date: 11.04.2020.
Medjugorje parish priest, Fr. Marinko Sakota’s Easter wishes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=654J6xtCfoA
Dear brothers and sisters, parishioners, pilgrims, dear friends of Medjugorje connected with Gospa all over the world through her words, all of you who opened to her and her messages of peace and prayer, I am greeting you all from the depth of my heart and I wish to extend few words to you.
The Lent is behind us and Easter is about to come. This is invitation to all of us to have Easter within us, a bit particular this year than normally. Exactly at this time of pandemic of coronavirus, when we no longer have the holy Eucharist, prayers in the church, sacrament of confession, this time is the time of silence, the time to enter within ourselves and allow our Lord to transform us.
This is the time of prayer in which our Mother wants us to be opened to God as the nature opens to sun and its rays, so we too would be opened to God’s love and allow Him to talk to our hearts, to allow the rays of His love to come into our being for the transformation to take place within ourselves. This is how Gospa, our dear Mother, wants us to have that process within ourselves and invites us: Return to Jesus, go back to Him!
Return to prayer and fasting! Direct your gaze and your heart to God, open your hearts to God’s love and let go of all that drives you away from God and prayer. Let go of that, leave all that behind and return to God as the prodigal son returned to his father.
The time we are in now is the time in which the prodigal son was, the time of silence, the time when we get to know whom we are, when we meditate, reflect and notice all of our sideways, all those times we went far from Jesus, from prayer, fasting, from the Word of God, members of our families and true values. Now, this is that time, the time of returning and going back to God and prayer. The example in all of this is Mary. She is the one who turned to God and allowed Him to talk to her. ''Behold, o Lord, may it be to me according to Thy Word.'' Thisallowing and opening of heart takes place in silence. When the angel spoke to her, Mary entered in her heart, penetrated in her interior and remained in silence. She pondered on all events, kept them in her heart and did that in silence.
Dear friends, we can take this situation in two ways. We can understand this as something imposed to us, which it is, for we did not want this. We can complain about it, about not being able to attend Holy Mass, Adoration, go to confession, not being able to go out. This reminds us of the scene from the desert when Israelites left Egypt and when they said – we do not have anything but this wretched food we are disgusted with! What they had was nothing to them and they saw only what they did not have. The same is with us now, we can turn our gaze to what we do not have, what we are missing and what we cannot do.
The other option is to turn this imposed event into something good. We have a possibility to choose and to say: ''I want to take this time now as the time of grace, the time given for inner transformation, to open my heart to the Lord, the time to calm down and pause, not to rush, to see that I have time for prayer and the Word of God, for members of my family.''
Dear friends, this it the time of Easter! Let us take this time as true Easter.
Jesus’ Resurrection took place in the silence, no one witnessed to that event. We, too, are now in the silence of our rooms and our homes. Jesus wants Easter to take place within us and it would take place if we step out of the grave we are in, grave of the negative thoughts, negative feelings towards someone, when we start wishing good to others.
Also, when we decide for forgiveness, when we start praying for love towards person we do not like or cannot stand, someone that hurt us, once we start praying for love in our heart towards that person, this would be stepping out of grave.
When we decide to see what is good, what was given to us, what is around us, to see God’s creatures in the nature, when we decide to see so much that was given to us, this is when stepping out of the grave would take place. Resurrection and new life would come!
My dear friends, this is my wish for each one of you, from the depth of my heart!
May you all have happy and blessed Easter!
