Fr. Martin’s reflection on - Our Lady’s Message

25th September 2019

 

Our Lady of MedjugorjeDear children,  Today I am calling you to pray for my intentions so that I may help you. Little children, pray the Rosary and meditate the mysteries of the Rosary because, in your life, you are also passing through joys and sorrows. In this way, you are transforming the mysteries into your life, because life is a mystery until you place it into God's hands. 

In this way, you will have the experience of faith like Peter who met Jesus and the Holy Spirit filled his heart. Little children, you are also called to witness by living the love with which, day by day, God wraps you with my presence. Therefore, little children, be open and pray with the heart in faith. Thank you for having responded to my call.

 

 

 

Dear Brothers and Sisters of Medjugorje North East and beyond, Our Blessed Mother  Queen of Peace, Mother of the Church, accompanies us in these times with her maternal presence because she wants to help us. 

We are her, ‘Dear Children’ and so she begins this months message by asking us to pray for her intentions so that she may be able to help us.  Therefore, we can begin by asking ourselves how often we actually do take the time and effort to pray for Our Lady’s intentions, maybe by offering a Rosary for this, or Holy Mass, or an act of penance or sacrifice. In praying for her intentions, we co-operate with her, and are united in a spiritual bond.  How often has Our Lady told us she needs our co-operation in bringing about God’s plans.

“Little Children, pray the Rosary, and meditate the mysteries of the Rosary, because in your life you are passing through joys and sorrows.”

For the last three messages our Lady has specifically requested the prayer of the Rosary.  The very pattern of this Scriptural prayer is the pattern of our own lives too.  How many mysteries make up our own lives, events and happening’s that we don’t always understand.  We all have events of Joy, Sorrow, Glory and Light, Mary wants to accompany us in these moments like a Mother does with her children.  She tells us that we are ‘passing through’ these mysteries, so her presence with us is a consoling one of sharing. 

 

Our Lady, Mother and Teacher, asks us to ‘Meditate the mysteries’. To make time with Holy Scripture and pray the mysteries as if we were there at the scene.  To apply the ‘today’ of our lives with the mysteries of salvation. So the Rosary becomes the prayer of our Spirits, when like Christ on the Cross, we can humbly entrust everything into the Father’s hands.  “Because life is a mystery until you place it in God’s hands.”  So the Rosary is a powerful spiritual way to the Father’s heart, and our ultimate security.

In this way you will have the experience of Faith like Peter who met Jesus and the Holy Spirit filled his heart.”

 

Allow me to share with you an interesting experience I had in Medjugorje the very day 25th September 2019.  I had gone there with a small group of Priests and religious Sisters, from England, Ireland and America.  We spent a few days in prayer together. On this particular morning (25th September) we shared about the renewal of the priesthood and prayed for this too. We heard a talk on this theme.  A Priest stood up and shared with us his inspiration, that we all think about St. Peter, the humble fisherman of Galilee, the first Pope. He asked us to open our Bibles and look at the many events where Peter encounters Jesus Christ and is called to Faith. “This is the most important thing for all of us today to imitate the Faith of Peter, to remember his path to Faith.  How humbled we all were when that evening, we read Our Lady’s message mentioning the Faith of Peter and his experience of the Lord, so there is a really important lesson for all of us here.

Rarely has Our Lady ever mentioned anyone by name in all the apparitions. (except the biblical story of David and Goliath: 1984 ‘Here are your five stones against your Goliath.’ and ‘Slavko your brother’ in 2000.)

Our Lady wants us to recall the ‘faith experience’ of Peter when he was called by the Lord on the shores of Galilee: 

As he was walking by the lake of Galilee, he saw two brothers; Simon who was also called Peter, and his brother Andrew, they were making a cast in the lake for they were fishermen.  And he said to them, ‘Follow me and I will make you into fishers of men.’ And at once they left their nets and followed him.”

(Matt: 4:18-20) 

 

Let us remember also the event of the miraculous catch of fish.  When Jesus asks Peter to cast the net one more time, despite his weariness, Peter does so in humble obedience to the master’s request.  Even though this is in all contradiction to what experience tells him, Peter is guided by a sense of faith in the one who speaks.  He then falls to his knees and filled with holy fear he asks the Lord:

“Depart from me for I am a sinful man.” (LK:5:8) 

Peter is confident, Peter is humble, Peter knows the way of Faith.  It is he who on behalf of all the Apostles confesses the faith of the whole Church, when he looks into the eyes of Jesus of Nazareth and says: “You are the Christ the Son of the living God.”  ( Matt: 16:16)

After the Resurrection, Peter is the first to be filled with the Holy Spirit and preach fearlessly in calling all to repentance.  (Acts:1:15)  Peter is the living Pentecost, first among the twelve.  Here we must make a connection with Our Lady mentioning Peter, and the message of 25th June 2019: “Dear Children, I am preparing you for the new times, that you may be firm in Faith and persevering in Prayer. So that the Holy Spirit may work through you and renew the face of the earth. “

St. Peter was firm in Faith and persevering in prayer in the following of Our Lord.  Human and imperfect he was, Christ built his church upon his confession of Faith. 

The significance of Peter in this month’s message invites us all to a deeper trust and faith in Jesus and our love for him.  Let us also pray for the Church and love the Church more and more. 

 

The Church is a boat, amidst storms and tempests, but the Church is also a rock on which the waves break.  “When a true friendship with God is established, no storm can destroy it.”  (June 25th 1997) 

 

May that be our gift too, the gift of a strong and humble Faith, like St. Peter’s. “Cum Petro et sub Petro’ -With Peter and under Peter.

  

 

God Bless, Fr. Martin