Fr Brendan O’Malley RIP

Please pray for Fr Brendan O’Malley who died this morning.

• Reconcile
• A first for Fr Brendanhttp://medjugorje.zenfolio.com

Message commentary...

Dear children! Today I call you anew to conversion. Little children, you are not holy enough and you do not radiate holiness to others, therefore pray, pray, pray and work on your personal conversion, so that you may be a sign of God’s love to others. I am with you and am leading you towards eternity, for which every heart must yearn. Thank you for having responded to my call. August 25, 2008

In the 28 years that Our Lady has been speaking to us from Medjugorje we have learned to understand that she brings us nothing new outside of the Gospel message, so it is to Scripture, the Word of God, that we should look for a fuller understanding of Our Lady’s message.

The first readings of this week’s daily Mass, Monday to Saturday, are from St Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians, and all relate in some way to Our Lady’s message.

In thousands of churches around the world priests will provide homilies on these readings. So in reality, we always have a commentary on Our Lady’s message – amplified through Scripture,

During the past 28 years, it is Mary, as Queen of Prophets (prophet as in proclaiming the Word of God) and Mother of the Church, who is ensuring that her messages point us to the Word of God.

Here are passages from this week’s first readings that can be easily identified with Our Lady’s message given to us this week.

Monday – call to conversion...
...other people tell us how we started work among you, how you broke with idolatary when you converted to God and became servants of the real, living God...

Tuesday – the Mother who is with us and leading us...
Like a mother feeding and looking after her own children, we felt so devoted and protective towards you...

Wednesday – call to holiness...
...teaching you what was right, encouraging you and appealing to you to live a life worthy of God, who is calling you to share the glory of his kingdom.

Thursday – prayer and holiness as God’s sign of love...
We are earnestly praying night and day... make up shortcomings in your life... May the Lord be generous in increasing your love and make you love one another and the whole human race... and may he so confirm your hearts in holiness...

Friday – progress in personal conversion...
...make more and more progress in the kind of life that you are meant to live... What God wants for you all is to be holy... We have been called by God to be holy...

Saturday – progression in love...
..you have learnt from God yourselves to love one another... we urge you to go on making further progress...

Accepting the message of eternal life...

You can remember how we treated everyone of you as a father treats his children, teaching you what is right, encouraging you and appealing to you to live a life worthy of God, who is calling you to share the glory of the kingdom. Another reason why we constantly thank God for you is that as soon as you heard the message that we brought you as God’s message. you accepted it for what is really is, God’s message and not some human thinking; and it is still a living power among you who believe it. Thessalonians 2: 11-13

Our Lady’s August message to Marija

Dear children! Today I call you anew to conversion. Little children, you are not holy enough and you do not radiate holiness to others, therefore pray, pray, pray and work on your personal conversion, so that you may be a sign of God’s love to others. I am with you and am leading you towards eternity, for which every heart must yearn. Thank you for having responded to my call. August 25, 2009

Justice seasoned with Mercy

Dear children! Today I call you to love and mercy. Give love to each other as your Father gives it to you. Be merciful – with the heart. Do good works, not permitting them to wait for you too long. Every mercy that comes from the heart brings you closer to my Son.
March 18, 2001

The Queenship of Mary

The liturgical feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen and Mother was instituted by Pope Pius XII on October 11, 1954, just a few days after he had proclaimed the dogma of the Assumption. The Queenship of Mary is celebrated on August 22.

Ivanka speaks with pilgrims at Youth Festival

This short talk by the visionary Ivanka was given at Medjugorje on August 1, 2009 and concurrently translated into six languages from Croat. Ivanka rarely gives talks to pilgrims and lives a discreet, almost private life, close to the village of Medjugorje. She was the first of the six visionaries to see Our Lady at the start of the apparitions in June 1981. She has been married for 22 years and has four children.

• I would like to greet you all with the most beautiful of greetings: Praised be Jesus and Mary. I am so pleased to be here with you today and even more pleased that you are ready to hear the message of Our Lady.

For 28 years I have been asking God the very same question: Why did you choose me? I know that I was given a great grace and also I know that at the same time I was given a great responsibility.

