Transcription
Welcome to the program of the hearts of the holy family. I'm your host Steve Jacques and today we have Dr. Sheila Kousmik, the liaison for, um, the Medjugorje, um, messages. And, uh, she's also been on the show several times. Speaking of media, today we're going to be talking about, uh, primarily all the messages of June and try to, to, to make, um, uh, make it understood better in the light of what's going on in the church and in the world. And then certainly, Our Lady is calling for peace. So, thank you, Dr. Sheila, for being part of the show.
You're welcome. And it's always a pleasure to come on and talk about our Blessed Mother and what she's asking of her children. And isn't it amazing, Eve, that we just celebrated the 45th anniversary of our Blessed Mother's coming to us through the seers in Medjugorje? It's hard to believe. Um, 45 years she's been coming with pretty much repetitive, in a good sense, messages. Repetitive because she's a mother. Mothers are repetitive. [laughter] And she emphasizes what's important to our sanctification, to our salvation. And as a good mother, she not only is worried about our souls, each and every one of us individually, but she's really uniting her army. She's inviting us into this battle. She's been teaching us. She's been an incredible teacher of prayer of the heart, but even more so, she's teaching us how to carry the cross. She's showing us the importance of suffering. All these years, she's come in humility, in simplicity, with the simple requests that she has come to tell us that God exists and how to grow closer to her son and to pray for other souls. She's the greatest evangelizer in our time. And I remind our audience, we forget, she is the Mother of God. She's also our mother. So, in light of what I'm about to talk about, which is what she had come to the earth to tell us these last few weeks, I want the audience to always remember in the back of their minds and in their hearts, she's coming to us as mother. She's coming to us so intimately that we're her children, and she's very well aware of our struggles. She's very well aware. And as a good mother, she has remedies for our problems. And so, keeping that in mind, sometimes we don't think we can approach Mary because she's the mother of, you know, God and spouse of the Holy Spirit, right? And, and, you know, daughter of the Father, and who are we? But she says in her very last message, we'll get to it, don't forget. She says, "I am your mother." Doesn't that just make us feel like everything's going to be okay? At least for me, it did. Very much consoling words.
So, our Blessed Mother, for those of our audience or listeners that may not be familiar with what's happened, or may be, Our Lady came nine days, an octave of prayer before the feast day, the great feast day of June 25th, which is her anniversary. But each year before the anniversary, we pray as a church, those that are following the message of Medjugorje, we pray in novena style for nine days, which ended on the feast day of John the Baptist. Not a coincidence, because that was the day that our Blessed Mother actually first appeared to the children in Medjugorje way back, um, 45 years ago. So, isn't it interesting that John the Baptist was such a great prophet of the Old Testament, and our here, Our Lady comes on that feast day to announce, I call it nothing new in the sense of, of what God has already showed us, but she's coming to bring the newness and the revelation of where the church is going and what she's asking of us.
So, on June 16th was the very first evening. Our Blessed Mother asked the visionaries to tell us, and those that were in Medjugorje, to climb Apparition Hill every night. And they did as a church. They climbed. We, hours, you know, 11:00 at night to begin to pray on their knees in full attentiveness in preparation for Our Lady's visit. And each night, they prayed a mystery of the Rosary, led by one of the visionaries. It was usually Maria, and then Ivonne joined towards the end of the novena. And for the most part, she gave a message and instructions to us as to what she's asking us to do. So, the very first night she came, and each of the nights that she came, it's interesting that she not only came and spoke with the seers, but she gazed on us, all of us, for a long time. She prayed over all of us, always this time in the Aramaic language. And on this particular evening, I thought that this set the tone for the next nine days, and it's the message that our Blessed Mother has given over and over and over, too numerous for me to count or give you a number, of her message to pray. So, she said, "Tomorrow, I have an important request for you to spend all day immersed in prayer. The whole day, I am asking you to pray." And then she blessed everyone with the sign of the cross and went to heaven. So, right off the bat, her first visit, she was asking the pilgrims to spend the next day, June 17th, in prayer all day.
I just want to, uh, aside on this. People may say, "Oh my gosh, how do you do that? I have to do this, this, this, this, and this." We that have been listening and being attuned and listening to Our Lady's teaching on how to pray all day, come to understand that it begins from the time we get up in the morning. But even our sleep can become a prayer. We can offer ourselves as living sacrifices in everything that we do. Yes, there may be a morning offering and a, a morning prayer. There may be a Divine Will entrance to our day, and we may have formal prayer, and that's wonderful. But it doesn't stop there because our chores, our household duties, these are all acts that can be done in charity and love and be offered to God. We can offer everything. We can offer our sleep, our sufferings, our duties, our cooking, our chores, our laundry, our work can be sanctified. She's telling us, start your day off and give God everything through her hands as prayer. And God himself can use that. That's something that's central in the teachings that Our Lady gives us in Medjugorje. We can't compartmentalize prayer here and then our lives here. If we're truly praying from the heart, and if we're truly offering ourselves as living sacrifices, then everything that we do becomes prayer, becomes love, becomes charity. So, I thought that was very beautiful that that was the first thing that she asked on the first night.
