THE MEDJUGORJE WITNESS

Ahab called all Israel together and assembled the prophets on Mount Carmel. Elijah stepped out in front of all the people. ‘How long’ he said ‘do you mean to hobble first on one leg then on the other? If the Lord is God, follow him; if Baal, follow him.’ But the people never said a word. Elijah then said to them, ‘I, I alone, am left as a prophet of the Lord, while the prophets of Baal are four hundred and fifty. Let two bulls be given us; let them choose one for themselves, dismember it and lay it on the wood, but not set fire to it. I in my turn will prepare the other bull, but not set fire to it. You must call on the name of your god, and I shall call on the name of mine; the god who answers with fire, is God indeed.’ The people all answered, ‘Agreed!’ Elijah then said to the prophets of Baal, ‘Choose one bull and begin, for there are more of you. Call on the name of your god but light no fire.’ They took the bull and prepared it, and from morning to midday they called on the name of Baal. ‘O Baal, answer us!’ they cried, but there was no voice, no answer, as they performed their hobbling dance round the altar they had made. Midday came, and Elijah mocked them. ‘Call louder,’ he said ‘for he is a god: he is preoccupied or he is busy, or he has gone on a journey; perhaps he is asleep and will wake up.’ So they shouted louder and gashed themselves, as their custom was, with swords and spears until the blood flowed down them. Midday passed, and they ranted on until the time the offering is presented; but there was no voice, no answer, no attention given to them.

Then Elijah said to all the people, ‘Come closer to me’, and all the people came closer to him. He repaired the altar of the Lord which had been broken down. Elijah took twelve stones, corresponding to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord had come, ‘Israel shall be your name’, and built an altar in the name of the Lord. Round the altar he dug a trench of a size to hold two measures of seed. He then arranged the wood, dismembered the bull, and laid it on the wood. Then he said, ‘Fill four jars with water and pour it on the holocaust and on the wood’; this they did. He said, ‘Do it a second time’; they did it a second time. He said, ‘Do it a third time’; they did it a third time. The water flowed round the altar and the trench itself was full of water. At the time when the offering is presented, Elijah the prophet stepped forward. ‘O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel,’ he said ‘let them know today that you are God in Israel, and that I am your servant, that I have done all these things at your command. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, so that this people may know that you, the Lord, are God and are winning back their hearts.’

Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the holocaust and wood and licked up the water in the trench. When all the people saw this they fell on their faces. ‘The Lord is God,’ they cried, ‘the Lord is God.’ Elijah said, ‘Seize the prophets of Baal: do not let one of them escape’. They seized them, and Elijah took them down to the wadi Kishon, and he slaughtered them there.

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1 Kings 18 : 20-40

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Some years ago when I returned home from hospital after having a pacemaker/defibrillator fitted, my wife asked me the following day how I was feeling. I responded:

“How do you want me to feel – good, bad, up or down, happy, depressed?”
“Do you feel all those things?” she asked.

“No” I answered, “I feel a lot better.” 

“I see a change in you, you’re more perky!”

“That’s because my heart has been resynched” I explained. 

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Later, I thought about this and realised how a similar change is seen in many of the pilgrims who experience Medjugorje for the first time. When they return home, others recognise a difference. There is something more positive about their demeanour, their outlook. 

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In a spiritual sense their hearts have also been resynchronised. They beat better and are more open to the flow of grace that God and his Blessed Mother wish to bestow on all their children. 

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When our hearts are out of synch, not beating in a regular rhythm, be it spiritually or physically, then we can never feel well in either case. It’s a sign of a failing heart. We become out of sorts, often never knowing the reason why. 

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If the problem is physical, then usually we are wise enough to visit a doctor to try and get the matter sorted. However, in a spiritual sense the same urgency is often lacking. There’s no rush to the confessional to discuss our difficulties with a priest. 

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In this year prayer set aside in preparation for the coming Jubilee of 2025. a Year of Hope, may all that change. 

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Thus the Lord speaks, the God of Israel:

“Jar of meal shall not be spent,

jug of oil shall not be emptied,

before the day when the Lord sends

rain of the face of the earth.”

