Struggle

On my walk the other morning, I was going along an irrigation canal at one point and spotted a mother duck with three little ducklings. The mother duck began swimming in the other direction while quacking very loudly – calling for her young to follow. After going about ten feet or so, the mother duck exited the canal on the opposite side, climbed to the top of the bank, turned around and continued to call very loudly and unceasingly to her children. The little ducks followed their mother. The baby ducks looked to be no more than a few days old, and although the canal bank was only three or four feet high, it was very steep. It must have looked like a mountain to those little ducklings, and they struggled to follow their mother. Half-way up, one of them fell and tumbled all the way back down into the water, but the little guy got right back up and started climbing again; and all the while, the mother duck never stopped calling to her young. I stood and watched the little ones in their struggle, and they finally made it to the top. I continued on my walk.

Lord Jesus Christ, for over a quarter of a century, in Medjugorje, You have sent your Mother to the world, and always she greets us, “Dear children!” Unceasingly she calls to us; always she calls us to conversion; always she encourages us to follow Jesus; always she implores us to climb the mountain of prayer and holiness. Lord Jesus, give us the grace to listen to Blessed Mother; give us the grace to always follow the right path; give us the grace to choose to climb.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,
Amen.

Our Lady, Queen of Peace, pray for us!