The second night, she came, and again, she had, uh, she came and she extended her hands and prayed over everyone. She came joyful. But this particular night, the second night, she asked us, she told us, thank God. She wanted us to thank God specifically for the gift of our lives and for the gift of life and to be joyful defenders of life. She said, "Be grateful to God. Be thankful for your life and everything that God has given to you." So, she was asking the church to meditate on that, what it means to be alive, to be chosen to be alive. And, you know, Eve, I thought about that. God, in his beautiful heart and mind and all-knowing, knew about us before we existed in our mother's womb. Each one of us individually were chosen by God to be here throughout salvation history. This is our time. God willed us into existence. And I think Our Lady is hinting here that life is very dispensable in our culture of death. We're seeing this over and over again with abortion. But even more, it seems that our countries are adapting language and going ahead and using euthanasia and ending life before God wills it to end. And it's a plague that's happening across the continents now. It's so funny. I was driving home last night, and I was listening to a Catholic talk show live, and there was a beautiful priest that was interviewing a young man on the radio who wanted to kill himself because he had a very life-threatening illness his whole life, and he did not want to live anymore. When he heard that euthanasia was a possibility and that he could kill himself, he thought, even though he loved God and even though he wanted to go to heaven, he was listening to the world telling him it's okay that he's in charge of his sufferings. He's in charge of, of his life. And I listened to this beautiful priest sway him, console him, talk to him about how precious his life is. And to do that, to end it willfully, will compromise and can compromise his eternal salvation. So, we, this is very important to Our Lady right now. We're in the middle of war where lives, innocent lives, are being expended and killed and murdered every day. I don't think we can even listen to our evening news if we do without hearing about homicides, suicides, and all the ideologies and all the hatred and all the anger and the vitriol in the human heart that's causing life to be dispensable. And that is such an offense to the Almighty God. And so, Our Lady wanted us to thank, be thankful, and reflect on what the gift of life is and why it matters and why it matters.
So, right off the bat, you know, I think we had a little chat about what I initially thought of these messages, and I thought, it's so beautiful how God is inviting all the aspects of the church in these messages. There's the Church Triumphant, which are the souls in heaven. There's the Church Militant, which is us. We're fighting. We're in the battle. We're still present in the land of exile. But then Our Lady remembers on the third night to talk to us about the Church Suffering in Purgatory.
So, on the third night, she came, and again, she continued to pray over us. And in the Aramaic language, she said to us, "Pray for all of the deceased, for your entire family lineage, and for all your ancestors, that the Lord may deliver them through your prayers, through your fasting, and your penance, your ancestors may be delivered from Purgatory and enter heaven." You know, Eve, this one in particular, when I read it, because I know I've done quite a bit of homework praying for my deceased relatives and all the disorders that are in the Kousmic family or my Kerry family side. I think once you find out what your family has been exposed to, inclination, once we know that, we can pray. We can help our Lord deliver our ancestors through many different prayers, through the Rosary, through the Mass being offered for their souls, and through constant attentiveness to the souls in Purgatory each day to help deliver them. But when I read this in particular, I got chills all over my body. And I'll tell you, I felt like Our Lady was doing us a great favor in interceding powerfully. And I believe that during this time of prayer in these nine days, many souls were emptied and gone to heaven from Purgatory. I felt that that was a great gift that Our Lady gave us because she, in her maternal heart, was offering that grace to us to begin praying more seriously for our family. After this apparition, pilgrims were talking to Maria, and Maria stressed the fact that we cannot forget to pray for the deceased in our family and for the family lineage, for the family healing, because God can, and he will deliver them. So, how beautiful that is that Our Lady's beginning to, to synchronize and tie in with the Church Militant, the souls in Purgatory. A reminder, you may already know this. The souls in Purgatory cannot pray for themselves. Think about that. There's different levels of Purgatory. There's a lot of suffering in Purgatory. They're waiting and counting on our prayers. We can still pray for ourselves here on earth, but we can also pray for them. The souls in Purgatory can pray for us. They just can no longer pray for themselves. So, it's a beautiful relationship. It's a wonderful relationship. And I know many, um, holy people that have gifts, very intimate gifts with souls in Purgatory. God allows, um, some of these souls, these are friends of mine, to see the souls that they're praying for. Um, we know throughout salvation history that souls in Purgatory, with a permission from God, can come and visit with us, and they tell us the stories. This is how we know, um, so much about the sufferings, but also about how important our prayers and our Masses and our devotions are for them. So, I thank Our Lady for reminding us of that.
