THE MEDJUGORJE WITNESS

Two days ago I went to confession. The first words the priest said to me were: “Welcome back to the foot of the Cross”. That’s the first time I’ve been greeted like that, I thought. And then before giving me absolution the priest asked me to pray three Hail Mary’s for world peace.

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In the early hours of this morning, around 2:00pm, and as I lay in bed wide awake, the priest’s words came into my thoughts: “Welcome back to the foot of the Cross”. They reminded me of words spoken by Our Lady at Medjugorje, and I was tempted to search for the message on my smartphone.

Among the links was one to a page on this website, my testimony about how my life was changed on my first visit to Medjugorje. The headline was: PRAY AT THE FOOT OF THE CROSS FOR PEACE.

I then searched for the full message. It said: Dear children! Without prayer there is no peace. Therefore I say to you, dear children, pray at the foot of the cross for peace. Thank you for having responded to my call.

But a remarkable thing about the message was its date, September 6, 1984.

Forty years ago today!

Jesus said to Simon, “Put out into deep water and pay out your nets for a catch.” “Master,” Simon replied “we worked hard all night long and caught nothing but if you say so, I will pay out the nets.” And when they had done this they netted such a large number of fish that their nets began to tear, so the signalled to their companions in the other boats to come and help them; when they came, they filled the two boats to sinking point.

Luke 5 : 4-7

• When I read this account of Simon Peter and his crew on the boat seeking help from companions to help haul in the catch, I am reminded of the Franciscans at Medjugorje requiring the help of priests from around the world to help with the catch at Medjugorje, especially with confessions.

That’s the question the unclean spirit put to Jesus in today’s reading from Luke’s gospel. The unclean spirit went to say: “I know who you are: the Holy One of God.”

One of the first messages Our Lady gave at Medjugorje was: “I have come to tell the world that God exists…”

When asked by one of the visionaries, “Who are you?”, Our Lady replied, “I am the Most Blessed Virgin Mary.”

When my wife came home after her first pilgrimage to Medjugorje, the first words she said to me were: “Don’t ever tell me there isn’t a God!”

I made my first visit two years later.

An unspiritual person is one who does not accept anything of the Spirit of God: he sees it all as nonsense; it is beyond his understanding because it can only be understood by means of the Spirit. A spiritual man, on the other hand, is able to judge the value of everything, and his own value is not be judged by other men. As scripture says: Who can know the mind of the Lord, so who can teach him? But we are those who have the mind of Christ.

1 Corinthians 2:14-16

• Many years ago, I organised a pilgrimage to Medjugorje. A religious sister in the group wrote to me afterwards and said I hadn’t a spiritual bone in my body!

The great Doctor of the Church St Augustine of Hippo spent over 30 years working on his treatise De Trinitate [about the Holy Trinity], endeavouring to conceive an intelligible explanation for the mystery of the Trinity.

He was walking by the seashore one day contemplating and trying to understand the mystery of the Holy Trinity when he saw a small boy running back and forth from the water to a spot on the seashore. The boy was using a sea shell to carry the water from the ocean and place it into a small hole in the sand. 

The Bishop of Hippo approached him and asked, “My boy, what are doing?” 

“I am trying to bring all the sea into this hole,” the boy replied with a smile. 

“But that is impossible, the hole cannot contain all that water” said Augustine. 

The boy paused in his work, stood up, looked into the eyes of the Saint, and replied, “It is no more impossible than what you are trying to do – comprehend the immensity of the mystery of the Holy Trinity with your small intelligence.” 

The Saint was absorbed by such a keen response from that child, and turned his eyes from him for a short while. When he glanced down to ask him something else, the boy had vanished. 

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Marian Horvat, Tradition in Action

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The painting is by Fra Fiippo Lippi

Dear children! Today, my prayer with you is for peace. Good and evil are fighting and want to prevail in the world and in the hearts of people. You be people of hope and prayer and of great trust in God the Creator to whom everything is possible. Little children, may peace prevail in you and around you. I am blessing you with my motherly blessing that you, little children, may be joy for all those whom you meet. Thank you for having responded to my call.

There are some places and some people in life that ‘mark’ you forever. Once you have come in contact with them, they revive in you everything that seemed buried in your heart forever.

Then you capture a life full of joy, serenity, and purpose. You understand the reason you are living, where you have come from, and where you are going. You take your life back into your hands with vigour. You rediscover a design of love in your life that trials and difficulties have buried. Then you feel like a new person, and even others are aware that something has changed your life.

The place that has ‘marked’ me and millions of other people is called Medjugorje. It is different from other places because there is a ‘Presence’ there that you do not see but whose effects and benefits you gather. It is a Presence that speaks to our hearts and manifests itself in a personal manner for each of us.

