The Messages and a Common Life

[ANNOUNCER]

The subject matter contained in this presentation is based on Biblical principles and designed to give you accurate and authoritative information with regard to the subject matter covered. It is provided with the understanding that neither the presenter nor the broadcaster is engaged to render legal, accounting, or other professional advice. Since your situation is fact-dependent, you may wish to additionally seek the services of an appropriately licensed legal, accounting, real estate, or investment professional.

 

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[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.

[REYES]

Thank you for joining us on Mejanomics broadcasting from the Radio WAVE studio at Caritas of Birmingham in Alabama.

 

As we have passed the 40th anniversary, and we are looking ahead to Our Lady’s plans, we’re taking a look at a lot of our broadcasts that we have aired since Radio WAVE started in 2007. And those of you who followed previous to the 40th anniversary, that countdown to the 40th anniversary, that was just a small selection of the nearly one thousand broadcasts that a Friend of Medjugorje has done for the past thirteen years. And as we look ahead at the fulfillment of Our Lady’s plans and what it is that She would be doing through Her apostles, we reached back to 2012. And tonight, we’re going to share with you this broadcast that was originally titled, Happy Pagan, Unhappy Christian. And a Friend of Medjugorje lays out a very strong case for the messages and their effect in changing our life, in his own words, what he says economically, spiritually, simply.

 

So, this is a Friend of Medjugorje, July 12, 2012.

 

[THEME MUSIC]

[CLIP]

[A FRIEND OF MEDJUGORJE]

Our Lady’s messages are our guidepost. It’s our sign. It’s our direction. It’s our instructions. And yet, so many people—and I’m speaking directly first to those who know Our Lady of Medjugorje, the Queen of Peace—have still yet to know them and grasp them. Or rather, it should be said they know them, but they don’t understand them. What’s to understand? Our Lady’s just not asking us to pray three hours a day, go to Adoration, go to Mass. She’s asking us to put these messages into our very fabric of our life throughout our day from before you wake up to after you go to bed. How do you do that? Our Lady says, “Never go to bed without prayer.” She indicates this through a message where She said, “If you don’t pray, when you finish your day, that you’ll wake up and don’t even think to pray the next day. You won’t think about Jesus. You’ll be in a fog. You’ll be cloudy.” Most people, when they talk about Medjugorje, “Our Lady’s asked us to fast, pray, confess…” Those are basic messages, but those go to a further direction on a path that She wishes to lead us to a holy way of life.

 

And so many people miss the boat. So many people have aspects of atheism in their Christianity. Some people have full atheism, and that’s the counter-culture we’re living in—a pagan culture, a pagan society that we want what they have to offer us as Christians. And we try to adapt our Christianity to their way, rather than making them and their ways and the culture adapt to our way. We ruled the society. The culture was a Christian culture worldwide, basically. Yeah, there were countries and places where there was paganism, but Christianity was a sign that would conquer through conviction, not through the warriors, but the warriors who have holiness. And why can’t we do that now? Simply because we’re not the warriors of holiness. We don’t fight the culture in a way that convicts it, that you can’t get away with this, we will not tolerate this, and be able to embarrass them and shame them by being called down. Now they can spit in your face, because they don’t respect Christianity, because we don’t. And so, we’re where we are because of what we’ve become and who we are.

 

[JOAN]

Yesterday afternoon, several of us are with a Friend of Medjugorje in downtown Montgomery on some business, and it was around lunchtime, so, all the restaurants were filled. We were walking by a skateboard ramp, and a Friend of Medjugorje had just commented on how frivolous life is for so many people that we’re really in the stage of eat, drink and be merry. And that’s where this writing comes from that I’ll be reading today, kind of parallels what he was saying yesterday. It’s from an interview with a Christian philosopher. The first question is,

 

“You’ve spoken about the happy-thinking pagan. What do you mean by this phrase?”

 

“I think the first time I heard that term was about three decades ago. It was from Oss Guinness. And he talked about the fact that this was the emerging new way of thinking, that is, ‘I don’t believe anything, but I’m very happy. What does it matter?’ And of course, it was also along the time of slogans such as, ‘If it feels good, do it,’ and, ‘Don’t worry. Be happy.’

 

“Question. You’ve said that the problem of pleasure, rather than the problem of pain, more often drives us to think of spiritual things. So how would you account for the happy pagan?

 

“I think the reason it can be accounted for is the same way materialism succeeds. There’s always the sense that one more digit in my paycheck will make a difference. One added home, one added car, one added excursion, one other vacation. We think by the simple act of change, we will alter everything on the inside. So, it has that lure to it. But at the same time, pleasure, when it has delivered what it can, definitely does leave you empty. Nothing is more obvious than this in the Hollywood world, the breakup of relationships, the breakup of homes, the breakup of commitments, who knows all the heartaches with which many of them go to bed. I remember Michael Landon Jr. talking about the heartache of his family, and how, even though his father was so wonderful to watch, living out the homestead on Little House on the Prairie, deepen his inner life, it was a total chaos. That is true of the entertainment world, and they epitomize pleasure. They are purveyors of pleasure.

