Reflection on the Message of April 25, 2005

RENEW PRAYER IN YOUR FAMILIES

"Dear children! Also today, I call you to renew prayer in your families. By prayer and the reading of Sacred Scripture, may the Holy Spirit, who will renew you, enter into your families. In this way, you will become teachers of the faith in your family. By prayer and your love, the world will set out on a better way and love will begin to rule in the world. Thank you for having responded to my call." Message of April 25, 2005

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In her message, the Virgin Mary speaks to the families. With a maternal heart, she is inviting to the revival of prayer in our families. Mary, our Mother, knows well that family is threatened in a special way. The family is the sanctuary of each person, in which it grows, is educated, and receives in the heart all the values that parents should transmit to their children.

Nowadays, much is spoken about so many crises, and in a very special way of the crisis of the family. The family is attacked on all sides by evil, which wants to discourage and destroy communion, harmony and peace of the family. The families are in crisis in a particular way, because family prayer disappeared in so many families. Gospa does not make a diagnostic of a disease of the contemporary family, but in this message, she is giving the therapy, how to heal, how to renew and revive our families. She brings us back to the source of life, she is putting in our hands the means: prayer and reading of the Scriptures, of the Word of God. By these means, the Holy Spirit - in the place of the spirit of the world - will enter into our families and will bring blessing, peace and communion.

As a Mother, Gospa does not invent new means but gives to her children the simplest and healthiest verified food. This spiritual food and these means were tested in the Christian tradition of the Church. Generations ate of it and lived their faith of it, were inspired and have remained on the way of God, the one that leads to life, not just any life.

Gospa says: By prayer and reading of Sacred Scripture, may the Holy Spirit, who will renew you, enter into your families. To pray with the Bible means that we are on the best way, on the surest base, on the best source of prayer. Here, I meet the Word of God through which He wants to say something to me. The Word of God in the Scriptures is not the text of a novel or of just any book. It is not pronounced or written by just anyone. It is the language of God who, by this text, can be heard and which resounds through all times. Today still, the Lord wants to say something to me through his word. His word is not a dead letter but a living word, if I allow it to be alive in me. We should ask: “Lord, what do you want to tell me?” It is important to adopt the attitude of a humble heart that is listening and saying: “Speak, Lord, your servant is listening”.

When I listen to what the Lord is telling me, I will be able to speak, to give witness and to live my faith. Then, we will be able also to lead others and to teach them in faith, especially those which the Lord put on our way.

By this message, the parents in particular are invited to become not only those who put the children into the world, but most of all those who unceasingly give to them birth for faith and in faith.

Let us pray with Gospa and in particular for the parents – in order that they do not give up witnessing and giving birth to their children in faith.

According to the words of saint Francis de Sales: "When your children do not want to hear any more speaking about God, then you must speak to God about your children. "

God will hear you. He takes seriously each one of your prayers made seriously. The prayer in which we believe can be taken seriously by God, and it can the answered.

Fra Ljubo Kurtovic
Medugorje 26.4.2005