1 Kings 17 : 14

Seeing the crowds, Jesus went up the hill. There he sat down and was joined by his disciples. Then he began to speak. [...]

“Happy are you when people abuse you and persecute you and speak all kinds of calumny against you on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven; this is how they persecuted the prophets before you.”

Matthew 5 : 1-2, 11-12

Dear children! I desire to share my joy with you. In my Immaculate Heart I feel that there are many of those who have drawn closer to me and are, in a special way, carrying the victory of my Immaculate Heart in their hearts by praying and converting. I desire to thank you and to inspire you to work even more for God and His kingdom with love and the power of the Holy Spirit. I am with you and I bless you with my motherly blessing. Thank you for having responded to my call.

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Medjugorje message, August 25, 2000

Most loving Jesus, when I consider your heart and see it full of mercy and tenderness, my own heart is filled with joy and confidence that I shall be so kindly welcomed by you.

Dear children, I invite you to open the door of your heart to Jesus as the flower opens itself to the sun. Jesus desires to fill your hearts with peace and joy.

Part message, January 25, 1995

Here is a saying that you can rely on:

If we have died with him, then we shall live with him.

If we hold firm, then we shall reign with him.

If we disown him, then he will disown us.

We may be unfaithful, but he is always faithful,

For he cannot disown his own self.

2 Timothy 2 : 11-13

Jesus said to the Sadducees, “Is not the reason why you go wrong, that you understand neither the scriptures nor the power of God? Mark 12 : 24

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Dear children! I am calling you to go into nature and to pray for the Most High to speak to your heart and that you may feel the power of the Holy Spirit so as to witness the love which God has for every creature. I am with you and intercede for you. Thank you for having responded to my call. Medjugorje message, May 25, 2023

At the Sunday Angelus prayer, Pope Francis reflected on the Solemnity of Corpus Christi. He pointed out that the Eucharist helps us turn away from the logic of possession and consumption for its own sake, as we become “prophets and builders of a new world.”

“When we overcome selfishness and open ourselves to love, when we cultivate bonds of fraternity, when we participate in the sufferings of our brothers and sisters and share bread and resources with those in need, when we make our talents available to everyone,” he said, “then we are breaking the bread of our life like Jesus.”

Source: Vatican News

Not in any of her messages these past 43 years has Our Lady ever said she needs or desires the Catholic Church to ‘endorse’ her apparitions at Medjugorje. She has never asked for the Church to ‘approve’ her visitations to the six Medjugorje seers, but she has expressed some of her needs and desires in many of her messages. Her greatest desire and need is for her children to be united with her Son Jesus. 

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She has no need or desire to be “approved” in any official sense of the word. She knows that the Almighty has done great things for her – and continues to do so. She knows that all generations call her ‘blessed’ in this way. But her heart’s desire, her need, is for all her children to be one in heart with her own Immaculate Heart and the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Our Lady knows that our need, our desire, to love and be loved can only be fulfilled through the peace her Son offers to the world.

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The Blessed Mother sought no approval from the Catholic Church to make her first appearance at Medjugorje on June 24, 1981, or at any place approved or not approved by the Church, before or since. Does the Mother of the Church require approval in any sense of the word? The kind of approval Our Lady seeks from any of us is simply ‘yes’, the same consent of her own will she gave to the Angel Gabriel when chosen to bear the Son of God.

A call, a visitation, seeks a response… a prayer seeks an answer. The mother of Jesus called on her Son at Cana. Jesus responded when the servants responded to his call. And so also does the Blessed Mother when she calls us to action in her messages. She always says “Thank you”, a sure sign that her children are responding to her call, her needs, her desires. 

Today is the feast day of Joan of Arc, patron saint of France, and honoured as a defender of the French nation for her role in the siege of Orléans, claiming she was acting under divine guidance.

Joan’s image is featured in the famous Ghent Altarpiece, also known as Adoration of the Mystic Lamb.

