Dear Children, pray with me for the good to win!
April 11, 2024
Dear Family of Mary!
On Tuesday I shared with you the transcript of the powerful homily given by Fr. Brendan Kilcoyne on April 2, 2024. Today I want to send out another wonderful homily!! Yesterday, April 10, 2024 Fr. Stan Fortuna gave the homily at English Mass! It is another powerful homily.
Here is the link! You may want to hear it delivered.
But also I have the transcript, excellently transcribed by our shipmate, Stefanie Hogue.
The Holy Spirit is moving powerfully in Medjugorje! I think He is helping us to live these 40 days of prayer and fasting before Pentecost, with power!
The Gospel for April 10, 2024:
A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to John 3:16-21
God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son so that everyone who believes in Him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. Whoever believes in Him will not be condemned; but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed the name of the only begotten Son.
And this is the verdict, the Light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come towards the light so that his works might not be exposed. But whoever lives the truth comes to the light so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God.
The Gospel of the Lord
HOMILY by Fr. Stan Fortuna in Medjugorje – English Mass
Our Loving Mother, the Church, today, Wednesday, the second week of Easter, April 10th, 2024, in the parish of Medjugorje, in Bijakovici, in St. James the Apostle Church, she gives us as the gospel antiphon, Psalm 34, verse 8:
Taste and see how good the Lord is. Blessed the man who trusts in Him.
Fr. Leon and me, we’re first cousins: the Dominican and a Franciscan… And speaking about the Dominicans, one of his brothers – one of our brothers in Our Loving Mother, the Church – Thomas Aquinas; he says that,
“To love is to consistently will the good of another.”
Most of you – probably all of you – are on pilgrimage, and even if you’re not, you are! And we’re so blessed to be here!
And as we make our way, the word that kept coming to us, and that has been confirmed from us on earth and in Heaven, is this word, “good.”
And so… “To love is to consistently will the good of another.” And so that was confirmed with the gospel Antiphon, Psalm chapter 34, verse 8: “Taste and see how good the Lord is,” and, “Blessed is the man who trusts in Him.”
And the gospel of the day, John chapter 3, verse 16:
God what?
God loved…
Who?
The world…
How much?
So much…
“What did he do?”
He sent His only begotten Son.
And I don’t know if you know what the last message here was on March 25th, this year, 2024. Here’s a little piece:
“Dear children, Pray with me for the good to win in you and around you in a special way.”
“Oh Father, can you repeat that…” Yes!
“Dear children, Pray with me for the good to win in you and around you in a special way.”
My hero, Karol Wojtyla, St. Pope John Paul II, the Great Father and Doctor of the Church…
When did he say this?
He said this on the 11th of February…
Oh… does that ring a bell? Yes! Lourdes. The Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes.
In 1979, it was 118 days after he was elected on October 16th, 1978 – Thank you, Jesus! – he said,
“Jesus wants love…”
And, boy! If there’s one of her favored sons, he’s on the line – he’s right up on top of the line – he loved Our Mother…. Whoooo! Anyway, he said,
“Jesus wants love, the solidarity of love, to grow from suffering, and around suffering, and He wants the sum of that good…” (He wants the sum of that good…) “…which is possible in our human world, a good that never goes away.”
And Our Mother said, on March 25th – because it fell in Holy Week, it was the Solemnity of the Annunciation, which we just celebrated here on Monday,
“Dear children, pray with me for the good to win in you and around you in a special way.”
So, with David, in Psalm 34, verse 8…
With Thomas Aquinas,
“…and to love is to consistently will the good of another…”
With John the Apostle, the Beloved disciple, in his gospel…
“God so loved the world that He gave His only Son…”
With Mary, Our Mother of Medjugorje, “Dear children, pray with me for the good to win in you and around you in a special way.”
And with Karol Wotyla, St. Pope John Paul II, the Great Father and Doctor of the Church…With all of them, and all of us… it’s possible, as he said, “…to make the miracle of the perfect accomplishment of the good…”
“It makes possible for the miracle of the perfect accomplishment of the good to take place.”
And he put it like this then, in his tenth of 14 encyclicals released in 1993, number 118, in Veritatis Splendor (just in case you don’t believe me…)
He said it then; and he’s saying it again to us today, from Heaven…
“Mary is the Mother of Mercy because Her Son, Jesus Christ, was sent by the Father as the revelation of God’s Mercy. Christ came not to condemn but to forgive, to show Mercy. No human sin can erase the Mercy of God or prevent Him from unleashing all His triumphant power if we only call out to Him.
“Indeed, sin itself makes even more radiant the love of the Father. His Mercy reaches its fullness in the gift of the Spirit. No matter how many and great the obstacles put in His way by human frailty and sin, the Spirit, who renews the face of the earth, makes possible the miracle of the perfect accomplishment of the good.
“This renewal which gives the ability to do what is good, noble, beautiful, pleasing to God, and in conformity with His Will, is in some way the flowering of His gift of Mercy.
“Mary is also the Mother of Mercy, because it is to her that Jesus entrusts His church, and all humanity at the foot of the Cross, when she accepts John as her son. When she asks, together with Christ, forgiveness from the Father for those who do not know what they do, Mary experiences, in perfect docility to the Spirit, the richness and universality of God’s love, which opens her heart and enables it to embrace the entire human race.
“Thus, Mary becomes the Mother of each and every one of us. The Mother who obtains for us Divine Mercy.”
Hail Mary…
Thank you Fr. Stan, and all of our wonderful priests who teach and bless us in their homilies! God loves us so much!!
In Jesus, Mary and Joseph!
Cathy Nolan
(c) Mary TV 2024