The Love of a Simple Life – Condensed

[THEME MUSIC]

[NARRATOR]

“No one can serve two masters. He will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life– what you shall eat or drink– or about your body– what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?

 

“Look at the birds in the sky. They do not sow or reap. They gather nothing into barns, yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they? Can any of you, by worrying, add a single moment to your life span?

 

“Why are you anxious about clothes? Learn from the way the wildflowers grow. They do not work or spin. But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them. If God so clothes the grass of the field, which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will He not much more provide for you, oh you of little faith?

 

“So do not worry and say, what are we to eat? Or what shall we drink? Or what are we to wear? All these things the pagans seek. Your Heavenly Father knows that you need them all.

 

“But seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides. Do not worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for a day is its own evil.”

 

[THEME MUSIC]

[ANNOUNCER]

This is Mejanomics with a Friend of Medjugorje.

 

[COC]

Good evening, and welcome to Mejanomics with a Friend of Medjugorje, broadcasting from Caritas of Birmingham in Alabama.

 

Tonight’s broadcast is a little bit of a follow-up to last week’s broadcast of August 17, 2023. A Friend of Medjugorje and a special guest from Amish country discuss many things happening in the world, but particularly about the agrarian life. And that broadcast was titled, Agrarian is a Way of Life, and we encourage you, if you have not had a chance to listen to that yet, to go back immediately after listening to this, because these two broadcasts will go hand-in-hand.

 

Tonight’s broadcast with a Friend of Medjugorje actually comes to us from November 25, 2016. Now, in November of 2016, Medjugorje visionary Marija was here, and Our Lady gave a message on the 25^th of the month, which is what this broadcast was about.

 

Tonight, of course, we will not be sharing with you the entire broadcast, which is about an hour and fifteen minutes long, but we do encourage you to go back and listen to the broadcast in full, because a Friend of Medjugorje and Medjugorje visionary Marija do discuss a lot of things, personal stories that they’ve shared together. But the title of the broadcast from November 25, 2016 was called, The Love of a Simple Life.

 

And so, tonight’s excerpt is about seventeen minutes long. And a Friend of Medjugorje speaks about the creation of a simple way of life through the messages. And it’s always amazing to hear some of these older broadcasts, and you hear the urgency in what a Friend of Medjugorje’s speaking about, and yet, it is amazing that even today, there are people who are not moving quickly to create a life for themselves through the messages.

 

So, here is a Friend of Medjugorje November 25, 2016. This was titled, The Love of a Simple Life.

 

[THEME MUSIC]

[CLIP]

[FRIEND OF MEDJUGORJE]

And Marija, of course, is part of our life, and we’ve grown up with Our Lady together, her and I both, and many things and cognitions and experiences and beautiful moments, sad moments, in the spectrum of what it means to walk with Our Lady. You can be…I always remember President Reagan said that there’s no office in the world that from one moment, you can be so high, and then the next moment so down low.

 

And so, that’s the spiritual life, and it’s for everybody. We all have sufferings and difficulties. We all have joys and those moments that are glorious.

 

And this season of thanksgiving, that Our Lady comes back, actually on the same day, November 24, 1988, and Our Lady gave us a beautiful message at that moment and showed us that, with the words, She says, “…I am here to help you!…” We’ve always felt those words were significant, “I’m just not following Marija. I’m here to really help you.” And for what we have here that’s come from a cow pasture, nobody can explain this on a human level except by divine.

 

And so, today, Marija received a message from Our Lady for the whole world. And we felt that we got a personal message here for our community, yet, the same message for you as an individual where you are, and yet again, for the whole world, and for the time of the world when it ends. We’ll be reading these messages, and they will be speaking to us, applied to our life in whatever state or whatever kind of people or wherever we live in the world.

 

So, that’s the beauty of the messages. It’s why our whole life is wrapped around the messages.

 

And so, Joan, today, will read the message that we received earlier.