In the image above from the Singing Angels panel in the altarpiece, Joan is shown in profile, head down, representing a battering ram.

More details on Joan in the Ghent Altarpiece HERE  and HERE

For me, personally, it’s somewhat of a contradictory message from Our Lady given today through the seer Marija.

After 43 years of apparitions and messages, we are told that we are still far away – yet she thanks her children for responding to her call.

It’s not the first ever message that Our Lady has pronounced that her children are “far away”. Even as far back as March 25, 1989 (26 years ago) she said: “Already for years you are invited to holiness but you are still far away.”

And on March 25, 1992, Our Lady said: “Satan is playing with you and your souls and I cannot help you because you are far away from my heart.”

However, in a later message (January 25, 1998) Our Lady said: “I am close to you and intercede before God for each of you.”

Maybe I’ll feel better in the morning.

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Dear children! In this time of grace, I am calling you to prayer with the heart. Little children, create prayer groups where you will encourage each other to the good and grow in joy. Little children, you are still far away. That is why continue to convert anew and choose the way of holiness and hope so that God may give you peace in abundance. Thank you for having responded to my call. Medjugorje message, May 25, 2024

Bede is one of the few saints honored as such even during his lifetime. His writings were filled with such faith and learning that even while he was still alive, a Church council ordered them to be read publicly in the churches.

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At an early age, Bede was entrusted to the care of the abbot of the Monastery of St Paul, Jarrow. The happy combination of genius and the instruction of scholarly, saintly monks, produced a saint and an extraordinary scholar, perhaps the most outstanding one of his day. He was deeply versed in all the sciences of his times: natural philosophy, the philosophical principles of Aristotle, astronomy, arithmetic, grammar, ecclesiastical history, the lives of the saints and especially, holy Scripture.

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From the time of his ordination to the priesthood at 30—he had been ordained a deacon at 19—till his death, Bede was ever occupied with learning, writing, and teaching. Besides the many books that he copied, he composed 45 of his own, including 30 commentaries on books of the Bible.

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His Ecclesiastical History of the English People is commonly regarded as of decisive importance in the art and science of writing history. A unique era was coming to an end at the time of Bede’s death: It had fulfilled its purpose of preparing Western Christianity to assimilate the non-Roman barbarian North. Bede recognized the opening to a new day in the life of the Church even as it was happening.

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Although eagerly sought by kings and other notables, even Pope Sergius, Bede managed to remain in his own monastery until his death. Only once did he leave for a few months in order to teach in the school of the archbishop of York. Bede died in 735 praying his favorite prayer: “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As in the beginning, so now, and forever.”

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source: Franciscan Media

Today the Church remembers Saint Rita. She is known as patroness of lost causes. First a wife and exemplary mother, then an Augustinian nun, she asked Christ to share his Passion with her, and had the sign of a thorn on her forehead. Her remains are lodged in the Basilica of Cascia.  More details at this link.

Just 38 days short of the 43rd anniversary of the Medjugorje apparitions of Our Lady (June 24, 1981), the Dicastery for the Doctrine of Faith (CDF) published new norms for assessing and judging alleged supernatural phenomena.

What is interesting to note is, as a rule, “neither the local bishop nor the Holy See will declare that these phenomena are of supernatural origin, but will only authorise and promote devotion and pilgrimages”.

Seemingly, as it stands, the claimed apparitions at Medjugorje will not be declared as of supernatural origin, by either the local bishop or the Holy See.

At today’s press conference outlining the new norms document, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, Prefect of the Dicastery, was asked about Medjugorje. He told journalists that no decision had been reached about its status. 

So where does this leave the six Medjugorje seers who all claim to have received “secrets” from Our Lady, especially Mirjana Dragicevic-Soldo who has publicly declared she has been chosen to announce ten secrets to the world?

If this happens then what need for the local bishop or even the Holy See to authorise the apparitions? However, if Mirjana does not reveal the so-called “secrets” then what will that say about the claim of apparitions and supernatural phenomena?