Right. So, where was I? That was the third day. So, the fourth day, Our Lady came, and in this particular evening, she invited us and reminded us. She said she wanted us to live our lives in holiness and to constantly seek holiness. And she reminds us because our life is temporary. She asked us to leave a mark, a trail of our presence here on earth, and to prepare for the next world, for eternal life. So, here she is again, I call it making a, um, a, not a comparison, that life on earth will continue. It's either going to continue in heaven, hell, or Purgatory. She wants us to now begin to prepare our lives for eternal life. That's a serious call. She's reminding us that our time here on earth is really extremely short. If we look at the whole spectrum of from birth to natural death and then eternity, you can't even compare. And how quickly somebody being now in her 60s can tell you, time flies. And God has been gracious and good in blessing me with another day. And I think as I'm in my golden years now, my family, I am very conscious, even more so now, of how I'm spending my life, what I, how I prioritize my life, what must come first, meaning God, right? And doing what God is asking and being part of his army here on earth to help win souls. It's really important for us to take that time. We may not be given another day. This may be my last day. How did I spend it? Did I spend it perfectly? Most likely not. Did I have the intentions getting up in the morning to do God's will, to love him, and to love my neighbor? Because if we're doing that and conscious of that, then we're on our way to heaven. We can always stumble, but the sacraments are there for us.
I thought it was interesting when she said she wants us to leave a mark, a trail, and I kind of thought about how foolish my mind goes. What is our obituary going to say about us? [laughter] What are we going to be known for? And it's important to reflect on our life while we're living. How people see us. Does that really matter sometimes? Yes, it does. Because if we're filled with God and the Holy Spirit, people are going to remember that. They're going to remember that, you know, your, your prayer went more beyond kindness. I think to leave a trail means, are you living a life in the Holy Spirit? Are you using your gifts to bring about somebody else's triumph? Are you, um, are you blessing your family and your children? Because when we leave, there's going to be a generation behind us that's going to has to hear from us now. What's important? It's we're responsible for the generations that are coming after us, in a sense. Our children, we want them to continue on in the faith. We want them also to continue blessing. So, it really is important to think about how is it that we're leaving a trail of our lives, of our lives.
Certainly. Yeah. Certainly. I do think of, uh, you know, the saints, um, lived in holiness, and they certainly made a mark, and there's the stories are there in the, in the history books to, uh, to, to prove it. It continues, uh, after their death. You know, there's more work being done by St. Francis of Assisi today than it was in the time of his living, which is phenomenal because he did so much, right? The same thing with Pope John Paul.
His work is still continuing to this day, you know, the Theology of the Body and, you know, movement of renewal in the church. And, um, and so I was, that was, uh, one of the, uh, the messages that I was actually present, uh, with Mother and Refuge of the End Times, and that was something that really marked me is, uh, you know, what, what are we going to leave behind? And, uh, and that's everyone that's listening. Um, we have a, a duty. We're duty-bound. Our Lady is wanting us to, to, to be love and joy for the people around us. And, um, and you're planting the seed, and God does the rest, really. But you have to do your share. That's what, that's what I understood.
And, you know, there's no two Eves, there's no two Shaylas. Every person is so individually and perfectly created with a gift that nobody else has. I love this topic because I find that most people don't know the gift that they are. And sometimes it requires another person to point it out. I remember one time being with a woman. We were at a conference looking at, you know, the Holy Spirit helping us to discern our gifts. And it couldn't have been more obvious. I was giving, praying with her and giving her a prophetic word, but I really didn't know what, what she did. But the Lord kept telling me, she has a gift of hospitality. She makes everybody feel comfortable. She, you know, at any one time can have 50 people in her house and is able to cook up a storm and make everyone feel comfortable. That's a gift. That's a Martha gift.
Yes. And it's a beautiful gift because, you know, there's some homes you go to and you don't feel comfortable. And I said to her, don't lessen that gift. That's a gift that would be my Purgatory. Meaning, you know, the gift of cooking, of hospitality. There's the gifts of organization, administration. There's the gift of healing. There's, there's so many gifts. And again, I always say, we're not all called to be the big, the big ones. Most of us are in our own little mundane world. But I always say this, if you really want the truth of how the world sees you, ask your family. Ask your family. And I've, I've only recently, as my children are getting to be older and young adults now, one in particular has, has, you know, going through her own trials and struggling. But she can now say to me, you know, Mom, you have been such a gift. And then naming the gift of, um, you know, trying to keep some things confidential, but she's recognizing the gift in her mother that God placed in my heart, that's been ministering to her. It's taken a few years, but we keep plugging. And once we know our identity in Christ and who we are, it's easy. It's natural. You don't have to try. If you're trying too hard, aiming for a gift you don't have, it's not your gift. Your gift is what's inside you. And I always tell young people that say, "I don't know what I want to do when I grow up. I don't know what my vocation is." I always tell them to meditate on this. What makes you excited? What makes you jump out of your seat? What makes you say yes? I don't care how foolish it sounds. I don't care what you think you can't say to somebody that way. Begin there because that's the spirit that God put in you.
