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The shortness of Our Lady's message is very significant, indicative of the gravity of the situation in which we are at the present moment. Her short message centres on one word, expressing the greatest need for our time: peace. Our Lady is continuing the theme of her Christmas message, urging us again to do everything we can to become instruments of God's peace for our world which is without peace.

Through the media we hear every day about the possible war against a particular country and if the threat of war becomes a reality who knows what might follow. Wars can spread like wildfire in many different ways. Our Lady knows what is in waiting for us and she wants us to overcome the looming danger, not by ourselves, but in union with Jesus, her Son.

The signs at the beginning of the Third Millennium are very distressing indeed and Our lady urged us at the end of the Second Millennium that we should put Jesus, the Prince of Peace, in the first place in our lives.

Dear Children, This is a time of grace, My dear children, today in a special way with Little Jesus, whom I hold in my arms, I am making it possible for you to decide for peace. Through your 'yes' for peace and your decision for God, a new possibility for peace opened. Only in this way, my dear children, will this time, this coming century, be for you a time of peace and well being. Therefore, put little Jesus in the first place in your life and He will lead you on the way of salvation. Thank you for your response to my call (25 December 1999).

I do not wish to add too many words to my reflection. The urgency of Our Lady's call is clear. The question is what we should do now, not tomorrow or later. I just want to repeat what I wrote in my previous reflection: we must become peacemakers by following Our Lady's example of praying for the unbelievers with Mirjana Dragicevic and by placing our life in the hands of God as our life offering for the peace and salvation of the world. Jesus assured us that our prayer will be powerful and effective when we share our prayer in the family, in the prayer group, in the parish:

In truth I tell you once again, if two of you on earth agree to ask anything at all, it will be granted to you by my Father in heaven, for where two or three meet in my name, I am there among them. (Matthew 18: 19-20)

Life Offering

My dear Jesus, before the Holy Trinity, Our Heavenly Mother, and the whole heavenly court, United with the merits of your most precious Blood and of your sacrifice on Calvary, I hereby offer my whole life for the intentions of your Sacred Heart and of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Together with my life I place at your disposal all the Holy Masses, all my Holy Communions, all my good deeds, all my sacrifices and the sufferings of my entire life for the adoration and appeasement of the Holy Trinity, for unity in our Holy Mother the Church, for our Holy Father, bishops and priests, for priestly and religious vocations, and for all souls until the end of the world. O my Jesus, please accept my life-offering and give me your grace that I may persevere obediently until my death. Amen.

This prayer was given by Our Lady to Sr Dolores Krizsan, a Hungarian mystic, approved (Imprimatur) by Bishop Nandor Takacs of Szekesfehervar, Hungary, on 8th October 2000

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It was expected that Our Lady's messages would deal with the most urgent need of our time, avoiding war and making peace. It is significant that only a few days ago the Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, called on the whole Church to pray and fast for peace on Ash Wednesday, 5th March. It is wonderful to see how Our Lady, the Mother of the Church, wishes to add her own urgent call to all her special children to pray and fast for peace, and to stop the war which is threatening the peace of the world in these very days. She is asking us to pray intensely, from the heart, and to fast, not only one day, but every Wednesday and Friday, as she told us on 14th August 1984:

I would like to ask all the people to pray more and more with me these days. I would like them to fast strictly on Wednesdays and Fridays! Pray the whole Rosary every day, the Joyful, Sorrowful and Glorious Mysteries.

The Holy Rosary is the perfect prayer which we can pray with Our Lady.

It is not the first time for Our Lady to say that wars can be stopped by prayer and fasting. The first time she talked about this was as early as 21st July 1982.

The best fast is on bread and water. Through fasting and prayer one can stop wars, one can suspend the laws of nature. Charity cannot replace fasting. Those who are not able to fast can sometimes replace it with prayer, charity and penance; but everyone, except the sick, must fast.

We know only too well though the experiences of the past century that wars bring only destruction and loss of innocent lives by the thousands and create hatred which makes it very difficult if not impossible to bring peace to nations and communities in conflict. It is time that the nations of the world seek peace and reconciliation only by peaceful means and not by wars.

