OUR LADY OF MEDJUGORJE’S MESSAGE OF NOVEMBER 25, 2010

“Dear children! I look at you and I see in your heart death without hope, restlessness and hunger. There is no prayer or trust in God, that is why the Most High permits me to bring you hope and joy. Open yourselves. Open your hearts to God’s mercy and He will give you everything you need and will fill your hearts with peace, because He is peace and your hope. Thank you for having responded to my call.”

Open Your Hearts to God’s Mercy

A. St. Therese Shows Us the Way.

1. God is a Father. When Therese was very young, her father took her to Midnight Mass and told her that God was going to be born again in a manger. Therese was very excited, so after Mass she hurried to the crypt to see this great event where Joseph and Mary were looking at the baby Jesus lying in a manger. She stayed there for quite some time contemplating this amazing scene, and drew several profound conclusions that would form the foundation of her “little way.”

2. With A Father’s Heart. Therese thought that if God would leave the happiness of heaven and stoop so low as to be born in a manger to rescue His children, that meant that God would do anything for her. The important thing was to remain small and needy, and, since God has a father’s heart, we can unfailingly obtain anything we need from Him. The secret was to know how to get hold of His heart by childlike confidence.

3. Won Over by Filial Trust. Therese gives an example in one of her Letters. “Suppose two children have been disobedient. One trembles and runs away from the father in terror. The other throws himself into his father’s arms, telling him he is sorry, he loves him, and from now on he will be good. Now if that child asks his father to punish him with a kiss, the happy father’s heart will not be able to resist his son’s sincerity, love and filial trust.” Therese learned this in part by reading St. John of the Cross.

a. “Happy is the soul who loves, because that soul holds God captive, and obtains from him all that he desires.” Spiritual Canticle B #36

b. “What touches God’s heart and triumphs over it is a firm hope.” Maxim #112

c. “God has such high esteem for the hope possessed by souls that ceaselessly turn to him and rely on him alone, that one can truly say that they obtain all that they hope for.” Maxim #119

4. And Love. In prayer, Therese was relentless in expressing her love.

a. “I know God. He is a father, a mother, who in order to be happy must have his child upon his knee, resting against his heart.”

b. “I do not stay there for my own sake, but for his. I go to see the Father because this delights him. He likes to see me.”

c. “To be a little child is to recognize our nothingness and to expect everything from God as a little child expects everything from its father; the child is disquieted about nothing,” “I must be small as smaller than ever.

B. The Father Speaks to His Children. (Messages to Mother Eugenia Ravasio)

1. “Realize, O man, that for all eternity I have had but one desire: to make Myself known to men and to be loved by them. I want to stay with them forever.”

2. “I promised the world a Messiah. Would men know Me? Listen to Me? They will ignore My presence. In My Son, they will treat me cruelly; they will crucify Me to bring about My death. Oh, how My paternal love has been forgotten by men! Yet I love you so tenderly!”

3. “Most men know all this, but they fail to grasp the essential thing: that love was the guiding principle in it all! You can conclude from this that there is a Father Who is above all fathers, Who loves you and will never cease to love you, if you so desire.”

4. “To conclude, I make you a promise: Call Me by the sweet name of Father, with confidence and love, and you will receive everything from this Father, with love and mercy. I would like everybody to call Me by the familiar name of Father and Friend.”

C. Practice.

1. Thank the Father for every gift you recognize.

2. Say the Our Father with childlike affection.

3. Upon arising, seek the Father’s blessing for the day.

-Rev. Robert Hughes, S.M.