I have accepted this as a gift but at the same time I have been praying all the time that God gives me strength to fulfil all the assignments he has for me.

I lived with my family at Mostar at that time and as always, after school, I used to come to Medjugorje. This is what happened that day on June 24, 1981 when I saw Our Lady for the first time.

On that day, like every day, I was outside the village with Mirjana and we were waiting for other friends to come. I do not how long we were waiting but we got tired of that and then we started walking towards the houses.

While we were walking towards the village I was really forced by something to look towards the hill and then I saw Our Lady. I said to Mirjana, “Mirjana, I see Our Lady on the hill” but Mirjana said, “ Don’t tell me these foolish things.”

I followed Mirjana who was walking back to the village and then we met Milka, the sister of the visionary Marija. Milka saw that something was wrong with me and she asked me what happened, and I told the girls to come back with me, that I had seen Our Lady. We went back and then all three of us saw Our Lady. Vicka also came to us and then two boys, the two Ivans. The apparition kept calling us but none of us dared to climb the hill.

Our Lady was four or five hundred metres away from us. She kept calling us and emotions we felt in our heart were huge. We felt all kinds of emotions in our heart and none of us dared to get closer to her.

Whoever we told that we saw Our Lady that evening, they did not believe us. They told us not to tell such things. That night was the longest night in my life. I was only 15 and I questioned myself the entire night whether what I saw was true or not.

So the next day at the same hour we went back together to the apparition hill. Before we saw Our Lady we saw the light, three times, and when we finally got to her, I cannot describe that moment of meeting with Our Lady because we felt so much love, felt so secure, so much happiness in our hearts.

When we came to her we saw this most beautiful person, maybe 19 or 20 years of age. She had a crown of stars, white veil, greyish dress, and she was standing on a cloud She had the most beautiful blue eyes and long black hair.

I knew that it was the Blessed Mother You see, two months before that day my mother had passed away. Because I knew in my heart that this was the Blessed Virgin Mary I asked her, “Mother, where is my mother?” And she said, “Do not worry, my child, your mother is with me.”

Our Lady told us, “Do not worry. I’ll pray with you always. I’ll come again tomorrow.”

The word spread very quickly so that on the third day people started following us because they saw something was happening with us, so they gave us holy water to bless the apparition. On that third day when Our Lady came, Vicka blessed her and she said, “If you come from God, stay. But if you do not come from God, please leave us.” And then Our Lady smiled back at us and said, “I am the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of Peace.

On that day Our Lady gave the first public message, which was the message of peace. As the days passed by Our Lady asked us to convert, to fast, to do some penance, to pray and go to confession and attend Holy Mass. These are the main messages of Our Lady of Medjugorje.

From 1981 until 1985 I received the apparitions on a daily basis. During that period Our Lady dictated to me her biography. I wrote everything down. She also told me the future of the world and the future of our Church. When I have permission from Our Lady, this will be published.
On the 7th May, 1985, I had the last daily apparition and that was the longest apparition that I have ever had because Our Lady stayed with me one hour.

On that day Our Lady gave me the final and tenth secret and I was told that I would not have the apparitions on a daily basis anymore, but Our Lady promised me that she was going to appear to me once a year on June 25.

From 1985 to today I received the apparition once every year on June 25. But at that last daily apparition I was given the greatest gift, not just for myself but for the entire world. And because every single human being is asking is there a life after this life on earth, I am standing before you here today, I am standing before the entire world and I can easily answer that question. Yes, there is a life after this life, because by God and Our Lady I was given this great grace, that I was able to see my late mother during that apparition time and my mom told me: “My dear child, I’m proud of you.”

For 28 years Our Lady has been telling us which road we need to take in our life. She is showing us the way and we have to decide which road we are going to take in our life.

Our Lady has given a different mission to each one of us visionaries. My mission is to pray for families. So every day I pray for families.

The last apparition I had was this year on June 25 and that apparition lasted ten minutes and Our Lady spoke to me about the tenth secret and she advised for all of us to become apostles of peace and to pray for peace. Our Lady ended her message with “Peace, peace, peace.”

Let us be reminded in prayer. Let us pray for each other. Our Lady wants us to be be in peace, not to be afraid, to know that she is there for us all of the time.