In truth there never has been a need for the Holy See to verify the claim of apparitions. Any announcement and fulfilment of the so-called “ten secrets” should speak louder than approval or not from the local bishop or the CDF.

“In Medjugorje the miracle is not so much in Our Lady’s apparitions, nor in the words she speaks to us, but in the pilgrim’s reply, who accepts to change his heart and life. That is the great miracle!” Fr Jozo Zovko OFM

Today, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of Faith published a document detailing new norms regarding cases of reported supernatural phenomena.

The dicastery began revising the norms in 2019, leading to the current text approved by Pope Francis on May 4.

The norms come into force on Sunday, May 19, the feast of Pentecost.

Details at the Vatican News website.

St Dymphna is the 7th century patron saint of anxieties and mental health who was martyred at the age of 14.

Her story can be read at this link.

The image above is an altar dedicated to her in the Church of St Dymphna, Geel, Belgium, where her remains are preserved in a silver reliquary.

Some say: “Leave Medjugorje aside, the messages are all the same.” Imagine, for eight years I attend school. Every day when I go to school my mother says to me, “mind yourself”. So imagine eight times 300 days my mother spoke the same words to me. No wonder, then, Our Lady says once, says ten times, one hundred times: “Children, make your life better.” My mother used to say to us in our family, not 1,000 times, but 10,000 times, “behave yourself, be good, behave properly.” I want to emphasise that it is very normal that the mother repeats the same thing hundreds and hundreds of times.

Fr Branimir Musa OFM

Each day is a first creation. Not one is like another. I never stop creating. And it is all for you. If you have eyes to see, every hour of the day holds its splendour. It comes from Me, from a fragment of Me. For you, of course – so that you may learn the lure of praise, the joy of adoration, the love of Love. I vary my spectacles every morning to rejuvenate your hearts […] Open your eyes and look at Love. It is He who is passing by.

Source: He and I, Gabrielle Bossis

I pursued and overtook my foes,

Never turning back till they were slain.

I crushed them so they could not rise;

They fell beneath my feet.

Psalm 18 : 38-39

While the apostles looked on, Jesus was lifted up and a cloud took him from their sight. They were still staring into the sky when suddenly two me in white were standing near them and they said, “Why are you men from Galilee standing here looking into the sky? Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven, the same Jesus will come back in the same way as you have seen him go there.” Acts 1 : 9-11

Jesus said to his disciples: “Now I am going to the one who sent me. Not one of you has asked, ‘Where are you going?’ Yet you must be sad at heart because I have told you this. Still, I must tell you the truth: it is for your own good that I am going because unless I go, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I do go, I will send him to you. John 16 : 5-7

One of these women was called Lydia, a devout woman from the town of Thyatira who was in the purple-dye trade. She listened to us, and the Lord opened her heart to accept what Paul was saying. After she and her household had been baptised she sent us an invitation: “If you really think me a true believer in the Lord,” she said “come and stay with us”; and she would take no refusal. Acts 16 : 14-15

Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed the Christ to them. With one accord, the crowds paid attention to what was said by Philip when they heard it and saw the signs he was doing. For unclean spirits, crying out in a loud voice, came out of many possessed people, and many paralysed or crippled people were cured. There was great joy in that city.

Now when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent them Peter and John, who went down and prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Spirit, for it had not yet fallen upon any of them; they had only been baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit. Acts 8 : 5-8, 14-17

The feast of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales honours the hundreds of British men and women who suffered persecution and died for their Catholic faith during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in the wake of the dispute between the Pope and King Henry VIII. Countless loyal Catholics were tortured and killed between 1535 and 1679.

On 4th May 1535, the first of these many martyrs of the English Reformation were hanged, drawn and quartered on the gallows at Tyburn. Although some have been canonised or beatified, the true number of those who died on the scaffold, perished in prison, or were tortured or persecuted for their faith – the ancient faith of their country – is not known. Thousands of others were driven into exile or deliberately reduced to penury under merciless penal laws.

