The Spirit of Medjugorje Online

ON THE 25TH DAY OF EACH MONTH, THE BLESSED VIRGIN GIVES A MESSAGE TO THE VISIONARY MARIJA, THAT IS TO BE GIVEN TO THE WORLD.

As the days of Christmas lead to the splendor of the Epiphany, so the days of Easter lead to the splendor of Pentecost. At Christmas we rejoice that Mary conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit. At Pentecost, the Church is called into being by the power of the Holy Spirit.

In an honest way, we are called to be children of Mary and children of the Church. That is not simply a pious encouragement to being personally safe.

Mary, in Her recent apparitions has made clear that peace in the world is in our hands. That is a tremendous responsibility.

Jesus taught us the greatness we are called to – His own greatness. “Greater love than this no man has that he lay down his life for his friends.” Jesus, of course, was killed as a revolutionary, a terrorist. Caiphas, the high priest, said with unknown insight that “one man must die for the people.”

Peace in our time is threatened by terrorists. We need to wonder about suicide bombers. What motivates them? How can we understand them? Except that they feel they have no future, no hope and that self-destruction is a statement to an indifferent world that the world in which they live is going nowhere.

We need to wonder how much earnestness and energy we bring to the mission Mary has given to all of us…the rich, the pious, the powerful, the weak, the haves, the have-nots. She asks us to realize anew the tremendous power of a man or woman who in prayer trusts. It pierces the clouds.

It calls us to love the terrorists and the terrorized. In the glow of the power of Pentecost, we need to pray and accept difficulties and real hardships. It is a real giving of one’s life. Greater love than this no one has.

25^th Anniversary

By Tom Hubbard

   God loves us so much. It's sad to hear people sometimes share their feelings on how they feel God has forgotten them, or somehow does not love them. God loves each of us so very much that He has allowed His mother, our mother, to come to earth to visit us. Not just for a few days, or weeks, but daily for 25 years. Think about this for a moment. Never in history has this happened to this extent. What a time of great graces this is.
   Why has Our Lady come? Has She come to make us fear and tremble because of our sins? How many times has She explained to us that She comes out of love, not fear? Like any mother, She has gently nurtured us, calling for a conversion of our hearts, simply asking that we pray, attend Mass and fast.   How often has She reminded us of Her love, and that She intercedes for us before Her Son? She has cautioned us not to fear the future, but just to take care of our daily conversions. Those who do so have nothing to fear from whatever lies ahead.
   As we approach the 25th Anniversary of Our Lady’s apparitions in Medjugorje, it might be good to reach into our hearts to reflect and remember what we felt when we first heard of Her appearances. Remember the feeling when we knew that Our Lady was coming to earth? Remember how this news grabbed our souls and would not let go? Think about where the Blessed Mother has taken us -what our lives were like before the Medjugorje apparitions, before we heard of Ivan, Vicka, Marija, Ivanka, Jakov, and Mirjana, before we heard of that tiny village.

The 25th of June and the 25th Anniversary are fast approaching. Maybe we could individually offer this day as a day of thanksgiving to the Blessed Mother for coming, and to Our Lord for allowing Her to be with us.

Editor’s note: Tom lives in Louisville, Kentucky, and is one of the moderators for the Internet International Prayer Group.

A Way to Say Thanks

By June Klins

Thank you for sending in your petitions and letters of love for Our Lady. I will be taking them to Medjugorje for the anniversary. You will all be in my prayers on this special pilgrimage. Please pray for our 26 pilgrims, June 17-26..

It is hard to believe that just 9 years ago I had no idea what Medjugorje was all about. The apparitions had been going on for 16 years! After 25 years, many people STILL do not know about them. We are hoping that many of you will want to join us in thanking Our Lady for Her loving patience with us for 25 years by helping us to spread Her messages to more people. You can tell your friends and family about our online monthly newsletter. Or you can purchase our book The Best of “The Spirit of Medjugorje,” and share it with at least one unbeliever (hopefully more though!) Or you can print out our beginner's guide (or send for the ones which are already printed) and then distribute them. Or you could help us distribute some back issue which we have left over. We will even pay the postage. There are many possibilities. Thank you for having responded to Her call!

