“To be everyday in this light of Heaven…” Ivan speaks

Thursday June 7, 2007 

W
e hope to do more to bring the love of Our Lady to you. Through mej.com, we hope to give you more of the following. Below is a talk of the visionary Ivan in Medjugorje recently. The fresh words of the visionaries always refreshes the soul, brings renewal and strength to hearts. The life Our Lady desires is of peace and holiness. Read the following talk given May 25, 07 and go to Medjugorje. It is not too late to even go on the Anniversary, June 25, 2007. (click for pilgrimages)

In the love of the Two Hearts,

At the beginning of this meeting, I would like to greet all of you from the bottom of my heart. It is my desire to use this rather short time with you and share with you the most important messages of Our Lady that She has been giving us. Probably you know that, in all these almost 26 years of apparitions, Our Lady has been giving us many, many messages. In this rather short time, it is very hard to talk about so many messages. Today is May the 25th, the day when Our Lady gives the monthly message, and tonight we are going to receive a new message. But I would like to concentrate on the most important things. I would like to talk to you in a very simple way, in the way that Our Lady talks to me. Our Lady talks really very simply.

So as I said, it is almost 26 years since Our Lady has knocked on the door of my heart. She has chosen me to be the “means” of Hers – to be the instrument in Her and God’s hands. For me and for my life this is a great gift. At the same time, it is a great responsibility. I know that God corrected me a lot, but I’m aware that He is expecting a lot from me. You know that rule: if God gave you a lot, He will ask a lot from you. But believe me, it’s not easy. It’s not that simple to be with Our Lady everyday, to be everyday in this light of Heaven and after this divine meeting to come back to earth and live a normal life. If you would be able to see Our Lady just for a second, just one second and not more, I don’t know if the life on earth, your own life on earth would be interesting anymore. After every meeting with Our Lady, I need a few hours to get back to normal, to be able to live on earth, let’s say, as normal as possible. To be with Our Lady in all these 26 years means to be in Her school. It is the school of peace, the school of love, the school of prayer. In 1981, I was a child. I was only 16 years old. Until that age of 16, I had never dreamt about the possibility that Our Lady could appear. I was a traditional believer. I used to go to the church. I prayed with my parents, but I never had any special devotion to the Blessed Mother. The beginning of the apparitions was a great surprise for me. At the beginning of the apparitions, even on the second and third days, we had asked Our Lady who She was, and She replied, “I am the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of Peace. I come, dear children, because my Son sent Me here in order to help you. Dear children, peace, peace, peace. May the peace reign all over the world. Dear children, peace must be between men and God and between the people themselves. Dear children, this world, this humanity, is in a very difficult situation and it could get to the point of destroying itself.” These were the first words that Our Lady was spreading through us to the whole world.
 

Ivan shares with a standing room only crowd some of the lessons he has learned in the almost 26 years of attending “Our Lady’s School of Holiness” in Medjugorje. As he said, in “this” school there are no weekends and no days off. Everyday there are lessons to learn.

 

If we look a little better to these messages, especially at this time that we live now, don’t we recognize many signs? After 26 years, in the time that we have today, Mother still comes to us. Mother comes because Her Son sent Her here to help us. Is there anyone who knows better than the Mother how much this world needs peace? How much peace is needed for the families that are tired, for the young people, for today’s Church? Mother comes to us because She wants to help us. She wants to emphasize what is wrong. She wants to encourage us. She wants to call for us, to console us and She wants to lead us towards peace, towards Her own Son. Our Lady says, “Dear children, today more than ever before, the world is going through a very difficult crisis and the gravest crisis is the crisis of the faith in God. Because you have grown distant from God, dear children, today’s world, today’s mankind is walking to the future without God. Dear children, in your families prayer has disappeared.”

