“Also today I am praying to the Holy Spirit to fill your hearts with strong faith”, says Mary in a message (25.09.2015). She is offering us the same as that which was offered to Jesus’ disciples after his horrible death. Prayer and faith. The disciples ran away because of fear of the Jews. Today when we watch the news about wars, the refugee crisis, persecutions, we notice how fear and panic abound around us. The presence of the mother repels fear from her child. She understands us. She confidently repeats that to us in her messages: “Who can understand you better than your mother?” “I know you do not understand many things, just as I did not understand all the things my Son explained to me in the time He was growing up close to me, but I believed in Him and followed Him. I ask you in the same way to believe me and follow me.”

The Heavenly Mother wants to encourage us to prayer and faith. Whatever happens, this world is in the hands of God. Fear is lack of faith. We need strong faith. The hearts of the apostles were filled with strong faith through the descent of the Holy Spirit after praying with Mary.

...The descent of the Holy Spirit always happens in common prayer with Mary...

In the first days at the beginning of the apparitions of the Virgin Mary in Medjugorje, when the visionaries asked Our Lady what she expected from them, she said: “Strong faith and help others to believe.” This same answer that was given to the visionaries was then given to all parishes, priests… and today there are millions of pilgrims from all around the world. Today we are them. Mary expects from us strong faith and for this she is praying to the Holy Spirit for us.

The descent of the Holy Spirit always happens in common prayer with Mary. She knows very well the mysterious and powerful action of the Holy Spirit in prayer. We can obtain everything through prayer – the gift of a strong faith too. “How powerful prayer is! We could call her a queen who has free access to the king and she can get everything she asks for”, said Saint Therese of Lisieux. In the school of Mary this prayer is most certainly the rosary.

...Come Holy Spirit and teach us to kneel before our God and to serve our neighbors as Mary, your Beloved Bride, was doing...

October has started, the month of Our Lady, the month dedicated to the prayer of the rosary. This is a prayer which the great saints of this age have loved – Saint John Paul II, Mother Teresa, Padre Pio. The rosary is simple but makes the strongest advance against the devil. Let us encourage each other, let us pray the rosary together. Let us renew this prayer with new enthusiasm in our families. Let us open our hearts to Our Lady in praying the rosary, so that she through the Holy Spirit can ask for us the gift of strong faith.

“God leads you through me into the depths of spiritual life”, she told us in one message. When we live her messages we have today a clear goal in front of us – the realization of the greatest commandment: “Serve God in adoration and in your neighbor in need.”

This is the doctrine of Jesus and is the answer to the question of which commandment is the most important. “The most important one is this: Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself! There is no commandment greater than these.”

Let us accept this invitation of Mary’s to follow her in serving God in adoration and in serving our neighbors in need.

Let us pray:

Holy Spirit, we ask you together with Our Lady – come and fill our hearts with strong faith. Come Holy Spirit and deliver us from fear, come and take hold of our hearts filling them with joy and love, that we might be a sign for those who are so far away from God. Come Holy Spirit and teach us to kneel before our God and to serve our neighbors as Mary, your Beloved Bride, was doing. Amen.