The Main Messages

Prayer – Peace – Fasting – Penance

 

Our Lady said on June 6, 1988:

 

“Dear children, it’s going to be seven years soon that I have been coming to you. I ask you to renew in yourselves the messages I have given to you. These are messages of prayer, peace, fasting, and penance. Make some penance yourselves. All of the other messages come from these four basic ones, but also live the other ones. Thank you for responding to my call. I am your Mother. Open your heart to the grace.”

 

Our Lady’s words are very clear: There are four basic messages – Prayer. Peace. Fasting. Penance. The purpose of these four basic messages is to produce a cleansing of heart and mentality in each person who decides to concretely live these messages so they will be open, will be able to see, and will have the strength to live the profoundness of what exists deeper beneath the surface of the messages. On December 4, 1988, when Marija was in Birmingham, Alabama, Our Lady gave the following message:

 

“I invite you to live the profoundness of the messages that I give.”


There are not five basic messages. Several within the Medjugorje world have inserted and made popular a fifth part into the basic messages of Our Lady. They have added Holy Mass and the Eucharist to the basic messages of Our Lady, wrongly claiming and propagating that there are five basic messages and not just four. Why would some say that there are five basic messages from which all other messages come when Our Lady clearly stated there are four basic messages?

 

A Friend of Medjugorje, in his writing about Our Lady’s January 2, 2015, message, titled “Was Jesus Controversial?”, explains why some have added a fifth basic message, and why it is a deep error to do so. He wrote:

“Several want to ‘grease the path’ of Medjugorje’s approval by the Church, making it smoother and easier to slip it into acceptance. For instance, they have promoted that the Eucharist should be among these four basic messages, making them the five messages. Our Lady unequivocally did not say this. And because it [the Eucharist] was not included in the original message, it was a concern for those who were working for Medjugorje’s approval. It is a corrosive mentality that causes one to ignore Our Lady’s own words, and therefore, not understand in truth what Our Lady is geniusly doing. Our Lady said:

 

June 6, 1988

“Dear children, it’s going to be seven years soon that I have been coming to you. I ask you to renew in yourselves the messages I have given to you. These are messages of prayer, peace, fasting, and penance. Make some penance yourselves. ‘All’ of the other messages come ‘from’ these four basic ones, but also live the other ones. Thank you for responding to my call. I am your Mother. Open your heart to the grace.”

 

“Why did Our Lady not add the Eucharist as part of the foundation of the four basic messages because after all, the Mass is the highest prayer in the universe? For the same reason Christ performed the very first Mass at the end of bringing the apostles to truth. The last thing He did with the twelve was done for the first time on Holy Thursday, before ‘Crucifixion Friday.’ Christ performed the Mass only one time with the apostles!! And He did so the first time and last time in His humanity, on Holy Thursday. He had to purify them for three years to bring them to truth through prayer, peace, fasting, and penance to understand the truth, of the Mass, of the Eucharist. Look how few have the truth of the Eucharist today. Count us in that number. It takes prayer, peace, fasting and penance to come to the truth of what the Eucharist means. But don’t make a false truth in order to make a good clean theological statement, adding the Eucharist/Holy Mass by feathering it into the four basic messages Our Lady gave by making it become one of five basic messages. Our Lady did not say it. It was not said. Again, to repeat, Our Lady said, for you who are scandalized by this truth:

 

June 6, 1988

“…I ask you to renew in yourselves the messages I have given to you. These are messages of prayer, peace, fasting, and penance. Make some penance yourselves. ‘All’ of the other messages come from these four basic ones…”

 

“We cannot add to the messages to remove obstacles that may cause the Church to balk in order to gain a smoother transition for Church approval. Our Lady did not include, in 1988, the Eucharist or Mass in the four basic messages from which all others come. Yet, amazingly, the fruit of Medjugorje is that followers of Our Lady have bloomed, through coming to know truth through prayer, peace, fasting and penance, into the strongest Eucharistic people in the worldwide Church today. Also, add to your fact list Our Lady’s messages from Medjugorje renewed Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament worldwide. There has prevailed in some who follow the messages of Our Lady a worldly desire to make the messages fit a certain mentality in the Church today. That mentality is one of weighing out the consequences that Our Lady’s words, by not having Mass in the basic messages, could cause adverse consequences and risk Medjugorje’s approval, or even bring about its condemnation. We never weigh out consequences of Our Lady’s words. If Our Lady says them, we here at Caritas, spread them as they are, even if it is to our own detriment. There have been moves through the years to ‘grease’ a path for the apparitions so there will be no ‘obstacles’ for Church approval, or to cover up those things that the theologically intellectually minded, who are for Medjugorje, think would cause Medjugorje’s condemnation or stymie its approval. Small, small mentalities who believe Medjugorje approval rests in their orchestrating, controlling, regulating and domesticating the events of Medjugorje, all of which has actually damaged Medjugorje.”