The parents don’t pray with their children anymore. There is no more love in the family. There is no more fidelity in the marriages. There are so many broken families, families that are tired, families without love, harmony, and unity. Parents and children are not united. They’ve become very distant from each other. And it comes through the destruction of morality. There are so many abortions today, and the Mother is weeping because of them. Mother comes to us. Mother wants to take us out of this darkness. She wants to bring us to the way of Light, to the way of Hope. Blessed Mother says, “Dear children, if there is no peace in the human heart, if one doesn’t have peace within himself, if there is no peace in the family. Dear children, there can not be any peace in the world. Therefore, I invite you, no, do not talk about peace, but start living peace. No, do not talk about prayer, but start living prayer. Dear children, only if you bring the peace and the prayer back into your families, your families can be spiritually healed. Today’s world, today’s families need to be spiritually cured. Today’s world, dear children, is spiritually sick.”

Today’s world thinks that the world should be based on material things. But Our Lady says, “No, dear children, place God in the first place in your lives and walk together with Him to a better future.” There cannot be any physical healing of a person or of mankind if there is no spiritual healing. We have to be spiritually healed first. Mother comes to us. Mother comes bringing the Divine medicine to us. It is the medicine for us and our pain. She wants to cure our pain. She wants to lift up this sinful humanity. She is the Mother who is concerned about our own salvation. That’s why She says, “Dear children, I am with you. I come to you because I want to help you to receive peace. But, dear children, I do need you. Only with you I can achieve peace. Therefore, dear children, decide for good and fight against evil, and against sin.” Mother talks in a very simple way. Mother keeps repeating. She never gets tired. Like all of you earthly mothers, how many times have you had to say to your children to behave well, to study, to work, to obey? Probably thousands and thousands of times. Did you get tired? I don’t think you did. There is no mother today that could say that she was so lucky that she was able to say to her own child just one certain thing and it was not necessary to repeat again because the child started to listen. There is no such a mother. Every mother has to repeat to her children. Mother has to repeat so that Her children don’t forget. Mother did not come here to bring any fears, to criticize us. Mother did not come here to tell us about the end of the world or about the second coming of Jesus. Mother comes as a Mother of hope.

Mother wants to bring hope to this mankind, to bring hope to the Church, hope to the family. Our Lady says, “Dear children, if you are strong, the Church will be strong. If you are weak, the Church will be weak. You are the living Church. You are the life of the Church. And, dear children, I invite you to return prayer to the family. May your families become prayer groups.” There is no living Church without living families. There is no call to the priesthood, no vocations in the Church if there is no family prayer. In the family, God comes to call and He invites. This is where the priests are born. Our Lady is inviting us in a special way to attend the Holy Mass. Mass should become the center of our lives. During one apparition, Our Lady talked to us. She said, “Dear children, if you would have the choice, choosing between attending the Holy Mass and coming to me to have the apparition, no, do not come to the apparition, but go to the church and attend Holy Mass, because to go to the Holy Mass means to receive Jesus as He is given to you in the Holy Mass – to be dedicated to Him, to be open to Him and to receive Him.”

Our Lady invited us to have monthly confession, Adoration of the Cross and Adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament, to pray the Holy Rosary in our families, to read the Holy Scripture in the family. In one of Her messages, Our Lady said, “Dear children, may the Bible be in a visible place in your families and read the Holy Scriptures because if you read the Holy Scriptures, Jesus will be reborn in your hearts. Forgive each other, love each other.” And in one message Our Lady said, “Dear children, if you knew how much I love you, you would cry out of joy.” The Mother’s love is enormous. All of Her messages that She has been giving to us in these 26 years are the messages for the whole world. These are messages given to all of Her children. There is no one single message for one country or one nationality individually. If you follow the messages and live them, you will notice that at the beginning of these messages Our Lady said the first words, “Dear children,” because She is Mother, because She loves us all. We are all so important to Her. There are no abandoned children by Our Lady. She doesn’t look what color of skin we are. She has never said, my dear Croatian people, or my dear Americans, or Irish, but She started, my dear children, because She is Mother.