The martyrs celebrated today came from every walk of life: rich and poor; married and single; men and women; priests, religious and lay people. They are remembered for the example they gave of constancy in their faith, and courage in the face of persecution which lasted almost a hundred and fifty years and left a permanent mark on English culture.

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When King Henry VIII, after his break with Rome, proclaimed himself “the only Supreme head on earth of the Church of England”, Catholics felt that he had appropriated a supremacy in spiritual matters that belonged only to the Pope. While they wished to remain loyal subjects of the Crown, as the legitimately constituted authority, for reasons of
conscience they refused to recognise the ‘spiritual supremacy’ of the King. When the Act of Supremacy was passed in 1534, many faced a serious dilemma, and even death, rather than act against their conscience and deny their Catholic faith.

Then Jesus looked around at them all and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He did so, and his hand was better. Luke 6 : 10

God blessed me with two hands, both to receive and to give. Which hand will I stretch out today? Will it be the hand that I have always kept to myself, the hand I refuse to offer to others, the hand that has withered in time. 

Will today be a sabbath day for me, a time to allow Jesus to heal and make my withered hand better and so become a willing hand once more?

Give your hand to me, your mother, and permit me to lead you. 
August 2, 2006 

Athanasius led a tumultuous but dedicated life of service to the Church. He was the great champion of the faith against the widespread heresy of Arianism, the teaching by Arius that Jesus was not truly divine. The vigour of his writings earned him the title of doctor of the Church.

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Born of a Christian family in Alexandria, Egypt, and given a classical education, Athanasius became secretary to Alexander, the bishop of Alexandria, entered the priesthood and was eventually named bishop himself. His predecessor, Alexander, had been an outspoken critic of a new movement growing in the East—Arianism.

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Five times Athanasius was exiled for his defence of the doctrine of Christ’s divinity. During one period of his life, he enjoyed 10 years of relative peace—reading, writing, and promoting the Christian life along the lines of the monastic ideal to which he was greatly devoted. His dogmatic and historical writings are almost all polemic, directed against every aspect of Arianism.

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Among his ascetical writings, his Life of St. Anthony achieved astonishing popularity and contributed greatly to the establishment of monastic life throughout the Western Christian world.

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source: Franciscan Media

The death has taken place of James (Jim) Browne, Killadoon, Louisburgh. He died suddenly on Saturday at Galway University Hospital.

Widely known for his charity work and leading pilgrimages to Medjugorje, a place that helped change his own life, news of his passing is widely regretted by everybody who knew him.

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Midwest Radio broadcast a documentary about his life some years ago entitled “A Little Miracle at Medjugorje.”

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Jim will repose at Mir House, Killadoon, Louisburgh on Wednesday, from 3:00pm until 8:00pm. Private removal on Thursday morning at 10:00am to St Mary's Church, Westport, for Funeral Mass at 11:00am.Burial takes place afterwards in Aughavale Cemetery, Westport.

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source: Connaught Telegraph

I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, with me in him, bears fruit of in plenty; for cut off from me you can do nothing.

John 15 : 5

We search incessantly for the new to satisfy our hunger and appetite... new

experiences, new thrills and excitement, new books, new films, new friends, new relationships, new jobs, new flavours, new tastes, new fashions, new theories, new ways, new technology, new horizons, new environments, new projects, new ideas, new success, new days, new weeks, new news, new posts, new blogs, and even new messages...  We constantly hunger to be renewed by the ‘new’ in our life.

In a message from Our Lady to the seer Mirjana we are reminded that it is God who renews the face of the earth, and makes new children of us all. 

Our Lady says: “When you become cognisant of the Father, you will comprehend that he is all you need.” (June 2, 2013)

Our hunger to be satisfied can only be truly fulfilled by God. We are fed by the Lord when we place our trust in him to provide for our needs. Then, as Pope Francis once reminded us, we have no need to leave the company of Jesus to go into the neighbouring villages and search for food. God provides. 

