Medjugorje Website Updates

This year is the 25th anniversary of Our Lady’s apparitions at Medjugorje. You were a witness of the extraordinary events of the first years. In the light of your personal journey and your priestly experience, what memories awake in you today?

With regards to my past years in Medjugorje, not a lot of things come to mind right now. In 1985 I began gradually withdrawing from Medjugorje to live in contemplation. As my relationship with God grew deeper there was an awakening of the memory of my soul, that space where the Holy Spirit was able to assume the role of main actor, to reveal the Mystery. In this memory there’s not so much the phenomena of Medjugorje, but rather the divine truth of the living and true God, and the Mother of God who is present in and works in us. It is the truth of the Church.

In the message of 25 July 2005 Our Blessed Mother at Medjugorje said: “Dear Children! I call you to fill your day with short and ardent prayers.”

There are countless brief and ardent prayers. Perhaps we all have a favourite one we like to repeat more frequently. It would be an ardent task to find the origins of each, but I think it is fair to say that they are all inspired by God’s Spirit of Love; by Love for Love, for love of souls and love of us. One such inspiration was given to the Servant of God Sr. Maria Consolata Betrone (1903-1946, Italy) after reading St. Therese of Lisieux’s Story of a Soul. Consolata herself was granted mystical experiences, but she is particularly remembered for her “very small way” which can be summed up in the following three points which are the nucleus of Our Lord’s instructions to her:

In Christian mysticism a victim soul is by no doubt the highest state one could aspire to. In a certain sense, one could say it was both a compendium of all vocations, and a crown upon them all. But we must understand the meaning of victim. A victim soul is a person who offers himself willingly, and even if he is to suffer, he does not offer himself to suffering itself, but to the Man of sorrows, out of love, to share in His passion of love. Yes, he is a person who sacrifices himself, but in the sense given by the Old Covenant: that is, to offer a sacred gift to God.

Vicka: ... When you look at Our Lady the beauty of her face is so wonderful that words can't describe it. She herself has said that she is beautiful because she loves. This is the way we must be beautiful - above all, beautiful inside - so that our faces can radiate this beauty too... Unfortunately, we hide our faces behind many types of masks; we hide everything inside.. We have to begin to love to be beautiful. With all our hearts we should begin by loving those in our homes, our family and then the others around us. True beauty is spiritual beauty.

Vicka: ... Just entered, we have gone on, walking, perhaps three, four meters. We have not visited the whole Heaven, but the Gospa has made sense of it. We have seen a great space wound by a light that it doesn't exist here on the earth. We have seen the people that are neither fat, neither thin, but all equal ones and they have dresses of three colors: the grey , the yellow and the pink. The people walk, sing, pray. There were some small flying Angels. The Gospa has told us: "Look at how much the people are happy in the Heaven". And a joy that cannot be described and that here on the earth it doesn't exist.

The 17th International Youth Festival - Mladifest 17 – will take place in Medjugorje from August 1st to August 6th, 2006. The theme of the encounter is, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Ps 119 [118]:105) ( “Dear children … witness with your life that you believe and live the Word of God.” - Message of January 25, 2006

What touches young people most in Medjugorje? What attracts them?

Their longing for peace, their thirst for the truth. The world deceives us so often. The media emphasise mostly negative things. Young people are very much manipulated in the area of sexuality, and attacked in their souls. This can lead to severe consequences if their faith has not been strengthened beforehand. The message of Medjugorje awakens in them a longing for true peace, and probably for God and for the family... for intact families. Many people come from broken families nowadays. It is very rare that one finds a family, where the love of the neighbour is really lived, where there is prayer, where parents do not divorce after the first difficulty. But, in my opinion, what draws them mostly to Medjugorje is their longing for God, and the longing to find a meaning to their lives. Here you can meet Mary and Christ more intensely than at home. Another important factor is that young people meet other young people, whom they perceive to have found peace, and to have immersed more deeply in the spiritual life.

Dragan Soldo: You went on pilgrimage to many other great Marian shrines. Can you say something about the specificity of Medjugorje?

Mons. José Domingo Ulloa: The specificity of Medjugorje is the gift of peace received here. This is what humanity is longing for today, and this gift is received in Medjugorje through our Mother Mary. It is not only about inner peace, but also about discovering that we are all brothers, and that conflicts and violence are not a solution. This peace should be shared with others.

Lidija Paris: You are born in Vukovar, and your father was born in Posusje. So many years after the war, it is noticeable that you still carry a deep inner pain remembering all that has happened. You came here with an envelope containing some photographs and some papers. This is all that remains of the first 40 years of your life…

Mirjana Kovač: I came to be in Medjugorje during these days that are still so painful for me. With faith in God, it is much easier for us to carry our cross. We unite our cross to the cross of Jesus, we offer everything to Him. Jesus allowed us this dignity. Thanks to my father and my mother who educated us in faith in God, and with the Rosary in the hand, during those days that are unimaginable for a human intelligence, we had the impression that we were somehow mysteriously supported. We were conscious that the worst could happen at any moment, but thanks to our faith in God, everything had another dimension. Death was closer to us then life…