This Presence is Mary, the Mother of God. In Medjugorje we discover that this mother, the Queen of Peace, wants to enter our lives. This is the reason she says to us: “Dear Children, accept me in your lives, because I desire to bestow my love upon you.”

Don Luigi Ferrari

Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, 
our life, our sweetness and our hope.
To you do we cry,
poor banished children of Eve. 
To you do we send up our sighs, 
mourning and weeping in this valley of tears 
Turn then, most gracious advocate,
your eyes of mercy toward us,
and after this exile
show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb,
Jesus.
O clement, O loving, 
O sweet Virgin Mary.

Our Lady recommends that we should go to confession once a month, and she says if that became a practise it would be the remedy for the Western world. 

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The rules for confession are simple: 

a) Make it complete, tell everything that is serious.
b) Make it contrite, be sorry for your sins. 

c) Make it clear, don’t try to cover up sins to be confessed. 

d) Make it concise, without unnecessary details.
e) Make it sincerely, to avoid sin in the future.​

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Read Fr John McCaffery’s article on The Rules for Confession at this link

Adviser of popes, preacher of the Second Crusade, defender of the faith, healer of a schism, reformer of a monastic Order, Scripture scholar, theologian, and eloquent preacher: any one of these titles would distinguish an ordinary man. Yet Bernard was all of these.

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source: Franciscan Media

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“I prayed very hard to Our Lady to tell me what would happen to me. She appeared, holding in her hands two crowns, one white, one red. She asked if I would like to have them—one was for purity, the other for martyrdom. I said, ‘I choose both.’ She smiled and disappeared.”

Saint Maximilian Mary Kolbe

Today, many people and events around the world celebrate Left Handers Day.

Have you noticed that most of the statues depicting Our Lady of Medjugorje show her left hand extended?

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Dear children! Today I call you to be my extended hands in this world that puts God in the last place. You, little children, put God in the first place in your life. God will bless you and give you strength to witness Him, the God of love and peace. I am with you and intercede for all of you. Little children, do not forget that I love you with a tender love. Thank you for having responded to my call. Medjugorje message, February 25, 2005

Jesus said, “I tell you most solemnly, unless you change and become like little children you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. And so, the one who makes himself as little as this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”

Matthew 18 : 3-4

Guide me, o thou great Redeemer
Pilgrim through this barren land
I am weak, but thou art mighty
Hold me with thy powerful hand

Bread of Heaven, bread of Heaven
Feed me till I want no more
Feed me till I want no more

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John Hughes 1873-1932

The esteem in which the Church holds Lawrence is seen in the fact that today’s celebration ranks as a feast. We know very little about his life. He is one of those whose martyrdom made a deep and lasting impression on the early Church.

He was a Roman deacon under Pope Saint Sixtus II. Four days after this pope was put to death, Lawrence and four clerics suffered martyrdom, probably during the persecution of the Emperor Valerian.

A well-known legend has persisted from earliest times. As deacon in Rome, Lawrence was charged with the responsibility for the material goods of the Church, and the distribution of alms to the poor. When Lawrence knew he would be arrested like the pope, he sought out the poor, widows, and orphans of Rome and gave them all the money he had on hand, selling even the sacred vessels of the altar to increase the sum. When the prefect of Rome heard of this, he imagined that the Christians must have considerable treasure. He sent for Lawrence and said, “You Christians say we are cruel to you, but that is not what I have in mind. I am told that your priests offer in gold, that the sacred blood is received in silver cups, that you have golden candlesticks at your evening services. Now, your doctrine says you must render to Caesar what is his. Bring these treasures—the emperor needs them to maintain his forces. God does not cause money to be counted: He brought none of it into the world with him—only words. Give me the money, therefore, and be rich in words.”

Lawrence replied that the Church was indeed rich. “I will show you a valuable part. But give me time to set everything in order and make an inventory.” After three days he gathered a great number of blind, lame, maimed, leprous, orphaned, and widowed persons and put them in rows. When the prefect arrived, Lawrence simply said, “These are the treasure of the Church.”

The prefect was so angry he told Lawrence that he would indeed have his wish to die—but it would be by inches. He had a great gridiron prepared with coals beneath it, and had Lawrence’s body placed on it. After the martyr had suffered the pain for a long time, the legend concludes, he made his famous cheerful remark, “It is well done. Turn me over!”

