Day: August 31, 2020

  (c)Mary TV September 1, 2020 Dear Family of Mary! “Dear children! This is a time of grace. I am with you and anew am calling you, little children: return to God and to prayer until prayer will be a joy for you…” (August 25, 2020) Our Lady told us in this message that she is calling us to return to God and to prayer until prayer will be a joy for us!  So much depends on our prayer.  We have no idea how much!  I want to share a teaching from Fr. Slavko Barbaric, given in 1985.  Way back then!!  He speaks about prayer as the sign of our abandonment to God: When the Blessed Virgin tells us that we must pray, this is nothing new!  She has repeated this invitation to prayer many times, almost in every message and more especially to Jelena.  But there is something else very important and that is, that after Easter she invited us twice to pray with our heart.  In one of these messages she said: “I again invite you to pray with your hearts” and it is the same thing when she says; “May your prayer be a sign of your abandonment to God.”  Prayer should be an encounter with the Lord. We get upset if, when we talk to someone, they become distracted and do not listen.  I am sure that you also stop speaking to somebody when you realize that they are not interested. It is the same during prayer.  During prayer, the Lord wants to talk to us as He did with the two disciples of Emmaus, but if we are distracted and do not pray with our heart, nothing can happen.  To abandon oneself and to pray with one’s heart is the same thing. In these messages Our Lady has also mentioned one of our problems, “Your hearts are still taken up by earthly things and they worry you.”  This is true.  We cannot pray if many things worry us.  For example, when one studies, if you are a little bit concerned about your exams, you can study well, but if you are very much afraid, you are completely seized with fear of the exams and cannot study.  You cannot study because both your mind and your heart are distressed. If there are trials and events that worry us so much, we are unable to pray with our heart.  And so, Our Lady invites us to be converted to prayer and to fasting.  One frees the heart by fasting.  I have much evidence of people who tell me, “When I fast, I can pray better, it is easier, and I can pray more deeply.”  Therefore, if we want to follow the messages, to pray with the heart and to have the joy that prayer can offer us, then we see that we have to fast in order to be able to abandon ourselves to God. In this message, Our Lady said, “I know that you are tired”, and she goes on to tell us the reason why: “because you do not know how to abandon yourselves to me.”  She said in a message after Easter, “I invite you to prayer.  Pray and you will overcome all tiredness.”  I think that you can interpret this as meaning also physical tiredness.  For all of us, prayer should be a living encounter with the Lord, with Jesus Christ.  He said: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Mt 11:28) One can, therefore, also understand this message in a physical sense, we can also rest in prayer. All those who say “what is the sense of living, of suffering” are tired.  This is tiredness, and this message shows us that we can overcome it by prayer.  From experience here, I can tell you, many who have begun to pray have been able to be reconciled with themselves, to find the meaning of life, of suffering and of everything else. If we want to solve all our problems we must pray.  In fact, before Easter Our Lady said in a message: “Pray and you will find the greatest joy and the solution to all, even the most difficult situations.”  Marija said that our Lady has asked the prayer group to offer up to her every Wednesday, even the smallest thing, every difficulty, offer everything to her for her intention.  Marija said that when we did this, offered everything for her intention, we immediately felt that our Blessed Lady had already taken these things and had offered them up to Jesus.  We must offer everything to Our Lady including our sufferings, even our distress, our worries, our fears, everything, and then with prayer and fasting we will succeed more and more every day in this total abandonment.  (Fr. Slavko Barbaric, June 14, 1985 – from the Blue Book – “Abandon Yourselves Totally to Me”) Fr. Slavko’s words are as powerful and applicable to our time as they were in 1985.  We are tired, and distracted, and possibly we are struggling to abandon ourselves to God even today.  Our world is in turmoil.  But the answer for us is not to internalize that turmoil and worry ourselves into despair.  The answer is the same answer Our Lady gave in 1985, we must “return to God and to prayer until prayer become a joy for us!” Fr. Slavko, pray for us! In Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Cathy Nolan ©Mary TV 2020 The Fall/Winter/Spring Schedule of prayer in Medjugorje MONDAY-SATURDAY 3:00 – 4:00 pm -Hour of Mercy / Silent Adoration 4:00 – 5:00 pm – Daily Rosary 5:00 – 6:00 pm – Parish Rosary 6:00 – 7:00 pm – International Evening Mass 7:00 – 8:30 pm – Healing prayer/ Rosary/ Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament or Veneration of the Cross SUNDAY 2:00 – 3:00 pm – Podbrdo Rosary (Parish climbs Apparition Hill) 3:00 – 3:30 pm – Hour of Mercy 3:30 – 4:00 pm – Pre-recorded (Adoration not available on Sunday) 4:00 – 5:00 pm – Daily Rosary 5:00 – 8:30 pm – Evening Program – Rosary, Mass and Prayers        