True peace is not simply cessation of war or fighting. It is a special gift of God enabling people to live in harmony, justice and good will with each other. However, we have to seek and pray from the heart for this gift of peace in order to receive it. Our Lord's words show us the way:

I say to you ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; everyone who searches finds; everyone who knocks will have the door opened.... You know how to give your children what is good, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him! (Luke 11: 9-13)

The secret of the power of prayer is the Holy Spirit. That is why Our Lady asked us so many times to open our hearts to the Holy Spirit like flowers in the spring to the sun. The Holy Spirit, the 'Giver of Life', is the giver of the gifts of peace, love, joy, and many other gifts. The Holy Spirit is also our strength enabling us to become effective witnesses to God's peace and to share this gift with others.

Our Lady is with us, interceding for all of us, so that the gift of peace may be nurtured in our hearts like a flower which is in need of water, tenderness and light. With her help, we shall be able to live peace and carry it to others. Such peace will overcome the threat of war and conflicts.

I conclude with the prayer for all nations and for the heads of nations to seek peace, a prayer which was given by Our Lady, the Lady of All Nations, to Ida Peerdeman, and approved by Bishop Victor Guazzeli, Westminster, on 24th September, 1970:

Lord Jesus Christ, son of the Father, send now your Spirit over the earth. Let the Holy Spirit live in the hearts of all nations, that they may be preserved from degeneration, disaster and war. May the Lady of All Nations, who once was Mary, be our Advocate. Amen.

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Our Lady is continuing to urge us to pray for peace, especially now when the war against Iraq is causing great consternation all over the world. Obviously Our Lady’s call last month to prayer and fasting did not bring about the prevention of the war. Perhaps we did not pray and fast enough. At least I can say this about myself. However, Our Lady is so gentle and loving in not rebuking her children for not making enough efforts in prayer and fasting.

In her present message Our Lady wants to make our prayer more effective by calling us to prayer with the heart which she has been teaching us during all these years. She is also encouraging us not to lose hope in view of the present situation in the world, because ‘God loves his creatures’ and He wants to save each one of us. Our Lady’s presence with us through Medjugorje for such a long time is ample evidence of God’s saving love for us through Mary.

We, however, have to respond to God’s love in a way that is possible for us, that is, praying with the heart and from the heart. During Lent there are great opportunities for us to pray with the heart as we contemplate the passion of Jesus and His infinite love by offering His life for our salvation. Contemplating the death and resurrection of Jesus will help us to believe that God can bring forth something good even from bad things, as Saint Paul remind us.

We are well aware that God works with those who love Him, those who have been called in accordance with his purpose, and turns everything to their good. (Romans 8:28)

Prayer of the heart is helping us to grow in holiness of life and we will be able to recognise more and more what God’s holy will is for each one of us and to live accordingly. This deep prayer will help us to realise that our way of life must be very different from the ways of the world and this is what Saint Paul had in mind when writing to the Christians living in pagan Rome:

Do not model your behaviour on the contemporary world, but let the renewing of your minds transform you, so that you may discern for yourselves what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and mature. (Romans 12:2)

Among the many messages of Our Lady about the prayer of the heart there is one which may underline Our Lady’s call in our present situation:

Dear Children, Today I am calling you to respond to my call to prayer. I wish, my dear children, that during this time you find a corner for personal prayer. I wish to lead you towards prayer of the heart. Only in this way will you understand that your life is empty without prayer. You will discover the meaning of your life when you discover God in prayer. For this reason, my dear children, open the door of your heart and you will understand that prayer is joy without which you cannot live. Thank you for your response to my call. (25 July, 1997)

So, let us respond to Our Lady’s loving message, so that our life may be filled with hope, with trust in God’s love, and not with despair in view of the situation in the world. The words of Jesus, spoken at the Last Supper, are addressed to us as well:

I have told you all this so that you may find peace in me. In the world you have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. (John 16: 33)

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What is the secret of effective prayer? Our Lady gives the answer in the next part of her message: Commit yourselves to God again so that in you and through you He may change the hearts of others as well as your own hearts. In other words, we must realise that on our own we are nothing. Every good in us and through us is possible only through God's working in us, as Jesus said at the Last Supper: I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, with me in him, bears fruit in plenty; for cut off from me you can do nothing (John 15:5). Our Lady has often urged us to surrender ourselves to Jesus completely:

Dear Children, Today I call you to unite with Jesus in prayer. Open your heart to Him and give Him everything that is in your heart: joys, sorrows and ills. May this be a time of grace for you. Pray, my dear children, and may every moment belong to Jesus. I am with you and I intercede for you. Thank you for your response to my call (25 March 2002).

