SOME SNIPPETTS • 01
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.
It should have been Barabbas but Jesus took his place,
a guilty man set free again by redeeming grace.
Who was Barabbas but ourselves facing death ahead,
until the sacrifice was made, the Lamb of God instead.
Bar-abbas – son and father, together in a name;
in truth this was the Father’s Son the soldier did proclaim.
bg
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
In the silence of my heart, may my faith revive,
In the silence of my heart, may my hope survive,
In the silence of my heart, may Love come alive.
bg
This lesson given to the Medjugorje visionaries is shared by Marija Pavlovic:
Our Lady also told us that when we speak of a third person we often stress the person’s negative side, and added: “Have you ever found anything in nature that doesn’t speak of God? God can be found in each of his creatures, and in the people who are less perfect.” Mary then invited us to climb Krizevac (the Cross mountain in Medjugorje) two at a time with the person we liked least. Once we reached the top we became aware that we had made a new friend!
Thou shalt know him when he comes
Not by any din or drums
Nor by the vantage of his airs
Nor by anything he wears
Neither by his crown
Nor his gown
For his presence known shall be
by the holy harmony
that his coming makes in thee.
anon
How often our lives and our hearts are broken, sliced and separated into pieces of pain because of sin. Yet our fragmented failings, our shattered souls, all the irregular bits and scraps in our lives, the sharp and blunt stones which we hurl to hurt each other and so ourselves, are all seen and gathered by the Maker who, with loving care and patience, crafts a new creation, a miraculous mosaic of beautiful brokenness.
bg
Walking the steep and rocky ascent up Mt Krizevac is as life itself, a journey never identical. Some pilgrims walk the path to the left, some prefer the right side, some take the middle line, while others prefer to criss-cross the bouldered track. But no walk is ever the same or repeated.
Each track is unique, even for those who are carried – and yet all are heading in the same direction to arrive at the same destination, alone or together, in front or behind, each in their own time. We make our own journey but share the same desire – to reach the summit where there is a welcome waiting to fill every heart with joy. Krizevac is our pilgrimage, our life.
bg
Medjugorje comes from Heaven. It is a pure gift from God. That is why it was difficult for me to accept it at the beginning... because it calls for change. Unless a person accepts change, the Message of Medjugorje appeals to your soul like a beggar. Medjugorje calls you to relieve you of all your presuppositions and to begin a new approach to things, a radically new way. Medjugorje does not produce Pharisees.
Fr Jozo Zovko OFM
Every time I pass a church, I pay a little visit;
so when at last I’m carried in, the Lord won’t say, “Who is it?”
“The Rosary is the book of the blind, where souls see and there enact the greatest dram of love the world has ever known; it is the book of the simple which initiates them in the mysteries and knowledge more satisfying than the education of other men; it is the book of the aged whose eyes close upon the shadow of the world and open on the substance of the next.”
Bishop Fulton Sheen 1953
CONFESSION AT MEDJUGORJE LED TO PRIESTHOOD
On May 5, 2018, Fr Alexander Colautti, CC, was ordained as a priest at Notre Dame Cathedral in Ottawa. He had grown up in a Catholic family but as a young man had drifted away from the faith while in university. His mother offered him a trip to Medjugorje, and it was there he had a life-changing experience with God that set him on the road to the priesthood. While standing outside a confessional and wrestling with whether to go inside or not, Fr Colautti said he suddenly had an awareness of his sinfulness and how much his sin hurt those he loved. This awareness was coupled with an awareness that God had taken these sins to the cross, and of his overwhelming love for him. He entered the confessional, experienced the cleansing love of God, and came out a changed man, with a new direction for his life.
“Many pilgrims come to Medjugorje and ask many questions. Everybody would like to know something! They ask questions I cannot answer, but Our Lady teaches us and says:
Pray, and through prayer you will know the answers to all that you are looking for. ”
Medjugorje seer, Jakov Colo
“Medjugorje is just a tiny, bit-of-a-sign on the road – nothing else. You really need not pay too much attention to a sign on the road. But it is wonderful to see a sign. It is really exciting to see a sign and find out that you are heading in the right direction. It is really, really assuring and wonderful. But you don’t stop there; your destiny is not there; you continue. Pilgrimage continues.”
Fr Svetozar Kraljevic OFM
MEDJUGORJE 1984
An evocative image of three of the Medjugorje seers, Jakov, Ivan and Marija, captured through the camera lens of Umberto Pizzi. The Italian photographer travelled to Medjugorje in 1984 and part of his historic archive can be viewed at the website: formiche.net
THE WIND BLOWS WHEREVER IT PLEASES
“Evangelisation is not proselytism. True evangelisation takes place under the action of the Holy Spirit.
It is the Spirit who indicates in mysterious ways where we are to go and to whom we are to
“proclaim the name of Jesus.”
Pope Francis, April 19, 2018
“This simple but powerful comment was passed on by Fr Slavko Barbaric:
I know many who have given up drink, drugs, strife and hate. A young Italian pilgrim told me:
“I used to take drugs but gave them up, as last summer a friend of mine went to Medjugorje with drugs in his hand and returned with the Rosary.”
FOR THOSE YET TO KNOW THE LOVE OF GOD
Lord, free those who do not yet call on you.
Free them that they may turn to you and be made free.
Adapted from St Augustine’s Confessions, translation by Benignus O’Rourke OSA
MEDJUGORJE A GENUINE SIGN OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
“If we believe in the action of the Holy Spirit in the Church, then Medjugorje is a genuine sign that the Spirit blows where He wills and reveals Himself how He wishes, pouring out His gifts and graces when and upon who He chooses. There have always been such revelations and also apparitions in the Church.”
Fr Tomislav Pervan OFM
That is why I am telling you not to worry about your life and what you are to eat, nor about your body and how you are to clothe it. Surely life means more than food, and the body more than clothing! Look at the birds in the sky. They do not sow or reap or gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth more than they are?
Matthew 6 : 25-27