Fr. Robert Rieger at English Mass in Medjugorje
January 4, 2021
St. Elizabeth Ann Seton
Dear Family of Mary!
I want to share with you all today a very stunning homily given at the English Mass in Medjugorje, yesterday, January 3, 2021. Fr. Robert Rieger spoke powerfully about allowing Jesus to be the “blueprint” of our life, allowing Jesus to live in us, to be “born” in our hearts, so that He can grow up in us and direct our lives in His image. I have transcribed it for you here, but it is more powerful to see and hear him speak it. Here is the link to the video on our website:
https://marytv.tv/english-homily-in-medjugorje-2/?smid=rkRQLisYWa1&slid=IRBKmbjFsDA
May Fr. Robert’s words be a blessing for each of us for 2021!
Fr. Robert Rieger – English Mass in Medjugorje, January 3, 2021
“The Word was in the beginning with God, and all things were made through Him. And without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life and the life was the light of men.”
Here we are speaking about Christ. Everything was made, in Him, through Him, in view of Him. Which means that Christ is the blueprint of everything, above all, of us! Of man and woman.
You know if we want to know what it means to be a man, if we want to know what it means to be a woman, we need to understand Christ. It is because of Him that we are made. His image is implanted in us. And I become truly myself, I become truly Robert, in the measure that I let this blueprint, Christ in me, grow up.
And I will be the masculine form of Christ. Others will be the feminine form of Christ. You have to let the “God blueprint” in you take possession of you. To give you form and give you direction. And it is something we take upon ourselves with freedom. We can actually abort this mystery. We can actually say, “No, I’m going to decide myself what I want to be and how I want to be. Now I want to invent my own life.”
And it can only be a failure. Because when we let Jesus Christ direct our life, it will have a true direction and I will know what I need to do with myself. I will know how to direct my gesture, my choices, my attitudes, and master my emotions…when I know who I am to become. This is the positive form of the saying, “We become what we worship. We become what we adore.” Positively. We can actually adore money, we can adore lust, even adore, or worship evil. And I will become what I adore.
But if I adore Christ, if I worship Him, the power of Him in me will transform me slowly but surely into Him. Which is why it says later on, “To those who received Him, who believed in His Name, He gave power to become children of God.”
So this has some very practical implications for our lives. And it helps us to understand when Mary says, “Pray that Jesus may be born again in you.” It is sort of like saying, “Jesus, when You are born in me and you grow in me, and You grow with me, it is almost the contrary. I am born in Him, and I become Him, and gradually my eyes, my gestures, my words, and my way of being communicates Christ in the world. Which is of course, exactly what the world needs. Christ people all over the place.
And this is possible, Jesus Himself said, “You will do what I do, but you will do things even greater than Me.” Meaning that He wants to be able to live His life again in us. The blueprint of my life is Him.
So what are the practical implications of this? A couple in the short time we have. I will only mention two. But you know, getting to know Jesus and loving Jesus and talking to Jesus and understanding Jesus, we first need to understand that everything that I read and love and adore and admire in Him, is probably what speaks to me the most and is probably what is calling me to be Him.
So if I admire His paternal strength and His way of blessing people so that the best of them comes out, and that means the elderly and babies, sinner and prostitutes, and fishermen…it doesn’t matter who it is…Jesus is a powerful father figure! Now if you admire that and say that’s fantastic, it is probably calling you to the same thing, because you have this gift! The blueprint of this paternity is written in you. And you have to start giving it expression, which means, practically, that you have to decide to start blessing people who come towards you. To want to promote the gifts, to promote their beauty, deciding that they must emerge. And that is a decision, that is a very concrete, practical decision. That not only blesses people and actually helps them to emerge, but it gives Jesus, the Christ in you, more space to express Himself. And the more expression we give to Jesus, the more space He will take in your life.
That is one. The strength of Jesus when He fights evil. The first thing He does after His baptism, is He is sent in the Spirit, into the desert by the Holy Spirit, to confront evil. You know, the idea that a Christian is a weak, feeble, wishy-washy piece of nothing, is just false if you understand the strength of Jesus, the power of Jesus to stand up to evil, to stand up to injustice, to try and break down all systems of evil and all systems of sin. You know we have a very powerful man. And if that is what you admire in Jesus, then He is calling it out of you. And He is saying, “You, too! You can be the strength!”
But in particular, what touches me, which I think is my personal calling, is when I look at the relationship of Jesus with women. There is something extraordinary, never before in history, and rarely do we see it since Him. The incredible freedom that Jesus has with women. Promoting them, raising them up, restoring their dignity, their place in society, healing them. There is something very, very special in the way that Jesus relates to Mary, that denounces the hardness in the heart of men and women.
You know He said explicitly to the Pharisees, “The reason there is divorce, Moses has permitted you to divorce, is because of the hardness of your hearts. And it wasn’t like that at the beginning, and its not like that now. The blueprint of Christ in each one of us isn’t the hardness of the heart. It isn’t the need to dominate, and to despise and to revile, is not part of the blueprint. You can fight against that within yourself. And you can let the new heart of Christ grow up within you and animate your relationships.
So, Jesus is not the founder of stereotypes, i.e., the man has to be like this, and the woman has to be like that. He is not the founder of this. He is the founder of a new humanity, a resurrected humanity. He is the founder of the capacity we have to be transformed. To convert our lives. To decide to cast away the evil habits and the bad habits that we have. He is the founder of the capacity that we have to change our relationships. To bless relationships. To fight evil. To emerge in this world with His power. He is the founder of that. And it is always new. He does new things all the time. There is a surprise awaiting when someone allows the Jesus we adore, to take possession of their life.
https://marytv.tv/english-homily-in-medjugorje-2/?smid=rkRQLisYWa1&slid=IRBKmbjFsDA
Our Lady once said to us:
November 25, 1989 “Dear children! I am inviting you for years by these messages which I am giving you. Little children, by means of the messages I wish to make a very beautiful mosaic in your hearts, so I may be able to present each one of you to God like the original image. Therefore, little children, I desire that your decisions be free before God, because He has given you freedom. Therefore pray, so that, free from any influence of satan, we may decide only for God. I am praying for you before God and I am seeking your surrender to God. Thank you for responding to my call.”
Amen, and Amen!
In Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!
Cathy Nolan
©Mary TV 2021