Through such surrender of our lives to Jesus He will be able to work even miracles in us and through us, changing our hearts and the hearts of others.

Finally, Our Lady leads us to the great gift of the Easter Mystery, the gift of peace which is the greatest need in the world today. The coming of Jesus into our world was heralded by the angel announcing peace to all men of good will (cf. Luke 12:14). At His coming into the world as the Risen Lord, His first words were: Peace be with you (John 20:20), that peace about which he spoke at the Last Supper: Peace I bequeath to you, My own peace I give you, a peace which the world cannot give. This is My gift to you (John 14:27). This gift of Jesus will change the face of the earth through the power of the Holy Spirit who is given to everyone who opens his or her heart in prayer as the flower in spring to the sun.

To be carriers of the risen Jesus means to be witnesses to the Risen Lord by the way we live, full of living faith, trust and confidence in the Lord who has overcome the power of the evil one. In union with the Risen Lord, we too shall overcome the power of Satan, and will experience the joy, peace and love of Jesus which we can share with others. Our Lady explained this Easter Mystery in a beautiful message to Jelena on 21 April 1984:

Raise your hands; yearn for Jesus, because in His resurrection He wants to fill you with graces. Be enthusiastic about the resurrection. All of us in Heaven are happy, but we seek the joy of your hearts. My Son's gift and mine at this moment is this: you will be comforted in your trials; they will be easier for you because we will be close to you. If you listen to us, we will show you how to overcome them.

I am confident that the latest Encyclical Letter of the Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia (17 April, 2003) will help the whole Church to realise that the Holy Father's mind is entirely in union with the mind and heart of Our Lady when he writes:

Every commitment to holiness must draw the strength it needs from the Eucharistic mystery. In the Eucharist we have Jesus, we have his redemptive sacrifice, we have his resurrection, we have the gift of the Holy Spirit, we have adoration, obedience and the love of the Father.

In conclusion, Our Blessed Mother assures us of her presence with us and of her special love for us which are a beautiful encouragement to all of us to live her message to the full.

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Considering the great tensions in our world caused by natural catastrophes, diseases, terrorist actions and threats, one may have expected a stirring message from Our Lady, but she is a very compassionate mother who does not want to add to our anxieties and worries. She is continuing with determination to focus our attention on the priorities of our spiritual life in order to make us into effective instruments in God’s hands for the peace or the world.

The renewing of her call to prayer, for several months now, may prompt us to question whether we have responded to her messages. Our Lady is so anxious to help us to achieve a deep prayer life which will be the most important channel of God’s gifts to us for the good of the whole world.

Her call for personal prayer may mean a deeper relationship to the Holy Trinity, and this in turn will help us to grow in the prayer of the heart, the way Jesus and Mary prayed. Thinking of some practical ways, I feel that meditation on Holy Scripture could be most helpful, as Our Lady often asked us to do, whether through the mysteries of the Rosary, or by doing spiritual exercises as proposed in my two books, Living the Gospel with Our Lady, and Mary and Renewal, Our Lady’s School of Love.

As the Feast of Pentecost comes closer, Our Lady calls us to use this time for prayer to the Holy Spirit, especially through the Novena to the Holy Spirit beginning on the day following the Feast of the Ascension. This will enable us to grow indeed in the prayer of the heart. Those who receive the Medjugorje Herald will find in the May issue a beautiful set of prayers for the Novena.

Our Lady will intercede for us in this undertaking as she promised in her message and we should be always aware of her motherly love for us, being anxious to grow in holiness of life. This requires us to undergo conversion, change of heart, turning away from earthly attachments which hinder us from becoming a reflection of Jesus. In this undertaking we need again the grace of the Holy Spirit, as Our Lady told us five years ago:

Dear children, Today I call you to prepare yourselves for the coming of the Holy Spirit. My dear children, this is a time of grace and so, again, I call you to decide for God the Creator. Allow Him to transform and change you. Prepare your heart to listen to, and live everything that the Holy Spirit has in His plan for each one of you. My dear children, allow the Holy Spirit to lead you on the way of truth and salvation towards eternal life. Thank you for your response to my call. (25 May, 1998).