And so, as you're looking for jobs, go to that place where you're excited, where you feel joy, where you feel peace, and you can see yourself do that. We have so many people in the wrong occupations because, they, they think this is who they're supposed to be, and yet they do not know who they are in Christ. So, that's a task for us to do. That requires prayer.
That requires prayer. And our Lord guarantees you 100% will show you when you're serious about asking him, "Lord, show me who I am. Show me how you created me." Okay, now we're into the fifth day of the apparition. And in this particular night, Our Lady, things were very short. She smiled, she prayed, and she reminded us in this message that our task is to love God with all our hearts and to praise him with all of our hearts. I love that word, praise, because we don't do enough of it as Catholics. I'm sorry, but we can do better with praise and worship. And what is praise? Praise is knowing who God is. He's the Almighty. Praise can be done through formal prayer. Can be done through singing, can be done through music, could be done through witnessing to the goodness of God. It's a bodily expression, a position of the heart. And praise, praise draws down upon us. It opens the gates of heaven for the presence and the glory of God to descend upon us. I love praise and worship gatherings because one can see the manifestations of the Holy Spirit just through joy, and when the Holy Spirit shows up through praise, miracles happen. We must get into the habit of praising. And, you know, Eve, I like to praise through music. I like to praise through the charisms, through my body. I like to pray through that. Um, that's come over time. But I think, you know, when we get up in the morning, praises can be as simple as, "I love you, Jesus. I adore you, Jesus. I praise you, Jesus." In the Divine Will, there are ways to glorify God through creation, through salvation history. There's all different ways to praise. If you go to the Book of Psalms, there are Psalms of praise. Turn at your Bibles, look, and begin to recite the Psalms of praise. God does miracles through praise. Through praise. Take it on a human level. I'm a mother. I can only talk about that. When my kids praise me, I think it's the end of the world because I'm always, I'm always the bad cop sometimes. When you're, when you're praised, and I'm not talking about egotistically, to praise, um, especially God, it opens his heart to see his children coming to him, wanting him, knowing who he is and what he can do for them. And that, my family, our God is such a gentle God. He waits for us. So, easy access to life in the Holy Spirit is to begin to be foolishly praising God. Who cares what somebody thinks if you're raising up your hand? Who cares that your heart is overwhelmed with joy and you're laughing in the Spirit? It's a, it's a praise. It's one of the most beautiful times in Medjugorje is a youth festival because the young people, they know how to dance. They know how to sing. They know how to praise with all their soul, all their body. I can only imagine when Moses entered through, you know, when the, the Red Sea had to open up, right, and Pharaoh's troops were right behind him. That had to have been so traumatic, and they were racing to get through the other side. When they saw the glory of God and the Red Sea close and their enemies dissipated right away, I don't think they went back or followed into the promised land quietly from what is described as the tambourines, the praise, the glory, because our God is worthy of all praise. He's a good God. He's a great God. And we, we have to humble ourselves to come before him, giving him all. So, I, another pet peeve that I have in our Catholic Church. Everyone should be singing. Singing is praise multiplied. People so many times say, "I don't have a good voice." God doesn't care. Open your mouth and praise God and watch what happens in your spirit. I guarantee you, you will be more joyful and less grumpy when we begin to sing and to sing to our God, to worship our God. This is what he wants from us. We don't want to be, um, frowned, phrase, lack of joy, fearful, skittish worshippers because then what's said is that saying we don't know who this great God is. He's a God of miracles. He's a God of, of nothing. There's nothing impossible for him. And he's a God of perfect love. So, Our Lady is reminding us when we worship to praise.
So, the next, the sixth through the ninth night, um, can kind of be lumped together a little bit. On the sixth night of the novena, I believe that's when, um, Ivonne joined Maria, and our Blessed Mother again came. She prayed over everyone in her Aramaic language. She blessed everyone. And then she said, "For the next three nights, day six through day nine of the novena, she wanted it to be a time of thanksgiving, prayer, renunciation, and fasting." And she said, "Give God thanks to God for all he has done for us through her." So, she's asking us in these last three evenings to focus on thanksgiving, prayer, fasting, and renunciation. Renunciation of what? Our sinfulness, our misery, whatever we're struggling with, to renounce. And so, we know as Catholics, the best way to renounce is through the Sacrament of Confession. So, she's asking us to really get serious now. We're at the end of the, I call it, mountaintop, because they were on the top of the mountain, late at night, encounter with the Mother of God, who she herself, our mother, was advocating, was the maternal advocate before her son, opening her heart to Abba for us. And so, again, she's asking us to thank God the Father for allowing her to come. We forget that. We forget that we still have a mother that is being asked to come to her children. Now, we know that that's going to stop. She's told the visionaries that there will come a day and a time when her apparitions will stop, just like they stopped in Fatima, in Lourdes, and in other places. We will have a time and a period where Our Lady will no longer grace this earth as we're experiencing it now. So, we are forever to give thanks that our mother's been here, helping us, holding our hands, teaching us the way of the cross, teaching us the way of peace, the way of prayer.
