The Spirit of Medjugorje Masses For Our Lady's Intentions

      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. 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 (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  or call 814-898-2143 or mail to P.O. Box 6614, Erie, PA 16512. 

"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).

Let's Continue to Do Something Beautiful for God

By June Klins

     In our March 2013 issue, I wrote an article called "Let's Do Something Beautiful for God" in which I explained how I was led to promote having Masses said for Our Lady's intentions. The response has been phenomenal and I thank all those who have participated. I am sure Our Lady is smiling on you. Some people have even arranged to have a Mass said every month for Our Lady's intentions! The original goal was to have 1,000 Masses said by the 33rd anniversary on June 25, 2014. As of this writing, there have been 7,665 Masses reported!
     The idea to have Masses said for Our Lady's intentions originated – or so I thought – with a priest in my area. This priest is not a follower of Our Lady of Medjugorje, so he was surprised and delighted when I told him that Our Lady has asked us to pray for Her intentions. He said that for years he has been offering his "free" Mass each month for Our Lady's intentions. He had never heard of anyone else doing it, but just felt it was something he wanted to do for Her. Little did he know that a saint in the nineteenth century wrote about this very idea.
     A few months ago, one of our subscribers sent us a copy of a page from Volume 7 of St. Peter Julian Eymard's writings, entitled Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament. St. Peter Julian wrote: "M. Olier, the holy founder of St. Sulpice... had three Masses celebrated every day, the intention of each Mass being placed in the Blessed Virgin's hands, that She might, in offering it to Her Son for the Church, obtain infinite treasures of grace."
     St. Peter Julian continued: "There was also a pious Jesuit missionary in Quebec who proposed to Blessed [now Saint] John Eudes, founder of the Congregation bearing his name, a plan for an association of priests, whom he called Our Lady's Chaplains, and who were to unite in offering the Holy Sacrifice for the intentions of the august Queen of Heaven, so that, as he put it, the Son of God would ascend to His Father, in the Host, through the very pure hands of the one whom He had used to come down to us in becoming man."

Mass at St. James in Medjugorje

     Soon after I read what St. Peter Julian had written, I read an article in Medjugorje Magazine about a priest who – before he died – had a Mass said for Our Lady's intentions! Around the same time, someone told me about a priest who offers a Mass every Saturday for Our Lady's intentions. I was intrigued, since I had not heard or thought of this until January of 2013. So I did a search on the Internet using the word "Mass" and "intentions of the Blessed Virgin Mary." It came up with a number of church bulletins from Massachusetts, California, Ohio, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania where Masses had been scheduled for the intentions of the Blessed Virgin Mary. I had also searched on "Mass" and "intentions of the Blessed Mother." But when I searched on "Mass" and "Our Lady's intentions," I was overwhelmed, as it came up with 30,200 results!
     One of the websites was a Medjugorje forum from the United Kingdom. A person wrote in 2011, "A friend who lives in Beijing is already organizing for this [scheduling Masses for Our Lady's intentions on June 25] to be done in parishes across China! We could have a worldwide anniversary offering for the 25th June."
     A post in another forum said, "I was so moved by 2nd of September [2012] message, I had a novena of Holy Masses offered for Our Lady's Intentions." I looked back to re-read the September 2, 2012 message. In this message Our Lady says, "I am calling you because I need you."
     Our Lady needs us! If every person who reads this would have a Mass said for Our Lady's intentions, we easily could surpass 10,000 Masses. Imagine the graces! If you cannot afford the stipend, you can go together with your friends or prayer group. Some missions still accept $5 stipends. Will you please respond to Our Lady's call and have a Mass said for Her intentions?