Stay Persistent in Prayer

Stay Persistent in Prayer

Medjugorje – May 11, 2010 A.D.

Marijana Vasilj

Marijana Vasilj, one of the two interior locutionists from Medjugorje.

Hello, I am Marijana Vasilj, Jelena and myself received interior locutions from Our Lady. Jelena first received these locutions when she was in school. Jelena heard an inner voice which she believed to be the voice of an angel. The angel spoke to her again and told her to prepare herself for more than three years, during which she would pray to hear the voice of Our Lady. In December 1982 was the first time she heard the words of Our Lady. The first message she received from Our Lady was an invitation to prayer. Our Lady also told her to find others who were willing to pray together with her. At the very beginning, there were 60 of us; they were Jelena’s relatives and friends who started praying together on a daily basis. I first heard the voice of Our Lady in March of 1983. These apparitions we have are completely different than those the visionaries have, in that we are not able to see Her physically as visionaries do, we are only able to hear the voice of Our Lady. We say that this is an inner-voice, but of course, we cannot compare it with our own voice. We compare it with our inner-voice, something which comes from our heart. We can compare this voice with the voice of our conscience, but we cannot control this voice, and we can only hear it when we pray. In the moments when Our Lady was talking to us, we were not in ecstasy as the visionaries are when She talks to them, but during these moments when Our Lady talked to us, we felt an inner peace, an inner joy.

About the messages Our Lady gave to me and to Jelena, the messages are the same as the messages Our Lady gives to the visionaries, but, of course, Our Lady has never spoken to us about the secrets and the future of the world. The largest number of messages we received from Our Lady were the messages for our prayer group. One of the first messages of Our Lady, actually, it was Her desire to form the prayer group of young people here in our parish of Medjugorje. Jelena gave this message to the priests here in the parish, and together with one priest, we formed the prayer group, which at the beginning had about 60 young men and women. At the very beginning, Our Lady gave a special condition for these young people who entered the prayer group. That condition was that nobody leave Medjugorje for the next four years. She wanted them to remain here in Medjugorje until they received here a special call of what they should do with their lives in the future. After that, Our Lady gave a period of one month for us to pray and to meditate, so that we could decide whether we could fulfill Her condition to stay for four years in Medjugorje. After that month, about 20 young people left the prayer group because they were not able to fulfill this desire of Our Lady. Forty of us started the way on which Our Lady was leading us.

At the very beginning, when the prayer group was formed, Our Lady asked us to have meetings once a week. Then, as time went by, She asked us to have prayer meetings twice and then three times a week. Also, we were told by Our Lady that we were to pray by ourselves, and also to pray in our families. Our Lady said that the most important prayer group, at the base of our prayer groups, is our family. Within our prayer group, Our Lady was giving us instructions of what and how we were going to pray. The prayers Our Lady asked us to pray were the holy rosary, spontaneous prayers, reading of the Holy Bible, meditation, and seven Our Father’s, Hail Mary’s and Glory Be’s after Mass; and She wanted us to discuss the messages She was giving to us, and to share the experiences we had. In a special way, Our Lady invited us to pray spontaneous prayers, and She wanted every prayer meeting we had to start and to end with these spontaneous prayers. Our Lady said that prayer is not just an Our Father or Hail Mary and Glory Be, but She wanted us to speak from our heart, everything we carry in our heart, to express this in these spontaneous prayers. Our Lady has said that these spontaneous prayers would help us to open our hearts easier to prayer. At the very beginning, Our Lady asked us to pray for our needs and at the end to thank Her with our prayers. Our Lady often said that very rarely we give thanks to God for everything He provides us, and She wanted us to say these prayers of thanksgiving.

During the four years we spent together in the prayer group, along with the messages of Our Lady, those four years were the school of prayer for us. This wasn’t school just for those four years, but for our entire life. From all those messages Our Lady gave to our prayer group, I can tell you that Our Lady wanted to teach us that prayer becomes part of us and that prayer becomes part of our life. After those four years, Our Lady said that whoever wanted to leave or whoever felt or received an inner call in their hearts, they were free to leave the prayer group. Then, half of the young people left the prayer group and half of us continued to pray together. After this original prayer group, Our Lady invited all of us pilgrims, especially young people. She invited them in a special way to form prayer groups and also to belong to prayer groups.

Today, after almost 30 years of apparitions of Our Lady, there are many prayer groups who have formed all over the world, and Our Lady said that She was very happy because of these prayer groups which exist all over the world. She also invited us all to stay persistent in prayer. In the messages that Our Lady gave to me and to Jelena, Our Lady always said that She is happy because of all those people who have come here to Medjugorje, and in a special way, She is happier because of those people who have changed their way of their life here in Medjugorje.

