Our Lady needs us. So many times She has said to us, “I need you, without you I cannot accomplish my plans of peace; help me.” With fasting, prayer, renunciation, we can stop even this terrible war in Ukraine. Our Lady is sent to us from Heaven with hope. Even today she is showing us a way out of this dramatic situation in which the world finds itself.

Rosary and fasting are two powerful weapons that the Queen of Peace has been giving us from the very beginning of her apparitions in Medjugorje. Her first words were: “With fasting and prayer you can stop even wars. It is not easy to fast and renounce, but their fruits are enormous.”

One young man came on pilgrimage to Medjugorje shortly after surviving the horrors of war. He and his group were meeting with one of the visionaries who spoke about the messages of Our Lady. Being disappointed and hurt, he asked, “I don’t understand how eating only bread and drinking only water can help me. How can this stop the war?” The visionary answered him, “It will help because Our Lady tells us so.”

Let us respond to Our Lady’s call. Victory is promised to Her and She is leading us to it. Evil is noisy and seems to prevail. Its power of death, hatred and fear has struck the earth. Love is silent. It makes no noise. Its victory comes in secret. Love has the last word. We must not allow hatred to pollute our hearts. Let us pray unceasingly for the gift of God’s love. Even when it is difficult. That is why Our Lady invites us to meditate on the Stations of the Cross, to pray at the foot of the cross, so that we may have Jesus and what he has done for us before our eyes. Let us kneel at the foot of the cross and know that Mary is always with us.

“If you do not return to God and His commandments, you do not have a future,” She tells us later in this month’s message. This means returning to the greatest commandment. To love God above all else and the neighbor as yourself. No one has greater love than he who lays down his life for his friends. „Dear children, do not have hearts that are hard, closed and filled with fear. Permit my motherly love to illuminate them and fill them with love and hope; so that, as a mother, I may soothe your pains because I know them, I experienced them. Pain elevates and is the greatest prayer. My Son, in a special way, loves those who suffer pains. He sent me to soothe them for you and bring hope. Trust in Him. I know that it is difficult for you because you see more and more darkness around you. My children, it is necessary to break it by prayer and love“, She tells on April 2, 2016.

Fasting and renunciation is the acceptance of pain, difficulty, inconvenience in the unity with Jesus. Mary repeats Jesus’ call to us – to be close to all those who are downtrodden, poor and have no voice in this world without God. Such are the words of Jesus, “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me“.

The Holy Father Francis too challenges us in this Lenten season, “Let us put into practice our call to do good to all, and take time to love the poor and needy, those abandoned and rejected, those discriminated against and marginalized“. (Message of Pope Francis for Lent (2022)

Let us believe Our Lady’s promise that through prayer and love the world will set out on a better path and love will prevail in the world.

Let us pray: Our Lady, you teach us to shield the pain with love. Help us to live this heroism. Help us, as you did, to accept with love what hurts. United in prayer with you, we ask for the gift of God’s love for those who are struck by hatred, war, violence. We surrender to you all who are downtrodden, poor and have no voice in this ungodly world. Hide in your Immaculate Heart, to whom victory is promised, all humanity and this world. Amen.