Conversion means not only the turning away from sin and earthly attachments, but also the willingness to serve in the Church by a life of love and service. Such conversion is not just a ‘once and for all’ event, but a continuing process of renewal, a daily conversion, as Our Lady told us in an earlier message:

Dear Children. Today I bless you with my motherly blessing and I am calling you all to conversion. I want every one of you to decide for a change of life and each of you to work more in the Church, not in word, not in thought, but by example, so that you life may be a joyful witnessing for Jesus. You cannot say that you are converted, because your life must become a daily conversion, In order to understand what you have to do, my little ones, pray, and God will grant you what you actually have to do and where you have to change. I am with you and I place you all under my mantle. Thank you for your response to my call. (25 February, 1993).

I am quoting Our Lady’s earlier messages because she can explain the various aspects of conversion and renewal so beautifully. Our Lady is leading us to become, through our personal conversion and renewal, effective witnesses to others, so that they too may come to experience the grace of renewal and joy in prayer. This is what she had in mind in her message three years ago:

Dear children, I rejoice with you and in this time of grace I call you to spiritual renewal. Pray, my dear children, that the Holy Spirit may come to dwell in you in fullness, so that you may be able to witness in joy to all those who are far from faith. Especially, my dear children, pray for the gifts of the Holy Spirit so that in the spirit of love every day and in every situation, you may be closer to your neighbour, and in wisdom and love you may overcome every difficulty. I am with you and I intercede for each of you before Jesus. Thank you for your response to my call. (25 May, 2000).

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On the 22nd anniversary of the apparitions of Our Lady, the Queen of Peace, at Medjugorje, it is most encouraging for us to hear in her message about her joy in calling us anew to live her messages. The reason for her joy is that many of her children are putting her messages into practice and are living by them. Such response on our part is helped by the knowledge that Our Lady is with us in a special way, praying for us and prompting us to do everything she is asking of us, out of love for her. Our Lady is so gracious in thanking us all who are trying to live by what she is saying to us. In particular she is joyful in seeing us opening our hearts to God through prayer, as she said in a Thursday message:

Dear Children, Today I thank you for the opening of your hearts. Joy overwhelms me for every heart that opens to God, especially in this parish. Rejoice with me! Pray all the prayers for the opening of sinful hearts. This is my desire. God wants this, too, through me. Thank you for your response to my call. (18 April 1985)

This message reminds us of Our Lady’s great desire to teach us to pray with the heart, so that by opening our hearts to God we may receive the Holy Spirit’s gifts of love, peace and joy, renewing us, transforming us, thus to become examples to others for their renewal, as Our Lady told us in her last monthly message.

This leads us to the next part of her message calling us to go further in living by her messages through greater enthusiasm and joy. This can happen only if prayer becomes indeed our daily practice, that is, our life becomes a life of prayer, opening ourselves to Our Lady’s love so that we can comprehend her messages with the heart, as she told us in another Thursday message:

Dear Children, Today I wish to give you my love. You don’t know, dear children, how great my love is and that is why you do not know how to accept it. I am showing my love in various ways, but you, dear children, do not seem to recognise it. You do not comprehend my words with your hearts. Therefore you do not understand my love. My dear children, take me into your lives and then you will be able to accept everything I am saying to you and whatever I am asking of you. Thank you for your response to my call. (22 May, 1986)

From a practical point of view Our Lady’s call to renew her messages means to take her messages, especially the Thursday messages, as our daily spiritual exercises, prayerfully reflecting on the corresponding scriptural passages as well.

I am ever grateful to our Lady for her message given a few days after the publication of my book Living the Gospel with Our Lady, in May 1991. This messages sums up all her messages and all that I have written about her messages: the message of peace, peace according to the Gospel of Jesus, peace in our hearts, with God, with our neighbour and in the whole world:

Dear Children, Today I invite all of you who have heard my message of peace to fulfil it in your lives in earnest and with love. There are many who think they are doing much by talking about the messages, but they do not live by them. I call you, dear children, to life and to a complete change of all that is negative in you so that everything may become a positive value in your life. Dear children, I am with you and I wish to help each of you to live and, by living, to bear witness to the Gospel. I am here, dear children, to help you and lead you to Heaven. There is a heavenly joy which you can experience even now. Thank you for your response to my call. (25 May, 1991)

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In her messages Our Lady is renewing her Immaculate Heart’s desire for us to experience her joy, peace and love through prayer, prayer of the heart, to enable us to share these gifts with others. In other words, Our Lady is teaching us about the ways and means of evangelising our world, which is without joy, peace and love.

