(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