 

[COC]

Our Lady’s November 25, 2016 monthly message to the world:

 

“Dear children! Also today, I am calling you to return to prayer. In this time of grace, God has permitted me to lead you towards holiness and a simple life – that in little things you discover God the Creator; that you fall in love with Him; and that your life be a thanksgiving to the Most High for everything He is giving you. Little children, in love, may your life be a gift for others and God will bless you; but you, witness without interest – out of love for God. I am with you and intercede before my Son for all of you. Thank you for having responded to my call.”

 

[FRIEND OF MEDJUGORJE]

And of course, Marija wrote this message down. She sent it. It was translated and came back to us, and she spoke to us while we were waiting for the translation, in her own words, about the message. And it was beautiful just sitting in the Bedroom of Apparitions at the leisure of someone who just saw the Virgin Mary to come give this message to the world.

 

But one thing that struck me immediately was the words, “simple life.” And we’ve always felt that was some kind of connection to us here, what Our Lady established.

 

I think, if you could sum up the messages, the one theme that runs through everything is simple life. We live too complex. We’re wired electronically to everything. We have no privacy. We have no solitude. Jesus, Himself, without all these things around Him, would always retreat up to the mountains. And He was God, and yet, He needed that to be in front of God the Father.

 

We, as fathers, we, as mothers, we need this in the family. But the society and modernism does not allow this. Materialism doesn’t. Modernism doesn’t.

 

And so, how do you reject these things?

 

Use them, rather than it use you. And the culture today is used by everything, and they’re pushed along with these waves. Our Lady recently gave a message that satan pushes you like the wind does the waves. (August 25, 2016) And waves are very strong. Everybody has swam in the ocean. And when a big one comes, it knocks you down, and you go with it.

 

And so, society and the way it’s structured, has taken a tsunami of people along with it.

 

So, you have to reverse yourself. You have to change the way you live. You have to change it to a simple life. Because we believe, as we’ve advocated to many, many people through the years, that what we’re living here at Caritas is what Our Lady’s calling everybody to do.

 

People say, “Oh, it’s easy for you.” I say, “No, it’s not easy for me.” I was in business. I was doing everything you were doing. And I began to parallel my life, moved out in a rural area, and I wanted my kids to play in the same creeks that their kids would play in and that their kids would play in. We wanted to put roots down. We wanted to have heritage, family, meaning and purpose to our life when we woke up. And nothing’s more than doing that than going toward things of simplicity.

 

So, the simple life, we’ve had a song for years that we’ve played as our theme. What’s important in the end? Your world is that, and when that world’s not there, it’s doing what the world’s doing today. It’s crashing.

 

And so, we’ve lost something in the culture, very sacred and very holy—holy family. And holy family can’t be holy if it’s glued to the world and it follows its ways. You have to create  your own way of life. Our Lady spoke today about “God the Creator,” God the creation. We are here to create something different than what the world is today and to abstain from it. And through that abstinence from the other ways that people are going, they’ll be attracted to your way.

 

People always say, “Well, we’ve got to help make people better.” It’s true. But you can’t stay with them, glued with them, going their way, to change them. You have to change directions. A simple life is the way to do that, and this is what we were called for.

 

[SONG]

The simple life is the life for me. A man and a wife and a family. And the Lord up above knows I’m trying to live a simple life in a difficult time.

 

I used to sit around fussin’ at the phone all day, windin’ up alone and it made me say, “Never again will I be that way. Never again will I be that way.”

 

‘Cause the simple life is the life for me. A man and a wife and a family. And the Lord up above knows I’m trying to live a simple life in a difficult time.

 

Well I work six days and I rest for one, ‘cause the old rat race ain’t never been won. And I sit back and watch ‘em run. I kick on back and I watch ‘em run.

 

‘Cause the simple life is the life for me. A man and a wife and a family. And the Lord up above knows I’m trying to live a simple life in a difficult time.

 

Simple life in a difficult time

 

Simple life, oh. Give me that simple life.

 

Simple life, oh. Give me that simple life.

