Day: January 7, 2020

(c) Mary TV 2020 January 7, 2020St. Raymond of Penafort  Dear Family of Mary! Two days after the remarkable homily of Archbishop Luigi Pezzuto about the connection of Our Lady, Queen of Peace and Divine Mercy, Fr. Christ Alar, MIC, gave the homily at English Mass in Medjugorje (January 2).  Fr. Chris is a member of the Marians of the Immaculate Conception!  This community has championed Divine Mercy since the early days.  And for Fr. Chris, the homily of Archbishop Pezzuto was very meaningful. It was significant because it tied the presence of Our Lady in Medjugorje to the devotion to the Divine Mercy as two inseparable signs from God for our age. Here is Fr. Alar’s homily, given at English Mass on Januray 2, 2020!! Medjugorje English Mass Thursday, January 2, 2020 Fr. Chris Alar, MIC   Homily   Good morning! You know, coming from the United States, if I was to ask the question of you, “When does Christmas begin?” Probably, if you were from the United States, you would say, “The day after Thanksgiving with all the shopping.” That is not when Christmas begins! When does Christmas actually begin? On Christmas Day, or Christmas Eve if you are celebrating vespers.   Now when does Christmas end? Anybody tell me when Christmas ends? Okay. Now, the Christmas Season ends with the Baptism of Our Lord. But there’s parts of the Christmas Season that are very important. And we just finished the first part yesterday.   Yesterday we celebrated Mary the Mother of God. And that completes the Octave of Christmas. Now, what’s an Octave? An Octave comes from our Jewish tradition – when a feast was so big that it couldn’t be celebrated in one day, it was celebrated over eight days. And this celebration, in the Jewish tradition was called an Octave. Now, we used to have many Octaves in the Catholic Church – the Octave of Pentecost, the Octave of Corpus Christi – but we really only now celebrate two Octaves? What are they? The Octave of Christmas and the Octave of Easter.   These are important. Why? Well, let’s look at the Octave of Easter; the most important Octave we have in the church. It begins on Easter Sunday and eight days later concludes with what? Divine Mercy! The Feast of Divine Mercy! You can’t separate them; they are celebrated as one giant feast. The Resurrection – Christ opens the door to heaven – and on Divine Mercy, the eighth day (Eight represents eternity to the Jews) we enter eternity and, hopefully, into the embrace of God’s Mercy in heaven.   Now, the Christmas Octave is also very important. When did it begin? Christmas Day. And it concludes eight days later – which was yesterday – with what? The Solemnity of Mary the Mother of God. You can’t separate the birth of Jesus from His mother.   Now this Octave which ends with Mary the Mother of God, as Father Leon was saying yesterday, is very important. You know, it might surprise a lot of you – I won’t go into the theology here, you can see me afterwards – but it shocks a lot of people to learn that Jesus Christ was not a human person. What?! Father, you’re heretical! No! Jesus Christ was a Divine Person with a Human Nature.   Jesus was not two persons. Then you’d have four persons in the Trinity. Jesus was one person, two natures. So, His nature for all eternity, and His personhood were always Divine. The second person of the Trinity was always Divine, and He had a Divine nature. But when He came to earth, He assumed a human nature. So, He’s fully God, in His nature; fully man, in His nature. So, please don’t run to the Bishop and say Father Chris said Jesus wasn’t at all in any way human. No! He was fully human, in His nature.   But if you read the catechism, it says Jesus Christ is one person, two natures. His nature is Divine; He has a human nature, He assumed that at the incarnation. But his person is Divine. And when Mary gave birth – a mother gives birth, not to a nature, but to a person – and when Mary gave birth, she gave birth to the person, and that person is Divine. Therefore, we can call Mary the Mother of God; because that person is a Divine person who then assumed a human nature.   Now. Why do I tell you all this? This is because we just completed the Octave of Christmas. Now we are in the middle of something else, the days to the Epiphany. From Christmas Day to the Epiphany, called the Twelve Days of Christmas.   Now, you all remember the song? At least in America I know we do, right? The Twelve Days of Christmas: seven swans a swimming, six geese a laying, right? Today, we’re in the Ninth Day of Christmas. Remember what the nine days are? What are the nine days? Ladies dancing, right? I think that was right; nine ladies dancing.     