Thank you for living my messages
February 9, 2021
Dear Family of Mary!
Today we will hear from Fr. Slavko, in a meditation he wrote for the June 25, 1998 message:
Meditation on the message of 25th June 1998, 17th Anniversary of the Apparitions
“Dear children, today I desire to thank you for living my messages. I bless you all with my Motherly blessing and I bring you all before my Son Jesus. Thank you for having responded to my call.”
This time Mary gave us a short message, one of the shortest. Giving thanks is found in the majority of her messages. In each of them, apart from one, Mary says, “Thank you for having responded to my call.” It’s surprising to us and makes us wonder, ‘Who exactly should she thank? Who among us has truly accepted and lived the messages so perfectly that the Virgin Mary is able to thank him?’ Mary sees the good the positive, even if it is only in small amounts, and it is for this good and positivity that she gives thanks. That gives cause for reflection. Giving thanks is the condition for peace among people and also between ourselves and God. Whoever says, “Thank you” shows that he sees the positive especially. At home, if we thank each other for the good, we will have peace. If we don’t see the good and only notice or criticize the bad, there will always be conflicts and discord among us and we will never have joy/ the same goes for our relationship with God. If we find no reason to thank God, that means that we do not have faith.
God created everything. He gave us everything that we have, and it is only our pride and our superbness which renders us blind to His gifts. If we find no reason to give thanks, we will not even be able to pray, we will lose our faith and our trust in God. When things don’t go well, we can easily say, “My God, why me?” but while everything goes well, we quickly forget to thank Him. We are called to be grateful to God always, to have a humble attitude which inspires us to have constant gratitude. Whenever gratitude stops, sin enters in. If we are not grateful, that means that we do not see the good and we open ourselves up to conflict and sin. It’s a great danger for us to focus on the negative and talk only of the negative. It’s also dangerous with respect to education. We all suffer a little from professional defamation and we behave like a teacher who is correcting the homework of his students. When he sees the mistake, he underlines it emphatically in red so that it can be seen. That might be the right thing to do at school, but if we only see the negative in our life, peace will not be possible and people, especially children, will not mature well. Only the person who sees the good, who gives thanks and talks about it becomes a good educator. Those who only criticize lose their authority with the children and with the school. I think the same thing goes for priests and their sermons. If a priest only criticizes and never emphasize the good things within the parish, he will also lose all authority.
That which might prevent us from giving thanks is suffering, our cross. A question comes from our heart, “How can I thank God for my suffering and my cross? Should I do it?” The answer can only be found in faith, in front of the crucified Jesus. How may times do we thank Jesus for His suffering and His cross, and do we praise His cross because through it He redeemed us and redeemed the world? We believe that our suffering was caused by us or by others through their sins. Didn’t St. Paul say that for those who believe, everything would turn to the good? I think that the biggest test of faith, in our relationship with ourselves, with God and with others consists in believing that all of our personal suffering will change into the good, leaving the time and the method to God. But he who also gives thanks for his own suffering and his cross frees himself from anger, from mistrust, from fear and from depression. He will always be able to have joy and hope.
To give thanks is the deepest expression and the most beautiful fruit of faith. Mary is a grateful servant of the Lord. Looking at her Magnificat, we see how she prays. Her soul praises the greatness of the Lord because the Lord has looked on the humility of His servant. And she gives thanks for the history of people, for everything the Lord did for their fathers. She sees that God has raised the lowly, the humble and the poor and that the high and mighty are not esteemed by Him, as long as they remain haughty and proud. Mary says, “Thank you”. In the history of Israel she sees that God loves us and guides us just as she sees this in her own life.
I spoke with one of the visionaries about her experience in Heaven, Purgatory and Hell. Regarding Heaven, she gave me an answer which greatly pleased me. She said, “In Heaven, we will be giving eternal thanks when we learn all that God has done for us, that we have not seen here on earth. We will need all eternity to give thanks.” It’s the great task which is incumbent on everyone in this the start of the 18th anniversary of the apparitions. We have to learn to be grateful, that is to say, that we must first open our eyes to the positive and to the good, and then give thanks. Through gratitude we will experience joy and peace, protect ourselves from the negative, discover the positive and the good in others., we will talk about it and will give thanks for that. Only then will we obtain the courage and the strength to face the negative in ourselves and in others. And we will know to thank God for His great love, His Fatherly concern, and for this great gift which He has given us in this time.
Let us think about the story in the Gospel in which Jesus healed ten lepers, but only one came back to thank Him, the others didn’t have the time. One in ten, that’s too little. If we ask ourselves if we are grateful, we will see that we behave in the same way perhaps. But for those of us who are in the School of Mary, This must not be the case…
(From Fr. Slavko Barbaric: “Medjugorje and Father Slavko Barbaric” Les Editions Sakramento 2016, p.138-140)
I find Fr. Slavko’s words to be very healing! To be continued tomorrow!
In Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!
Cathy Nolan
© Mary TV 2021
