Medjugorje priest did not believe at first...

Fr. Branimir Musa
http://www.crownofstars.blogspot.com/

Monday, November 28, 2011

Medjugorje priest did not believe at first...

Fr Branimir Musa OFM, Superior of the Franciscan Monastery at Humac (near Medjugorje) reveals that there was a time he did not believe in the Medjugorje phenomenon.

• At the beginning I did not believe in Medjugorje. I was a student at the time and for me Medjugorje was at a distance. At that time I looked at Medjugorje from a political perspective. There were problems in Poland, in Kosovo, in America. Then I thought it was the last steps of the Communists who were trying to stay in power. They wanted to create fear and make themselves stronger in that way.

When I came to Medjugorje for the first time I just came to examine; I was like Thomas; I wanted to put my finger in the palm. I came to Medjugorje and I saw so many people there and they were praying, but it was my own pride and selfishness.
I said to myself, “Let the old ladies pray, that feeling will soon be gone.” But when I became a priest and started hearing Confessions, then, against the will of the bishops and priests, conversion starts happening. People just start living different lives. That is so positive and that’s what the miracle is, that’s the strength that cannot be defined.

You can just say that God is working. But there is something else: if you are not ready to allow Jesus and Our Lady to come into your heart, conversion will never happen. If you are not going to pray in the way that God prays, that prayer won’t exist.

Very often it happens that when we are praying we just talk to ourselves, we are just putting our wishes on a piece of paper. We just have to abandon ourselves to God and say, “Here I am. Do with me whatever you want, and I want what you want me to do.”

Medjugorje has been happening now for many years. I know all the priests who have worked there. So many priests came there from different other places, and I can really say to you that everything would have fallen apart had not the Spirit of God been there, if it was not the wish of God and Our Lady. If it depended on our strength, nothing would have happened there. However, you see millions of people coming there. It’s really hard to say how many people have visited Medjugorje so far, we just know how many Holy Communions are distributed. One priest in America said to me, “The Rosary was not prayed in my church at all, but since Medjugorje, people started praying the Rosary, so I started praying the Rosary with them. Now, every evening we pray the Rosary in our church.”

I spent five and a half years in Medjugorje and we really worked hard there, hard work: confession, prayer Holy Mass, meeting pilgrims, talking with people, and that gave us a tremendous amount of joy.

If I had not been sent to Medjugorje I don’t know what would have happened to me. Medjugorje helped me to be a joyful person, to try to understand my priesthood in the right way. Medjugorje helped me to meet all of you.

When it comes to who have been to Medjugorje already, or maybe have heard what is happening there, I would say to you: “You are the messengers, the heralds of the message: Let us return to Christ.” Our Lady says to us: “My children, the joy is in my Son, the hope is in my Son, and the solution of problems is in my Son.”

Medjugorje truly is a gift, and Medjugorje lives in the world of today, and from what I have seen, thanks be to God that this is so. When it comes to the opinion of the official Church you have to be wise and to understand that the Church has to make the step aside and wait. For example, if you work in a company and you are a person who makes decisions, you won’t make an important decision straight away, You will take some time for that and reflect upon it.

What is the position of Medjugorje in the Church? We never advertised. We never actually wrote about what is happening. Not many things were published. There was a kind of rule: Come and see... and I think it is very good when people come and see. I know that it is good and necessary to send, as often as possible, reports to the Church, so that the Church may consider it in a more serious way. The Church has many difficult problems, it’s not easy for the Church. Take into consideration our human weaknesses and you will see and realise how many problems there are. We should not criticise each other, we should not criticise our priests and our bishops. What we have to do is to decide to fix that house together, as God said to St Francis: “Go and fix my Church.” So each one of us has to go and start fixing the Church with prayer and faith.

The initiative to pray always comes from God. God says, “Listen, Israel.” The initiative always comes from God so that things are good. What does it mean to pray? It means to speak, to listen, and it means to act. Listen to what God is saying, what God wants from me, what God wants me to be. It’s true that we say to God, “God, I want this, God, I want that.” But God already knows that I need all this, so to pray means to think in the way God thinks, to be one with Him, and to act towards people in the way that God wants. God won’t punish and God always acts in a positive way. If we act together with God then we will act in a positive way as well. We have to be people of hope and people of good will, not be cold-hearted, but to be warm-hearted. I have to embrace you and say to you, “I love you because God has created you.”
Posted by pilgrim at 11:02 AM   http://www.crownofstars.blogspot.com/