But you know, each of those days represents something of our catholic faith. Seven represented the seven sacraments. Eight represented the eight beatitudes. Does anybody remember what nine represented in the song? Anybody? The fruits of the Holy Spirit. Now those fruits of the Holy Spirit are: love, joy, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, and peace.   Peace. The Croatian word, I see it all over here – is it pronounced “mere?” – Mir! This is the theme of Medjugorje: Peace! Why now and why at this time is God bringing this to us? This is important. If you were here on New Year’s Eve you heard the Apostolic Nuncio from Rome make one of the most important homilies I have ever heard. Was anybody here, here for that homily? A few people? You might want to try to find this. It is extremely important!   The Nuncio said that what is happening in our world is we are shackled with distrust and fear. Now you all know Satan has three great tools, right? Satan uses three things to snap souls. One: Pride. That’s the fall. That’s where John the Baptist in this reading today was the epitome of humility. He says, I am not even worthy to unstrap the sandals of the Lamb of God. The opposite of that is pride. That’s Satan’s first tool. He brought Adam and Eve down with it. We want to be like God.   Satan’s second great tool: Fear. We are fearful. We are living in a time of fear. We are living in absolute anxiety and nervousness. I hear this in the confessional all the time.   And Satan’s third great tool: Confusion. He is using this now more than ever. Confusion. Don’t fall for this Satan’s trap that’s sweeping the world, that marriage can now be between two men, or marriage can be between two women. No, it can’t. Or that you can change your gender. No, you can’t. You know if Satan can confuse who you are at your very core – your maleness or your femaleness – he can confuse anything. Don’t fall for this trap.   I pray for my own country, the United States. This liberal agenda is trying to confuse our very being. As I always laugh, Brother Jason and I were walking yesterday up to the mountain, to the cross, and we were talking about the very essence of who we are. There’s nothing more core to your being than your maleness or your femaleness. When your baby is born, does the doctor look and say, “It’s a lawyer?” No, he says, “It’s a boy!” “It’s a girl!” And as Brother Jason says, the doctor doesn’t look and say, “Well, before I tell you It’s a boy or a girl, what do you want it to be? Do you want it to be a boy or girl or one of the other 26 genders?” This is insanity! And this is what Satan is using to confuse us.   Now I want to finish by going back to fear. Satan’s great tools: Pride, Fear and Confusion. Let’s look at Fear, because this is where Medjugorje comes in. The opposite of Fear is what? Trust and Peace. If you trust someone, and you are at peace with them, you do not fear them. If you don’t trust someone, and you’re not at peace with them, you fear. This is what the Nuncio talked about.   Now, here’s what’s interesting. Trust is the essence of the message of Divine Mercy. Saint Faustina; God gave to her in the 1930’s the message that Pope John Paul said is the most important message of our times. In that essence of Divine Mercy is trust. Now, peace is the essence of the message of Medjugorje; Peace.   So, trust and peace are the answer, the Nuncio said, to the fear that Satan brings us. Satan is flooding the world with fear, and he said, the answer! The answer to this distrust and fear that is caused by Satan, (and we know the answer) is trust and peace. So, the Nuncio linked these two together, and then, he finished by saying the Queen of Peace is the Queen of Divine Mercy.   Brother Jason and I have been with the Marians for a decade and we have never heard this coming from a Bishop. We have never heard a Bishop say, the Queen of Peace is the Queen of Divine Mercy. But Archbishop Pezzuto linked the two together. This is the answer.   Jesus said, to Saint Faustina, “Mankind will not have peace until he turns with trust to my Divine Mercy.” Hear the word, “peace.” Hear the word, “trust.” Jesus said, we will not have peace – and by peace; He doesn’t mean absence of war, He means peace in your heart. This is the end of anxiety. This is the end of fear. Mankind will not have peace – until he turns with trust to my Divine Mercy. The answer to getting the trust is Divine Mercy. And to get the Peace is Medjugorje. And he linked these two together.   Jason, (Brother Jason,) and I are from the Marians of the Immaculate Conception at the National Shrine of Divine Mercy, and we just finished a book called “After Suicide: There’s Hope for Them (those who have died) and (there’s hope) for You (those left behind).”   That you can get through this; never over it, but you can get through it. And in our book, in which this Divine Mercy is the essence, we quote Fr. Mitch Pacwa. Do any of you know about Father Mitch Pacwa from EWTN? He said, somebody asked him, “Why are there so many suicides in the world today?” And Father Mitch said, “The reason there are so many suicides is a lack of peace.”   