Our Lady’s first call to us is to pray in such a way that prayer becomes a joy for us. Joy will open our hearts for the other gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit, peace and love (cf. Galatians 5:22). Joy in prayer will bring us closer and closer to Our Lady so that we will be anxious to do everything that she wants from us. Our Lady spoke about this in an earlier message:

‘Dear Children, Today again I am calling you to prayer, moreover to joyful prayer so that in these sorrowful days none of you feels sadness in prayer but a joyful encounter with your Creator. Pray, my dear children, so that you can be closer to me and understand – through prayer - what I want from you. I am with you and every day I am blessing you with my motherly blessing so that God may bestow upon you the abundance of his grace for your daily life. Give thanks to God for the gift of my being with you because, I tell you, this is a great grace. Thank you for your response to my call.’ (25 July 1992)

What is it that Our Lady wants to achieve with us and through us? She wants us to become instruments in her plan for the peace of the world, helping her Immaculate Heart to triumph over the Evil One, Satan, as she has promised in Fatima. Such commitment on our part requires our total dedication to her cause, offering prayers and sacrifices for her intention, as she explained in a message at the beginning of the war in former Yugoslavia:

‘Dear Children, My special call today is to invite you all to prayer and renunciation, for now – as never before – Satan wants to show the world his shameful face by which he wants to seduce as many people as possible on the way of death and sin. Therefore, dear children, help my Immaculate Heart to triumph in a sinful world. I beseech all of you to offer prayers and sacrifices for my intentions, so that I can present them to God for what is most necessary. Forget your own desires, dear children, and pray for what God desires instead. Thank you for your response to my call.’ (25 September 1991)

It is, therefore, very important that we all strive to experience joyful prayer which will change and transform us, to become witnesses to the Good News of Jesus, the Prince of Peace, in union with our Blessed Mother, by sharing God’s gifts of joy, peace and love with others. As we have reflected before, the best prayer of the heart is the Hoy Rosary. As we are meditating on the life of Jesus with our Blessed Mother, who is with us and intercedes for us, we enable Jesus to work in us and through us, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to bring about the reign of peace of Jesus in the hearts of all people.

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St Peter sums up the calling of Christians, the People of God, in these words: You are a chosen race, a kingdom of priests, a holy nation, a people to be a personal possession to sing the praises of God who called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light (1 Peter 2:9). Holiness of life to the praise and glory of God is the meaning of Christian living in this life and the next. In the present message of Our Lady we are asked to express this noble calling by giving thanks to God for all His graces enabling us to be holy and to become His possession, His children, for all eternity. Our Lady is calling us to give thanks to God also for His gifts through the beauties of nature created for our benefit.

During the holiday season, we have great opportunities to come closer to God by having more time for prayer and for admiring the beauty of His creation in the world of nature, as Our Lady told us in another message:

Dear Children, In this time of grace, I call you to come even closer to God through your personal prayer. Make good use of the time of rest and give your soul and your eyes rest in God. Find peace in nature and you will discover God the Creator to whom you will be able to give thanks for all creatures; then you will find joy in your heart. Thank you for your response to my call (20 July, 2001).

It is most surprising for me however that Our Lady gave her present message in the very month when, all over the world, especially in Europe, nature has shown its destructive forces. I have seen in my country, Hungary, what the extremely hot weather for several months without rain can do to the land, to crops, threatening the livelihood of many people. What was in the mind of Our Lady in giving us this message just at this moment in time? She mentioned not only the colour and beauty of nature, but also the signs, the warning signs, happening in nature. I think that she wanted to emphasise that God can be recognised through the beauty of His creation, as St Paul told us in his letter to the Romans (1:20), but there are other forces at work, trying to spoil God’s creation and we may see the connection between the natural disasters of our time and the destructive interference of human agencies in the environment, in the world of nature. Our Lady drew our attention some years ago to Satan’s efforts to destroy our world and nature: ...Satan is powerful and wants to destroy not only human life but also nature and the planet on which you live... (25 January, 1991). We know that man has powerful means at his disposal to destroy our world and Satan is working through human agencies.

