The main message
The message of Medjugorje is an echo of the gospel, discounted on the basis of a serious situation, which justifies these visits of Our Lady.
A diagnosis on the world
This message refers to some threats that would be revealed more clearly when the ten secrets come true.
Essentially the diagnosis is this: this world has quietly indulged in to sin.
It prepares its destruction: this is the object of most of the secrets.
All people think of all nuclear threat. It's possibile. But the message did not clarify it, because it is only one of the particular consequences of internal malaise which has torn humanity. Our era, proud of its scientific and technical success, believed in its own infallibility, which will solve all the problems and overcome even death. It even thought that "the death of God" (denied by atheism) would free the man and accelerated progress. But technical mastery of the subject addresses only the problems of surface and not the fundamental problem of man; problem of love because man was created from love and only love can build and organize the inner life of man and mankind. But human love can live only through the love of God the Creator. It's an analysis that has nothing ridiculous. It confirms and interprets in depth what the leading experts are watching on our planet.
The dangers are those of a world where God has lost his place. There is, therefore, more and more science and less love, more culture and less education; more intensity and less order, more hectic and less peace. We run faster and faster, but towards the emptiness and death. The rate of suicide and homicidal violence increases. The most obvious is precisely the danger of the arms race. The military experts of the two superpowers did not find another formula to guarantee peace than this balance of terror. Each of the two thinks, "If I want to save the peace, I must be the strongest"?. Everyone then sentenced to outdo the other. It's a race that can not stop. A mad rush on the planet that multiplies atomic, bacteriological, chemical weapons, that today are enough to destroy all humanity. For over twenty years we watched an incredible inability to achieve a dynamic of peace and disarmament based on other values.
Our Lady, however, speaks more of the moral disintegration of these dramatic material evidence: love, in the strong sense of the term, it weakens. Desire overwhelms the gift of self. The desire for authenticity waivers loyalty, and the families are torn apart, and tend to disappear in favor of free unions, irresponsible and sterile, whose number has tripled in less than 30 years: from 95,000 in 295,000 between 1972 and 1984. The number of marriages decreases visibly. In France, 311,701 received the sacrament in 1971. In 1983, that figure had fallen to 187,752: about half for less. The number of civil marriages has decreased in a similar way: from 416,500 to 285,000 between 1972 and 1984. Divorces have increased rather more rapidly between 30,000 in 1960 and 103,000 in 1984. We are about a divorce every three marriages. "Tsunami" wrote Marlène Tuininga, in La Vie (October 28, 1986, p. 57). Every French woman in 1955 had an average of 2.8 children and 1.8 in 1984, while the number of dogs and domestic cats increases by the millions, to create serious problems in cities. The victims are the children of divorce. The men, always looking for love, don't know thow to love anymore. The "bad lovers" are the bad guys loved. The authenticity of the moment takes precedence over loyalty, good intentions outweigh the desire for consistency that builds the future. All this creates a pervasive sense of malaise, noted by sociology. A recent poll conducted by the press on "the French women" has provided surprising data: on the scale of the proposed values, what was placed at the top by the vast majority was not, as one might have thought, harmony, sexual or other securities, but loyalty.
In brief, the progress develops wide information, expertise, efficiency material, but neglects the human aspect and especially the divine, which is the deep root of human authenticity. Despite the ecological response, it ignores the balance, especially when it comes to moral order. And this essential order collapses, more from that than because of multiple strokes of accelerated evolution. Also, progress forgot to serve man and God, building up the true human order identified with the divine order and programmed by God, because man is in God's image.
This world has become, therefore, by terrible means, a mix of culture where desperation and exasperation sprout and, consequently, an unleashing of violence that creates insecurity. "Progress", as we said at the beginning of the century, has brought new facts on the front page, such as drugs, blackmail pays, the hijacking of planes and hostage taking. The great cities become dangerous. What was a characteristic of New York, is now widely available. Many now avoid going out at night and very close ethnic, for a long time accepted, turn into massacres and bloody wars in Africa and elsewhere. The world doesn't know where it comes from and where it goes. Having lost the sense of its aims, it swings between depression and violence.