The Visionaries 25 Years Later

Vicka Ivankovic-Mijatovic - Vicka was born September 3, 1964 in Bijakovici. Her prayer mission given by Our Lady is to pray for the sick. Vicka, her husband Mario, and young daughter and son live in the small village of Gruda, a few kilometers north of Medjugorje. Vicka continues to receive daily apparitions. Vicka: “The only way to peace and love is prayer and fasting.”

Mladen(front) on pilgrimage to Medjugorje, 1982

My Medjugorje Journey

By Mladen Martinovic

Reading through the stories and experiences of conversions, it is not hard to see God’s love for each of us.

For me everything started on June 24, 1981. It was St. John the Baptist’s feast day, and there was a celebration in my home in Miljkovici, the first village just on top of the hill when you drive from Mostar to Medjugorje. I was thirteen years old at that time. We had a lot of guests in our home. One of the guests was my cousin Danijel Setka, a four year old boy who was in wheelchair. He was born with some kind of a muscle sickness so that his muscles did not grow and were paralyzed. He didn't even talk, nor was he able to express himself in any way. His father Ivan was working in Germany at that time and visited every doctor who could possibly help him, but all the doctors were clueless.

The next day rumors started to spread, since we were only 20 kilometers from Medjugorje. At that time Yugoslavia was a Communist country and everything religious had to be expressed in church only. So people kept it to themselves.

On the sixth day, Ivan and his family came to Medjugorje and asked the visionaries to ask Gospa (Our Lady in Croatian) to heal Danijel. She replied that Ivan had to have faith. So nothing happened at that moment and they started to go home. Because they were tired and hungry from being outside all day, they stopped in a restaurant to eat. Still under the impression of the happenings, Ivan was calm. When the waitress was leaving, after taking the orders, Ivan stood up and hit the table with his hand and then ordered free drinks for everybody in the restaurant. His son Danijel stood up from wheelchair, hit the table with his hand and started to talk for the first time: “Give drinks for everybody.”

Today Danijel is taller than I am, and is working in his father’s construction company. This was, I believe, the first miracle in Medjugorje, and after that one, many more followed. I would need a lot of time to write down all of them.

The Communist police started to prosecute and harass pilgrims. I was taken into the police for interrogations. They followed me and harassed me up till 1990. Yugoslavia started to fall apart. My mother demanded that I go to live in Germany with my aunt. At first I didn't follow my mother’s advice, but after the war started in the Croatian and Slovenian parts of Yugoslavia, I filled out an application for a passport, and to my surprise, I received it in two weeks on Friday. It just so happened that Ivan was on vacation and was heading back to Frankfurt where he was living at that time. So I left my home on Sunday morning with Ivan and was in Frankfurt that night. Monday morning the military police came to my home to arrest me.

I feel that Gospa, like my mother did for me, is doing the same for us. The devil is working hard to get our souls and She knows that, and with loving “nagging” is trying to save us from the perils of hell. With us, and through us, She is trying to reach for many more.

Don't get discouraged that other people are not responding, because they are responding, like many of us did in beginning. We hear testimony from somebody else, put it aside and then later we get it, and Medjugorje

becomes a part of our life. With God’s blessing and united in prayer we are making changes in our lives and lives of people around us.

God bless you all and Kraljice Mira Moli za nas (Queen of Peace, pray for us.)

Editor’s note: Mladen and his wife and children are now living in Aurora, Colorado.

I Want To Invite You To Accept And Live Seriously The Messages I Am Giving You

The following is a talk given by Father Tomislav Vlasic on 11/1/86, but very fitting for the anniversary.