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source: franciscanmedia.org

Born at Calaruega, Spain, in 1170. He wanted to go to Russia as a missionary, but the Pope sent him to Toulouse, where the Albigensian heresy was particularly strong. He lived by the Gospel, and preached the Gospel. Men came to join him, to follow his way of preaching and poverty, and from these grew the Order of Preachers (Dominicans). Sisters also joined this new order, supporting its work by their prayers from the enclosures where they lived. Dominic died in 1221.

Anyone who does not carry his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. And indeed, which of you here, intending to build a tower, would not first sit down and work out the cost to see if he had enough to complete it? Otherwise if he laid the foundation and then found himself unable to finish the work, the onlookers would all start making fun of him and saying, “Here is a man who started to build and was unable to finish.”

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Luke 15 : 27-30

Pope Francis sent a message this week to participants at the Medjugorje Youth Festival, inviting them to emulate Mary by embracing God's Word and faithfully fulfilling their mission.

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More details at: vaticannews.va

The proliferation of news and social media outlets around the world in recent years has manifested in an even greater awareness of the sins and failings of humanity. Scandal and shame are splashed across our screens and pages at every moment through the day and night. 

We feed and are duly fed constantly on a varied diet of the sins of others. Nakedness is news. It’s demanded, provided and consumed. It’s our sustenance. It has become our daily bread. And so we become what we eat.

When Jesus reached Golgotha, his place of execution, he was stripped of his garments and exposed to the crowd. They jeered and taunted him. The soldiers gambled for his clothes, something of far more value to them than a person judged a criminal who would soon be put to death. 

Our first parents went without garments in the Garden but as soon as they sinned by eating the forbidden fruit, they realised their nakedness and covered themselves with fig-leaves. In their nakedness, their sinfulness, they became fearful and attempted to hide from God. 

When Jesus was stripped of his garments, it wasn’t his own nakedness that was revealed, but the sins of the world he had come to redeem. Redemption is the Good News. 

The world can be quick to condemn but The Way of the Cross is an example of how condemnation and wrong judgement leads to death. The first station is: Jesus is CONDEMNED to DEATH, and station by station we witness how condemnation finally leads to death by those who choose to reveal our nakedness. Does Jesus condemn, or do we condemn ourselves?

Jesus became the condemned for all mankind, allowing himself to be wrapped in our nakedness so that soldiers and sinners can be covered in holiness, the garments of Christ. We are never naked when clothed in Christ.

“All baptised in Christ, you have all clothed yourself in Christ...” Galatians 3 : 27

• Dear children! Today I want to wrap you all in my mantle and lead you all along the way of conversion. Dear children, I beseech you, surrender to the Lord your entire past, all the evil that has accumulated in your hearts. I want each one of you to be happy, but in sin nobody can be happy. Therefore, dear children, pray, and in prayer you shall realise a new way of joy. Joy will manifest in your hearts and thus you shall be joyful witnesses of that which I and my Son want from each one of you. I am blessing you. Thank you for having responded to my call. Medjugorje message, February 25, 1987

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“Love takes no pleasure in other people’s sins, but delights in the truth.”

1 Corinthians 13 :6

There are some who say Our Lady talks too much at Medjugorje, that her messages are repetitive. Fr Jozo Zovko OFM, the former parish priest of Medjugorje when the apparitions first began there in 1981, counters this claim with these words: 

“Do not allow Satan to deceive you into thinking that you can repeat prayer. Prayer cannot be repeated. A mother cannot repeat her child. A spring cannot repeat its water. The sun cannot repeat its rays and the human heart cannot repeat prayer. It is the Holy Spirit who prays within us and each Hail Mary is always a new grace, a new gift and a new strength.”

Peace I bequeath to you, my own peace I give you, a peace the world cannot give, this is my gift to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.

John 14 : 27

You have learnt how it was said: Eye for eye and tooth for tooth. But I say this to you: offer the wicked man no resistance. On the contrary, if anyone hits you on the right cheek, offer him the other as well. 

Matthew 5 : 38-39

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Dear children! Also today I call you to come closer to my heart. Only in this way, will you comprehend the gift of my presence here among you. I desire, little children, to lead you to the heart of my Son Jesus; but you resist and do not desire to open your hearts to prayer. Again, little children, I call you not to be deaf but to comprehend my call, which is salvation for you. Thank you for having responded to my call.

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Medjugorje message, September 25, 2003

My dear children, with joy I have chosen you and am leading you, because in you, little children, I see people of faith, hope and prayer. May you, little children, be led by the pride that you are mine, and I am leading you to Him, Who is the Way, the Truth and the Life. And I am with you so that peace may win in you and around you, because it is with this intention God sent me to you. Thank you for having responded to my call.

