"The Gospa Told Me"
By June Klins
Last month, as I prayed about our February issue, Our Lady led me to the incredible testimony of Sabine Morson, which was aired on July 28, 2014 on Mary TV, Fruit of Medjugorje, Program #125 (marytv.tv/fruit-of-medjugorje/). Sabine, who is originally from Germany, now lives in Virginia. She has been to Medjugorje about 30 times and made a promise to Our Lady in 1990 that she would spread Her messages to as many people as she could.
Sabine's first trip to Medjugorje was in 1989. A priest invited her to go with her youth group. She really did not believe, but was hoping to "get a tan", since she heard the weather was hot. At the time, she was attending Mass, although halfheartedly, but she did not know how to say the Rosary and had not been to Confession since her First Confession.
When they arrived in Medjugorje, Sabine recounted, "As soon as my feet hit the ground, I instantly believed." Another group arrived at the same time, and by mistake she followed them to the rectory. A woman pushed her up the stairs and she found herself with a handful of priests and nuns in the apparition room. "It was the most amazing experience! Our Lady was appearing!" Although there were no flowers there, the smell of roses filled the air. She left the apparition and ran right to Confession.
Sabine in Medjugorje
Sabine's experience so inspired her that she wanted her friends to experience it, so the following July, she and four friends decided to go to Medjugorje before they were to meet with a priest from Scotland about pro-life work. They were able to rent a car in Luxemburg, although none of them was old enough to rent a car. When they got about 5 ½ hours from Medjugorje, they could not find a place to camp or to stay, so they decided to just drive through the night until they got there. At that point, Sabine took over the driving. All of a sudden, they saw what looked like a telephone pole in the middle of the road, and thought it was very odd. As Sabine turned the wheel to avoid it, the car began spinning as if on ice. The car overturned two or three times and landed upside down in a ravine. One of the girls had not even put her seatbelt on yet, so she was flipping up and down in the car. Villagers came running out of their houses in their night clothes when they heard the crash. They turned the car back over and smashed the windows to remove the girls from the car. They started pouring brandy and other alcohol on their wounds because that is all they had. By the time the police arrived, they all smelled like alcohol. The police (Communist at the time) asked who had been driving the car and Sabine said she was. They confiscated her passport and told her she was under arrest for drunk driving.
They knew they needed a hospital for the girl who was not wearing a seatbelt, since she could not feel her legs and could not move. When the ambulance came, Sabine and one other girl went in the ambulance with the girl who was hurt, and the other two were ordered to get back into the car, which was crushed and leaking gas and oil.
When they got to the hospital, the head doctor asked who was driving the car. Sabine said that she was, to which the doctor said, "I just wanted you to know that you killed your friend." Sabine began to cry and asked to see her body. She was taken to a room where she saw that her friend was still alive, so she asked the doctor why he had said that. He replied, "Because she'll never walk again, so she might as well be dead, and you did this to her."
They tested Sabine for alcohol, and when the test was negative, they did not know what to do, so they sent the girls back to the police station. Sabine was put into a cell there for about 8-10 hours, and given only a cup of water. She asked if she could call the American Consulate in Zagreb, but they kept putting her off. Finally, the girls were escorted to a building next to the police station and the judge pronounced Sabine "guilty", but she did not know what the charges were.
They gave back their passports. They took all their money, but they did allow them to make a call to the car rental agency to get another car.
The girls drove back to the hospital to visit their friend and were told by the doctors that she had severed her spine and would probably never walk again. She would need at least 10 days before the swelling would go down, so they could put her in a body cast. In order to go back to the U.S., she would have to be accompanied by a nurse and a doctor and it would cost a minimum of $35,000! They had no idea what to do, but felt they should go to Medjugorje. The girl who was hurt told them to go because maybe they could find people to help them. They did not want to leave her, but felt this was what they needed to do. For some unknown reason, they left the journal they had been keeping with their friend, even though she was not able to even pick it up.
