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Our Lady of Medjugorje Reflection on Our Lady's Message of July 25, 2001 Peace to All! Below
is the official English translation of the Reflection/Commentary on Our Lady's
monthly message of July 25, 2001 as provided by the Information Center in
Medjugorje. Looking
at Mary, we are encouraged by the hope that we shall also be there one
day, where she already is. She is our pride. One of us has arrived so
high! This is why we have to invoke Mary. Our devotion to Mary is
justified. This is what God desires, what Jesus encourages and what the
Church keeps and defends faithfully. Do not be afraid to take Mary by the
hand! Joseph was also afraid, but an angel appeared to him in his dream
and told him: "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary,
your wife, into your home. For it is through the Holy Spirit that this
child has been conceived in her." (Mt 1,20) Do not be afraid to take
Mary as your mother, your intercessor, your advocate and your friend,
because what happens in the Church, and in Medjugorje, comes from the Holy
Spirit. Let us learn from her how to pray, how to be freed from doubts,
complexes, addictions, sin, lukewarmness, and from a superficial
Christianity, a Christianity which begins and ends with the Sunday Mass.
Who loves Jesus will come to love Mary. Who turns to Mary will be led to
Jesus, because Mary has received a special charisma, the gift to lead us
to Jesus. Without Jesus, Mary is a simple woman, like all the other women
of the world. In Him and through Him, she is the Queen of the world and
the Queen of peace. Make
good use of the time of rest, Mary tells us, Mary, our Mother. We all want
to take rest; we all have right to take rest. We want to leave our daily
work, obligations and burdens. Maybe we do it, but we come back more tired
and more burdened. Our body cannot find rest if our soul is burdened, if
our conscience is stained and trampled down by sin, if we live in conflict
with our neighbour, if we carry within us the burden of unforgiveness and
of hatred, if we live unreconciled with ourselves, with God and with
others... Our body is tense, our blood pressure is high, and nervousness
and anguish dominate even our subconscience and take away our peace and
our rest. In
God alone I find peace for my soul, only in Him my hope and my salvation,
sings the psalmist. The most beautiful rest is in God, because in the end,
only God gives rest for the soul and for the body. We have to break
through to God, we have to strive to reach Him, we have to open our eyes.
This is why our Lady calls us: find peace in nature. The nature is the
book of God written by His own hand. May we know how to admire His works
and may we never cease to be astonished by the beauties which we find
within our reach. Let us recognize God in the smile of a child and in the
flight of a bird, in the murmur of the sea and in the high mountain. All
this speaks to us about Him. Nature
is not a work of men; this is why we have to explore it, to question it
and to admire it. When we cease to admire, we cease to live. When we say
to someone: "I know you!", we have ceased to explore, to admire
and to love this person. We have then not only killed this person within
ourselves, but we have also mutilated ourselves. But man and nature can
never be definitely explored, they are inexhaustible, as God is
inexhaustible in the richness of His peace and His love. Let
us listen to the voice of Our Lady within us. Let our eyes be opened to
the marvellous deeds of God, so that we may find rest for our souls and
for our bodies.
Each one
of us has omitted to complete and to develop something in his life's
knowledge and art. Often, we regret it, especially when it seems to us
that precisely this would have helped us in certain circumstances. What
mostly impedes the growth in diverse areas of life is the impossibility or
the lack of determination to start something from the beginning. Young
people and adults have some kind of fear, when they have to start
something almost from the beginning, especially in the area where we think
that we have learned how to do it. It is difficult to start from the
beginning even when we know that we can succeed only if we start from the
very beginning. All this
concerns also the religious knowledge and experience. To mend what we
already have acquired and lived creates an uneasiness in us. To start from
the very beginning in our religious practice is painful. What will be the
reaction of others? Will we succeed, will the
others understand it in the right way? Pilgrims
bear witness that in Medjugorje they make an exceptional experience, and
that - in their religious practice - sometimes they started some things
from the very beginning, sometimes from zero, and that this does not push
them away, but brings them closer to Medjugorje. Precisely this will
gather this year, in the beginning of August, thousands of young people.
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