14 December 2024

By Mauro, Loredana and Luisa

(Taken from the book, Our Lady Is Alive in Međugorje – Conversations with Father Tomislav Vlašić; Publisher Luci dell’Esodo)

What steps must be taken in order to answer this call to offer our life?

Sacred Scripture is brimming with indications and exhortations; the doctrine of the Church and tradition teach us that the only way is the Easter passage experienced by Jesus. If Our Lord Jesus went through the sacrifice on the cross for our salvation, this means that we must undergo the same process, that we too must take the road that he took in order to learn to know him. Only in this manner will we be able to experience the strength of his resurrection and live in communion with his suffering¹. The strength of the resurrection is only experienced if we participate in Christ’s sufferings. The offering of life is the destination that all Christians must reach, but we need courage in order to embark on this journey.

The first step necessary in order to offer our life is to decide for God. We may think that we have decided for God, but we must verify whether or not this decision is authentic. We must go to church, participate in a prayer group, fulfil all the rites and precepts, but if someone says a word that we do not like, all hell breaks loose in us! This means that we have not decided for God! And we may be so crushed by what is happening in the world and in our lives, that we can almost no longer breathe spiritually and feel the force of the Holy Spirit.

This means that we have not put God in the first place, and we have not discovered prayer, which opens us up completely to God. We are divided on the inside between many things. This interior division is the cause of our weakness, impotence and confusion. On occasion people in the prayer groups are unable to speak to each other: this is also a sign of the lack of a true decision for God.

The second step is to abandon ourselves to God. For many believers it is difficult to abandon themselves completely to God, actually, it is impossible. The child resting on his mother’s breast is the image of this abandonment that we should experience. A man who fails to grow in prayer, to the point of opening himself up to God, cannot abandon himself to Him. A man who fails to feel God’s love and goodness in prayer like a child feels the love of his mother, cannot abandon himself or rest in Him. Our Lady once said through Jelena: “Prayer is a dialogue with God. In every prayer, you must hear God’s voice”. It is not a question of hearing something extraordinary, but of feeling a sense of communion with God, his love for us.

The next step for living the offering is to give ourselves to God. It is not sufficient to abandon ourselves to God, we must also give ourselves to him. This is the activity that is born within the soul when we begin to live for God. The more we give ourselves to Him, the more our soul rises up and our whole being is transfigured. We bring a whole baggage of human things with us every time we go to church, it means that we are still running around ourselves. It is as though we were closed inside a box that we want to protect at all costs. We cannot be reborn in this manner.

Giving ourselves to God is a very profound and important step: we no longer live for ourselves, we live for God. Living for God means feeling that he lives through us, that he uses all of his omnipotence for us. Then we can understand that we are lacking nothing. For this reason Jesus says in the Gospel according to Matthew: “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? And then he adds: Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?² This leads us forward, it makes us understand that the offering is a pathway that opens up our hearts and our souls, that elevates us and leads us to fullness.

The next step in the pathway of offering is sacrifice. When parents give life to a child, they are also ready to sacrifice themselves for him. What parent has not made sacrifices? What mother has not spent the night watching over her child? It would be better for her to sleep! Love cannot become perfect if we do not decide for God, surpassing our own interests. Jesus Christ showed us all of his love, to the point of giving himself for us. In order for our love to be similar to Jesus’ love, we must go beyond all human interest. This does not mean that we must remain passive, indifferent towards the duties and responsibilities of life; and nor does it mean that we must be lazy; it means that we must be free within our souls, not attached to sick ambitions or interests. Each of us, on the crosses that he lives, must learn to rise up to God, like Jesus Christ, sacrificing everything that prevents us from rising up. In this way be become mature Christians. Becoming mature means praying, elevating ourselves up beyond interests, giving ourselves unconditionally to Jesus, then Jesus too will be able to freely act in us.

Offering our life to God is a natural and simple thing, after all, it is nothing other than our answer to the grace of baptism that we have received. There can be no other road towards God. If the soul opens itself to God, then it will seem natural for it to follow Jesus Christ, to reach communion with the Father in the Holy Spirit. Our Immaculate Mother opens up the pathway to us and teaches us how to live all of this. Therefore it is important to understand that the apparitions of Our Lady in Medjugorje are not just any form of devotion; through the apparitions God wants to say to us that the Church and the world must go through the Heart of Mary Immaculate, if they want to be reborn. Mary is the new creature, new humanity, she is the new Eve.

All of this leads us to the peak, which is communion: communion with the universal Church finds its foundation in the celebration of Mass. Our offering must be united with Jesus’ offering and this comes about through the priest’s offering during the holy Mass. The priest rises up all the sacrifices of those who participate in the Eucharist to the Father, uniting them with Christ’s sacrifice. In Mass we are called to offer our sacrifices, but it is important for us to also offer the sacrifice of the innocent and we ask the Saviour to consecrate all their tears and sufferings. Every day and everywhere, so much blood is spilled that must be consecrated! So many innocent people are seduced, killed; so many children are aborted and suppressed in various satanic sects! For this reason we must present every cry of humanity on the altar and unite it with the offering of Jesus Christ. The offering of Christ is the centre around which the whole of humanity is reunited.

The baptised reach their fullness and they offer themselves as victims in the holy Mass. Participating in the Eucharistic celebration is not about listening to beautiful sermons, but above all, it is about being united with Jesus Christ, in offering ourselves so as to be transformed into new creatures. This is the duty of priests above all and on this point the documents of the Church speak very clearly; but it is also the duty of the faithful, otherwise, going to Mass may become a habit or a superficial religious practice. The inner passage through offering is not closure within an inner experience, in our own feeling, but it is a process of growth that must lead us to become mature, free, happy people, capable of facing up to evil and of conquering it. This personal growth is transformed into a mission. The Holy Spirit reawakens and develops the sensitivity of the soul, it directs it towards what is virtuous and helps it to open itself up to God’s action. When we offer our life we unite ourselves with Jesus and we participate in the work of redemption, learning to carry those crosses that he gives us.

What fruits does the offering of our life bring?

The offering leads us to be new creatures³, generated through the Easter passage, on an individual level and on a community level, that is, as God’s Church. As new creatures, carrying within us the dynamism of Trinitarian life, we insert ourselves into God’s love that loves everyone, good and evil. Filled with a living hope, we share the burden of life, offering it to God, and awaiting the glorious coming of the Lord. By living in the Holy Spirit we can overcome those individualistic aspects that divide us and set us against one another. By offering ourselves to God, we become servants of each other’s life and we become a living Eucharist.

At the foot of the Cross, Mary offered herself to the Father with Jesus. Is it essential to be united with Mary so as to learn to experience this pathway of offering directly from her?

Certainly. I have already stated on several occasions that we can only offer ourselves to Jesus through Mary. Through her maternal heart, divine love is manifested and it communicates with us in the most loving way. This love never wounds, it never forces. It is like a smile, like a soft sun that shines on a bud in spring time and makes it open up. The deepest wounds that we carry around in our hearts as a consequence of sin, open up and heal before this tender love, and Satan runs away. The love that Mary communicates to us reawakens every virtue within us: love, peace, trust, obedience, patience. It also helps us to become mature, responsible people, turned towards God, the source of life. This maturity develops within us the ability to be with Mary at the foot of the cross and to offer ourselves with Jesus in every form of suffering or challenge that life throws at us. Like Mary became the Mother of humanity at the foot of the cross, in the same way, those who offer themselves to Jesus become fathers and mothers who, together with her, generate God’s life and give it to others.