To be the defenders of the love of God (Fr. Marinko Shakota, OFM)

Message from the Queen of Peace, December 25, 2025:

“Dear children! Also today – when God permits Me to carry to you in My arms little Jesus, the King of Peace, that He may fill you with the ardor of love and peace, so that every heart may be similar to His Heart in this time of grace– be resolute and courageous defenders of the love of your God, that in this time of grace He may give you His peace.

Thank you for having responded to My call”. (With ecclesiastical approval)

1. Also today – when God permits Me to carry to you in My arms little Jesus, the King of Peace, that He may fill you with the ardor of love and peace, so that every heart may be similar to His Heart in this time of grace…

Our Lady repeats to us: this time is a time of grace. We can understand from Her following words why this time is so grace-filled: God allows Her to carry Jesus to us in Her arms.

Why does Our Lady so often repeat to us – twice in this message – that this is a time of grace? Because grace can easily pass by unnoticed. Grace is not noisy, it is silent. Perhaps we will understand only in eternity what a loss and a mistake it would have been if grace passed us by without being recognised. Therefore the great theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar said: “The only danger for Medjugorje is that it may not be recognized”. Literally it means: “For grace doesn’t pass us by, we must recognize it”.

Our Lady says: Jesus is the King of Peace. A king is one who reigns. Jesus is the King but not over others – He desires to be the King within us. Jesus is the King within us when His love reigns in our hearts. Love reigns when it is more powerful than our negative thoughts and feelings.

Jesus’s love is so great and so powerful that it desires “to fill us with the ardor of love and peace”. True love strives for others to love and to have peace. If there is ardor of love then what Our Lady said is fulfilled: “If you have love then everything is possible for you”. Then I go to Holy Mass with joy. Then I am active in my parish community. Then I want to help others so that peace may reign in their hearts and families. The fruit of love is peace.

The goal to which Jesus, the King of Peace, desires to lead us is this: every heart may be similar to His Heart. How can we be similar to Jesus’s Heart?

There is a Latin phrase: “Similis simili gaudet” that means “like finds joy in like”. In other words like recognizes like; like attracts like. When our hearts become similar to Jesus’s Heart then we are attracted by what Jesus is attracted to.

Then His way of acting becomes our own.

God didn’t wait for us, human beings, to do better before He came to us – He came to us so that we might become better.

If God made the first step through Jesus then we are like Jesus’s Heart when we don’t wait for other people to make the first step toward us. We are similar to Jesus’s Heart when we don’t wait for others to change before greeting them, speaking to them or visiting them but when we say: I will greet first. I will forgive first. I will be the first to go and see this person and to speak with him.

Jesus knows that Zacchaeus is a sinner, yet He does not reject him because His love is greater than Zacchaeus’s sins.

When Peter recognizes that he is a sinner Jesus does not turn him away but even grants him an important role: he will be a fisher of people.

Therefore Jesus’s love is greater than our sins as well. We are similar to Jesus’s Heart when our love is greater and stronger than the sins and weaknesses of others. We are similar to Jesus’s Heart when we are able to overcome someone’s weaknesses and to forgive.

It is good to pray: “Jesus, meek and humble of Heart, make my heart like Yours”

2. Be courageous defenders of the love of your God, that in this time of grace He may give you His peace.

Isn’t the idea “to defend God’s love” strange? And we should do it resolutely and courageously. Why?

We have God’s love within us. Paul says: “…the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” (Romans 5,5). Yet love is not the only force found within us. There are other forces as well: envy, hatred, intolerance of others, rejection of others, selfishness, stubbornness in a decision not to greet others, not to speak to them, not to forgive, the ego’s conviction that I am right and not another person… We must defend God’s love within ourselves because evil is strong. If we defend God’s love – resolutely and courageously – within us, it means that we do not allow evil to conquer us.

On the other hand God’s love will defend me. It will do so only if it is strong. If it is weak then it will be unable to defend me. Paul gives us an example: “I can do all things through One Who strengthens me” (Philippians 4, 13).

Here lies the path toward true peace.