Sister Emmanuel tells that after receiving her first calling to the Beatitudes Community in 1976, she received another calling – to serve Our Lady in Medjugorje. Sent by her community, she initiated the first branch of the community in Medjugorje in 1989.  During the Balkan war in the 90s, Sister Emmanuel became known for her regular faxes about the situation in Herzegovina, always related to the mission of Our Lady. She has had an enormous impact on France, stimulating an extensive response to Medjugorje among French pilgrims, but her apostolate has broadened as her books have been translated into 22 languages and she has traveled widely to make Medjugorje known, particularly in the United States. Today, “Les Enfants de Medjugorje” and “Children of Medjugorje, Inc.” allow her to be connected everyday to thousands of people around the world, who are motivated by and spreading, the messages of Our Lady in their own humble way. Sister says that her greatest joy is to be part of a family formed by Our Lady, and being Her extended heart and hands for her children, especially those who do not yet know the love of God.

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• More details about Sr Emmanuel’s ministry and how to subscribe to her monthly newsletter can be be found at https://sremmanuel.org/​​

The cloistered Carmelite community that shaped the life of St. Thérèse of Lisieux has said it is facing “profound changes,” amid a decline in numbers.

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Full details HERE

What is good has been explained to you, man; this is what the Lord asks of you: only this, to act justly, to love tenderly and to walk humbly with your God.

Micah 6 : 8

Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbe in Gilhead said to Ahab, “As the Lord lives, the God of Israel whom I serve, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years except at my order.”

1 Kings 17 : 1

Jesus exclaimed: “Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give your res. Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light.

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Matthew 11 : 28-30

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• The illustration is detail from the Singing Angels panel of the Ghent Altarpiece painted by the brothers Jan and Hubert Van Eyck.

Jesus exclaimed, “I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and of earth, for hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to mere children. Yes, Father, for that is what it pleased you to do.

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Matthew 11 : 25-26

“New Moons, sabbaths, assemblies – I cannot endure festival and solemnity. Your New Moons and your pilgrimages I hate with all my soul. They lie heavy on me, I am tired of bearing them.

“When you stretch out your hands I turn my eyes away. You may multiply your prayers, I shall not listen. Your hands are covered with blood, wash, make yourselves clean.

“Take your wrong-doing out of my sight. Cease to do evil. Learn to do good, search for justice, help the oppressed, be just to the orphan, plead for the widow.

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Isaiah 1 : 13-17

There is a season for everything,
a time for every occupation under heaven:

a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,

a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,

a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,

a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,

a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,

a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,

a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

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Ecclesiastes 3 : 1-9

The Feast of Saints Peter and Paul or Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul is a liturgical feast in honour of the martyrdom in Rome of the apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul, which is observed on 29 June. The celebration is of ancient Christian origin, the date selected being the anniversary of either their death or the translation of their relics. 

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Two little sparrows sitting on a wall.

One named Peter, one named Paul.

Fly away, Peter! Fly away, Paul!

Come back, Peter! Come back, Paul.

Source: Wikipedia

Up, cry out in the night-time, in the early hours of darkness; pour your heart out like water before the Lord.

Stretch out your hands to him for the lives of your children who faint with hunger at the entrance of every street.

Lamentations 2 : 19

What is important when it comes to prayer? For me, the best prayer consists of few points. Some people compare this with how one uses a telephone, because you dial a number and then a person answers.

• The first step is to come close to God, in his presence 

• The second step is to admit your sins

• The third step is to forgive everyone 

• The fourth step is to renounce all sins 

• The fifth step is to accept your cross 

• The sixth step is to accept the Holy Spirit because once we renounce sin, we are empty and have to be filled with something 

• The seventh step is to say to God, thank you.

You have dialled the numbers 1-7 and that’s what we call telephone prayer.

Try this prayer; you will be changed in a day. Really, you will be.

Fr Danko Perutina OFM

The Vatican Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith announced today that alleged apparitions of the Virgin Mary outside of Rome at Trevignano are not supernatural, upholding the local bishop’s ban on Masses and pilgrimages to the site.

The Vatican’s intervention is in regard to the claims by self-styled visionary Gisella Cardia and her husband, Gianni, who reported alleged apparitions of the Virgin Mary, Jesus, and God the Father.

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The events reportedly began after the couple brought back an image of Our Lady of Peace from Medjugorje in 2014. 

It is one of the first known decisions from the Vatican’s doctrine office on Marian apparitions since the DDF issued new norms for discerning alleged apparitions last month.

• More details at CNA

So what is meant exactly by “world peace”?