 

“On the other hand, those who watch from the sidelines—I think all of us included—somehow think success is more than what we actually think it is. Now, let me qualify that. I do believe it is great to be comfortable in our material holdings. Who wants to be poor? Who wants to worry about the next meal? We all like to have those comforts, but it’s only the inner being within you that is able to transcend that and look beyond that and not look at ultimate reality through a skewed way.”

 

“Question. I think of the late Christopher Hitchens, the acclaimed atheist. He seemed quite content in his animosity towards Christianity, as well as his appetite for pleasure.”

 

“I think that is certainly the way one would convey it. You know, people often talk about Christians being hypocrites. They feign emotions while their lives may be falling apart in private. And yet, do we really know that in the darkest moments of his aloneness, that he was not recognizing that his real questions are hostile towards the sacred? How can anyone find total fulfillment with an animosity towards the sacred? I think it is incoherent. It’s an incoherent worldview, whether he was genuinely happy or not, is not for me to tell. Whether he was content with pleasure or not, he did show that his life fell apart, ultimately, physically. That happens to all of us. And that is only a manifestation of what also happens to us on the inside.

 

“Life is not continuous apart from God. And if that’s all he lived for and has come and gone, then Bertrand Russell was right. You cling to a philosophy of unyielding despair, that is, that’s just the way it is. But I think it is a dressing up verbally of something that has no meaning, essentially. I certainly wouldn’t want to be in his shoes, to think that’s all life was about, have some fun, go and debate a few people, earn some money, go to the bar, have a great time. He battled, as you know, issues of alcohol. And so, I would have to ask the question, if he was really that happy, what was all that about? Why do I need to escape away from reality? Or was that part of the reality he wanted to live in? It’s not for me to judge. I think Hitchens was a lovable person. He had an air of likeability to him. He’s now found out whether his belief was right or wrong. If his belief was wrong, it’s pretty serious. And if his belief was right, he doesn’t know it.”

 

“Question. So, what do you say to the person today who might identify with the happy-thinking pagan, or perhaps would call themselves a believer or Christian, and yet is living a life contrary to the Christian faith?”

 

“You know, there was a famous sermon preached by Robert Lee called, “Payday, someday.” One day it comes home to roost. Look at the whole financial crisis globally right now. It is the happy pagan philosophy. That’s exactly what it is. In the banking system, in the insurance system, just go and live anywhere you want, borrow, and don’t worry about having to repay. We can keep printing more money. We’ll dole it out from the government. We’ll bail you out. We’ll do this. We’ll do that. And look at what’s happened. Ultimately, what’s happened is like Greece. Burn the buildings, burn the government, pull down your lampposts, destroy your systems and so on.

 

“So, I would just say to them, you can coast for some time this way, but if this is your long-term plan, that’s exactly what the Bible says of when it says, “I’ll eat, drink and be merry.” And God said, “You fool. Today, your soul shall be required of you.” It is a foolish way to live, both for yourself and for those you love. But God has a way of bringing things into our lives. Look at the Hitchens story again. Riding the coast of success, writing great books. All of a sudden, you find out you have cancer. Are you going to be glib and cavalier about it or realize “Payday has come for me.” But you have to be very careful with people like that.

 

“Alister McGrath always used to say, “The thing I like about what you’re doing in presenting the Gospel is you’re presenting the beauty of Jesus.” I was not even aware this is what we’re doing, but I think we don’t reach people by pulling them down or cutting them down by the knees, but by showing them there is a better way, a more beautiful way. And the attractiveness of Christ is what we need to be upholding.”

 

“Question. It seems that we don’t have a doctrine of happiness, if you will, in Christianity. We speak of joy, but it’s always eternal joy or looking ahead to Heaven, but yet, is an earthly sense of happiness perhaps missing?”

 

“I think it is missing, and we almost associate being happy with therefore, “You must be doing something wrong.” That is, you need to feel guilty about being happy. But look at a little child. I’ve become a grandfather now, and I watched the little guy bouncing around on his jumper or splashing around in a bathtub. What more beautiful thing to see a chuckling little baby enjoying the nice things of life. God has given the enjoyment of sports, the enjoyment of food, the enjoyment of entertainment—legitimate entertainment, I should add. A beauty around us. Yes, we can enjoy happiness. Contrary to Richard Dawkins who says that there’s no God, so go ahead and do whatever you want. There is a God Who intends for you to have life abundant and happiness is well-bounded.

 

“When the Bible talks about the beauty of holiness, that means beauty is bounded. There is an absolute nature to it. So is happiness. You can have wonderfully happy moments and God intends for us to have them.”

