Reflection on the Message of March 25, 2001

THE FOUNDATION OF YOUR LIFE IS IN GOD

"Dear children! Also today I call you to open yourselves to prayer. Little children, you live in a time in which God gives great graces but you do not know how to make good use of them. You are concerned about everything else, but the least for the soul and spiritual life. Awaken from the tired sleep of your soul and say yes to God with all your strength. Decide for conversion and holiness. I am with you, little children, and I call you to perfection of your soul and of everything you do. Thank you for having responded to my call." Message of March 25, 2001

---

Our Heavenly Mother, the Queen of Peace, speaks again today and gives us the recipe for life. At the same time, this recipe seems both too simple and too hard. She wants to encourage us to dare to take the way that leads to God, in Whom is our life. Naturally, each one of us wants to find the meaning of life, in order to live a fulfilled and satisfied life. Very often, in this search we seek support in what seems attractive, easy, full of promise and gratifying. Often, after such choices, we are deceived and wounded, traumatized and feel mislead. We see that with our physical eyes we cannot pierce the heart of life. This means that we do not really know what life means. We have been called to existence by someone else other than ourselves: it is neither our parents, nor our friends, but we have been called by God. We have not given life to ourselves, but have received it as a gift from God. We have been given to ourselves. We have neither earned nor deserved our life. We are not masters of our own life, but only its’ manager, and this is why we are responsible before God, Who is the only Master of our life.

Each one of us wants to preserve, to prolongate and to ameliorate his life in diverse ways and means. Life is most precious and dear. We have the instinct to defend and to preserve life, nevertheless, in our decisions and our actions we also can destroy life within ourselves. Our life finally depends on God, because He forgives us again and again. He takes care of us and saves our lives. Without our permission, and our complete ‘Yes’ to Him, God is powerless and cannot help us. This is why Our Lady, in Her motherly love, remains with us for such a long time. This is also why She is so determined. She wants us to open our eyes and not to cling to what attracts or pleases us nor to what gives easy promises and finally then deceives us. This is what is confirmed by our Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, in his message for the XVIth World Youth Day: “The omnipresent culture of ephemeral, which gives a value to what pleases and what seams nice, would like to make us believe that – for to be happy – we have to eliminate the Cross. What is presented as ideal is easy success, rapid career, sexuality separated from responsibility and, finally, an existence founded of the confirmation of self, often without respecting others. Open wide your eyes, dear young people: this is not a way that gives life, but a way that leads to death.” Jesus said: “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life” (Jn 14,6). Our Lady wants us to choose Her Son, Jesus as Master and Lord of our lives. Only with Him and in Him will we not be deceived. Jesus doesn’t promise the fulfillment of all our desires, a rapid career or easy successfulness. He promises life in fullness. The Russian writer A. Solshenitzine, in his Roman writing, “In the First circle”, said: “The happiness of a perpetual victory, the happiness of the fulfillment of desires, the happiness of success and of total satiety – is a suffering. It is spiritual death, some kind of infinite moral pain. For there is a fulfilled and realized life in spite of many unfulfilled desires.”

The message of Our Lady of this month seems like a announcement and correction addressed to Her children, so that they may discover the foundations of their lives. It is as if She would like to say: My little children, open the eyes of your heart. The spirit gives life, and not the flesh, which cheats you and pulls you towards the earth. Raise your eyes towards heaven, towards life, towards the Spirit of God Who lives in you.

From my heart, I wish all of you and myself to become ‘tireless’ in discovering over and over again our God within us. Thank You, o Mary, for Your words, Your messages and Your motherly assurance. Let us challenge ourselves to believe and walk on the path that leads to life!

Medjugorje, March 26, 2001
Fra Ljubo Kurtovic