• “The experience of love can lead us to true peace. Our Lady reminds us of her message from the beginning; Peace, peace, peace only peace can reign between God and man and peace among all men. Peace is the result of the collaboration between the human individual with God, which is manifested in his desire for peace. Whoever seeks peace in the light of Christ’s example, he will work for it and create the conditions for peace.  Only in God is peace possible. Without God, it cannot be complete.”  Fr Slavko Barbaric OFM

• “If anyone loves me he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we shall come to him and make our home with him.

Those who do not love me do not keep my words. And my word is not my own: it is the word of the one who sent me.

I have said these things to you while still with you, but the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all I have said to you. 

Peace I bequeath you, my own peace I give you, a peace the world cannot give, this is my gift to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.”

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John 14 : 22-27

Whose peace is in danger? 

Whose family is under attack? 

Whose family is not praying?

Who does not read Sacred Scripture every day?

Who does not love God above all?

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ALL WARS BEGIN IN THE HEART.

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IS MY HEART AT PEACE?

Italian newspapers described the outcome of last night’s football encounter between Italy and Croatia as a “miracle” after the Azzuri scored an equalising goal in the last minute of the match played at Leipzig.

Mattia Zaccagni’s sensational late strike broke the hearts of Croatia supporters and the team alike to ensure Italy’s progress to the last-16 stage of the Euro 2024 competition.

Enter by the narrow gate, since the road that leads to perdition is wide and spacious, and many take it; but it is a narrow gate and a hard road that leads to life, and only a few find it. Matthew 7 : 13-14

If you meet a virgin on the road, invite her into your house.

She bears the Word of God.

St John of the Cross

The Virgin Mary first appeared at Medjugorje late in the afternoon of June 24, 1981, to two teenage girls, Ivanka Ivankovic and Mirjana Dragicevic, walking the road alongside Podbrdo.​

The lamp of the body is the eye. It follows that if your eye is sound, your whole body will be filled with light. But if your eye is diseased, your whole body willl be all darkness. If then, the light inside you is darkness, what darkness that will be.

Matthew 6 : 22-23

The Medjugorje seer Mirjana once joked that women have a right to change their mind, even Our Lady, so it should come as no surprise that another Medjugorje seer Marija announced yesterday that for the next nine days Our Lady’s daily apparition would switch from 6:40pm to 11:30pm.

There was no explanation or reason given for the change, just a request for the people of Medjugorje to pray a rosary novena at the statue on apparition hill, starting today at 10:00pm.

The novena ends on June 24th, the 43rd anniversary of Our Lady’s first appearance on the hill in 1981 and also the feast day of the Nativity of John the Baptist.

I’m sure Our Lady is more than aware of the UEFA European Football Championship 2024 taking place in Germany during this period involving 36 nations. 

Coincidently, Croatia and Italy are scheduled to play each other on the last day of the novena, June 24, the day prior to the ‘official’ anniversary celebration of the Medjugorje apparitions.

The first round fixture between Croatia and Italy is scheduled to kick-off at 8:00pm. TV coverage will begin at  least an hour beforehand, and no doubt millions of Italians and Croatians, as well soccer fans from around the world will be glued to tv screens in homes, bars and fan-park locations, including Medjugorje.

The Croatia v Italy football match should end around 9.45pm. I don’t doubt that many prayers will be offered up during the 90 minutes of action by supporters of both teams.​

On one of the occasions when I visited Medjugorje I made my way to the Risen Christ sculpture. As usual, there was a queue of pilgrims lined up waiting in turn to touch the right leg where water seeps from.

However, there was another queue of people forming a line beside the left leg. This seemed unusual as there were no reports of water exuding from this side.

Being curious, I joined this queue and waited until I could get close up to the left leg and observe the place where the water was seeping from. What I saw surprised me. The water was escaping from a hole that had been drilled into the bronze metal. The filings were still present around the hole, so the drilling probably occurred very early the morning or overnight before the crowds had gathered. Yet pilgrims were still wiping and touching the left leg as if the leak was miraculous.

I sat down for a while, asking myself why someone should want to drill a hole in the left leg to deceive people in this way. And I was given my answer. It was done as a distraction from what was happening in the queue at the right leg.

Two women in the queue were part of a team of opportunist pickpockets. One would attempt to steal from the bag of a woman in front, then pass the item to her accomplice behind who would then leave the queue and walk to the enclosure entrance before passing the stolen item to a man waiting there. He in turn would make his way into the nearby carpark to link up with another member of the gang who hid the item in his car boot.

It wasn’t long before the pilgrims realised what was happening. The thieves ran and made their escape before they could be apprehended.

That water could could also be shown to seep from both right and left legs of the Risen Christ, begs questions: what is its source and how does it collect in both legs?

Pictured above is the drilled hole and filings.​