We understand and set out and follow Jesus, Son of Mary, knowing and accepting he is the true source for our happiness and peace. He feeds us. He feeds his sheep. He feeds all his flocks, so wonderfully described by Pope Francis when he said: 

“God can bring forth what is necessary for everyone. Jesus trusts completely in the heavenly Father, He knows that in him all things are possible. So he tells the disciples to have the people sit down in groups of fifty – this is not accidental: this means that they are no longer a crowd, but they become communities, nourished by the bread of God.” (June 2013)

Dear children! I am with you to tell you that I love you and to encourage you to prayer; because Satan is strong and every day his strength is stronger through those who have chosen death and hatred. You, little children, be prayer and my extended hands of love for all those who are in darkness and seek the light of our God. Thank you for having responded to my call.

Most of what we know about Mark comes directly from the New Testament. He is usually identified with the Mark of Acts 12:12. When Saint Peter escaped from prison, he went to the home of Mark’s mother.

Paul and Barnabas took him along on the first missionary journey, but for some reason Mark returned alone to Jerusalem. It is evident, from Paul’s refusal to let Mark accompany him on the second journey despite Barnabas’s insistence, that Mark had displeased Paul. Because Paul later asks Mark to visit him in prison, we may assume the trouble did not last long.

The oldest and the shortest of the four Gospels, the Gospel of Mark emphasizes Jesus’s rejection by humanity while being God’s triumphant envoy. Probably written for gentile converts in Rome—after the death of Peter and Paul sometime between A.D. 60 and 70—Mark’s Gospel is the gradual manifestation of a “scandal”: a crucified Messiah.

A winged lion is Mark’s symbol. The lion derives from Mark’s description of John the Baptist as a “voice of one crying out in the desert” (Mark 1:3), which artists compared to a roaring lion. The wings come from the application of Ezekiel’s vision of four winged creatures to the evangelists.

Source: Franciscan Media

Dear children, put God in the first place in your families, so that he may give you peace and may protect you not only from war, but also in peace protect you from every satanic attack.

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Part message, December 25, 1991

Now at the Sheep Pool in Jerusalem there is a building called Bethzatha in Hebrew, consisting of five porticos; and under these were crowds of sick people – blind, lame, paralysed – waiting for the water to move; for at intervals the angel of the Lord came down into the pool, and the water was disturbed, and the first person to enter the water after this disturbance was cured of any ailment he suffered from.

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John 1 : 2-4

1. A state of open, often prolonged fighting; a battle or war.

2. A state of disagreement or disharmony between persons or ideas; a clash.

3. An emotional or mental disturbance resulting from the opposition or simultaneous functioning of mutually exclusive impulses, desires, or tendencies.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition

The Lord God said to the serpent: “Be accursed beyond all cattle, all wild beasts. You shall crawl on your belly and eat dust everyday of your life. I will make you enemies of each other: you and the woman, your offspring and her offspring. It will crush your head and you will strike its heel.

Genesis 3 : 15

Dear children! Today I call you to pray in a special way that you offer up sacrifices and good deeds for peace in the world. Satan is strong and with all his strength, desires to destroy the peace which comes from God. Therefore, dear children, pray in a special way with me for peace. I am with you and I desire to help you with my prayers and I desire to guide you on the path of peace. I bless you with my motherly blessing. Do not forget to live the messages of peace. Thank you for having responded to my call.

Medjugorje message, October 25, 1990

“Brother Saul, I have been sent by the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on your way here so that you may recover your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” Immediatlely it was as though the scales fell away from Saul’s eyes and he could see again. […] After he had spent only a few days with the disciples in Damascus, he began preaching in the synagogues, “Jesus is the Son of God.”

Acts 9 : 17-18, 20

Do not let your hearts be troubled.

Trust in God’s will, and trust in me.

There are many rooms in my Father’s house;

If there were not, I should have told you.

John 14 : 1-2

Go in peace. Your sins are forgiven.

I am the living bread which has come down from heaven;

Anyone who eats this bread will live forever;

And the bread that I shall give

Is my flesh, for the life of the world.

John 6 : 51

Jesus said to the crowd:

I am the bread of life.

He who comes to me will never be hungry;

He who believes in me will never thirst.

John 6 : 35