Medjugorje – “Dear children, do not forget: this is a time of grace, therefore, pray, pray, pray! Thank you for having responded to my call. “
Reflection by Father Slavko Barbaric
Do not forget! Thus Our Lady tells us: It is a great danger for us to “forget”, to forget the good.
How many times in the Bible, especially in the Psalms, are we invited with these words: “Do not forget the wonders of the Lord …!”.
When we forget the good that the Lord does to us and the graces He gives us, we lose the joy of praying, we lose the spirit of thanksgiving, we can also lose faith, trust and love, if we forget …
Our Lady stands before us as She who has not forgotten. Saint Luke writes in his Gospel that “Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart” (Lk 2,51). Everything that concerned Jesus, all the words of his Son, she meditated on in his heart.
This invitation is for us. If we forget what the Lord is doing here, in Medjugorje, through Maria . we would be ungrateful, we would lose the will and the joy of following Our Lady …
It often happens that if we have some problems and difficulties, some cross, this leads us to forget the beautiful days and the beautiful things, a sign of the graces that the Lord has given us in the course of our life.
Not forgetting really means believing, giving thanks, staying with the Lord, being active in the heart, bringing the Word of God to our brothers. We are often tempted to forget the good easily, so we are led to easily remember the evil that someone has done to us.
If we forget the good and only remember the bad , we can never have peace! We remember the beautiful prayer of Our Lady, the Magnificat, and also the prayer of Zechariah, father of John the Baptist. Our Lady remembers what God did to the Fathers of the past, to previous generations through the prophets: and praises God and rejoices in the Lord!
This is a time of grace! The Lord is always merciful. His mercy is infinite.
But during the year there are “times of grace”, for example Christmas, Easter, or some festive anniversary, in which people go more willingly to Mass, confess more easily, pray more fervently … In fact, the conditions external help us to open the heart …
Of course this “time of grace” here in Medjugorje is truly a special time, because so many people come to “experience God”. This is the great miracle of Medjugorje: this “time of grace” which has now lasted for more than 40 years! Let us take advantage of this to convert and follow Mary’s invitations.
Pray, pray, pray! So the Madonna repeats. This call repeated three times is not new! In each message, in various ways, she calls us to prayer …
Today Our Lady wanted to repeat it heartily, to make us understand how important it is for us to pray. Think of a mother who gives advice to her children: she always repeats the most important things. While we do not want to forget this invitation that comes from the heart, we also want to thank you, in prayer, for all that you do for us.
God the Father Almighty, in the name of your Son Jesus and Mary your humble servant, who carried your Word in her heart, fill us with the Spirit of Prayer, so that we can pray incessantly in this time of grace!