One of the messages that Our Lady has been repeating really for a long time is the message that talks about prayer with the heart. So many times Our Lady repeated, “Pray, pray, pray.” Not to pray with lips, not to pray mechanically, not to pray out of tradition or habit, but make a decision for prayer. Pray with love and out of love. Pray with your entire being so that our prayer, the words of prayer we are saying, may become a meeting with Jesus, our conversation with Jesus, our relaxation with Him. And after the prayer, we should really feel the joy and peace. I’m sure many of you will say, how is that possible? How is it possible to be well concentrated while we are praying? To give up disturbing thoughts and problems that are oppressing us? Our Lady knows that we are not perfect, but Our Lady invited us to start this school of prayer – to study everyday, to be persistent and patient. Our Lady wants from us to pray everyday for three hours. But She hasn’t said pray three hours now, just sit down and start. Our Lady hasn’t said the three hours should be just the Rosary prayers. Our Lady wants us, in three hours, to include the Holy Mass, reading of the Holy Scripture, the family prayer, to do good things to other people, to help other people, to have conversation in the family. This is the program that Our Lady wants us to accept.

I remember always one pilgrim who came to Medjugorje. This pilgrim had heard that Our Lady had requested three hours of prayer everyday. This person was not able to understand how is it that Our Lady was asking for three hours. She said, “Now it cannot be Our Lady, She could not ask for three hours.” And I said, “It was Her desire. This is what She recommends.” Then I explained what I just did to you, but it was not clear to her. So, a year later, the same pilgrim comes back to Medjugorje. She greeted me with the same words, with the same question. “Is it still three hours of prayer a day?” I said, “No, no it’s not three hours anymore. Its 24 hours a day!” And do you know what she said? “O.K. then I’ll stay with those three hours.” See how selfish we are in prayer? Our Lady is not so demanding. She asks from us as much as we can and live. Our Lady said, “Dear children, if you would like to attend the school of prayer, you will have to know that in this school there are no weekends, no days off. You have to attend the school of prayer everyday. And, dear children, if you would like to pray better, you have to pray more.” To pray more is always your personal decision. And to pray better it is always grace, grace given to those who pray more. Many times we can hear comments, “I don’t have time for prayer. We work a lot. We are very busy running around this and that. And when we get home from our work, we have to clean, do the laundry, to cook, we have to watch the television, we have to go shopping. We don’t have time for family or prayer and time is our problem, always.” But Our Lady says, “Dear children, time is not your problem. Love is your problem. If you, dear children, like or love something, you always find the time for it. But if you don’t like something, if you don’t love it, you will even not try to find the time for it.” That’s why Our Lady keeps repeating these words of prayer. She wants to wake us up in all these years from the spiritual coma. She wants to make us stronger in our prayer and our faith. Tonight, when Our Lady appears, I’m going to recommend all of you, all of your needs, your families, the sick people.

To describe the beauty of Our Lady it is very difficult using human words. You see this painting behind me. It is probably one of the closest descriptions/images of Our Lady. It’s not perfect. It’s not ideal, but it is probably one of the best. It is very, very difficult to describe the beauty of Our Lady. She has a gray dress, white veil, blue eyes, rosy cheeks, and dark hair. She’s floating on a cloud, and She has a crown of stars. But the beauty of Our Lady cannot be described with human words. I remember at the beginning, we asked Our Lady, “Mother, how is it that you are so beautiful?” And She replied, “Dear children, I am beautiful because I love. If you love, dear children, you will become beautiful.” I hope that we are going to respond to the call of Our Lady, that we are going to accept Her messages and be Her co-creators of a better new world – the world that is worthy of the children of God. May your coming here become the beginning of the spiritual retreat. When you get home, continue the spiritual renewal that comes with your families. Decide for good, for peace. Decide for God. My soul rests in God alone. May it be like that.
 

The above picture hangs in the large yellow building behind St. James Church in Medjugorje. Ivan refers to this picture in his talk. He said, even though it is not a perfect rendition of Our Lady, it is the closest resemblance of Her that he has seen. Though most images of Our Lady of Medjugorje show Her with Her arms stretched out in a beckoning attitude, the visionaries have said that Our Lady normally comes as She is pictured here, or with Her hands turned under, and arms outstretched to bless those who are in Her presence.

Why not make a spur of the moment decision and go to Medjugorje. Look at Our Lady’s face and think of the reasons why you need to go instead of reasons not to go. You will not regret it. Click here to read about going to Medjugorje.