her, it will be for our salvation and for a new life for us and for our neighbor. Let us pray the Lord that it may happen.

Fr. Ljubo Kurtovic
Medjugorje, December 26, 2003