Medjugorje Yellow Book

I beseech you, Listen to My Messages and live them

Other languages: English, Italiano

This book is the last of the four volumes of sermons and discourses given by Fr. Slavko Barbaric and Fr. Tomislav Vlasic during 1984 - 1987 in Medjugorje, and contains discourses from 1986, finishing with the early messages of 1987.

Not all chapters of this book are yet included

Do not prevent Jesus from loving you

You are going home from Medjugorje and I believe that your task is to be witnesses of Easter and the Resurrection. On this occasion I want to tell you that you must be aware that the Christian is the only person capable of bringing hope to the world. By now we all know that the whole world analyses its problems and complains about them, but cannot find the way out of them. By his Resurrection Jesus has shown us the way and has given us the strength to find the way out.

If you have followed the Sunday passages from the Gospel this year, you will be able to see that Jesus has a way out for everyone; for a public sinner, for the prostitute, for the poor, for the prodigal son, for the thief who was on the cross next to Him, for everyone. He has shown us the way out, but at the same time has given us the strength to fine it and this is the guarantee for our hope.

And He has also given us another means; He has sent Our Lady who has come to meet us along the road to make it clear to us how to go towards Our Father, and to help us.

This is the heart of the matter, so that we can live in hope and bring hope to our brothers. What I want to say to you is that you must be witnesses of the Resurrection, and when I say this I mean that you must carry the peace of the Risen Lord within you, the joy, the hope, the certainty, a new life. With this new life in you, you will bring the Resurrection to your brothers. This is what Our Lady has come for, to bring us to the Resurrection and to that Easter which we will celebrate in Heaven.

In order to live this hope along the way, I want to stress prayer once again, from various points of view.

When we consider what Our Lady has done during this period of the apparitions at Medjugorje, we can say that we have been at a school of prayer. If we want to be her disciples then we must enter the school of prayer and live prayer.

On this occasion, I want to talk to you about three aspects of prayer, so that you will be able to become witnesses of hope. The first aspect is that your prayer must meet the Risen Christ, just as the Apostles did during this Easter time when each meeting with Jesus was the resurrection for them. For us, too, each prayer must be the moment of resurrection and the moment of a meeting with God.

In her last but one message, Our Lady said that we must be active in our prayer. She stressed the fact that I personally must be active in prayer; I must meet Jesus personally with all my inner needs. This is the personal meeting; so, if I meet God who loves me, who comes to meet me, who wants to save me, then I have to meet the Risen Jesus and all within me is resurrected. This is why I am inviting you to live personal prayer. When I say personal prayer I am thinking of the Rosary because in those mysteries I have expressed myself with my whole personality.

Try to live prayer as a personal meeting with Jesus and then you yourselves will arise in each prayer and the strength of the Risen Jesus will be more and more present within you.

There are two other means you should consider in order to reach the depth of prayer.

One of these means was pointed out to us in the prayer group by Jesus, half way through Lent, when He urged us to turn to Our Lady to ask for the gift of silence. You are able to learn continuous prayer with the gift of silence.

I invite each one of you, to ask for this gift of silence from the Virgin and to live it so that all of you may live continuous prayer. What does it mean to live continuous prayer ? It means meeting Jesus personally, with all my needs; when I can rest in God in my prayer; when I can smile with God; when I can gain strength in God; when the whole of my personality receives new energy.

In silence I am able to practise this prayer. if you begin to reflect and to experience what peace is and what silence is, you will discover everything there by means of prayer.

Prayer must advance within us and it can be deepened only to the extent that there is the peace and silence of the Risen Jesus in us, because the silence and peace of the Risen Jesus guarantee a continuity for us. Our inner strength is not wasted, but increases more and more. You can compare people who enjoy themselves in a pagan way; that joy wearies and has its end, whereas the joy that springs forth from a deep an continuous silence is eternal.

This is why Jesus invited us to live prayer from this inner silence which leads us to continuous prayer.

There is not a great deal to say about this aspect because you yourselves well know how the endless rush of everyday life keeps you from prayer. On the other hand, if you enter silence every day and into Divine peace, then your daily rush will lessen because you will rely more on God and it will not be you trying to do everything, but you will allow God to sort things out and you will find time to rest, because God is acting for you.

This is marvellous; when you give everything to God and when you abandon yourself to God, it is God who abandons Himself to you.

The third means by which to achieve prayer is to reach the Cross of the Risen Jesus. I recently read a poem about suffering: Two shells met, one large and powerful, the other which sighed, 'There is suffering inside me, I feel a great pain.' Then an animal passed by who replied, 'Do not complain because you have conceived a pearl inside you. You will become mother-of-pearl.'

If we discover that every suffering inside us is a pearl, that through every pain we can become mother-of-pearl, we will be able to discover the strength derived from the Resurrection. If we do not discover the possibility that our sufferings can become mother-of-pearl, then we have not allowed God to reach us by means of his Resurrection and we have kept many areas within us from the strength of the Resurrection.

Jesus came especially for the weak, He came for sinners, He came for the suffering; He came to save. If we do not offer our crosses and our suffering to the Risen Jesus then we have not offered anything and have not opened ourselves. So the depth of our prayer will be the depth of our acceptance of the Cross. If we accept our crosses in the light of Jesus Christ, then there will be a total transformation within us.

On 22nd March, at the end of the meeting of the prayer group, before the blessing, Our Lady told us, "Dear children, you will be able to accept Divine love only to the extent in which you understand that in your crosses God is offering you his immense love."

The wise old saints used to tell us, 'Those who are chastised by God are loved by Him in a special way.' When God offers suffering, He also offers great love.

At this point I would like to tell you not to prevent Jesus from loving you. If you want to run away from your crosses then you are not allowing God to love you. Accept all your crosses. I say this to you from a personal point of view so that each one of you may be able to accept God's cross with joy.

Our Lady said something wonderful to us during Lent. In a message, She said, "Carry your crosses with joy, carry your crosses immediately. Do not complain. Your hearts must flower with your crosses."

This is the strength of the Resurrection, and it is the strength of hope.

(Tomislav Vlasic - 31st March 1986)

 

For God to live in your hearts, you must love.

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