Medjugorje Blue Book

This book is the second of the four volumes of sermons and discourses given by Fr. Slavko Barbaric and Fr. Tomislav Vlasic during 1984 - 1987 in Medjugorje, and contains discourses given from January to June 1985.

30 Chapters of this book are now completed

'Pray so that all the trials which come from satan might result in the glory of God'

Our Lady still appears every day to all the visionaries.

The position of the visionaries is as follows: every evening She still tells Ivanka the problems facing the Church and the world, but Ivanka cannot reveal anything.

Our Lady has asked Ivanka to consecrate herself to Her for six months. Ivanka cannot reveal anything to me, but I have asked her: 'What does this request mean to you ?' She replied: 'To consecrate everything to Our Lady for six months.'

She asked the group that prays with Ivanka to consecrate a day to Her: Wednesday. She said: "Consecrate even the smallest things to me, to my mission."

Our Lady is telling Vicka the story of her life in Nazareth, but she cannot say anything yet, she is writing it all down and one day it can be given for publication. We are waiting for this day but we do not know when it will be. The day is not important. What is important is that one day we shall be able to know about the life of Our Lady.

Jacov, Marija and Ivan pray with Our Lady and always commend all the sick and the pilgrims to Her.

The general message is this: Our Lady is with us. This is what is most important as every Thursday Our Lady has a message for us. She started last year in Lent and She wanted Thursday to become the day of the Parish. So She gives a message only once a week and often people ask: 'What did Our Lady say ?' I reply: 'She has not said anything', because the visionaries can only give us the message on Thursdays. So I say that Our Lady speaks to us on one particular day, but every day the message is there because Our Lady comes She is with us.

One more thing. Our Lady asks for peace, for prayer, for fasting, for monthly confession, in order to be able to draw closer to Jesus. In this way all the other messages receive a special force from this general message: "Our Lady is with us."

And this is the new spirit of prayer, the new spirit of penance, the new spirit of love and reconciliation. The content of the messages before Christmas during Advent, can be summarised in these words: "You still do not know how to love. I am your Mother. I have come to teach you love." A programme to last us a lifetime.

I believe that these words should strike us and impress us, and we might ask: what do we react to more ? When She says that we still do not know how to love, or when She says that catastrophes will take place ? If we are more easily alarmed when we hear that catastrophes will occur then we are still on a level of a two, three or four year old child, when a mother says things like that to him. We mature Christians should react otherwise and move swiftly to the invitation: 'You still do not know how to love.' This is the greatest criticism of our behaviour if we do 'not know how to love', because through love everything becomes a treasure for paradise and for others. Without love all is destroyed.

Without love prayer has no value. Everything is worthless. So it is vital for us to learn to love: for us personally, for others and for God.

In Her last message, Our Lady said: "Dear children, I invite you to live these words this coming week: 'I love God.' Dear children, through love you will receive everything, even the things which seem impossible to you. The Lord wants you to belong to Him entirely: I wish it too."

You see, Our Lady is a mother who loves everybody, and every action, every word, everything we do must be with this in mind 'I love God'. And I say, every evening examine your consciences and ask yourselves whether your actions of the day have been true to this. So we may say that the message of the fourth year is this : love.

Allow yourselves to be taught and learn how to love.

After Christmas, throughout January, She spoke a good deal about satan. She said: "He attacks, he gets angry, he wants to destroy everything." Lately, in a message which spoke of satan She said: "There is no need to be afraid of satan for it is easy to disarm him with ardent prayer and love." These two things disarm satan.

She said another very important thing: "Pray so that all the projects that come from satan might serve to the glory of the Lord."

So here is a great opportunity for us all: to act so that satan's plans might result in the glory of the Lord.

In February we had many difficulties, and might I tell you they are not over. They still recur and, we who are here say that they are in reality providential. We must learn how to love before we are faced with other trials. The Queen of Peace is a work of God: She cannot follow another path save the path of Jesus Christ. it would be false if we, like the Pharisees, were expecting a triumph, when instead, they were scandalised by Jesus' death on the Cross. What I mean to say is: every difficulty is in reality a difficulty, but also a grace for us. it is not easy, but it is a grace: something a little difficult for is all, but it is so.

Let me, for example, tell you this: when you return you will read about other attacks but, remember, without problems there is no progress. It is sad that it is so, but so it is and we must not worry. I say to you: be careful and do not discuss those who attack us or you will be near passing judgement on them. Quite frankly I must admit, that for me, it is not important whether a decree will establish or not that the apparitions are authentic, nor how the apparition takes place. If we pray, these things are not important. We have Lourdes that has been approved, we have Fatima that has been approved, we have the Gospels that have been approved: the Gospels are approved and what have we become socially ? Therefore, Our Lady has not come to cause controversy or to discuss the issue on the apparitions She has come to invite us.

So I ask you: Do not be carried away by arguments: just pray. Our Lady desires this from me, too. if we start arguing, if we get angry, then we will only start judging and Our Lady has not come for this.

I want to invite you to prayer, particularly next week, because there is another meeting of the Commission. What they will do, I do not know. I believe that Our Lady guides everything. I am not afraid because I have decided to follow Jesus, even before the apparitions began. One follows Jesus through difficulties and problems, so that when one comes here, one must look for faith: the same faith as Abraham, as in the introduction of the Mass. Abraham's faith which sees beyond what human eyes can see: taking his son, leading him to a hilltop and wanting to sacrifice him. It sounds crazy, but seen through the eyes of faith it is a different matter: it is an act of obedience which becomes salvation. It is with such faith that we must pray. For us men it is crazy to accept the Cross, but in the eyes of Jesus, in the life of Jesus, it is something different: it is wisdom that comes from God. So our faith does not take us away from the world, from difficulties, or from problems, but it helps us to go on like a light in the darkness. Let us go forward like Abraham: pray in this sense that our faith may become more than human reasoning. I see many who say: I believe! Could they say: 'I reason and my mind sees it all' ? This is not possible. Pray so that this faith might become something more than reasoning, more than mathematics with God.

Abraham is an example of how we ought to behave: to allow ourselves to be guided and see a little further when we meet difficulties, when we meet a cross, when we are ill......

Without this faith which see a little further, the whole world would be grim; we would all be crazy had this faith not existed. It is for this that fasting and prayer help to purify us and to increase our faith.

(Fr. Slavko Barbaric 2nd March, 1985)