They arrived in Medjugorje around 11:00 PM and were kneeling around the statue of Our Lady in front of the church. (At that time the statue was closer to the church than it is now.) They were crying and begging Our Lady for a miracle for their friend. Fr. Svet was locking up the church and heard them crying, so he asked them what was going on. They told him their story and he asked them to come to the rectory the next day and he would take them to another priest.
The following day, after the English-speaking Mass, Fr. Svet took them to the rectory and introduced them to Fr. Slavko. After they related the story to Fr. Slavko, he said, "I have an assignment for you. I want you to stay here for three days, just like Jesus stayed in the tomb for three days. You will live the life of Jesus, but first you will live His death. Here's what I want you to do every day while you're here. Every day you will climb Mt. Krizevac. Every day you should go to Mt. Podbrdo. Every day you should go to Mass, and every evening you should go to the Rosary and Mass again, and Adoration as well. After three days, you come back to see me." They thought this sounded overwhelming, but they did it all "with the grace of God and the help of Our Lady". Fr. Slavko had also told them that after the English-speaking Masses a collection would be taken to bring their friend back to the U.S.
After the three days, Fr. Slavko met with them and gave them a satchel filled with money. He said, "I haven't counted it all, but I think it is enough to get your friend back." He gave them a blessing and then asked them to do him a favor. "What I want you to do is when you get back and you find out that you do not need this money, then I want you to give it to a pro-life cause that helps further the cause of life." They were confused as to why they wouldn't need the money. Father replied, "Gospa [Our Lady] will let you know." Then he pointed at Sabine and said, "I will see you very soon."
Fr. Slavko
When they got back to the hospital, they got the surprise of their lives – their friend, who was in a different room now, jumped up! She had been completely healed!!! Her healing had taken place at the exact time they were praying at the statue in Medjugorje. She had written it all down in the journal they had left with her. She had been lying in her bed crying and asking God why He had allowed this to happen. But then she stopped and prayed instead, "Use me whatever way you can, even if I can never walk again." In that instant, she felt something like hands sliding under her back, and felt heat going up and down her body. Then she felt these hands urging her to sit up. A nurse who saw her do this asked what she was doing. Then she felt an embrace from behind, but there was no one there. The nurse suggested she get all the way up and try to walk with her help. She did, and had not even a twinge of pain. The nurse took out a Miraculous Medal and a Medjugorje medal she was wearing under her uniform, and she said, "Gospa did this." They went to a little closet and prayed the Rosary in thanksgiving.
After their friend was discharged, the girls drove to Lourdes. The friend who was healed still had a lump on her back from the accident, but after she went into the baths at Lourdes, it disappeared! They went on to London where they met the priest from Scotland. After hearing their story, he took the girl who was healed to a doctor in London to be X-rayed. The doctor came to the waiting room looking for a person who should be a quadriplegic because the X-ray showed no healing. The priest said, "This is a miracle!" They wrote up the testimony and he took it to Rome, where he prayed he would run into someone who would take it to the Commission studying Medjugorje. By no coincidence, he ran into Cardinal Ratzinger (the future Pope Benedict XVI) and gave him all the documentation.
"For human beings this is impossible, but for God all things are possible"
(Mt 19:26)
Prior to this, the girls gave the money in the satchel from Medjugorje to the priest who did pro-life work, because his printing press had broken. Sabine stayed a little longer in Scotland to do some pro-life work with him and she met a pregnant young mother who was going to have an abortion. The priest told Sabine she needed to help the woman, so he gave her two plane tickets to travel to Medjugorje. The young mother was not even a believer, but had a conversion in Medjugorje. Within six months, she became Catholic and had her baby baptized!
While in Medjugorje, Sabine went to see Fr. Slavko. She remembered that he had said he would see her very soon, but she did not think he would remember her because he would have met so many people in Medjugorje in the three months span since she had been there. She said, "I was here in July with my friends." He responded, "Yes, your friend who was healed." She asked, "What? How did you know that?" He replied, "The Gospa told me!"
