CREATE  PRAYER  GROUPS  (Tereza Gazhiyova) 

The most precious gift Jesus had as He was dying on the cross was His Mother. He gave Her to us. He unceasingly gives Her to us every day, even today in a mysterious way – in Medjugorje. The visionaries bear witness that Our Lady still appears every evening at 5:40. She descends to earth to pray with us and for us in this extraordinary way and through Her messages shows us the path of peace.

Throughout human history God has always sent Her when love disappearеd from the earth. In a message on January 2nd  2018 She says to us: “When the way of salvation is not being found, I, the Mother, am coming to help you to come to know true faith – living and profound – so as to help you to truly love”.

She calls us again to love, to prayer, and to the creation of prayer groups. Before Jesus created the first prayer group — His twelve disciples — He prayed the whole night. Then He chose those whom His Father had revealed to Him in prayer.

After Jesus’s death when His disciples had scattered out of fear of their enemies Mary encouraged them not to lose faith and was with them in prayer as the Mother Who defends and comforts Her children. This is an example of how a true prayer group is created – in prayer with the Mother, in community and in obedience to the Holy Spirit.

For 44 years of Our Lady’s apparitions countless prayer groups have been created in Medjugorje as the fruit of Her presence and Her Motherly school.

Each group is like Mary: prays and serves in silence wherever it is. Throughout the world these groups gather faithfully to pray Rosary, to reflect on God’s Word and to perform concrete acts of love just as we read in the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles.

A prayer group is a community of friends who share a common purpose: to love Jesus and love their neighbours. The first prayer group in the school of the Blessed Virgin should become our family. From the very beginning of Her apparitions Mary has had a clear plan for how peace can be renewed on earth: first we are called to work on the conversion of our hearts, then to spread peace around us – in our families, communities and workplaces – and finally, to create prayer groups, the oases of peace in this modern word. We cannot do anything on our own but together, Mary says, we can stop evil and change the world.

Even our short prayers are united with a prayer of Her Immaculate Heart. Perhaps it may seem to us that our prayers and actions are insignificant but in God’s eyes they have infinite value. Every prayer said out of love changes the world, every act of forgiveness opens heaven and every heart that chooses peace becomes a little light of Mary.

She calls us not to wait for the “perfect” time or great deeds but to start here and now where we are: in our families, communities, in the silence of our hearts. So that together with Her we may teach  to pray, love and trust in God Who can make a sea of grace even from the smallest drop of our faith.

Let’s consecrate ourselves to Her Immaculate Heart and give ourselves to God through Her.

The Lord Jesus said to St. Faustina: “Consecrated souls are My reflection in the world; they are like lights which I cast into the darkness of this world to illuminate it. The more humble a soul is the more brightly its light shines” (Diary of St. Faustina).

May our hearts, families, communities consecreated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary become an example that shows the path through prayer and love.

 Prayer

Mary, thank You for patiently leading us on the way to peace. Help us to remain in prayer with You for peace. Teach us to love as You love – humbly, silently, with hearts open to every person. Grant that our prayer groups may be oases of peace, places where the Holy Spirit renews hearts and leads them to goodness. We beseech You, Mother, pray with us and for us so that we may return to God with all our hearts and become instruments of His love and peace for those who have not come to know Him. Amen.