Message
The remedy proposed by Our Lady is not a miracle that would fall down from heaven, because God has entrusted the world to men irreversibly. For this reason He has created him free, and responsible. The solutions are entrusted to him. Created by God to find God in the fullness of love and, therefore, its implementation must rediscover this fundamental solution, the only one that can inspire and to put all others to their rightful place: a return to God, faith, conversion, prayer, fasting, reconciliation and peace. These key words of the message of Medjugorje recalls the essence of the Gospel. We had forgotten it. We find the news and incandescent light in our lives themselves. Therefore, let's allow our hearts to listen.
God
The core of the message of Our Lady, is above all a return to God "THERE IS ONLY ONE GOD " She repeated since June 29, 1981. This ignored truth is the key to everything else. And the most forgotten: God is our creator. He gives us the very existence. The Creator isn't in fact the one who once created but the one that continues to create (with the same love). If God didn't created us, at this time we would cease to exist, as the light when electric current is interrupted. God is more intimate to us than how we are to ourselves. But He made us free, totally free. We can forget it, oppose him. God created us to love him. He makes us exist with love. He calls us to the love that never ends and that Our Lady has sparked so well in the heart of the seers of Medjugorje. This explains their joy and harmony that they take care of others, in a difficult life. The twentieth century has seen the spiritual direction disappearing and saw the growth of the psychoanalysis, based on the fulfilment ot the elementary desire. I dream of a psychoanalysis based on a return to God in depth. The one that makes the saints, the true depth and happiness. Often we are afraid of God, we run away from Him, because we are not in good standing with Him. Without wanting to rush anything, we dare to prepare this meeting:
- Lord, have mercy on this poor sinner that I am. Help me to change my life, because today I have not the courage to change.
Earlier this century, a doctor who was warned by the grace, in his last days used to go to church and say
- Lord, if you exist, have mercy on this poor man who I am. And the light came.
Conversion
The call to conversion (announced since the apparition of June 26) indicates the personal act by which we turn to God distracting from selfishness and sins. The term conversion (in greek: metà¡noia) finds its real meaning in ski language: this is called a curve that cuts a slope 180. It's a U-turn from the wrong direction toward the right one.
Faith
The return to God is through faith. The messages of the early days insist on this:
- I came here because there are good believers (26 June 1981).
- Blessed are those who have not seen and believe (June 26).
- Believe and persevere in faith (27 June), etc..
Through faith, we commit ourselves to God, to his word, to his truth. Our life regained meaning and substance; certainly in the night, but a night full of stars, because God does not leave with no sign those who trust him fully. Faith is not reduced to a simple face to face with God, because God is our Father, the Father of all men. And our Father calls us to an encounter with our brothers in the service of our brothers who are far away, and those who are close and hungry. Fasting, which we discuss later, may be helpful. While avoiding an illusion of recent years: "Charity first, and God will be in surplus". This may be an exception. But the normal way, the royal road is to go to God as the source, because only he can inspire and create man in us, as a charity without God perishes and ends. When Mother Teresa and her sisters feel the limits of strength and courage, in their continuous start with the lepers and the dying, they do an hour of adoration before the SS. Sacrament. Thus they are renewed in the fullness of love that is in God.