Our Lady invites all of you pilgrims not to end your pilgrimage here, but the most important thing for you is that you continue your pilgrimage back at your homes together with your friends and your families, with all of these things you have learned and accepted here in Medjugorje. Our Lady also invites all of you, that with your lives, you become examples to other people, especially those people who do not pray, who do not believe. Our Lady said, “I came to Medjugorje not only because of Medjugorje, I came because of the entire world.” Our Lady wants to save us all and She wants to help us all on our way of conversion, but also She wants us to have our hearts open. The only way we can open our hearts is through the prayer we say everyday and with the joy of prayer; which means that we have to put prayer in the very first place in our lives. Our Lady said that all of us should understand that prayer is not something that we must do, but that it is something that we need to do. It is a necessity. Only through prayer and with prayer, can God give us inner peace; peace in our hearts, and that is what all of us are seeking. Our Lady said that prayer is the only thing which can change our heart, which can change our families; prayer is the only thing which can change the situation in the entire world. Also, Our Lady invites us to pray with faith, not just to repeat the words mechanically, but to pray with faith. If we look back at all the messages that Our Lady gave to all of us in these almost 30 years, we can tell that the first and last message that Our Lady gave is an invitation to prayer. Pilgrims ask us very often, why Our Lady has been repeating this invitation to prayer, why She does not give new messages. Our Lady said, I did not come here to give you something new, but I came here as a mother to help you on your way of conversion. We can do that only if we surrender ourselves completely to God, if prayer becomes part of our life, as Our Lady told us in the prayer group. Many times, through Her messages, Our Lady mentioned the time of grace and She has said that She invites us to convert in this time of grace, because one day when the apparitions are over, it will be too late. And to you pilgrims, Our Lady said that you did not come to Medjugorje by coincidence, but that all of you are invited by Her to come here. For each one of you, it is important that you open your heart to prayer so that through prayer you can find out why you were invited to Medjugorje. Our Lady said that through Medjugorje, that through Her apparitions and messages, She desires to change the entire world, and She wants to help us on our way of conversion, and of course all of us can help Our Lady with our prayers. The first thing we have to change is our hearts, and with that slowly we will change our families, and with that we are going to change the entire world. This is the most important of what Our Lady gave to us that I desire to share with you.

– Marijana Vasilj

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9 thoughts on “Stay Persistent in Prayer”

  1. Dear Mother, I love you sooo much…..I am praying from today onwards that one day I will be able to see you.You know mother how much I love you

  2. Dear,Holy Mother I love you so much thanks for what you are doing for us,thanks for our faith,and you changed my life i have only one wish in my life and it is to see you and your son i know someday i will see you and hug you you are so great,please complete fight against satana i will pray with you to destroy him

  3. alicia monica

    Dear Gospa!!! I love so much!!! Thanks because You give me Jesus, because You ask me to pray with love, because you care us so much! Jesus, Mary I love you, save our souls! Holy Spirit came to our seak world! God bless Pope and priests. with love from argentina to United States, alicia

  4. Thank you Caritas. This was lovely. It as been a while since I read about Our Lady’s formation of the prayer group. There is a lot for me to reflect on. However what facinated me was Marijana’s discription of Our Lady’s communications as an “inner-voice which comes from the heart, is like the conscience, can only be experenced while praying and brings an inner peace and inner joy.” Thank you.

  5. Thank you Caritas. This was lovely. It as been a while since I read about Our Lady’s formation of the prayer group. There is a lot for me to reflect on. However what facinated me was Marijana’s discription of Our Lady’s communications as an “inner-voice which comes from the heart, is like the conscience, can only be experenced while praying and brings an inner peace and inner joy.” Thank you.

  6. Prayer is the answer. I was blessed greatly and thank God for allowing me to go to Medjugorje in October last year. We must live the messages and only through prayer can we find the answers. I have been given many graces and I pray God will give me all the graces I need to do his will. In Prayer, Connie

  7. Dear Lady, take us into your school of prayer. Mold our hearts so that they will be praying hearts. Shape our mind so that we will only decide to do God’s will, and then take our hands and feet to do Your Son’s work here and now. Amen.

  8. Dear Lady, take us into your school of prayer. Mold our hearts so that they will be praying hearts. Shape our mind so that we will only decide to do God’s will, and then take our hands and feet to do Your Son’s work here and now. Amen.

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