 

The simple life is the life for me. A man and a wife and a family. And the Lord up above knows I’m trying to live a simple life in a difficult time.

 

The simple life is the life for me. A man and a wife and a family. And the Lord up above knows I’m trying to live a simple life in a difficult time.

 

Simple life, oh. Give me that simple life.

 

The simple life is the life for me. A steak and a knife and a glass of tea. And the Lord up above knows I’m trying to live a simple life in a difficult time.

 

Simple life, oh. Give me that simple life.

 

Simple life, oh. Give me that simple life.

 

The simple life is the life for me. A man and a wife and a family. And the Lord up above knows I’m trying to live a simple life in a difficult time.

 

[FRIEND OF MEDJUGORJE]

We feel Our Lady always has been writing a story for us, for people in the future, that the obstacles they come across in their villages, their towns, whatever it may be, that they can look here to what She’s established and what She’s grown and formed and guided us through the messages in 1988. I remember Marija saying in 1988, “Not even in Medjugorje is Our Lady giving messages every day.” And I was shocked. Marija was shocked. We were all surprised. But we see this as our constitution, these three months of messages, every single day, is what was the basis of forming of what She wanted realized here. We didn’t even realize it at the moment. It didn’t happen the next year. It was a slow progression of prayer, that, “You surrender yourself to Me. You pray. And don’t dare take a step without God, and God will form it.” And the results of this place is a people who have embraced the messages for the purpose for you to do the same thing. You can do this. We are privileged, but we’re not any different than you are, wherever you are. Everybody is to duplicate this and to have Our Lady. And you can take these messages and do what you need to do, the way She shows it for you.

 

Just seeing Our Lady saying today, “your life is a gift,” and that’s what we feel. The life we’ve been given is…I couldn’t live any other way. And you can see it in the eyes of people that meet, people that come, people that see us, even if we’re travelling, people gravitate toward us, when we travel as a community, sometimes individually. And there’s something that they see, and I think it’s a divine grace. It’s not just us. We’re just saying words, but they become so convicted that it’s true what Our Lady says, “You are my apostles.” The Scriptures says, “I’ll put the words on your tongue. Don’t worry what you are to say. I’ll give you the words.” And we see this over and over and over.

 

So, we know Our Lady’s got a new efficacy. Every day, Marija says, Our Lady’s more beautiful than yesterday. But I’m convinced, paralleling this beauty, is Our Lady gets an increased power on the earth. She’s got millions and millions of prayer from the day before. She becomes more beautiful. She gets more influence.

 

And today’s message said,

 

“…I am calling you to return to prayer. In this time of grace, God has permitted me to lead you towards holiness…”

 

That means, She went and got permission. “He gave Me permission to do this.” And why would She want that permission except to gain more influence on the world to bring people to Her Son.

 

And so, She brings people to Her Son, She’s going to uncomplicate life. When you uncomplicate life, what are you doing? You’re making things more simple, and your life becomes more simple. We’re too complicated. Everything’s too detailed and too, be here, be there, and it dictates what you do throughout the day. You’re not free. We’re more slaves than people were when they were slaved in chains, actually, and we don’t even know it.

 

Our Lady’s messages liberate you. You may be seeing this, the same work, the same circumstances, but once you understand the messages in your heart, you have people…

 

Well, I wrote something, some people see the mud looking out of the prison cell. Some people will look out of the prison cell window, and they see the stars. Confession of a Big Sin. Everybody read that. Download that. Get it. Those who are visiting here, get the book. The same circumstances for one is looking at the mud all the time. The same exact circumstances for the other is looking at the stars.

 

And so, your confession of your big sin is your decision to be happy, whatever your circumstances are.

 

But the messages of Our Lady are liberating. You’ve got the way of life.