So, now I'm going to jump to, um, the seventh day, because the visionaries remarked that during this time, Our Lady was very much praying over the sick and all of her priests for a long time. She prayed over the diocese of the parish of Medjugorje for a long time. And I think it's important to mention the priesthood here. Boy, oh boy. If there's, if there's a place in the world that's responsible for more conversions to the priesthood, I don't know. Somebody help me out. But Medjugorje is the place for me. Amazing to hear the conversion stories of young men who are on wrong tracks, right tracks, and everything in between, who came to Med, Med, Medjugorje, either forcefully or, you know, coerced a little bit, or joyfully came, that received their calling and clarity to the priesthood, and how much Our Lady loves her priests and asks us as church to pray to sacrifice for our priests. This brings to the call to mind during COVID when we no longer had Mass, in a sense, it was as if our priests and our church were missing, and how much our hearts suffered through that time. But I don't know about where our listeners are, but where I am in Rhode Island, we've had a really decrease in the numbers of vocations to the priesthood and religious life. We've really seen a slump, and so vocations have been lacking. It's not that God isn't calling. It's just the enemy is creating louder noises so that young people can't hear the voice. In other places, there's surging numerous, you know, I call it revival and vocations blossoming. So, we have to remember in those places where our priesthoods may, you know, the vocation may be scarce, Our Lady is asking us, fast and pray for them. Fast and pray for our bishops. I mean, Eve, we're in the middle of a schism in the church between, you know, um, our Holy Father and the SSPX and the ordinations going on. Our Lady is weeping over this because she wants unity in the church. Our church should never be divided. My family, we are one holy Catholic apostolic church. Mary always says in Medjugorje, "I am mother of, I'm the mother of everyone, equal union." There should be no party lines in the Catholic Church. We are all called as one body of Christ. We are in his heart. You know, I, these labels of, you're charismatic, you're Novus Ordo, you're traditionalist. That's name-calling, and that's religious spirits of which Our Lady frowns upon. Worship of God is worship. And so, we have to look at our brothers and sisters in Christ the same way Christ looks at us. We may be individuals with different postures of prayer preference. I may like to be on my knees, or I may like to praise. That shouldn't be a shun or a, a warning to another party in a church that we're not worshiping correctly. We have to be very careful of religious spirits, spirits of hypocrisy, spirits of, I call it hiding behind agendas. As far as I'm concerned, we are so blessed in the Catholic Church to have confession where we can stand before God naked in our souls. And with confession and repentance, God makes us clean. That's the only difference that we should be looking at ourselves with is help each other renounce, clean up, and become one pure body in Christ. No, name-calling is not what God is asking. And so, our priests are under tremendous pressure. They are. And if we don't adopt them spiritually, if we are not willing to love them, to fast for them, to sacrifice for them, then there's going to be problems because they need our prayers. Satan hates the priesthood. Vocations to the priesthood come from the family. Satan hates the family. The more holy the family, the more sanctified the family, the more holy the priesthood. And let's get rid of division. Let's treat each other all as the body. You know, I just thinking that there's so much to be said on that, but I, my, Our Lady is so gentle with us that if you look the whole message of Medjugorje that was given in June, and you, and you compare it to what's going on, you know, the war, and Our Lady is just saying, "I'm the Queen of Peace." So, the war that's happening, you have the war with weapons, but also the war of words, uh, in the church, uh, the vitriol, hatred for for people that are not, uh, on our side. That's Our Lady's. She's your mother, and she's their mother.
Right. So, you need to look at it as she's their mother too.
Right. And when you attack one of Mary's children, you're attacking the, the mother as well.
Right. You know, we need to be, uh, treating each other with great kindness. And, you know, and that's really, and what's the, the, the remedy? Prayer, fasting, renunciation, you know, and, you know, those who are in the, the ministry of, um, exorcisms or deliverance is to rebuke, renounce, and, uh, reject, you know, the, the works of Satan. And, you know, for what some people would consider, you know, grave sin, uh, and yet as other people, they don't consider it a sin. Day and night, they could go after their, their enemy and, and, uh, and do slander day and night, and they don't consider that sinful. It's, we really truly need to examine our conscience that, uh, you know, we're loving everyone without exception, even the greatest sinner. Like, people have a tendency to, to, to compare it to someone else that's, you know, a great sinner, but, uh, we should first of all, if we see a sin, we should be praying. That's the posture that we should, that's what Our Lady's asking.
