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

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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