  (c)Mary TV August 31, 2020 Dear Family of Mary! “Dear children! This is a time of grace. I am with you and anew am calling you, little children: return to God and to prayer until prayer will be a joy for you. Little children, you do not have a future or peace until your life begins with a personal conversion and a change to the good. Evil will cease and peace will begin to reign in your hearts and in the world. Therefore, little children, pray, pray, pray. I am with you and intercede before my Son Jesus for each of you. Thank you for having responded to my call.”  (August 25, 2020) It is significant that Our Lady again told us “This is a time of grace.”  Everything she says has great meaning.  Not one word is wasted.  But it is most important that she tells us that “This is a time of grace.”  Why?  Because it means much more than a vague promise of some graces made available to us in this time.  She is announcing something incredible.  (Franjo explained this very well in his Jesus Rosary for August 26, 2020.  I quoted him in my reflection for August 27, 2020 as well.) Let me explain, using the words of one of our shipmates.  During the Daily Rosary, Denis and I had talked about the greeting that The Archangel Gabriel said to Mary when he appeared to her for the Annunciation.  He said to her: “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you!” (Lk 1:28).  The Greek word used for that greeting is “kekaritomene”.  It is a word only used once in all of history, the word that describes Mary in Luke’s Gospel.  Only once was this word used in all of history because only one woman could be described by this word.  Here is what our shipmate said: “This mystery defines the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. When the Archangel Gabriel came to Our Lady, he called Her, ‘Kekaritomene’ which translated means “having been full of grace”. Our Lady’s name in heaven is “She who was always full of grace”. Grace is the unmerited favor of God.” Our Lady is the woman who was, is and always will be “full of grace!  She alone is the Immaculate One.  And this is by the unmerited favor of God, who chose her from the beginning of time to be the Mother of His Son, Jesus, who would save us from our sin. And our shipmate continues: “At Medjugorje She calls this time a “time of grace” which is Her direct way of saying ‘the Time of Mary’. This too is also a time of unmerited favor from God by giving us Her presence at Medjugorje.  St Louis de Montfort tells us to be filled with the Spirit of Mary so as to “rejoice in God”.  There is no surer way to please God!” Our Lady is with us and that is why this is a time of grace.  It is her grace-filled presence through which God pours out graces upon us.  And we have experienced this grace in Medjugorje in so many ways.  Healings, joy, conversion, deepening of prayer, spiritual gifts and blessings, and on and on.  The Time of Grace is Mary’s Time.  And we are in it!! Let’s keep our eyes on Mary, our Mother, during this “time of grace”, the time of her presence with us in Medjugorje!  She will guide us through these difficult waters to the time of peace she waits so impatiently for! Thank you, dearest Mother, for being with us in Medjugorje! In Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Cathy Nolan ©Mary TV 2020 Tomorrow is September 1, 2020, and the parish will be changing their prayer schedule in Medjugorje for the Fall/Winter/Spring seasons. Here are the changes to our broadcasts for the next nine months: Fall/Winter/Spring Schedule of Daily Prayer from Medjugorje Beginning 1st of September (Tuesday) MONDAY-SATURDAY 3:00 – 4:00 pm -Hour of Mercy / Silent Adoration 4:00 – 5:00 pm – Daily Rosary 5:00 – 6:00 pm – Parish Rosary 6:00 – 7:00 pm – International Evening Mass 7:00 – 8:30 pm – Healing prayer/ Rosary/ Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament or Veneration of the Cross SUNDAY 2:00 – 3:00 pm – Podbrdo Rosary (Parish climbs Apparition Hill) 3:00 – 3:30 pm – Hour of Mercy 3:30 – 4:00 pm – Pre-recorded (Adoration not available on Sunday) 4:00 – 5:00 pm – Daily Rosary 5:00 – 8:30 pm – Evening Program – Rosary, Mass and Prayers