Our Lady of Medjugorje

Reflection on Our Lady's Message of June 25, 2001

Peace to All! Below is the official English translation of the Reflection/Commentary on Our Lady's monthly message of June 25, 2001 as provided by the Information Center in Medjugorje.
1. Fra Ljubo Kurtovic ---- 2. Fra Ivan Landeka

"Dear children! I am with you and I bless you all with my motherly blessing. Especially today when God gives you abundant graces, pray and seek God through me. God gives you great graces, that is why, little children, make good use of this time of grace and come closer to my heart so that I can lead you to my Son Jesus. Thank you for having responded to my call." 

I am with you:  Everyone finds it difficult to express, to describe, to put into words his spiritual experience, his love. Words are too poor to express the inexpressible, to describe the indescribable. It is the same with the words of Our Lady's messages. They may seem to us too poor and too simple. The same word, expressed by different lips, does not have the same meaning. The newness of Our Lady's apparitions is not so much in Her messages, but in Her strong presence, which can be felt. He motherly heart is open and everyone can take and drink, as from an inexhaustible fount of love and of grace, which overflows on all men.

Also in this message, Our Lady tells us: I am with you! She wants to say: Do not be afraid, I am with you, but you also, be with me! Where Mary is, there is the Lord. To Mary, who mediates the supreme realisation of God's presence in history, the angel says: "The Lord is with you!" The power of the Most High reposes on Her. For so many years, She transmits today this strength and this power of grace. A mother cannot abandon her children, cannot deny them, as disobedient and as stubborn they may be. In Medjugorje, Our Lady gives us not only Her words, but also Herself, Her person. Through Her, we come more easily to God.

She tells us that we live in a time of grace, when God is particularly inclined to men. In Jesus Christ, God totally approached men. In our days, through Mary, He comes close to us. Mary reflects the face of God and manifests the truth of Jesus' words: "For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." (Mk 10,45) In our times, Jesus never stops to do the same. The apparitions of Our Lady, and all the graces, are a gift and a sign that God serves man and does not cease to love him. The love of God is inventive; it finds means and ways to the human heart.

God did not want to help man without man. He chose Mary, one of us, one of our human race. This is why we can be proud, because in Her, we have the full realisation of what God wants for each one of us. He came to men through Mary. He needed a heart to say Yes, a heart to believe. Through Mary, He comes to us today. This is why Mary gives Herself as a mediator to lead us to Her Son Jesus, our Saviour.

In life, we need the other. We would not be here, if there were not those who welcomed us, who loved us, who educated us. In the life of faith, we need the other to encourage us, to guide us and to lift us up. We all need models, ideals, people with a magnanimous spirit who will wake us up from our spiritual stupor, our dissatisfaction, our moodiness. We need persons to identify with, as children identify themselves with their parents, and say: "I want to be like dad, like mum." Children need that and, if they do not have good models in their parents with whom they are physically and spiritually most intimately linked, they will have many difficulties to develop into healthy human beings, able to face life. Mary gives Herself to us as a perfect mother, in whom we can recognize what we need the most.

Human beings grow with the model, which stands before them. Our Lady offers us the immaculate ideal of Christ, God-Man. She calls each one of us to follow Him and to learn from Him, in order to grow into the fullness of our own perfection.

Today, other values, ideals and models are offered to us. Today, the sense of sin is lost more and more and, consequently, the knowledge of the real cause of injustice, evil, exploitation, dissatisfaction, divorce, infidelity and the sufferings men inflict upon men. We cannot cheat our own soul. Nothing and no one can feed and satisfy it except the living God.

Let us hear the call of the motherly heart, let us take seriously Her words, which lead us to Jesus Christ.

Fra Ljubo Kurtovic Medjugorje, June 26, 2001

PRIESTHOOD

One of the frequent themes treated in our time is the priesthood. In western Church, the most frequent topic is the permanent lack of priests and the role of the laity. In the countries of the Third World and in mission countries, two questions attract attention: the joy of seeing more and more young people embracing the priesthood, and the question of the sincerity of their motives. 

One often speaks about the new type of priest needed for actual circumstances of our times and of the Church. Some problems of priestly life are becoming more and more often the topic of open discussions in the Church and in the world, as well as the behaviour of certain priests, which scandalizes the Christian community. When the question of priesthood arises, one mainly speaks about the mission, the formation, the place and the role in the Church and about celibacy. But there is one theme, the foundation for all, which is not treated: it is the religious and the spiritual experience, as the foundation of the priestly mission. If this experience is lacking, if it is not growing and developing, the priest and the community to which he is sent are being deprived of the entire announcing of the Gospel. 

Many priests I have met and I meet in Medjugorje do not conceive their coming only as accompanying the pilgrims. They want to get and to complete their religious experience. This is what attracts them every year in growing numbers to the Priest Retreat around the Queen of Peace.

Fra Ivan Landeka