 

And the South has been said by many people, even northerners, the South is a place. The east, west, and north is a direction. We don’t want to say that in arrogance or pride, but there is something about a Biblical belt here, much do to Protestants and Catholics at the same time. When Our Lady appeared here in 1988, we knew it would affect this area. The most Biblical place in the United States is Birmingham, Alabama. And it gravitates from there, out, up toward Tennessee, toward Chattanooga, and it goes down that way toward Mississippi and Louisiana. But the biggest percentage or people who, through the PEW research, said that Birmingham, Alabama, this region we’re in, is the number one most Biblical place in the United States, and I attribute that to what happened out there in the Field and in the Bedroom.

 

Where there’s causation, there’s an effect. The effect’s there, and Alabama leads the nation in other things. We’re the only one, the only Supreme Court in the United States of America that stood up to the marriage thing. We have defied it to this day, while all the 49 other states have fallen away.

 

That doesn’t make us any better, but what it does is says something of a Biblical people that’s blessed. Financially, the state is blessed. We didn’t go through the depression everybody else went. That’s not a prosperity doctrine, but it’s the doctrine of Matthew 6, where the Scripture says, “I’ll feed you. I’ll take care of you. You live My Commandments,” or, you wait for the Lord, keep His way. He will promote you to the ownership of the land. Land is everything. But it could be your car. It could be your house. It could be your family.

 

So, we get this through the blessing of knowing about what we need to do and how to live.

 

All these things are beautiful, and Our Lady’s showing us in this simple life that She calls us to. And it’s a very difficult thing to live simple. It’s not an easy road to travel. And many people reject it, even your own family members, to simplify things. But that’s our call. That’s where we’re headed. And this is what we’re supposed to be living.

 

[THEME MUSIC]

[COC]

And you have been listening to a Friend of Medjugorje from November 25, 2016 in the broadcast which was titled, The Love of a Simple Life.

 

Again, we encourage you to go back and listen to the broadcast in full. It is available to listen to on mej.com or as a free download.

 

We know that, through the years, many of you have been following a Friend of Medjugorje and have been striving to make changes in your life wherever possible. We also know that many people have met road blocks, have not been able to reach past a certain point. We encourage you to really begin to pray for God to really open up the doors and to break open the floodgate for you to be able to go through and enter into this new simple life based in the messages.

 

As we hear a Friend of Medjugorje tonight, and we hear the urgency in his voice from seven years ago, we see how the world continues to progress the way that it is. It’s important to act and act very quickly.

 

And so, to conclude with the last word, here, again, is a Friend of Medjugorje November 25, 2016, The Love of a Simple Life.

 

[THEME MUSIC]

[FRIEND OF MEDJUGORJE]

And so, it’s a beautiful message, and we can go on about this on many levels, as we’ve always spoken about these messages are so deep that you can talk about them forever, and they will be forever. They are given to us to help us to get through an antichrist time. And our witness, how we got through this time of what Our Lady comes to bring and triumph in peace, will be the manuscript for when Jesus comes back, whenever that is, 100 years, 500, or a thousand years. They’re going to look back with us how we broke the system. And this is their road map.

 

So, you’re life is what I’ve quoted on a tombstone, repeatedly.

 

“Those who live in the hearts they leave behind never die.”

 

And we’re to leave that kind of impression. And I do know that what Our Lady’s done with me, what She’s done with Marija, what She’s done with this community, She can’t repeat it. She’s here for limited years. And when this is over, She can’t just duplicate that. That’s why She says your life is “irreplaceable, unrepeatable,” because She can’t do this. So, if She loses us, if we turn away from Her, then there’s no more opportunity to create a body of apostles again. Those losses are true losses.

 

And that’s the tragedy of those who do not give completely over to Our Lady in this moment and in this time, their lives that She’s calling for. And She wants to reach you. She wants you to be an apostle, and She wants you to give everything in your life, with no strings attached. You’re going to be attached to things, you’re going to have interests, She can’t use you to the degree God’s will is for you.

 

[END CLIP]

[THEME MUSIC]

[ANNOUNCER]

This ends the Mejanomics broadcast with a Friend of Medjugorje. These broadcasts are available as CDs, which are sent directly to your doorstep on a monthly subscription. For information, contact Caritas in the U.S. at 205-672-2000.