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REPORT FROM MEDJUGORJE: FAMED SITE OF REPUTED APPARITIONS BURGEONS WITH
PILGRIMS
As
we have repeated so many times, we will adhere to whatever the Church eventually
directs concerning the famous apparition site of Medjugorje in Hercegovina,
where we are concluding an extremely successful pilgrimage with a truly
wonderful group.
We can say this: the fruits remain astonishing. To say that it
deepens and refreshes faith -- and often sparks it in those who have gone cold
-- is a gross understatement.
It is also an understatement to say that Medjugorje has
changed.
It is ten times as large in the way of pilgrim accommodations as
it was in 1990, when we first ventured here (the first day,
skeptically).
Building after building has gone up. The construction remains
non-stop. New four-story hotels/bed-and-breakfasts rise on virtually every
block, and often more than one. No longer is the church visible from many parts
of the area. There is a constant stream of traffic, particularly buses and
taxis. Last weekend (6/2/13), there were at least a hundred in the village, the
majority from Italy. One estimate is that there are now 24,000 pilgrim beds in
town. Last weekend, most were in use -- meaning that about twenty thousand
people went to the Blue Cross on Apparition Hill for the seer Mirjana Soldo's
monthly apparition. (One old-time guide put the figure at closer to 40,000
beds.) The largest hotel has a hundred rooms. Photographs of the city
[below] were taken from the church.
More than half the pilgrims are now Italian, though there are
still many Irish, Polish, Germans, French, and Americans, as well as pilgrims
from elsewhere in the world. There are Masses in various languages through the
morning. On a slow weekday, a dozen priests con-celebrate the English Mass,
while at night more than twenty tend to the evening liturgy. (On weekends, the
number of priests about doubles.) There are now a total of fifty-nine outdoors
confessionals. Crowds are down slightly from last year, as recession plagues
Europe.
It all seems hectic and peculiar until one comes here; the peace
of Heaven (in my discernment) remains as strong as ever (though at times one has
to pray a bit deeper for it, or wander, Rosary in hand, into the old part of
Medjugorje, which remains still and beautiful and quiet, as in the old
days).
At the
church, the doors literally have to be barricaded shut during certain Masses due
to overcrowding inside. Not a single other person can fit. It is the opposite of
the problem in the West (where too many churches are empty -- barricaded because
they are closed).
It is nearly impossible to get inside
the church during Mass on the weekends. There is now the outdoor extension of
the church, an amphitheatre arrangement of altar and chairs that seats an
additional seven thousand. When visionary Ivan Dragicević spoke on Sunday, there was not a single available seat; people
stood in the aisles. We sat (knelt would be more accurate) for a private
apparition he allowed our group, in three installments, to attend. Our pilgrims
were overwhelmed by the sense of grace. The seer Vicka Ivanković remains out of
sight due to a back injury caused when an overly enthusiastic pilgrim grabbed
her and caused her to fall a while back -- the second time she has been so
injured.
But Medjugorje is Medjugorje and stands alone, in need of no one
human. The Church stance? There is that Vatican commission that reportedly has
finished a report, one that will be reviewed or has already been reviewed by
Pope Francis. No one can know what he will do with it. Again, we will strictly
obey what he says, whatever our personal feelings (and experiences). When he was
cardinal in Buenos Aires Pope Francis reportedly allowed both Ivan and the
well-known priest Father Jozo Zovko to appear in his jurisdiction, and a guide
who knows Father Jozo said the priest, who ended up close to Cardinal Jorge
Bergoglio during that visit, is optimistic on Church judgment (the prediction is
a statement within three years, if positive: direction on establishment of a
formal shrine).
What of
the "secrets"? The seers say that some of them pertain to Medjugorje itself, and
this is curious, because one wonders if one of them has to do with an event or
even natural disruption such as an earthquake in the village itself. The
original church here was heavily damaged by a tremor and led to construction of
the famous twin-towered one. One seer told a priest two decades ago that her
first secret had to do with a local event somewhere in the world and when she
was asked if people would rush to see it, she said no more than people would
rush to see, say, a dam "that collapses in Italy." Mirjana will inform a priest
of her choice beforehand (probably a friend of hers, Father Petar Ljubicic).
What of a permanent sign? One wonders if it might have to do with rays of
spiritual light, as suggested by a well-known author. On one occasion such rays were
seen both across the Cross atop Mount Križevac and on the church far below at
the same time. The towering Cross has been frequently seen to turn into a
column of luminosity. The Blessed Mother once commented that a fire seen on
Apparition Hill (and tended to by Communist firemen) was a forerunner of the
great sign. (When those firemen reached the "fire," nothing was there and not a
weed had burned, though there have been real brushfires
since.)
--Michael H. Brown
Our thanks for all your prayers
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