 

[A FRIEND OF MEDJUGORJE]

And those happy moments come in the common life. Common life is what Our Lady’s really showing us because that’s where happiness is found. Can you imagine Mary and Joseph, the joys they experienced knowing that God was in front of them and a little Child and just seeing the things He might have done, how much they must have really laughed at the joys. You can’t be around little children without that happening.

 

I’m reading one of my, probably tenth book on Ronald Reagan, and after he has Alzheimer’s, he was taken to a park. And something most people never saw him do was play with kids. And he just enjoyed the kids coming up. He’d sit there and watch them. And they’re a piece of Heaven in a lot of ways. And in a lot of ways, the pagan society’s made them a piece of hell. They’ve become tyrants because they think we are to serve them. Everything’s child-centered today. Everything’s female-centered. The male’s lost. God gave him dominion. God gave him the ability to name everything out there. And after he had done that, what God had given to him, then he named the woman.

 

And so, we’ve got an upside-down society. Nobody’s happy. Everybody’s chasing materialism. Eve was the first one. She was materialistic. She wanted that tree that she couldn’t have when she had everything else. She wanted more. And so, we’re an immoral society, a society who’s bankrupt, a society who’s lost the common good, the common life, the real joys of life, the simplicity Our Lady calls us to.

 

And so, payday is coming, quoting about problems of pain drives one to change, not pleasure, is what he relayed. We’re coming into a painful time. Can you mitigate that? Yes. Our Lady said the Secrets can be mitigated. They can’t be avoided. How do you mitigate it? Make decisions now. Our Lady said to Ivan on the mountain, for us. The message is for us. Ivan can’t hold onto these. He must give them out. It’s his prayer group. When it’s closed, it’s his, at least for that time being. Eventually, they’ll be ours. But all his are open. Marija, Mirjana, those messages are just as much for us, and if not more. They get to see Our Lady. So more so, in some ways, they’re for us.

 

She said,

 

“Dear children, also today I rejoice together with you. Also today, in joy…”

 

This is what we were just talking about. Is joy not for this life? Are we not to be happy?

 

“…in joy, I call you: accept my messages…live my messages. May my messages become life…”

 

The common life Our Lady calls us to is the message. You don’t have to have fireworks going on, always be on a skiing trip, always be doing something of pleasure. Sometimes just a simple afternoon of just contemplating God, and His ways, what He’s given to you in the family, are the joys. Or what if you have a way of life that the children are around you all day long? They’re around your work. This is structure to be striving for, not a company factory or an organization that says, “Oh, we have a nursery. Come in and dump your kids in that.”

 

And so a way of life needs to be built, just like the agrarian way of life, where children, they’re all part of it all the time. Not segregated.

 

Our Lady goes on and says,

 

“…Build them…”

 

That’s the messages.

 

“…Build them into your lives. May they be food on…life’s journey. Know, dear children, that I am with you when it is most difficult for you…”

 

And there comes the pain because pain encourages you to change. And it is remarkable, what we were talking about, eat, drink, and be merry yesterday. Well, because we went extensively, and I told three or four of the people. Then Joan came up behind me. What was I saying? And I repeated it to her, that we often see Our Lady writing a script in our life. And then she comes up with this story spontaneously. She didn’t know about this. We were discussing it before the show.

 

Walking with Our Lady, walking in the messages, is to walk with the Holy Spirit, that God’s part of your life, even before you’re going to be doing things the next day, you’re being set up to understand deeper what you saw to be taught, what you need to do, so what you saw will become what you see in your daily life of the common life of holiness.

 

“…Know, dear children, that I am with you [even] when it is most difficult for you, that I encourage and console you, that I intercede before my Son for all of you…persevere in prayer and do not be afraid. Follow me without fear…”

 

Why? Because people don’t want to give things up. They’re scared it’s going to cost them. They’re fearful. “Oh, if I do this, I’m emptying the cup. What’s going to fill it?” The messages and a common life will.

 

When I put my kids out of sports, I pulled them out of television. I pulled, threw that away. No cell phones, no home computers. We were emptying the cup. Of course, we didn’t have the cell phones and the home computers.

 

So, we had a cup empty, and God filled it so full that we were completely, constantly moving. And we experienced joys on a constancy. Is it difficult? Yes. Is it hard? Yes. Our Lady didn’t promise a rose garden, but where the rose garden is, there’s the roses, and the pain is the thorns.

 

And so, Our Lady tells us something profound through this interview. Pagans are looking for happiness, but they’re not happy.