Yeah. And, um, you know, Eve, Our Lady is concerned about every aspect of our lives. Every aspect. Um, during the time of the apparition on the eighth day, she spent time praying over families, the families in the world. And boy, it was Sister Lucia who said, "The last great attack by the enemy, Satan, will be on the family." And those of us that are in families are living it. We are seeing it. The disunity, the horrific ideologies afflicting our children, education, the medical, everything seems to be attacking the family in whole because Satan knows that a sanctified family produces vocations, produces fruit. And Our Lady knows that. And always, she said, "Prayer must start and begin in the family." For young couples out there that may just be starting their life together and maybe not necessarily praying together, I urge you, begin to pray together as a family. I don't care how small the children are. I don't care if they're running around or they're doing cartwheels in your living room. Begin to pray the Rosary, even through the distractions, and it's amazing that your children will remember and they will even adopt it. I remember when my kids were young, I had a, I have a very ambitious young man who could not sit still. And so I had to adapt my Rosary to doing a mystery in each room so that we could march, and processions were everything in my house because my kids would fight over the statues they're holding or they would, one gets to carry. So they had to learn how to share because they had to carry a statue or a cross. And yes, there were battles. They sang, so I was able to introduce prayer and music, and then I visually put cards in each room as to what mystery that we were doing to keep them preoccupied. You might have to adapt to the style of child that you have. I was never blessed with children that sat through anything. So there was always commotion, but you know what? Our Lady works with that because the desire of your heart is that you're teaching the children to pray, and that there is a God to pray to. Children love. I know, Eve, you can talk on this forever. They love visible signs of our faith. They love statues. They love the saints. They love the church. You ever see small children coming in during a summer Bible camp, and they're in awe if they've never been? Everything is so new, pure, and beautiful to them. So begin whatever it is in your own family, your own adaptations. Um, you can be creative as can be. God is creative. And, uh, but pray together as a family. The graces that come from that. The husband is the head of the family. The wife receives. She's the comforter, the nurture, and the children of the fruits of the love between them. And what causes that to be sustained and grow is prayer. So, designate a room, a time, be consistent, because Our Lady wants to bless families. Amen on that one. So, would you like to comment on that, Eve?
I, the only thing I would say is, uh, you know, as a child, uh, my parents prayed the Rosary, and it's probably the best memories that I have as a child because it really, uh, if there was any discord before the Rosary, they, the family came together and talked normally after the Rosary. And, well, you think of it, the demons, uh, have left the house. [laughter] We pray the Rosary with the demons leave the house. So that's why the discord stops. And the example of parents, you know, I have a grandson that's only a little over a year and a half, and every time the, the, the bell rings during the, the Mass, he points to the front and he says, "Jesus, Jesus," over and over again. So, everyone can hear him in the church. Just a little disruptive, but who could stop a little child saying Jesus at the consecration, you know?
So beautiful. It's really the example, and that's really also the work of the Holy Spirit. You have to let God lead your home, and the Rosary is the weapon for your [clears throat] for your family, and that's what Our Lady is asking. You know, pray for the families. Thank you. Let's continue.
Okay, we're now on the ninth day, and I loved this message from Our Lady. So, this was the final night. So, it was the feast day of St. John the Baptist. A very important day in Medjugorje. It was, remember, the first day, the first time Our Lady appeared back in 1981 was on the feast day of John the Baptist. So, today, the Blessed Mother came and prayed for a very, very long time with her outstretched hands, and then she said, "Dear children, I thank you for every sacrifice you've made and every prayer you've presented to me for my intentions. Neither you nor your children, nor your children's children will regret it." And then she gave us a blessing and she said, "Go in peace." What is she doing here, my family? She's telling us that our prayers have been heard. She's telling us we're not going to regret this time of being with her all nine days. I know for me, I set an alarm at 4:00 in the afternoon. It was the worst timing for me and my household, but I told my family to be patient with me these nine days, because I was praying for them and that I wanted to unite with Our Lady, as difficult as it might have been juggling everything. Um, to hear her say, "Thank you for the sacrifice that you've made in praying with me." And she's saying, "You will not, nor will your children, in the future generations, regret what you did." Why?