 

A Friend of Medjugorje continues:


“Pope Francis told the Curia, those in the administration offices who assist the Pope in governing the Catholic Church, on December 22, 2014:”

 

“The ailment of excessive planning and functionalism….the Church shows Herself to be faithful to the Holy Spirit to the extent that She does not seek to regulate or domesticate it. The spirit is freshness, imagination and innovation. ”

 

“Our Lady’s apparitions are bringing freshness, imagination and innovation and are not to be controlled, regulated, or domesticated. Our Lady and Her apostles are to be free of these ‘trappings.’ ”

“Medjugorje is a truth, a bright sunshine, a light of peace and freshness surrounded, 360 degrees, by storms of controversies. A mindset through the years, right in Medjugorje itself is, “let’s tone down, let’s quiet down Medjugorje and not do or allow anything that causes controversy.” These souls believe more in themselves than in Medjugorje. They think on a human level that Church approval is up to them. This is not truth. Truth does not need defending. God is truth. God does not need puny man to defend Him or truth. Truth, however does need protection because many promote false truths. Therefore, real truth is always surrounded by the storms of controversy. Truth, however, is not controversial. It is those who object to, bend, and/or are blending truth with falsehood, creating false truth, who are causing the controversy. Jesus was truth. He was in peace, but a whirlwind surrounded Him. He was not the cause of it and He was not controversial. Even many Christians accept when the world states Jesus caused controversy. How could that be when He is truth? Those around Him created the controversy. Medjugorje is true. It is not controversial. It is those who say it is controversial or who create controversy who origined controversy; a purposed intent to put a negative against who or what they say is controversial. Yes, some people and sources can be controversial, but Christ was not. The saints, who had controversy around them, were not controversial. Our Lady’s apparitions in Medjugorje are not controversial. At the origin of Medjugorje, the Holy Virgin Mary, Queen of Peace, came to deliver a divine plan, a direct intervention into man’s history of Biblical proportions, a moment in time in our present history to introduce a “great plan for the salvation of mankind” to save the world. And worth repeating, this plan has four basic messages from which all others come from:”

 

“Prayer. Peace. Fasting. Penance.”


“We are not to add a fifth to make things look good for Medjugorje for the Church. Jesus did not do things or avoided situations to minimize the risk of those who would distort and cause hellish commotion, fueled by the devil to make Him (Jesus) look controversial. Our Lady wants us to arrive at truth through the four basic messages She mentioned in 1988, and that which She mentioned on, January 2, 2015 – fasting, prayer, penance and the Gospel (peace) – to bring and help the people, She is among, know the truth. If everyone recognized the truth of the Eucharist, 75% to 90% of the people would stay in the pews at Communion time and not dare receive, recognizing their lives are not in truth before God. And as Our Lady said today on January 2, 2015, three important things about this point being made are that through this, we would be a stronger and holier Church with far less receiving because “the knowledge of the truth” of their lives prevent them from receiving “a piece of Heaven” that requires you to have a pure heart, a pure life, vacated of the “many false truths being offered to you” that have been adopted as part of a way of your daily life; a routine of normalcy of false truth in your life that has become truth to you. What does Our Lady mean by “many false truths”? Is it false or is it true Our Lady is saying you believe you have truth? You have adopted the truths of the world, but they are false. These false truths are presented as truth and even prevail in the Church. The exorcism that will cleanse the Church is prayer, fasting, penance, and the Gospel, which will lead one to live peace. It is Our Lady who says, ‘The Gospel is the only Truth and it is the truth which my Son left you,’  The Word of God, the Word made Flesh, ‘a piece of Heaven’ that you can receive in the Eucharist, Christ Himself, Truth Himself, only after being cleansed by the four basic messages. Many false truths are causing the faithful to be receiving without realizing they should not be receiving Holy Communion. We must do what Judas Maccabees of the Bible did, who first brought about a cleansing of God’s people, the Jews, before he could deal with the pagans. We cannot impact the pagan world as it is now, without our own beliefs being in truth, not a truth related to what one once believed, but based on the Gospel, the Word made Flesh, the piece of Heaven which requires prayer, fasting, penance, and peace to have it enter your hearts.” 