In spite of all these disturbing events of nature in recent times, we must not lose sight of God’s intention with His creation and by giving time to prayer, unceasing prayer, prayer of the heart, we shall grow in holiness of life, coming closer and closer to God, recognising His loving providence by the beauties and blessings of nature and thus finding joy in them and in God, as Our Lady told us in another beautiful message:

Dear Children, I am calling you to give to God for all the gifts you have discovered in the course of your life and even for the least gift you have recognised. I give thanks with you and I want all of you to experience the joy of these gifts. It is my desire that God be everything for each one of you, and then, my dear children, you will be able to grow on the way of holiness. Thank you for your response to my call (25 September 1989).

Our Lady is with us as she has assured us in her message and she intercedes for each one of us, so that by experiencing the joy of God’s presence in our present life, we may look forward with great hope to sharing God’s joy forever.

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Our Lady’s message is indicating that after all these years we are still failing to understand what she really wants from us and with us. If we keep in mind her promise given at Fatima that ultimately her Immaculate Heart will triumph in this sinful world which gives itself over to Satan more and more, then we will understand that through her presence and messages at Medjugorje she wants all of us to help her in her great crusade for the salvation of the world so that the reign of the Sacred Heart of Jesus may be brought about, bringing peace, love and joy to all people. Our Lady has expressed her wish in a special way twelve years ago, at the beginning of the war in former Yugoslavia:

Dear Children, My special call today is to invite you all to prayer and self denial, for now – as never before – Satan wants to show the world his shameful face by which he wants to seduce as many people as possible on the way of death and sin. Therefore, dear children, help my Immaculate Heart to triumph in a sinful world. I beseech all of you to offer prayers and sacrifices for my intentions, so that I can present them to God for what is most necessary. Forget your own desires, dear children, and pray for what God desires instead. Thank you for your response to my call (25 September, 1991).

That is why she is calling us time and time again to come closer to her Immaculate Heart so that she can change our hearts to become like her heart, as she told us long ago in a Thursday message:

Dear Children, Today I am asking you to give me your heart so that I can change it to be like mine. You are wondering, dear children, why you are unable to do everything that I am telling you to do. You cannot because you have not given me your heart for me to change it. You are talking but not acting. I urge you to do whatever I tell you! Thank you for your response to my call (15 May, 1986).

Surely if we appreciate Our Lady’s desire to make our heart like hers, we will be very keen indeed to come closer and closer to her. This can happen only through deep prayer, prayer of the heart, which enables us to understand how much Our Lady loves us. This is what she told us in another beautiful message:

Dear Children, You are all my children, I love you. However, my dear children, you must not forget that without prayer you cannot be close to me. In these days, Satan wants to cause confusion in your hearts and in your families. My dear children, stand firm: do not allow him to direct you and your life. I love you and I intercede for you before God. My little ones, pray! Thank you for your response to my call (25 January, 1994).

By asking us to come closer to her heart, Our Lady’s main objective is to lead us closer to the Heart of Jesus, so that He may live and work in us, transforming us to His likeness, and thus we will become instruments in the hands of Jesus and Mary in bringing peace to others. ‘Through Mary to Jesus’ is the meaning of another beautiful message of Our Lady:

Dear Children, Today I call you to come closer to my Immaculate Heart. I call you to renew in your families the fervour of the first days when I called you to fasting, prayer and conversion. My dear children, you accepted my messages with open hearts, although you did not know what prayer was. Today I call you to pen yourselves completely to me so that I may transform you and lead you to the Heart of my Son, Jesus, so that He can fill you with His love. Only in this way, my dear children, will you find peace – the peace that only God gives you. Thank you for your response to my call (25 October, 1998).

Such deep union with Jesus was the experience of St Paul, and, I am sure, our Blessed Mother wants to lead us to the same experience. This is what St Paul wrote about it:

I have been crucified with Christ and yet I am alive; yet it is no longer I, but Christ living in me. The life that I am now living, subject to the limitation of human nature, I am living in faith, faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me (Galatians 2:20).

In conclusion, I propose to pray the following Act of Consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of May every day for at least a week.

Mary, our Mother, today we consecrate ourselves (and our family, parish, etc.) in a special way to your Immaculate Heart that through you – as you have requested – we may be consecrated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. By this act of consecration, we hope to live out, with you and through you, all the responsibilities we have as Christians through our Baptism and Confirmation. We acknowledge that Divine power, love and mercy come to us through your Immaculate Heart.

