Medjugorje Prayer Book. Wayne Weible

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СКАЧАТЬ that all which God has planted in your heart may keep on growing. So pray that God’s blessing may protect each one of you from all the evil that is threatening you. I bless you, dear children. Thank you for having responded to my call.”

      The same emphasis is evident in the ensuing months and even years, as seen in these examples:

      February 25, 1988: “Dear children, today again I am calling you to prayer and complete surrender to God. You know that I love you and am coming here out of love, so I could show you the path of peace and salvation for your souls. I want you to obey me and not permit Satan to seduce you. Dear children, Satan is very strong and, therefore, I ask you to dedicate your prayers to me so that those who are under his influence may be saved. Give witness by your life, sacrifice your lives for the salvation of the world. I am with you and I am grateful to you, but in heaven you shall receive the Father’s reward which He has promised you. Therefore, little children, do not be afraid. If you pray, Satan cannot injure you even a little, because you are God’s children and He is watching over you. Pray, and let the Rosary always be in your hands as a sign to Satan that you belong to me. Thank you for having responded to my call.”

      February 25, 1989: “Dear children, today I am calling you to prayer of the heart. Throughout this season of grace, I desire each of you to be united with Jesus; but without unceasing prayer, you cannot experience the beauty and greatness of the grace which God is offering you. Therefore, little children, at all times fill your heart with even the smallest prayers. I am with you and unceasingly I keep watch over every heart which is given to me. Thank you for having responded to my call.”

      November 25, 1989: “Dear children, I have been inviting you for years by these messages which I am giving you. Little children, by means of the messages, I wish to make a very beautiful mosaic in your heart so I may be able to present each one of you to God like the original image. Therefore, little children, I desire that your decisions be free before God, because He has given you freedom. Therefore, pray so that, free from any influence of Satan, you may decide only for God. I am praying for you before God, and I am seeking your surrender to God. Thank you for having responded to my call.”

      As you see, a gentle but urgent call to those whom Mary wishes to become children of God fills each monthly message. She calls us especially through prayer. She calls us especially who are so openly exposed to the influence of Satan, who wants nothing more than to take away all that she has come to give us.

      You may be asking yourself why we are so graced to be living in a time when the Mother of God comes to earth to speak to each of us so personally and so intimately.

      In other words, why me?

      FOUR

      Why Has She

      Chosen Me?

       “Dear children, today I want to wrap you all in my mantle and lead you all along the way of conversion. Dear children, I beseech you, surrender to the Lord your entire past, all the evil that has accumulated in your hearts. I want each one of you to be happy. Therefore, dear children, pray, and in prayer you shall realize a new way of joy. Joy will manifest in your hearts and thus you shall be joyful witness of that which I and My Son want from each one of you. I am blessing you. Thank you for having responded to my call.”

      (Monthly message given February 25, 1987)

      The incredulity that God has chosen me to spread the message of Medjugorje remains in the form of a permanent question seared into my mind. It is a question I ask every day: Why me?

      My own conversion to a mission of spreading the Medjugorje messages began with a shocking and soul-shaking personal miracle—that of literally hearing Our Lady speaking directly to my heart. I include an account of that miracle in this book.

      Mary has spoken to my heart many times since that first occasion. Sometimes she speaks directly to me and, at other times, through visionaries or inner locutionaries or other individuals. I know now that these messages are gifts given to us by the Holy Spirit when we truly begin a process of surrending our souls to Jesus. They are not given just to “holy” souls. Our Lady made that clear from the first week of the apparitions in Medjugorje when the visionary Mirjana asked Our Lady why she had chosen them. “Why are you appearing to us? We are no better than others.” She replied with a smile and said, “I do not necessarily choose the best.” I can strongly relate to that!

      Before learning about Medjugorje, I was a lukewarm soul, a Lutheran Protestant, one who didn’t care too much for Catholics. Martin Luther and his followers had “reformed” the church, gotten it right after 1,500 years of its existence. The church was corrupt and Lutherans had cleaned it up. That’s what I was taught.

      I first heard about Medjugorje during a Sunday school class I was teaching at my Lutheran church in October 1985. To be honest, I had no business teaching such a class and was doing so only because I thought it might help me socially. In addition, it might be good for a few business contacts. I asked so many questions that they asked me to teach. My ego wouldn’t let me say no. I had only returned to going to church less than two years before after seven years of no church in my life, having walked away in anger because of a divorce following fourteen years of marriage.

      I really didn’t know much about Scripture and usually did anything I could to avoid getting into deep discussions about the Bible, even though every lesson plan was based on gospel teachings. I would often come up with my own lesson plans, which is why on this particular Sunday we were animatedly discussing modern-day miracles.

      As the class was coming to a close, one of the woman members said, “Speaking of miracles, let me tell you what one of my Catholic friends recently told me. There’s this little village in Yugoslavia where six kids are saying that the Blessed Virgin Mary has been appearing to them and speaking to them, and that it has been going on daily for over four years.” She then sat back with a smug, can-you-top-that smile.

      My knee-jerk reaction was, what nonsense! How could this Mary be appearing? She lived, she died, and that was the end of that. Besides, everyone knows she’s Catholic—or, at least anything to do with the Blessed Virgin people view as Catholic. As a newspaper journalist who owned and published four weekly community newspapers and who was trained to be a skeptic of anything that could not be authenticated or proven, I immediately rejected the story, personally and professionally.

      Yet, there was a curiosity. My business sense picked up the scent of a possible story. Christmas was not too far away, and this might be interesting subject matter for the holiday season. I asked the woman if she could give me more details, maybe a book or other source of research on the apparitions. Yes, she said, her friend had a videotape recently made during the time of an actual apparition at Medjugorje, and she was sure she could borrow it for me.

      Several days later I viewed the videotape. With pencil and paper at hand to make notes, I watched and listened with skepticism well in the forefront of my mind. Ten minutes later, I had not made one note. I was totally mesmerized by what I was seeing and hearing!

      Halfway through the tape, made four years after the start of the apparitions, I watched the young visionaries as they prepared for the daily apparition with the praying of the Rosary. As I viewed the up-close scan of the visionaries’ faces, I suddenly thought, I believe this! With that realization I felt a wave of guilt. If this was real, then God was real. I believed before, but never really believed beyond a distant thought that God might be real. If He were real, He knew everything about me.

      And then the miracle that would transform my life occurred. The guilt vanished as quickly as it had come and I had a sense of great peace. All at once, this same Virgin Mary—this СКАЧАТЬ