Prayer
Prayer is the normal language of faith, the expression of common life with God, it forms the main message of the apparitions. The visionaries realized immediately that they should pray to accept it or to return it when it disappeared. During each apparition, they recite the Lord's Prayer with Her and the Gloria, that She starts and they continue. Their voices fade away during the rapture, but at that time they reappear, to emphasize the value of prayer with Our Lady. It's the central point of each apparition and we can all pray with the Our Lady. In Medjugorje, all started with a traditioonal prayer: seven Pater, Ave, Gloria and popular songs that Our Lady sang with the visionaries. The prayer of the apparitions flows very quickly in the Mass which follows and completes each day. Our Lady invites you to rediscover the true prayer "the prayer of the heart". Jelena and Ivan have received this charge by Our Lady to their group and, more broadly, for all. Prayer is not only a request, but also an exchange with God, starting from the silence in which we prepare to receive God with us, where He lives and is not a monotonous dialogue, but varied. In the years when people were methodically educated to prayer, they summarized the basic attitudes in the Latin word "ARDOR" that characterizes the time of the prayer:
- Adoring
- Thanksgiving
- Questioning
- Offering
- Resolution
It 'important to understand well and make these basic attitudes ours.
- Adoration of the Creator: It is the primordial and capital attitude: kneel, prostrate, our arms like on a cross or with other gestures that may help, because also the body must humbly take part in this transcendent communication.
- Thanksgiving: Indicates a very rare feeling: gratitude. Thanksgiving to God must rise above all for what he is, and then for all that He gives us. And the grace that we give to God is not taken from us, but it is multiplied, precisely because of this new communication with God himself.
- Questioning: It is the thing that comes to mind when talking about prayer. But it is more to welcome the gift of God than to ask. We must learn to say: "Lord, what do you want me to do? What about today ?", because he has something to say. It is our hearing to be missing. Prayer finds its harmony and its effectiveness when we understand God's plans over the world and on us, no matter how great they are. In this light the deep hope does not disappoint.
- Prayer is offered: donation of ourselves, availability: our life, our death, are irreplaceable sacrifices that no one can do for us. This is the priesthood of all believers, both priests and laity. This consecration ends for each of us with the holocaust of death, the last act, the most precious act of all our lives, because it deeply identifies the cross of Christ, and flows into the fulfillment of His Love.
- Finally Resolution: Prayer is not appearence, poetry or imaginative excitement about God and everlasting life. It's commitment rooted in God's will, programming enlightened by the Holy Spirit in the realities of our world.
Fasting
And fasting? Our Lady spoke to the visionaries. The parish has taken this ancient Franciscan tradition fell into disuse. Even before the Lady talked about it, it seems on July 3, 1981, Jozo Zovko invited the parish to fasting, to see clearly in those unexpected events. Our Lady's messages report fully on this point in medical and scientific studies about the apparitions of Medjugorje; Queriniana, Brescia 1985, pp. 121-153. In brief: On 21 July 1982, Father Tomislav Vlasic asked the visionaries on this message and recorded so the answers of Our Lady:
- Best fasting is bread and water
- Fasting can avert war
- Fasting can stop the course of natural laws
These last two statements may surprise you. They recall those of the Gospel on faith "Capable to move mountains" (Matthew 17:20) and on demons that "can be removed only with fasting and prayer " (Mk 9:29).
Fasting requires peace, relaxation (which does not mean inactivity). It is often difficult to find suitable days. Furthermore, the body must gradually adapt to the fast and each one must find the fasting which allows it to be more effective in prayer, work, social relationships and in the rest. Fasting should not be masochism. Normally, not a day of sadness, or low activity. The activity can become more calm, a bit slow, sometimes a bit disturbed by secondary phenomena, but generally it becomes more effective.
There may be medical contraindications to fasting; prof. Joyeux "formally advised women during pregnancy or lactation, heavy fatigue workers in full activity, drivers of heavy vehicles, against fasting". In the latter case, however, it depends on the adaptation of the subject. Karminsky Herr and his wife made me travel for 24 hours in one day of their fast and enjoyed a perfect balance and self-mastery. But they have many years of experience and know their possibilities.
There may be psychological reasons for not fasting. Character eager to take itself so easily by the obsession of being hungry and can not win. It will not benefit from fasting and its character can become edgy. It should not cause psychological stress, but prepare to accept the fast, starting with reduced efforts, trying to exploit all its possibilities. Who fasts regularly in fact, is not hungry. At best, sometimes, it can feel slight stomach cramps, but they are illusory stimuli that disappear within a few seconds, if one does not fix this hiccup, because this psychological phenomenon is becoming desperate when one thinks, and ceases as soon as our mind is occupied elsewhere.