Therefore, we open ourselves completely to you action within us. Be a Mother to us, as you were to Jesus. Help us to live lives of daily prayer, love our brothers and sisters, and witness to the Gospel.

In union with the Sacred Heart of your Son, Jesus, in the power of the Holy Spirit, we praise and glorify God our Father for his great work in you.

Amen.

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After calling us to come closer to her heart in her last monthly message, Our Lady is calling us now to the most decisive step of our life: total consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and to her Immaculate Heart. Our Lady’s call to consecration at Fatima has been renewed several times in her messages at Medjugorje, especially in the one given 15 years ago, on 25th October 1998:

Dear children, my call that you live the messages which I am giving you is a daily one, especially, little children, because I want to draw you closer to the Heart of Jesus. Therefore, little children, I am calling you today to the prayer of Consecration to Jesus, my dear Son, so that each of your hearts may be His. And then I am calling you to Consecration to my Immaculate Heart. I want you to consecrate yourselves as persons, families, and parishes so that all belongs to God through my hands. Therefore, little children, pray that you may comprehend the greatness of this message which I am giving you. I do not want anything for myself, rather, all for the salvation of your souls. Satan is strong and, therefore, you, little children, by constant prayer press tightly to my motherly heart. Thank you for having responded to my call.

What is Our Lady’s purpose in calling us to such a total consecration of life?
Her first purpose, I believe, is to make our heart like her heart as I quoted from her message of 15th May 1986 in my previous reflection, to enable her to lead us to total conversion and holiness of life. Her ultimate wish is, of course, to lead us all to Heaven as she said in a beautiful Thursday message:

Dear children, today also, I invite you to dedicate your life to me with love in order that I may guide you with love. I love you with a special love, dear children, and I want to bring you to Heaven with God. I want you to comprehend that this life is very short in comparison with that in Heaven. Therefore, dear children, today decide anew for God. Only in that way can I show you how much you are beloved by me and how much I want all of you to be saved and be with me in Heaven. Thank you for your response to my call. ( 27th November, 1986)

Our Lady’s second and most important purpose in calling us to consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is that with her loving guidance and through the power of the Holy Spirit we will be a reflection of Jesus, filled with His love, so that we may become effective instruments of Christ’s peace in our sinful world, enabling Jesus and Mary to lead more and more souls, through us, to salvation. She told us about this in a message given on 25th April 1992:

I invite all of those who have said "yes" to me to renew their consecration to my Son, Jesus, and to His Heart and to me, so we can take you more intensely as instruments of Peace in this unpeaceful world.

Our Lady is suggesting a short and beautiful prayer to become effective instruments in helping Jesus and Mary to save souls:

I want to help Jesus and Mary that more and more brothers and sisters may come to know the way of holiness.

What else should we do besides total consecration of our lives to Jesus and Mary? What other means are at our disposal which can help us to be changed and transformed, to become effective instruments in the hands of Jesus and Mary, to become friends of Jesus? Our Lady gave the answer in a beautiful message on 25th September 1995:

Dear children, today I invite you to fall in love with the most Holy Sacrament of the Altar. Adore Him, little children, in your parishes, and in this way you will be united with the entire world. Jesus will become your Friend, and you will not talk of Him like someone whom you barely know. Unity with Him will be a joy for you, and you will become witnesses to Jesus' love, which He has for every creature. Little children, when you adore Jesus, you are also close to me. Thank you for having responded to my call.

Finally, I would to suggest making a Novena of the Prayer of Consecration which I gave in my last reflection, and making visits to the Blessed Sacrament as often as possible.

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As we enter the Advent season, preparing for the coming of Jesus into our lives in a special way through our Christmas celebrations, Our Lady is telling us that this special time is a great incentive to prayer. The principal objective of our prayer should be a deep desire that Jesus be born in all hearts, especially in those who do not know him.

