• This commentary on Our Lady’s message is by the late Fr Slavko Barbaric OFM, adapted from his book: In the School of Love, published by the Medjugorje Information Centre.
Dear children! I am calling everyone of you to start living in God’s love. Dear children, you are ready to commit sin, and to put yourselves in the hand of satan without reflecting. I call on each one of you to consciously decide for God and against satan. I am your Mother and, therefore, I want to lead you all to perfect holiness. I want each one of you to be happy here on earth and to be with me in Heaven. That is, dear children, the purpose of my coming here and it’s my desire. Thank you for having responded to my call. (May 25, 1987)
Holiness is another expression for growing in love. In the Roma and Anglo-Saxon languages, the word ‘holiness’ has the same root as sanctum, santa, saint, helix, holy, words which can help us understand the meaning of Holiness.
Holiness, first of all, defines the process of healing from sin and its consequences. It helps us to conquer temptations and, as we grow in holiness, we also grow towards the thought and the will of God.
No one can grow in holiness if he does not grow in a merciful love towards himself, towards others, towards God, and towards nature. Anyone who resists the process of holiness, who resists God’s will and imposes his own will, does not love himself. He cannot love others, let alone God.
Holiness is not demonstrated with great deeds, but with doing what we do with great love. It would be false to think that miracles are special gifts given as proof of holiness, even though many holy persons perform great and miraculous deeds. Rather, holiness is a call to resist sin and satan who wants to stop us on our way. Therefore, every Christian is invited to holiness because holiness is not and cannot be something only for a chosen few.
Our Lady, as holy Mother, knows all this. She wants to guide us to holiness and she wants to bring us up in love towards our own life, towards the life of others, towards everything that is created, and finally towards our Creator himself.
From a different point of view, we must decide against death and sin, against all satanic action. These are also the conditions for our happiness here on earth and the only way to Heaven.
Our Lady is with us, as she tells us, just to guide us in holiness, and this is the reason that she stays so long. As Mother, she cannot wish anything else but our growth and development. Only in this way can she be the one who steps on the head of satan and his descendants, thus opening a free passage to her children. Only then, when her children are clothed in the garment of holiness, can she be the woman clothed in the sun, with the moon under her feet.
That we are giving ourselves into the hands of satan is a heavy word to her from Our Lady. May it be our decision to be holy and to begin to pray each day for this grace.
• As for yourself, you must say what is consistent with sound doctrine, namely, that older men should be temperate, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, love and endurance. Similarly, older women should be reverent in their behaviour, not slanderers, not addicted to drink, teaching what is good, so that they may train younger women to love their husbands and their children, to be self-controlled, chaste, good homemakers, under the control of their husbands, so that the word of God may not be discredited. Urge the younger men, similarly, to control themselves. (Titus 2 : 1-6)
