May 18, 2020 A.D.
(Medjugorje photo taken Monday June 27, 2016, 5:26 AM) – Green grapes are beginning to ripen in Medjugorje. It will take several more months before the grapes are ready to harvest. But, anyone who has been present in Medjugorje at harvest has seen, the work put into the long season, is transformed into a time of rejoicing.
Why must we look deeply into Our Lady’s words? Do they speak more than a superficial reading of them tell us? As a starting point, we need to look at something a Friend of Medjugorje wrote:
…with added history between the time the message is given today and future years, the messages of Our Lady will take on new understanding. Just as we look back at Scripture, amazed at how very few who lived at that time understood the words of prophecy, so too, we today run the risk of missing the true meaning of Our Lady’s words.
– a Friend of Medjugorje
The New Genesis of Our Lady – November 9, 2018
What does this tell us? Why do we need to expand our thinking to understand why Our Lady spoke about gratitude? Because, as a Friend of Medjugorje has said before, when we “box” Our Lady and Her messages into our own small way of thinking, then Her messages cannot speak beyond that. (You can read more about that in, It Ain’t Gonna Happen)
But, if we take the principles of what a Friend of Medjugorje writes above, and through expanding our thinking, apply them to Our Lady’s May 4, 2020, message, what do we see? We see that we need to look at Our Lady’s message from the perspective of the future looking back. If Our Lady today is telling us, “this is a time of gratitude,” then jump ahead in the future, a year, two years, etc., looking back at today. Will there be something that will make us think that in May 2020, we should have been grateful? When we have that kind of perspective, it changes the way we live today. Think of it in the way a Friend of Medjugorje explained in, This is Her Time : “Prophecy, in the Biblical sense, does not mean to predict the future, but to explain the will of God for the present and, therefore, show the right path to take for the future.”
Expand your thinking. Go back and read a Friend of Medjugorje’s words again, three times or more. Make them a part of how you think. A year from now, ten years from now, you will be grateful you did.
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5 thoughts on “Why Our Lady Said This Time is a Time of Gratitude”
Amen brother.
I’ve come to believe that if one is deeply grateful to God and to His Mother, ones life tends to flow easier no matter what the difficulty.
I have believed from the beginning, that this devastating virus could also be a blessing. Perhaps Our Lady is telling us to be thankful and grateful for this new and refreshing understanding of how we should be living. I have enjoyed more time to explore prayer sites, go to many live-streamed masses, and take my time praying. We are spending more time with our families, we are appreciating being home and working outside in our yards; and we are seeing what is TRULY important in life. As much as I look forward to going to mass / receiving communion and seeing more of my extended family; I hope some of what is taking place….remains. For many work became the biggest part of their life, when God and Family should be what comes first and work somewhere down the line. Perhaps this is a lesson the world needed to learn, and we should be grateful for this time in history!
I believe Our Lady wants us to look closely at our lives and all of the things we need to be grateful for. If we are not feeling Gratitude, focusing only on our problems and crosses (as I was just before I read this writing), we are allowing satan to take away our hope and our peace, as well as our ability to bring that hope and peace to others who need it so much. Yes, we too are suffering under the weight of a heavy cross, but Gratitude can be a balm in our lives to lighten that suffering. Thank you Blessed Lord for our homes and our families, our loved ones and our friends, Your truth in our hearts, and the hope you’ve given us For the future, and our certain hope in the “Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary”! Come Lord Jesus, Come through the Power of the Flame of Love, of the Immaculate Heart of Mary!!
Then, Cardinal Ratzinger, Pope Benedict, wrote about prophecy, explaining it’s meant as a means to create situations, where the warnings don’t actually come about ! This makes sense when you think about it. Our Lady warned us about God’s rebukes and our prayers, She told us, have reduced, though not eliminated one from happening. If we’re to take this whole Virus situation as a Dress Rehearsal for coming times, we must become cognizant of what we need to learn from it. Did we Pray and Fast, specifically, as a group, regarding the Virus? Did we have enough combined faith, to change “Natural Law”. Have we allowed ourselves to care too much for this life, thus affording an opportunity for others to bring more of the Antichrist system into our midst? Are we prepared to Fight against the Forces of Evil, or bear witness, that God, not satan, is going to “Rebuke”, the world, to soften man’s heart, rather than harden it. Faith’s like muscle, it must be used, to become stronger.