In her school of prayer and love through Medjugorje, Our Lady’s wish is to mould us into the reflection of Jesus like light in the darkness so that other people may find Jesus through us, as she told us in a Thursday message:

Dear Children, I especially desire that you all be the reflection of Jesus which will enlighten this unfaithful world walking in darkness. I want you to be light for everyone and to bear witness to the Light. My dear children, you are not called to the darkness, you are called to the light. So let your life be lived in light. Thank you for your response to my call. (5 June 1986)

To be the reflection of Jesus means holiness of life, in perfect union with Jesus for which Our Lady has been preparing us through the previous two monthly messages by asking us to consecrate ourselves to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and to her Immaculate Heart. Such holiness of life is the way for Jesus to be born in our hearts, a great mystery indeed, and Our Lady spoke about her involvement in this mystery in another message:

‘As I bore Jesus in my womb, so, dear children, I wish to give birth to you into holiness.’ (March 1990)

The Advent season offers us special ways and means to open our hearts to the gift of deep prayer enabling Jesus to be born in us, as Our Lady told us in another November message:

Dear Children, Today again I am calling you to prayer, so that through prayer, fasting and small sacrifices you may prepare yourselves for the coming of Jesus. May this time, my dear children, be a time of grace for you. Make use of every moment and do good, for only in this way will you experience the birth of Jesus in your hearts. If you give example by your life and become a sign of God’s love, joy will prevail in the hearts of all. Thank you for your response to my call. (25 November 1996)

Our prayer during the Advent season, strengthened by fasting and sacrifices, works of mercy, repentance and self-denial, can truly become the prayer of the heart, open for Jesus to be born in our hearts, and we shall become love, joy and peace of Jesus to touch the hearts of others, especially the hearts of those who do not know Jesus.

Our Lady’s first message at Medjugorje on 26th June 1981 stated her great plan for the salvation of the world:

‘I want to be with you to convert and reconcile the whole world.’

All these years she has been preparing us to become effective instruments in her hands so that people may recognise Jesus and Our Lady in us, as she said on 25th May 1996:

Dear Children, Today I wish to thank you for all your prayers and sacrifices that you have offered to me this month which is dedicated to me. My dear children, it is also my wish that you all be active during this time which in a special way in linked up with Heaven through me. Pray in order to understand that you all, through your life and example, need to work on spreading salvation. My little ones, I wish that all people become converted and recognise my Son, Jesus, and myself in you. I will intercede for you and help you to be the light. Help others, because by helping them your soul too will find salvation. Thank you for your response to my call.

We are not alone; Our Blessed Mother is with us, helping us and interceding before God fore each one of us. What is it that is holding us back?

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As we are celebrating the birth of Jesus in the Christmas season Our Lady is indicating her special involvement in our celebration by blessing us with Jesus in her arms, the King of Peace whom she wants to bring to us that He may grant us His peace. Our Lady does not wish to repeat her previous Christmas messages, but we should keep in mind her great concern for peace in the world which is threatened by many conflicts. She has concern for our role also as instruments and channels of peace, as she told us a year ago:

Dear Children,
This is a time of great graces, but also a time of great trials for all those who desire to follow the way of peace. Because of that, little children, again I call you to pray, pray, pray, not with words but with the heart. Live my messages and be converted. Be conscious of this gift that God has permitted me to be with you, especially today when in my arms I have little Jesus - the King of Peace. I desire to give you peace, and that you carry it in your hearts and give it to others until God's peace begins to rule the world. Thank you for having responded to my call.

We should also always keep in mind her first apparition at Medjugorje, on 24th June 1981, holding the little Jesus in her arms, unveiling Him to the visionaries, indicating that she, the Queen of Peace, wants with our help to reveal Jesus as the King of Peace in a new way in our world, to bring about the reign of Christ in all hearts.

To become instruments of Christ’s peace means for us to live a life of prayer and love, as Our Lady has been training us all these years in her school of prayer and love. We often refer to Christmas as the festival of love, and that is what Our Lady had in mind in her Christmas message of two years ago:

Dear Children,
I call you today and encourage you to prayer for peace. Especially today, carrying the newborn Jesus in my arms for you, I call you to unite with Him through prayer and to become a sign to this peaceless world. Encourage each other, little children, to prayer and love. May your faith be an encouragement to others to believe and to love more. I bless you all and call you to be closer to my heart and to the heart of little Jesus. Thank you for having responded to my call.

Through a life of deep prayer the presence of the Holy Trinity is being effected in our hearts: the Father with caring love, the Son with sacrificial love, and the Holy Spirit with powerful enlightening love, bringing forth the gifts of love, joy and peace that we can share with others.

Our Lady assures us that she is with us and that she loves us very much. When we are loved so much, surely we want to live up to that love.

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