Reflection on the Message of August 25, 2003

GIVE THANKS TO GOD

Dear children! Also today I call you to give thanks to God in your heart for all the graces which He gives you, also through the signs and colors that are in nature. God wants to draw you closer to Himself and moves you to give Him glory and thanks. Therefore, little children, I call you anew to pray, pray, pray and do not forget that I am with you. I intercede before God for each of you until your joy in Him is complete. Thank you for having responded to my call." Message of August 25, 2003

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In this message, Mary, our Mother, invites us to pray in thanksgiving for all that God has given us, and continues to give us. Whatever he has created is for us and because of us. The Book of Genesis tells us: "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth. Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat." (Gen 1:28b-29) God created man because of his immense love. He marked the human heart by the seal of his spirit and of his love in the most perfect way. All the other creatures are only signs of the presence of God, and a human being is the image of God. This is why the human heart does not find peace as long as it does not rest in God; this is why human beings can be pacified only by God alone. For human beings, God is a question impossible to circumvent, because He is the answer to the questions, which we ask: "To whom do I belong and to whom do I go?" Nobody and nothing can choke in us this desire, this hunger and this thirst for God. History shows us that God cannot be eliminated from the heart and the intelligence of men of all the generations. Human beings seek God in various manners and address themselves to different sources, which can be false and poisoned. With Mary, we are sure that we will find the healthy source, God Himself. She promises her intercession until our joy does not become perfect in God.

Like God looked with mercy at the humility of His maidservant Mary, He looks with mercy at each person, he loves each person. Mary invites us to look first at what surrounds us, the marvellous works of God, which themselves - without the Creator - could neither come into existence nor be. From created things and from creatures we can deduce the existence of the Creator. If the creatures can be so beautiful and so perfect, how much more is their Creator? To despise what God has created means to despise the Creator Himself. The world, which surrounds us, each person, and ourselves, are the work of the hands of the Creator and of His love. This world is God's world and all the universe breathes the breath of life of the living God. All that we are, all that we see and what we have does not belong to us, but to God. This earth is not ours but God's, it is his work. This is why human beings must unceasingly study this marvellous world and its laws, which he did not scrutinize yet completely. The human being, because he is a foreigner on this earth and because the earth is not his work, must examine and learn to know its laws.

A Slovak writer wrote a novel, "To Whom Belongs the Sun?", which tells the story of a boy from a very poor family. However, he did not know that they were poor, because they lived happily. He discovered his poverty at school, when the others started to call him poor. Then, the boy asked his mother: "Why do people say that we are poor?" He received this explanation: "Because this house does not belong to us, because these things here and these things there are not ours..." The boy remained stunned. He did not know it. At the end, he raised the last, the decisive question: "And the sun, to whom does it belong?" The answer of his mother delighted him deeply: "The sun belongs to the good God." This was the revelation of the fatherhood of God, which, thereafter, carried him during his whole life.

Let us begin to give thanks to God. Let us learn how to pray while giving thanks, not only for all that is beautiful and good in our life, but also for what is difficult, painful, and even incomprehensible, knowing that God turns everything into good for those who love Him.

Let us learn with Mary and pray with Mary.

Fr. Ljubo Kurtovic
Medjugorje, August 26, 2003