OUR LADY OF MEDJUGORJE’S MESSAGE OF SEPTEMBER 25, 2009

“Dear children, with joy, persistently work on your conversion. Offer all your joys and sorrows to my Immaculate Heart that I may lead you all to my most beloved Son, so that you may find joy in His Heart. I am with you to instruct you and to lead you towards eternity. Thank you for having responded to my call.”

The Power of the Holy Rosary

A. A Call to Prayer: “With joy work persistently on your conversion.”

Coming just before October, month of the Holy Rosary, and near the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary (October 7), it is fairly easy to detect in this message echoes of Our Lady of Fatima where she asked us to pray the Rosary (“joys and sorrows”) and to consecrate ourselves to her Immaculate Heart. Therefore, when she calls us to “conversion” she is asking us to change and improve the way we pray the Holy Rosary. This is consonant with her remark that her messages are just commentaries on what Our Lord says in the Gospel and through the Sacred Liturgy.

1. Joy. Ivan has always insisted with me that “Our Lady brings good things. She comes as Our Lady of Peace. She also told me that she comes as Our Lady of   Mercy too. Therefore she brings hope, which is so much needed today.” History attests (Lepanto, Vienna, Fatima, Austria) to the power of her intercession to bring   peace. So we should pray with joy, knowing that as we pray the Rosary with her we are achieving peace.

2. Persistence. In Our Lord’s commentary on prayer as presented by Luke 11:5, He uses the word “persistence” as the main spirit of our prayer, because, we are going to receive what we ask for. “I tell you ask…seek…knock….” Confidence in God inspires us to persist.

3. Conversion. All our graces come through prayer, so also the grace of conversion. Motivated by the great gift of peace coming, Our Lady wants us to increase our Faith, firm up our confidence, and make our trust total.

B. With Mary: “Offer all your joys and sorrows to my Immaculate Heart.”

Our Lady wants us to unite all of our sentiments and dispositions with her and those of her Son, so that we share their feelings experienced in the Joyful and Sorrowful Mysteries. She adds that if we do this, her Son will change all our sorrows into joys. By so doing, we begin to live their life.

1. Our joys are to be united with the joys of Jesus and Mary in the Joyful Mysteries.

a. The Annunciation gives us the joy of receiving. Jesus comes again to save us and to bring us the wealth of His merits. As St. Francis de Sales says: “We should give Jesus the biggest welcome we can muster.”

b. The Visitation graces us with the joy of giving. Having experienced the joy of the presence of Jesus in our hearts, we will gladly want to share this great blessing with all we meet.

c. The Birth of Our Lord reveals to us the joy of total dependence on Mary. Jesus wants us to experience the great joy of receiving the maternal care that He received by submitting Himself completely to her care.

d. The Presentation helps us with the joy of obedience. Our Blessed Mother knows everyone’s mission in life and she awaits our complete docility to her guidance in her efforts to present us as a gift to the Father.

e. The Finding in the Temple manifests the joy of growing with Mary as our Educator. Jesus obediently submitted Himself to a life of union with Mary at Nazareth, where she taught Him to pray and grow in wisdom and grace.

2. Our sorrows are to be united with the sorrows of Jesus and Mary in the Sorrowful Mysteries.

a. The Agony in the Garden shows us the sorrow for sin that we should have. The compunction we have consoles Jesus in the hour of His greatest sorrow.

b. The Scourging brings home to us the sorrow for the pain we caused Jesus. Our fasting and little sacrifices ease the pain that Jesus still suffers.

c. The Crowing with Thorns reminds us of the sorrow for wounding Jesus. Jesus said: “Those closest to Me wound me the most in this Mystery.”

d. The Carrying of the Cross recalls the sorrow of the burden we put on Jesus.By fulfilling the Will of God and our duties of state, we ease the burden.

e. The Crucifixion reveals the sorrow of dying where Jesus gave His all for us.

-Rev. Robert Hughes, S.M.