 

Well, you have to realize our economy—and all of you hear about these things in the news or see, or read, or whatever you’re looking to—that this is a judgment against the system that’s disorder. Where there is disorder, there’s the devil. Where there’s the devil, God’s withdrawn from it, either through sin, or through abandoning it because people do reject God. And just as Hitchens, which is tragic, who died an atheist unrepentant as far as we know. And he could have changed after, just at the moment of death. We don’t know that. But the tragedy, he’s gone, wanting and seeking for that happiness in life, never found it. And if he didn’t convert at his last breath, what is he doing now?

 

So, you won’t find it. hell comes through Hollywood. Brokenness. You have to try to find this in the god of materialism and the god out of the cell phone, things that they’re preoccupied with.

 

And so, we found ourselves in an economic situation that we needed to build our life economically. We need to build our life spiritually. We need to build our life simply, into and upon the foundation of these messages for modern man to know how to live the Scriptures of ancient time. And it is definitely going to be connected to agriculture. It’s going to definitely be connected to the agrarian way of life, which is agricultural. I’m not talking about farmers, but subsistence living. You meet your needs by the labor of your hands. That’s your wealth. Take one seed that’s worthless, practically, on a marketable ability, one tomato seed, and have 40-50 tomatoes from it. That’s wealth because you didn’t have to take money working for somebody else and go buy those tomatoes. It came from your labor. And you can do this if you’re a doctor. You can do this if you’re rich, and you should be doing it. You need to be thinking different. Ronald Reagan was a man of simplicity. And the more you read about it, the more amazed you are at this man. He lived the common life. Yes, he was with king, the queen. He was with bachelors. He was with even John Paul and Gorbachev and all the people, but in his personal life, he was very, very basic, very common, wanted to spend three hours a day cutting firewood. He wanted to labor, lived in a simple place, amazing simplicity. And this is what Our Lady calls us to do.

 

So, this economic situation we find ourselves in, you need to be downsizing to the point where you can live a common life. It doesn’t matter how much money you’ve got, doesn’t matter how little you’ve got. Because a lot of people have little of wanting to live Hollywood. They have it in their heart, and they’ll go buy big screen TVs, and live in a dump or be paying rent. And I said, “dump.” A lot of the things, even a small, modest house can be…The holy house of Loredo was very small. But it was clean. It was holy. It was a place to dwell in.

 

Our Lady said to Ivan, for us, on December 30, 2011,

 

“…the Mother calls you with joy, be my carriers of [this message to] this tired world…”

 

The economy is tired. You often hear old people say, “I’m so tired. I just don’t have any more energy.” There’s no energy in the economy. They’re trying to be innovative to kind of reinvigorate this. They trying to resuscitate it. It’s on ICU. Somewhere along the line, somebody’s got cancer and they’re 92 years old, you quit trying and just sit there and let the natural elements take place. If you’re 45, you’re in a car wreck and lost a lot of blood, they say there’s a very little chance to live, you do everything you can to survive, because there’s potential there. But with a tired 98-year-old, and you want to do an operation for cancer? It’s crazy! Why go through that pain? You’ve got enough pain for life to make you change. You have to go through more, it’s going to torture you and make you senseless.

 

So, reason all this out.

 

“…my carriers of my messages in this tired world. Live my messages. Accept my messages with responsibility…”

 

You have a responsibility to act and think. Why? Because She goes on and says,

 

“…Dear children, pray together with me for my plans…”

 

Our Lady has plans with you, with your spouse, with your children. She’s got plans to make little villages all across the world. It’s not federalized or nationalized by the national governments.

 

“…with me for my plans which I desire to realize…”

 

There’s something physical She wants planted on the earth, both spiritual and physical, because if you’re a happy Christian, people want to be that way with you. If you’re a happy pagan, you’ll be wanting to go do everything they do and be emptying.

 

“…Especially today I call you to pray for unity…”

 

Unity is everything. Unity with the Church. Unity with your spouse. Unity with your spouse. You can’t have that. You can’t have God. This is the way it works.

 

[THEME MUSIC]

[REYES]

Again, that was a Friend of Medjugorje from July 12, 2012.

 

When we hear his words and we think about, what happens to people when they give up their life for God, how, as a Friend of Medjugorje said, the cup is being emptied until God fills it? And living the messages and a common life come together and create this beautiful, happy Christian life that is a witness. And as we have come from the 40th Anniversary, these are the things that we need to be thinking about and how Our Lady might use us in the future to really make physical changes in our life in a very real way with the messages, as he said at the very beginning of this broadcast tonight, as the guidepost for our life.

 

And so, to end tonight’s broadcast, again, here is a Friend of Medjugorje from July, 2012.

 

[THEME MUSIC]

[A FRIEND OF MEDJUGORJE]

And remember that there’s no pain, there’s no gain as the saying has always said. And this healing of this land, this nation, is going to come through the fire of tribulation. The thing is, will you be able to have that tribulation and be in peace?

 

We wish you Our Lady. We love you. Goodbye.

 

[THEME MUSIC]

[END CLIP]

[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.