Mass at St. James in Medjugorje
Let’s Do Something Beautiful for God
By June Klins
One Sunday in January, one of our subscribers gave me an
envelope that sounded like it had some loose change in it, which
seemed odd to me. When I opened the envelope I found a check
made out to “The Spirit of Medjugorje” and another one made out
to “The Spirit of Adoration.” Also in the envelope was a note
card with a quote from Mother Teresa that said, “Let’s do
something beautiful for God,” along with $333.33 in cash. The
note said, “June, it was laid on my heart to give you this
exact amount of money ($333.33)…I trust it will be revealed
to you why and how it is to be used.”
Awesome as He is, God knows that I like a good mystery and
that, as a retired math teacher, am very attuned to numbers. So,
I took the envelope with me to the Adoration chapel for several
days and prayed about it. It was not long before it came to me
that the $333.33 was to be used to have Masses said for Our
Lady’s intentions. This idea was inspired from a homily given by
a priest at my parish the first week of January. Father said
that his Marian order allows him to have one “free” Mass per
month, and he always offers the Mass for Our Lady’s intentions.
He then suggested that it would be a good New Year’s resolution
for each of us to have a Mass said this year for Our Lady’s
intentions. As I reflected on his words, and the fact that the
number 3 can denote the Trinity – Whom we meet in a very
special way during Mass – it seemed like a good plan. Our Lady
has asked for us to pray for Her intentions many times, and
there is no higher form of prayer than the Mass. I left the
chapel feeling excited about it. When I signed out, the clock
read 11:11. Duplicate numbers jump out at me, and I wondered if
this was a confirmation. On the way home, the temperature sign
at a business near my home read 33 degrees. It seemed to be
another confirmation.
I continued to pray. Within a week, I received a check for
$222 to help Fr. Fredrick in Uganda. I wondered if this odd
amount could be another confirmation.
Two days later, I went to visit my friend and took my bag of
saints with me so she could pick her saint for the year (as
described in the January issue). In the bag are over a hundred
little slips of paper with the names of saints on them. When my
friend asked me to mix up all the saints’ names, I felt
something odd in the bag. I pulled out a little card which said,
“Psalm 33:22” on it. I could not believe it! I had no idea where
that came from or how it got in my bag of saints. I related to
my friend about the $333.33, the $222 and the idea about the
Masses, and she agreed this was another confirmation.
The following day, I planned to request the Masses, and then
it came to me that if I added the $222 to it, which was going to
Fr. Fredrick anyway, that would make $555.33, which would allow
for 111 Masses. I was really getting excited because 111 has
been a significant number to me since January 11 (1/11), 1998.
That was when my healing (of a strange condition that left me in
chronic pain) began through Our Lady of Medjugorje. As I
suspected, Fr. Fredrick was honored to be able to celebrate the
111 Masses for Our Lady’s intentions.
Soon it came to me during Adoration to expand upon this idea
and invite everyone to have Masses said for Our Lady’s
intentions. There is no better gift that we could give to Our
Lady. Perhaps we could present them to Her as a spiritual
bouquet for the 33rd anniversary of the apparitions
on June 25, 2014. Why the 33rd anniversary? Besides
the fact that the number 33 kept surfacing, the number 33 is
often associated with Jesus because this is the number of years
He spent on earth. Our Lady gave the Medjugorje locutionist,
Jelena, the “Jesus Rosary” which is made up of 33 Our Father’s.
(See below.) I can only imagine that if Our Lady had a favorite
number it would be 33! It seems that the number 33 was
significant to the village of Medjugorje also, since they
constructed the Cross on Mt. Krizevac in 1933, to commemorate
the 1900th anniversary of Jesus’ death on the Cross.
And according to Draga Vidovic, author of Salvation of
Mankind, there was a tradition in Medjugorje of offering 33
Holy Masses for the deceased immediately after funerals.
On September 25, 1991, Our Lady said, “… dear children, help
my Immaculate Heart to triumph in the sinful world. I beseech
all of you to offer prayers and sacrifices for my intentions
so I can present them to God for what is most necessary. Forget
your desires, dear children, and pray for what God desires, and
not for what you desire. Thank you for having responded to my
call."
A friend of mine suggested that it would be nice to
present Our Lady with a thousand Masses for the 33rd
anniversary. I was aiming higher – if every person who ever went
to Medjugorje and every person who follows Our Lady’s messages
would have just one Mass said for Our Lady’s intentions, think
of how many that would be! That would certainly help Our Lady’s
Immaculate Heart to triumph as She said in the message above.
Can you help to spread this idea? The Masses can be said
wherever you want. Some local parishes are begging for Mass
intentions. Or you can have the Masses said by a missionary
priest. The stipend for Masses said by missionary priests is
usually only $5. That helps them, Our Lady, and also ourselves,
as we act in charity. It is a win-win-win situation.
My thought is to keep a tally of the number of Masses offered
for Our Lady’s intentions on our website (
http://www.spiritofmedjugorje.org/masses.htm ) and update it
monthly as an encouragement and a reminder to continue to have
the Masses said. Of course, it is not necessary to do this
because Our Lady will know, but if you want, you can contact me
when you have a Mass offered for Our Lady’s intentions. The
initial goal was for the 33rd anniversary, but why
stop there? We could continue this indefinitely….
Let’s do something beautiful for God!
Editor’s note: To report Masses, email info@spiritofmedjugorje.org.
"Dear children! With great joy in my heart I thank you for
all the prayers that, in these days, you offered for my
intentions. Know, little children, that you will not regret it,
neither you nor your children. God will reward you with great
graces and you will merit eternal life…” (message of the 25th
anniversary, June 25, 2006).
Source of this article http://www.spiritofmedjugorje.org/
Source of this article http://www.spiritofmedjugorje.org/
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