She's got a, she's got a surprise for us. And we should be elated and joyful knowing that our mother is always faithful. Not only is she bringing these prayer petitions before her son, but the promises of the Father and the promises for our eternal salvation. Now, that doesn't mean we quit in mid-stream. We should be even more zealous to know, wow, Our Lady can help us. She's doing this with us. She's promising us the gold, the gold that's on the other side. And so, for me, it made me cry. I remember just sitting on my porch as I was listening to this, and I said, "Thank you, Mother." Because my family, she takes any sacrifice done with a pure heart. If you couldn't have done all of these nine days and you did one Rosary or one decade from the heart, you're included in the package. Our Lady is generous. And it's just like the Gospel passage where Jesus says, you know, you got the workers that start in the morning, and some come in late. God is so generous when we take the time and the capacity that we can to sacrifice for her intentions. But we must continue doing that. The triumph has started, but it's not completed. The Eucharistic reign is approaching in its glory, but we still have work to do. There's still a coming shakeup. I think we all know this. And so, she's preparing us. She's strengthening us. And she's telling us, "I've got you, my children. Continue." This was sort of the magnificent pep talk, um, you know, of, of, of what. And we can only imagine everything is a mystery in a sense of how great the glory of God is and the goodness of God is. But I think the message here is, believe. Do we not believe? We're we're Doubting Thomases. We want to see, we want to experience. But guess what? Jesus said, "Blessed are those who don't see but believe." I say this, blessed are those that don't feel anything but believe. Blessed are those that remain in the dark night of the soul but believe. Blessed are those that persevere in longsuffering but believe, for theirs will be the kingdom of heaven and the salvation of many souls.
Certainly, you know, it's to me, uh, Dr. Sheila, is, uh, you know, when I heard this, uh, uh, message also, it, it just gave me so much consolation. But it's also, it's a part of the mission of the Hearts of the Holy Family to prepare our children, our grandchildren, our great-grandchildren, those who will be maybe in a century from now, because of your prayers, the, uh, Our Lady saying, "You're going to, your prayers are being answered, and not for only you, not only for your children, not only for your grandchildren, but on and on." And really, this is the great hope. And I think we, you know, we're living in a time where, uh, the children of the triumph are, some of them are born right now.
And so, we need to be joyful. We need to be, uh, thanking Our Lady for for accompanying us in this journey.
Absolutely. And if there's any, any listener out there that doubts, that sees a situation in their family that seems impossible, that there's no way God could even crack through, change your stinking thinking. This is a time of hope. This is a time to believe and ask our Lord for the grace to believe, to trust, surrender, let God carry it, but know that he's going to answer it. He will. He answers all prayers. And he is more invested in your loved ones' eternal salvation than we could ever possibly be. But we need to be yolked to him. We need to be an advocate with Christ, with his mother, for these souls that are tough, sometimes tough to pray for. But Our Lady's saying, "You won't regret your sacrifices. Continue."
So, now we get to the feast day, Eve, this glorious feast day. And if you've never been to Medjugorje on a feast day, it's standing room only for everything. It's the most joyful celebration. Um, I don't think I've ever had a more joyful celebration in any place, in any one day, as I did in Medjugorje. And I happened to be there on the 25th, um, happened to fall on my honeymoon. So, I got married the week before, and my husband and I, this was back when we were serving and doing mission work during the war. And then, um, we got married, and then honeymooned in Medjugorje, and we, we were there on the 25th for the message. And so, to see how the Croatian people, the pilgrims celebrate, how they celebrate Our Lady, they celebrate our Lord, they celebrate the sacraments. It's joyful, and it's a feast day. It's a feast day to Our Lady, Queen of Peace. And here was her message. She said, "Dear children, rejoice with me because the Most High God permits me to be with you, to lead you to Him who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Rejoice, little children, and be joyful always in difficulties, and you will have the strength because you will be aware that you are transient and you will know to offer everything to God. That is why do not forget, I am your mother and I love you. Thank you for having responded to my call."
I just want to touch on this a little. The language may seem a little awkward translating from Croatian to English, but I think she's saying something. I don't care how difficult the time that we're living in is, and it is, exclamation point, but do we carry joy, the joy of the Lord in our hearts, not the happiness of the world? The joy of the Lord means that we can be certain. We can be docile. We can be at peace because we know the God we serve. We know the outcome. We know the promises, and we understand what God is asking us. Therefore, we can be at peace. We are not people of fear and trepidation, of no hope. There may be times in our life where we're challenged, where we're attacked by the enemy and experience agitation, restlessness, chaos. We all do. We're human. And I'm not exempting us from that, but to refocus. Our Lady's telling us again, through prayer, you come to know who God is. Through prayer, you come to know who you are. And you know who we are? We're nobodies. We're nothing without God.