Remember, Satan’s tools start with pride. Pride was just wiped away by John the Baptist and any of us who live in humility. Fear is wiped away with trust and peace. Trust, first, we know from Divine Mercy, and now, Peace, which will come, and we’re learning, in Medjugorje. Jesus brought us Saint Faustina and Divine Mercy to trust Him; now He brings us Medjugorje to find peace. How? Jesus said, we will find peace after turning to His Divine Mercy. That’s why Divine Mercy came first in revelations to Saint Faustina. And why now, peace is coming through the revelations of Medjugorje. This is so important.   So, I finish by saying, we need to know Him to see Him. How do we know Jesus? How do we see Him? This is the first reading that Brother Jason just read. The Son abides in the Father, and the Father abides in the Son. How do you know the Father? This is ultimately where we all came from, and this is ultimately where we all want to return to, the Father. But how do you know the Father? There’s only one way to know God the Father; Jesus makes it very clear, through the Son. And how do you know the Son? You know the Son through the Holy Spirit. And how do you know the Holy Spirit? Through Mary, His Spouse; right here at Medjugorje.   So, do you want to get back to God the Father? Start with Mary, right here in Medjugorje. That’s where you are; that’s where you start. Let Mary take you to the Holy Spirit. Through the Holy Spirit, through the power of the anointing that we just read in the first reading, we know the Son. So that He can act in us. And then the Son will take us back to God the Father. Ultimately, where we are destined to be for all eternity.   How do we do that? How do we know the Son to get back to the Father? The image of Divine Mercy. Pope Francis said, the image of Divine Mercy is the face of the Father’s Mercy. Misericordia Voltus ; the Face of the Father’s Mercy. This is the image of Divine Mercy. To know the Father by the Son. This is what we see in Divine Mercy. And to have that, we get back to the Father.   But right now, we are not getting there, because we have fear. We are afraid. We run. We turn our back. I had a confession a couple days ago, and the woman – beautiful woman – said, “Father, I’m hypocritical. Because when I’m afraid and I’m anxious, I don’t pray. Because if I pray, then I’m hypocritical.” No! That’s when we need to pray!   So, to see God clearly, the Father, go through the Son. And the Son shows us His face in the image of Divine Mercy. So, God bless all of you for coming here to Medjugorje. You know, we are in the year 2020. As we all know, what does 20/20 mean? Perfect vision. 20/20 is the vision, the clarity that we need to see God. And we see Him through the image of Divine Mercy. But we’re not going to trust Him, unless we are at peace. Or I should say, we won’t have peace until we trust Him. So, let us trust God, by the gift of His Mother, and the promise of a Savior. And in that clarity, that John said, you do not know Him? Why do we not know Him? Because we don’t see Him. Why do we not see Him? We’re shackled with fear. Wipe out the fear with trust and peace. And when you do that, you can see Him clearly.   This has got to be your resolution for 2020. Not losing more weight – even though we probably all need that – probably not doing this or doing that, or doing this or whatever that, what really should be your resolution for the new year is seeing God more clearly. Seeing Him in 2020 vision. What more perfect time than the Year 2020 to see Him in 20/20. The vision and the clarity that comes only through God’s Mercy.   So, bless you all! And please, if not us? Who? If not everyone of us in this room, to spread this message of how Divine Mercy links to Medjugorje, of how God is using His Mother to take us to the Son and ultimately to return to the Father, nobody else is going to do it. We have to. And that’s why you’re here. Don’t think God can’t use you. You wouldn’t be here otherwise. You’re here for a purpose. So am I. So is Father Leon. So is Brother Jason. So are all of you.   Let us not miss this opportunity. We are at one of the most unprecedented times in human history. Next to the Resurrection, maybe the most, most important time. Jesus told Saint Faustina. You, Saint Faustina, I want to prepare for the coming, my second coming. I want to prepare you for the end times. Jesus said, mankind’s, in many ways, last hope of salvation is Divine Mercy.     (You can view Fr. Christ giving this homily at this link:  https://marytv.tv/english-mass-in-medjugorje/ – look for the video labeled 1/2/2020) In Jesus, Mary and Joseph!Cathy Nolan(c)Mary TV 2020