Reflection on the Message of December 25, 2004

I CARRY MY SON JESUS IN MY ARMS TO YOU

"Dear children! With great joy, also today I carry my Son Jesus in my arms to you; He blesses you and calls you to peace. Pray, little children, and be courageous witnesses of Good News in every situation. Only in this way will God bless you and give you everything you ask of Him in faith. I am with you as long as the Almighty permits me. I intercede for each of you with great love. Thank you for having responded to my call." Message of December 25, 2004

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Mary is joyful because she is coming from the joy, the glory, from the celestial fatherland, which we must still join. She appears because she wants that we also arrive and be where she is. Her maternal desire to see us where she is, is as great as the joy that she is carrying in her heart. As on the first day of the apparitions, today also, she is carrying in her arms Jesus, her Son and our Saviour. In her arms and in her heart, she is carrying God, she is giving him to us and she is leading us towards him. Mary, our Mother, desires that we also can hear and listen to the words of the angel, like the shepherds: “Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.” (Lk 2,10-11) The Saviour of the world is born for you and for me, for each person.

God is born, “and to as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God.” (Jn 1,12)

Jesus is unique in all the history of humanity. Because he lived, because he existed, we do not have the right to despair, whatever our cross, our illnes and our suffering may be.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (Jn 3,16) God gave his Son Jesus to save you, to save me. God so much loved the world that he desired to become man and to take upon oneself human life, human sufferings, even death, to destroy it.

We celebrate Christmas, the birthday of Jesus. It is a day of joy and of blessing for the earth, for all humanity. Since his coming, nothing is the same any more in the history of humanity.

“The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.” (Is 9,1) We also, we can leave our darkness, our illnesses and our fears, because God came in our darkness, in our sins and in our illnesses to destroy them.

The birth of Jesus was neither pleasant, nor idyllic. He was born in a manger, among the animals, “because there was no room for them in the inn.” (Lc 2,7) The manger inside of us, it is the space in which live the animals. It is the space which we would like to hide of ourselves and of others. We are ashamed of it, because it is not clean and it does not smell good. But he wants to be been born today in the manger of our heart, where all is not perfumed or pleasant. But Jesus wants to come in our hearts, to illuminate everything by his blessing, by himself.

It is such a God that Mary, our Mother, brings to us and offers to us today. We can be united with Jesus, because he is within us. We have the possibility of becoming almighty by the faith in him, because he is the Almighty and the Highest. Then, we can become courageous witnesses of the presence of God, and his Almightiness on this earth, in our situations and in the circumstances in which we live.

The Mother is with us, and with her, we are in safety. We are under her protection and her intercession. Let us do all that we can to be day after day closer to the heart of Jesus and of Mary. Let us allow her to take us by the hand and lead us to peace that God gives us.

Fr. Ljubo Kurtovic
Medjugorje, December 26, 2004