For susceptible people, and for special reasons fasting may undergo adaptations. But how? For some, fasting gives a headache, depression, due to a phenomenon of low blood sugar (no sugar). In this case, we advise the lumps of sugar and sweetened drinks have become fashionable among the youth of pseudo May 1968. The same goes for alcohol and all other artificial foods that are contrary to the spirit of fasting. For the same reason, we advise against coffee, although very reputable people are using this additional stimulant to reconcile the fast with a life hopelessly strained and breathless. However, this is an extreme case which is better to excuse than to imitate. Most listed are the fruits of the season: natural food, poor, economic (such as bread and water). It's a good way to overcome the headaches caused by hypoglycemia, and can benefit even the fasters subject to constipation. In this spirit, in the rectory of Medjugorje, the sisters prepare vegetables cooked for those who might need it. Certainly not the meat, though. These adaptations may be an intermediate step.
Some compensate these facilities, for example, once a month, with a fast more radical, based on water only. This fasting has excellent purifying effect for body and soul and some people tolerate it as well as fasting on bread and water. It's an experience that's worth taking some time, at least on Good Friday. Also this is an adaptation, but in the sense of radicalism. Those who experience difficulties too severe, in terms of psychological, social or otherwise, to undertake fasting on bread and water, can make at least one meat-free fasting with fruits and follow the advice of Jelena "for every Thursday": Those who smoke, do not smoke. Those who drink alcohol, don't drink it that day. The others surrender to something close to their hearts (1 March 1984). Fasting also television, she adds. It's a chain that makes it unable to pray.
Fasting is also refrain from bad temper and aggression and be available for the service of others. It means saving resources to help the poor and those who are hungry. It's been one of the determinants of the major reasons for fasting that people took two years ago in the Philippines.
But the primary function of fasting is another. This gap in the stomach opened to God makes it available for prayer and provides recreation. In families where all fast, it is a day of freedom for the housewife, who does not care to cook and wash up. It's the spirit that counts, but do not say, is only the spirit that counts, because our prayer and our spiritual experience of inhabiting a body. They follow the rhythm and depend on it. The deprivation of the body can awaken the hungry soul, as Lanza del Vasto brilliantly said, in the days when he fasted on water only: Lord now you're my only bread. Fasting can be a good springboard for prayer and charity, for peace and reconciliation, because a fast well understood is pacifying. Over the centuries, those who practice fasting have experienced the true benefits. It brings about health freedom and liberty in health, because the meat is guided by the spirit and the spirit by the help of God, says St. Leon (sermon 1,2). It gives rise to pure thoughts, wishes, rational, healthy tips (Sermon 13.1).
But more than on this hygiene it insists on openness to God and to others: everybody recognizes in himself this mortal condition which changes and perishes and, for this common condition, witnesses to his next love of a brother (Sermon 11.1) . The withdrawal of one who fasts becomes food for the poor (Sermon 13, 1).
From the practical and physical point of view, fasting on bread and water has almost no problem. Ordinarily there is no need to do so under medical supervision, such as fasting total and prolonged. But some precautions are necessary. Dr. Merry has shown in medical and scientific studies about the apparitions of Medjugorje, Queriniana Editrice, Brescia 1985 (p. 152). The main ones are the following:
- Do not forget to drink at least a liter and a half of water throughout the day. It's needed for balance and for good elimination
- Prefer whole wheat bread
I would add: don't fill up of bread. It deprives you of many of the benefits of fasting: purification of body and mind, eliminate toxins and other surplus; eventually lose the winged aspect of fasting that lightens the body and soul. Everyone will find a way to solve the small problems posed by secondary fasting. We advised the fruit for those who suffer from headaches due to hypoglycemia. But after a while, the body, accustomed to fast, do not need it anymore. Fasting may result in transient moments of depression, that makes you feel the need for a restorative nap. Sometimes it is a warning that we are living always strained, with the backlog, and it invites us to sleep an extra compensator through which we can recover a tonic state. For most people, the day following a day of fasting is super tonic; the body purified, rested and refreshed from this calm widespreads fluency at full speed again ... It's up to you and then find a way to try this experience that thousands of Christians have discovered. It is not just a physiologically healthy experience. Fasting is primarily a spiritual function, which is based on physiological bases. This deprivation digs and arouses a certain appetite that can be oriented toward hunger and thirst for God Himself. It makes you find time and availability for prayer and charity.
