Reflection on the Message of June 25, 2005
APOSTLES OF PEACE AND LOVE
"Dear children! Today I thank you for every sacrifice that you have offered for my intentions. I call you, little children, to be my apostles of peace and love in your families and in the world. Pray that the Holy Spirit may enlighten and lead you on the way of holiness. I am with you and bless you all with my motherly blessing. Thank you for having responded to my call." Message of June 25, 2005
Our Lady concludes each one of her messages by the words: “Thank you for having responded to my call.” With her gratitude, she seems to want to motivate and wake up our hearts, so that we listen to her and walk on the way of conversion and of holiness. Today, she is thanking us for every sacrifice that we have offered for her intentions. In preceding messages for the anniversary of her apparitions, she was saying: “Today I desire to thank you for all your sacrifices and for all your prayers.” (25.6.1990). “Today I am happy, even if in my heart there is still a little sadness for all those who have started on this path and then have left it.” (25.6.1992). Although she knows that all her children will not accept her motherly words, she is not giving up, she believes and she hopes. This is why she was saying: “There are many people who do not desire to understand my messages and to accept with seriousness what I am saying. But you I therefore call and ask that by your lives and by your daily living you witness my presence.” (25.6.1991).
Our Lady’s messages reveal to us the heart of Mary and they speak to us about it. It is the heart of the mother who loves her children. This heart is grateful for every sacrifice, which we offered for her intentions. We need to pray and, from day to day, to offer our hearts to the Heart of Mary, so that we also become grateful.
Only a blind man does not see that all in life is given to us, and that nothing belongs to us: neither the earth, nor people, nor our body, nor life that God gave us. Everything is a gift of God. Only a humble, pure and simple heart discovers the greatness of the love of God and of the gift of God. Only a heart filled with the Holy Spirit, like the heart of St. Elisabeth, exclaims: “And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Lk 1,43). The heart of Elisabeth is grateful because, in the Visitation of Mary, it recognizes the gift and the blessing.
God has created everything for us, and not for any reason, and not anyhow, but magnificently, marvellously, and out of love. We should relearn the alphabet of the language and of the conversation with God. We need to learn how to say thank you; and not only superficially, with our lips, our mouth, or our reason, but with our whole being and with our whole life.
God gave us more than life and all that He has created for us; he gave Himself to us in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, in the fullness of life and love, gave Himself in the Church and through the Church in the sacraments, especially in the Eucharist.
In these days and in this time, God sends to us also the Mother of His Son Jesus and our Mother, so that we become her apostles of peace and love in our families and in the world. Our families and the world need people who will spread peace and love, because there is too much disorder, too much fear, too much darkness and too much wickedness among us. Gospa, who dwells in the glory of Heaven, and who comes and speaks from this glory, knows that love and peace are stronger, and that it is worthwhile to love and to spread peace. Mary, our Mother, knows that we cannot do it by our own forces, and this is why she is advising us to pray to the Holy Spirit by Whom she conceived Jesus. She is encouraging us to pray to the Holy Spirit, whose force and power made it possible to the apostles to become fearless witnesses of Jesus, until shedding of blood. We cannot do it, but the Holy Spirit in us, He can do it. We are called to holiness and to sanctification of our life. Saint Paul reminds us: “For this is the will of God, your sanctification.” (1 Thess 4,3) Only on this way of sanctification and of holiness we can experience the joy and the truth of the words of the Scripture: “Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” (1 Thess 5,16) We are neither alone nor abandoned. Mary, our Mother, is with us and she is giving us her motherly blessing.
Fr. Ljubo Kurtovic
Medjugorje, 26.6.2005