Mary’s words “I am carrying my love to you” are so similar to Jesus’ words after the resurrection, “Peace be with you”. These words were words of relaxation for the apostles, after the horrible death of their teacher, when they were hiding from persecution, full of panic and fear. Today the world is full of panic and fear, due to terroristic attacks, wars, migration, violence.

The visionary Ivan often tells us these words of Mary’s, “Dear children, today the world is in great danger. God does not want to destroy people, but there is a danger that people will destroy themselves with war, natural disasters, divorce, drugs, abortion…”

God created the world with love and humans are destroying it. The world is going through a great crisis and the greatest crisis of all is that of faith. People have moved away from God and have stepped out into a future without God. Our Lady is coming to Medjugorje not to frighten us, but as a Mother of Hope. She is coming to help us and to show us what is not good, to show us that without the Lord we are not on the right way.

...She is a Mother of Hope...

Our Heavenly Father knows that we are afraid. That is why He is sending us our mother. “My children, God is great and great is his love towards every creature. Therefore pray, so that you may comprehend God’s love and goodness. As a gift of the goodness and love of God the Creator, I am with you,” Our Lady tells us in her messages. “Also today God has permitted me to love you and out of love to call you to conversion.”

The Queen of Peace does not come with empty hands. She carries the love of God. We can experience it in prayer with her. As one Protestant woman testified recently, “Medjugorje has helped me find a precious pearl. I experienced with all my being how God loves me with such tenderness and humility. This knowing the love of God, effected in me a desire to do whatever I can in order to be as close as possible to my Beloved. The parable in the Gospel about the precious pearl became especially resonant for me. The messages of Mary then ceased to be for me only nicely formulated words of love. I wanted to respond to every suggestion in the messages, ‘Yes’, with all my heart! They became a letter of love written to me personally, words of love and life, which touched me alone.”

When we pray with Mary, our eyes are opened. We awake and we come back home from the long way of sin, coming back to our Father. Also today our heavenly Mother repeats to us patiently and tirelessly, “Out of love, I call you to conversion”. The prayer, presence and holiness of the Mother of God effect in us a transformation of heart, and attract us as a magnet to the love of God.

Her love is active, it is not merely an emotion. Mary, full of the love of God, reacts immediately – she sees our needs. Just as at Cana in Galilee, so also today she brings us to Jesus and helps us to accomplish what he tells us to do.

Once she said to us, “Who can understand you more than Mother?” Mother is mother.  Today she sees that we are not able to understand the love of God and that we are poor in love. This means that we are empty and without fruit. Without love we are as though dead.

...She knows the miraculous power of prayer...

Jesus often admonished his disciples, “Do you too not understand?... How is it that you do not understand?” He gave a lecture to the Pharisees saying, “Why do you not understand my words...? You do not hear my words.” Jesus said to his disciples on the road to Emmaus, after he had explained the scriptures to them, “How foolish you are and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have foretold.”

God is giving his life for us out of love, through a horrible death on the cross, and he rose up from death and revealed himself to his disciples. We know all this. But we are amongst those who do not see, who do not understand. We do not have the strength to love each other, to follow Jesus. Our Lady said to us recently, “My dear children, do you not recognise the signs of the time? Do you not recognise that everything that is going on is because there is no love? Understand that salvation is in true values. Walk in the footsteps of my Son.”

Today we still do not understand. Mary warns us, saying to us, “You, my children, are poor in love and you still have not comprehended that my Son Jesus, out of love, gave his life to save you and to give you eternal life.”

She does not leave us though without help. She invites us again and again, “Pray, so that in prayer you may comprehend God’s love.” She knows the miraculous power of prayer. Prayer is also the starting point of the deep crisis of an inability to comprehend the love of God. So if we do not have God’s love, we should ask for it.

After the death of Jesus, Mary stayed with the disappointed and depressed disciples. We may believe that she comforted them, encouraged them to pray. She prayed with them. It is same today. Mary prays with us, fights for us, that we awaken from the deep sleep of our soul. Let us awake with her.

The invitation in these days is for us in the first place to pray much, so that we may be able to comprehend the love of God. To pray so that we can understand that Jesus, out of love, gave his life for us to redeem and save us. To pray so that we are full of the love of God, just like our heavenly Mother.

Let us pray: 

Thank you, Mary, for your invitation, “Pray”. Connected to you we are asking for the gift of the love of God. Come, Holy Spirit. Spirit of Love, awaken us. Teach us. Help us to comprehend the love of God.  Holy Spirit, make us able to receive and to give the love of God to others. Amen.