That's why our lives are so transient without him. Because our lives are passing. This is only a very brief time that we're here. And if we're not yolked to God, we really are nothing. But in God, we are everything. Everything. And everything can hope, everything can be full of joy because it's Christ in us. So, we may have to disappear our egos, our will, our misery that can be so transient, but God won't. He will remain God in us, and he will strengthen us. This is what she's saying. She's saying, "Be joyful even in the midst of difficulties because God will give you strength, not yourself." Your, your strength is not going to come from the world, from self-help books, from all of this. Those are just band-aids put on a big bleeding wound. Jesus Christ, his wounds heal. Our wounds united to his wounds bring about the glory of God, the healing that everyone that God wants to bring everyone into. So, she's reminding us, our life is passing. This is brief. Be, be pilgrims of
joy. Rejoice in what God's doing. Follow Mary who leads us to Jesus. Thank God that Mary is still permitted to be with us. And then my favorite line, I always say this for me anyway, Mary is more mother than queen. She is the queen. But as a mother, she is suffering for us, my family. Her heart is pierced day in and day out next to her son in every tabernacle, thirsting and advocating with her son for us. She's offering us her hand. If we have difficulty going to Christ, she's saying, "Come to me. Sit on my lap. I'm your mama. It will be okay." What do mothers do? They kiss the boo boos, right? They nurture. They tell stories. They always make the child feel safe, calm, peaceful. She dresses us, redresses us in our gowns of purity by offering us the sacraments of her son. And as mother, she wants to present us as a spotless bride. She wants to get her children ready for the great triumph. And as a mother, that's her job. This is what she does best. So my family, as we're getting close to ending, do we take Mary seriously as mother, do we ask her, Mary, be my mother? Not just when I can't, but every day, Mary, I want to be your little child. One of my prayers pretty much every day is don't ever let me move one inch from your immaculate heart. Keep me in the cloister of your heart, that safe refuge, the ark, the ark of the covenant, the ark of our time for our salvation. And if we're staying there with Mary, Jesus is there. If we're staying in the ship with the bark, with our holy father with trust, no matter the waves and the storm, our promise is eternal life. So I bless you with all of this and meditate. Go back. Don't just let this be a passing novena for another year. Our Lady calls us to be attentive, to continue our lives of prayer, to evangelize, to love, but let's be carriers of joy through this difficult time. Amen.
Amen. I want to thank you, Dr. Sheila, one of the thoughts that came to me while you were the the the final words, am I not your mother? Reminds me of the message of of uh Guadalupe says, I'm not who am your mother.
Amen.
Those words from our lady uh in there's 7 million people that converted through the tilma through the the message. she was uh the people took that message and and understood that they needed to be under her mantle and I'm thinking you know maybe this is the a turning point as well that she's revealing to us again you know in magori that I'm your mother don't forget don't forget because we've forgotten of course
right
that we need our lady we need she needs to be our mother and that she is the mother of the new evangelization and yet we we've it's just begun done. We we're just in the be in the beginning stage of the triumph of the immaculate heart of Mary. And um so we thank God that God has chosen us to be uh his uh children and we want to spread that love because when she's saying that to people that she's their mother, she's saying that to people that don't know right now that she's their mother,
right?
because those people you know will um you know given a chance and that's why our lady wants us to evangelize given a chance we need to bring our lady's love and maternal love to every single person in in the world. So uh
you know um uh she our blessed mother is the only creature that can step on the head of Satan and be victorious.
Amen.
So I always say I I tend to be a mama's girl. I go to mama first. I do. I always have. That's my whole conversion story is Mary. But when I see her stepping on the head of Satan with her heel, it's a reminder of how God intends it to be. He wills it that our lady, the most pure of all human creatures, will bring about the victory. But we can begin in our prayer. If there's a problem in your family, if there's an individual that needs prayer, I keep it simple. And a beautiful priest a long time ago said, "Sheila, this is going to be one of your daily prayers." So I'm sharing it with you and it is this. Our Lady of Guadalupe, you who crush the head of the serpent, crush now the head of the serpents, seeking to destroy my family, my children, and and Mary, I have total recourse in you. That simple, but that powerful because you're recognizing her role. Satan hates that prayer because he knows he knows who the battle is really against. And there's nothing false theology in that. You can ask our lady to crush the head of the demons that are disturbing your household, your children, your family. But here's the key. Have confidence and believe that she's going to do it and thank her.
M
very very beautiful. Um you know it reminded me when you were saying that I was I was thinking of this because uh in the image she's she has the she's crushing the the serpent's head. Right.
That's right.
And and around it, oh Mary, conceive without sin, pray for us. We have records of thee. We we know that she is the one that crushes the serpent's head. And you know, so this is a a good reminder of your prayer, I think.
Amen.
Well, thank you again. Would you want did you want to end with a prayer?
Sure, we can close. Of course, we can. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Amen.
Blessed mother, gentle woman, advocate, maternal advocate before the throne of God for us, your little ones. We thank God for you, Mary. Blessed mother, never let us never let go of us. Take us closer into your immaculate heart. Mary, be our safe refuge. Remind us that as a good mother, that nothing is impossible with God. Blessed mother, we consecrate our lives as a living sacrifice to the eternal father through Jesus, with Jesus, and in Jesus, not just now, but for all eternity. Blessed mother, you at the foot of the cross never took your gaze off your son. Help us, your little children, to keep our gaze focused now more than ever, not on the storms, not on the world, but on the beautiful gaze of your son, Jesus. Oh blood and water, which gushed forth from the heart of Jesus as a fountain of mercy for us, we trust in you. Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Amen.
Thank you so much, Dr. Sheila. And thank you all for listening and uh spread the good news that our lady is your mother. Thank you.