 

“Our Lady said, “You do not need to examine it much.”(January 2, 2015) The Church has a problem with theologians examining the Gospel too much. Just believe what you read. Put it into practice. Make Our Lady’s messages your life and you will make the Bible your life. You do not have to take a theology course which often indoctrinates, giving fixed ideas and complicated thinking instead of the simplicity of being little children who understand the Gospel far greater than the theologians. It is difficult for Our Lady to instill Her messages into those who are indoctrinated by universities and intellectualism; a destructive disease the Church suffers from today. Jesus said of children, they are the ‘Kingdom of Heaven.’ They can understand the Gospel clearer than those indoctrinated by degrees and honors of the world. What else needs to be understood to see and have knowledge of the truth?”

 

“It is that simple. We do not need great examination to understand how simple all this is. But do not expect anything happening without love. Love, Our Lady said, will achieve everything, but without love, you will achieve nothing.”

 

[End of excerpt from a Friend of Medjugorje’s writing, titled “Was Jesus Controversial?” January 2, 2015.]

 

The book of Revelation states, “I warn every one who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if any one adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.” (Revelation 22:18-19) Similarly, very early in the apparitions Our Lady said in Her message on the vigil of Pentecost, June 9, 1984:

 

“…you need the Spirit of Truth to be able to convey the messages just the way they are, neither adding anything to them, nor taking anything whatsoever away from them, but just the way I said them.”

 

Not only do you need the Spirit of Truth just to convey Her messages to others, but make sure you do not add anything to them. Our Lady’s choice of only four basic messages was a deliberate decision of Hers. The decision to communicate these four basic messages, when contemplated, shows also Our Lady’s wisdom and the genius of Her messages. How?

 

Our Lady’s messages are for every single person on the earth. She is not giving messages only for Catholics, not only for Christians, not only for those who believe in God, but for everyone – Buddhists, Catholics, Muslims, even non-believers – every person on earth. Anyone, believer or not, Christian or not, can live the four basic messages of prayer, peace, fasting, and penance. These basic messages are not offensive or repulsive to any heart that is open. Anyone can pray. Anyone can try to live peace, can fast, can do penance or make sacrifices. Not everyone can or wants to go to Holy Mass and receive the Eucharist. They do not understand, believe or grasp the great treasure that is the Holy Mass and the Eucharist. And if this becomes a condition by which they must approach Our Lady, many will turn away immediately.

 

A Friend of Medjugorje illustrates this through an experience he had in one of his first groups he brought to Medjugorje. A married couple signed up for the pilgrimage in which the husband was a Catholic, but the wife was not a believer. Many fellow pilgrims approached a Friend of Medjugorje exhorting him to talk to the woman about becoming Catholic. He saw many people doing this in their conversations with her and he told them all to back off. He warned them that they would turn this woman away from ever wanting to come towards the Church. He told them to let her alone and let Our Lady lead her in these days of the pilgrimage. At the end of the eight days, the woman left Medjugorje believing in Our Lady’s apparitions, but felt no impulse towards becoming Catholic. Six months later, she contacted a Friend of Medjugorje. In her conversation with him, she told him that she was reading Our Lady’s words every day and trying to live them. This morning, she said, she opened to Words from Heaven and in the message Our Lady said one should go to Mass. She said, “I’m not Catholic, I can’t go to Mass.” It was then that he was able to speak to her about the Mass and Eucharist. Before that time, she was closed, but now, after striving to live the basic messages of Medjugorje, the hunger for God had increased in her heart and it opened her heart to hear about the Eucharist. She entered RCIA and became a Catholic the following Easter. The Mass and Eucharist came at the end of her search, a search that began through experiencing the love of Our Lady and being drawn to Her messages.

 

Do not buy the lie that there are five basic messages of Medjugorje. You would damage your own conversion. You would stifle the genius of Our Lady and seal off the messages to many who, though not believers at the moment, are nonetheless seeking truth and will come to the truth through Our Lady’s messages if allowed. Be in awe of Our Lady’s wisdom in making Her messages accessible to every soul, knowing that to live the basic messages will open a heart to becoming a believer, and then to becoming a Christian.

 

Each of the Four Basic Messages of Our Lady is explained in greater detail below.

Prayer
Peace
Fasting
Penance

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