Our Lady calls us very clearly, briefly and solemnly to make this time a time of prayer.

This time is a time of grace for the Lenten season. The Church calls us to intense prayer, fasting, reading and listening to the Word of God. In the Book of Ecclesiastes we read that there is, “a time to be born, and a time to die. A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance. A time to be silent, and a time to speak. A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.“

The world says everything has its time, time is money, time flies and we can even lose it…

Our Lady reminds us that our time on earth is short and after that we will live forever. The heavens open for those who fill their earthly time with love. She comes to bring us all to the gates of Heaven.

When Our Lady calls us to prayer today and says nothing more, it means that nothing is more important now than prayer. Observing the situation in the world, we can understand why our Mother speaks to us to this day, “May this time be a time of prayer for you”.

Almighty God is with us in prayer. When we are with God, the heart, the circumstances, the world are changed. The greatest things happen on our knees. We read about it in the Holy Scriptures, in the biographies of the saints. On July 25, 1991 Our Lady said, “Dear children, I desire you to grasp the seriousness of the situation and that much of what will happen depends on your prayers and you are praying a little bit. Dear children, I am with you and I am inviting you to begin to pray and fast seriously as in the first days of my coming.”

From the beginning of her apparitions in Medjugorje, Our Lady invites us to pray with the heart. For 42 years we have been in Her school of prayer. Let us remind ourselves of Her most important invitations to prayer. She invites us to make a prayer corner in the family, to place a cross in a visible place, with the Holy Scriptures open, an image of Her, a rosary, holy water. Pray the three rosaries every day, individually and together in families. This is the most powerful weapon against the devil. Pray at the foot of the Cross, from the Cross come great graces. Pray with the Cross in our hands to ask for healing of our wounds.

To pray daily with the Word of God, to meditate and live the Gospel. To adore Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. To often receive the Eucharist. To believe that only through fasting and prayer we can stop wars and natural disasters. To consecrate ourselves daily to the Divine Heart of Jesus and to the Immaculate Heart of Our Lady.

The one who wants to pray better must pray more. Our Lady teaches us that to pray more is a personal decision. Mother Teresa confirms this experience saying, “If we want to pray better, we must pray more! Prayer broadens the heart until it becomes capable of accepting God’s gift, which is God Himself.”

The most common definition of prayer is – prayer is an encounter with God. And God is love.

Our Lady calls us to make our life a prayer, to make ourselves a prayer.  In prayer we receive love and we choose to give love. Our time, our life becomes prayer. After meeting God in prayer, let us continue to work with God. The most important thing is to be with God, with love, to live with him, to share with him all that we experience, to carry out his will. Let us pray throughout the day with short invocations to him: I love you, I trust you, I need you, I believe in you.

Let us strive to live the present moment in love. This is the peace of our heart that spreads around us. The Queen of Peace tells us in Medjugorje to believe in the power of prayer and entrusts us with the most important intentions: to pray for the experience of God’s love, for peace in our hearts, in our families, in the world. Let us believe her promise that through prayer and love we can achieve even what seems humanly impossible.

Let us pray:

Our Lady, we thank you for lifting us up to Heaven once again with your call, “May this time become a time of prayer for you”. Inspired by your example, we ask you to teach us to pray as Jesus taught his disciples. Help us to live Lent and Easter deeply united with you in prayer and silence in one heart cry that love may prevail on earth. In prayer with you and with all who listen to your voice from Heaven, we ask for peace in our hearts, families and in the world. Amen.