Finally, when you leave Medjugorje I would like you to take peace and love from Medjugorje back to your home and to your country. Thank you all for everything.

Watch this Cenacolo “Credo” presentation

The “Credo” presentation by the Cenacolo Community from this year’s Youth Festival is highly recommended. Remember that these men and women have overcome addictions and other life problems and it shows just how hope does lead to resurrection. Click on the link below to view.
CREDO

and MORE from the recent youth festival...

New images added to Medjugorje Gallery

I have added some new images to the Medjugorje Gallery, all from this year’s Medjugorje Youth Festival. I hope to post about 100 more images during the week.

MEDJUGORJE GALLERY

Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary was declared by Pope Pius XII on November 1, 1950 and states that “the Immaculate Mother of God, Mary ever Virgin, when the course of her earthly life was finished, was taken up body and soul into the glory of heaven.”

In this declaration no position is taken by the Church as to the question of whether Mary actually died. However, in one of her very early messages given at Medjugorje, Our Lady states in response to a question asked if she went to Heaven before or after death: “I am the Mother of God and the Queen of Peace. I went to Heaven before death.” October 12, 1981

Prayer is...

Commentary on Our Lady’s message of July 25, 2009
by Fr Jozo Zovko OFM

Dear children! Let this time be a time of prayer for you. Thank you for having responded to my call. July 25, 2009

Here we have a very short message of Our Lady, and maybe we are more intrigued by its shortness than by the call itself. But, if we get into it a bit more deeply, we will come to realise that this message contains all the messages that the Queen of Peace has given in these last 28 years.

It is obvious that even after so much time we have failed to understand the importance and purposefulness of prayer. So, for some people prayer has become a pattern recited by heart, which they rattle off without being aware of the importance and beauty of the words. For some people prayer has become an obligation, which they fulfil at a precisely set time, with a routine ritual. There are even those for whom prayer has become a burden, and they themselves have become a burden to others, because they do not live what they pray.

Our Lady speaks about the "time of prayer". She calls us to make a time of prayer out of every hour, day, and moment of ours.

We cannot ponder over this call without first defining what prayer is!

• Prayer is seeking of God.
• Prayer is a dialogue with God.
• Prayer is surrender to God.
• Prayer is consecration to God (of oneself and others)
• Prayer is friendship with God.
• Prayer is living together with God.
• Prayer is singing praises to God.
• Prayer is exaltation of God
• Prayer is ‘filling the empty water-pots’ as at Cana, and Jesus does the miracle.
• Prayer is the ‘place and time’ of transfiguration – Tabor

The call to let "this time be a time of prayer" is a call for us to live our time with God, immersed into him, that by living the experience of the meeting with him we become a blessing for others. A Christian is a happy man because he has got something to give away! We are called to refresh the tired, to comfort the sorrowful, to nurse the sick, to feed the hungry… In order to be able to respond to this call, we should pray, fill our time with God and with the blessings he bestows on us abundantly.

By imbuing our time with God, we bring God into the time and space of our generation, and in this way people are being blessed. By imbuing our time with God, we are being enlightened, becoming so the beacons showing the right Way.

Cleaning the outside of the cup...

Apparently, the U.S. publication, Our Sunday Visitor, has a policy of refusing ads promoting pilgrimages to Medjugorje if the ad includes the word “pilgrimage“.

OSV will only accept the ad (and the money) if the word “pilgrimage” is replaced by the word “tour”.

Reconcile with God and each other...

I tell you solemnly, whatever you bind on earth shall be considered bound in heaven; whatever you loose on earth shall be considered loosed in heaven. Matthew 18 : 18

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. February 25, 2009

Love of the Father

It is never the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost. Matthew 18 : 14

Be of just and innocent heart that I may lead you to your Father, for this, that I am here, is his great love. part message, March 18, 1996

Message to Mirjana, August 2009

Dear children, I am coming, with my motherly love, to point out the way by which you are to set out, in order that you may be all the more like my Son; and by that, closer and more pleasing to God. Do not refuse my love. Do not renounce salvation and eternal life for the sake of transience and frivolity of this life. I am among you to lead you and, as a mother, to caution you. Come with me. August 2, 2009