Fr. Martin’s
reflection on - Our Lady’s Message
25th
April 2025
“Dear
children! winds of peacelessness,
selfishness and sin are catching hold of many hearts and leading them into peacelessness and perdition. That is why I am calling you,
little children: return to God and to prayer, so that it may be good for you in
the hearts and on the earth on which you live. I love you, little children, and
that is why I am not tiring of calling you to conversion. Thank you for having
responded to my call.”
(With Ecclesiastical
approval)
Dear Brother’s and Sister’s of
Medjugorje North East and beyond, As we begin our reflection on Our Lady’s
message for this month let us begin by acknowledging the starkness of this particular message ,
and the loving urgency in the voice of the Queen of Peace.
So Our Lady begins, “Dear
Children, Winds of peacelessness, selfishness, and
sin are catching hold of many hearts and leading them to peacelesness
and perdition.”
Our Lady knows how many people have lost their inner peace, because they
have lost the interior life of the Spirit.
The ‘Winds’ of peaceless, selfishness and sin that are catching hold of
many hearts , and leading them into ‘perdition’ is a very serious
situation, and one that calls us to increased prayer for all people. Our Lady is concerned about our Salvation,
and the Salvation of all people, and her words are also a call for all of us to have an
awareness of these winds that are catching hold of many hearts. Our Lady knows that we are weak, prodigal
children, who may have drifted from the Lord, and could do so more in the
future.
Last month Our Lady said something very similar, “Pray with me,
because little children, without God, you do not have a future or eternal
life.” ‘Perdition’ generally refers
to destruction or eternal damnation. It signifies a state of been estranged
from God, outside of his love.
Then Our Lady tells us how to put this situation right by acting
accordingly for ourselves and all our Brother’s and
Sister’s. “Return to God and Prayer.” When our Lady says this, it may mean that we
may need to do exactly that. Each of us can only look into
our own hearts and souls and answer this question honestly. Do I need to return
to God and Prayer? Mary, is concerned for our
spiritual lives, and wants us to choose the good. So a
useful starting point for ourselves might to be to ask, where am I in the
spiritual life, with my relationship with God? What is it that is keeping me
from prayer? From fasting? From recollection?
To ‘return to God and prayer’ is an invite for all of us to
reflect on. That means we have to create the conditions for this return. It means we have to decide for prayer, to deliberately choose time for
God, and our souls. Or are we so taken
up with the frenetic pace of life that we have forgotten the love of God, and
the importance of time spent with him.
Neglect of prayer, make as vulnerable to the winds of peacelessness, selfishness and sin.
Our Lady desires only the good for us, “So that it may be good for
you in the heart, and on the earth on which you live.”
From the start of the apparitions our Lady has taught us how to pray
with the heart. That is with Faith and Love.
She has called us to pray in every message in this way. She has specifically asked us to pray the
Rosary, and Sacred Scripture, and attend Holy Mass, to confess monthly, and
some renunciation through fasting. We do not have to make anything up, Our Lady
has given us the road map, a way through the winds that are leading many hearts
to perdition. Let us pray for our brothers and sisters, for the grace to return
to God and prayer with us, and so know the joy of
Salvation in Christ.
Our Lady concludes this message by telling us, “I love you little
children, and that is why I am calling you to conversion.” Mary is our heavenly Mother. She wants to
love and protect us. She invites us to
make a positive decision for God and prayer, for our good and the good of all
on earth. “Thy Kingdom come on earth
as in Heaven.”
We are now in between the great Feasts of Easter and Pentecost. At
Pentecost ‘A mighty wind came upon the Apostles and the women in
Jerusalem. ( Acts:
2: 1-13.)
This wind filled the entire house where they were staying,
and completely transformed them and thousands of others. Let us turn in these days to the Holy Spirit,
the Lord and giver of life, and let us implore the Holy Spirit of the Most High to blow away the winds of selfishness, sin and peacelessness, and replace them with the winds of Prayer,
Holiness and Truth. Veni Creator
Spiritus!
“Jesus said to Nicodemus, ‘You must be born again, the wind blows where
it wishes, you
hear it’s sound but
you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with
everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
( John : 3: 8.)
God Bless,
Fr. Martin