Peace Reconciliation
This set of well-coordinated, return to God through faith, conversion, prayer and fasting leads to reconciliation and peace: keywords of the message of Medjugorje.
- Peace, peace, peace! Only peace! - The Lady repeats to Marija that day, showing the cross of Christ. And She states:
- Make peace with God and among yourselves
Each apparition ends with this goodbye full of meaning: Go in the peace of God.
The root of all divisions is the rupture with God. It's why we are often torn in ourselves and shared with others. Back to God our Creator and our Savior, is to rediscover our inner unity and our ability to reconcile others. This may be a matter of breadth. Often tenacious grudges lurk in us. We must ask God in prayer, the healing of our memory. It's a great gift and a spiritual liberation, which allows us to pray for those who willingly want to hurt us, to "love our enemies", as the Gospel says. We must also learn to see the good and excuse evil, in those who commit it. According to the Gospel, this is justice: the mote and the beam. It is also a secret of spiritual power, because the only remedy to evil is love. Only by relying on their gifts and qualities people can overcome their shortcomings, which are primarily faults and failures. Do not put the cart before the horse to be able to reconcile the others, we must first be reconciled to ourselves and to be reconciled with themselves, must be reconciled with God that will regenerate our strength and our unity by the one source, creator of our own freedom. This is the experience in Medjugorje.
This is all just a reminder from the Gospel. Our Lady came to remind it in our deaf ears. It's a secret of good and happiness. It's the secret of all healings and it is an emergency, in an age in which sin - this disease - increases the physical and spiritual death. This path of truth is profoundly effective. The return of so many Christians to prayer, conversion, fasting, delayed the calamities that threaten the world, has mitigated the seventh secret about a cataclysm not yet revealed, as claimed by the visionaries. This is the reason why the serious message of Medjugorje is not dramatic. The visionaries are uncertain between two assertions, perhaps complementary to each other:
- The punishments are (in part) inevitable
- Fasting and prayer can avert war and disaster
The important thing is beyond this ambiguity. For those who come in the ways of God, all things work for good (Rom 8:28) and everything will end well. The visionaries have understood that there is nothing to fear. Mary recalls these urgent needs of our world in danger. From her we had the good news of the birth of Jesus, the Son of God as her son (Lk 1,28-35), and then one of us, our brother. Through the Mother - the Mother of God and our Mother - the Divine love has entered our world in the human race. Through this birth, humanity has become virtually an extension of the body of Christ and the Trinity. Eternal love company. With his faith, the Virgin Mary tenderly formed the physical body of Christ and at the same time he founded his mystical body, which had become the first member. Today She comes to remind us of this good news for a severe time: before it comes and to not make it become an hour of misfortune. Her appeal was heard in Jugoslavia, Italy, Austria, etc.. Less well in France, where the conspiracy of silence and many slanders is strongly rooted. However, in France, as elsewhere, the tree produces only good fruit, which effectively eliminates the threat of death, which we have been warned of. The future depends on us, it is our turn to act, it is up to us to choose between the disordered vanities that seduce us and God, between selfishness and love, between our little concerns and the future of humanity, between our elementary illusions and the eternal future of God
So the truth, who died in many hearts, will become a living truth: the truth that saves.
[René Laurentin]