Our Lady in Her last message said, "Dear children, today again, I want to invite you to accept and live seriously the messages I am giving you. Dear children, I have stayed so long for your sake, in order to help you put into practice all the messages I am giving you. Therefore, dear children, live with love towards me all the messages I give you." With this message Our Lady sums up all the messages and urges us to take them seriously. What does this mean ?

Many people, on hearing about the existence of the ten secrets from the visionaries and that among these secrets there are some which are very harsh for mankind, become alarmed for the future. But this means that they are not taking Our Lady seriously, as She has always taught us not to think of wars and evil, but has urged us to put our hope in the Lord, to live in hope, and with our hope strengthened by our prayer, to face all difficulties which mankind will encounter and also those we meet in our daily lives.

In the message received yesterday evening, Our Lady emphasizes once more that Her long stay here on earth is to help us live these messages. On 9th October Our Lady said, "All this time that I am with you is a sign that I love you immensely."

If God gives us such a grace for His Mother to remain with us for so long, it is a sign of the seriousness of events. And we must accept what She said yesterday evening. It appears that many pilgrims, having experienced the presence of God and Our Lady here, have after a while become lukewarm, and others who have only heard about Medjugorje still continue along their old path.

A month ago the visionary Mirjana told me, “At least one day a week is a day of tears for me.” I asked her,”Why?”. She replied, “Because I know what will happen and people still go on as if they had heard nothing.”

This is even more serious, both with regard to the events which await us and to the hardness of heart of men who, even after five years of the presence of Our Lady on earth, are still asking, “What is it ? Must I change ? No, I will go on in the same way.” And we go on being attached to earthly values. Pilgrims often say, “But where is God's mercy ?” God's mercy is shown in Our Most Blessed Virgin Mother who has come amongst us, but who we do not want to accept. It is useless to have a gift if we do not want to accept it. If mankind goes on increasing armaments, living in an immoral world, if it continues to live an injustice where a third of the world is dying of hunger, the world cannot tolerate this injustice. It is for this reason that Our Lady has given us the message of immediate conversion. In the beginning I said that those who are afraid do not take what Our Lady says correctly. Our Lady has given us the main message, Peace. And also Mirjana, the visionary says, 'Do not be afraid, for those who believe in God, death is not a punishment, it is a transition to a better life.' My dear faithful, this is a crucial point. Life is not a punishment for us, it is not a tragedy, but a transition to a better life. Do you seriously believe this? Do you accept

it? While we do not accept this seriously, we have not accepted our faith.

Because the center and essence of our faith is the death and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, it is also our death and resurrection. Until we accept this, we have not accepted our Christian faith. In the same message Our Lady said, "Dear children, you know I want to guide you on the path of holiness, but I do not want to compel you to be saints by force."

We are coming to the feast of All Saints. I will ask you a question, “Have you decided to become holy?” But we do not enter Paradise if we do not mean to become holy. Christians often make this calculation; holiness is not meant for me, it is meant for somebody else; it is a false calculation. We often see pilgrims come here for two reasons, to pray for healing, for worldly needs and in order to prevent wars and punishments. It is good to come and ask for these things, but it is not enough. We are like this on earth and we well know that our life will end after say 70, 80, 90 years, and then? We know that after our life there comes a more beautiful one, that life for which we also live on earth. So the main point is holiness.

Not only are we unable to go to Heaven if we are not holy, but without holiness we cannot even live a happy life on this earth. Only the saints - and we know this from the history of salvation and of the Church - were contented men. Those who live only for a materialistic life were not happy and their names have soon been forgotten. The names of the saints are always alive amongst us and from the history of the Church we know that only the saints gave the breath of life to Christianity and humanity, and only they gave the Spirit to our faith. So if we also want a happy life here on earth we must live it only as saints. This can be explained in a message to the prayer group from Our Lady, "Dear children, make a Paradise here on earth amongst yourselves."

Our Lady continuously calls us to prayer in Her messages. Why pray? Why so much prayer? In order to increase my desire for God. In order to increase within me the desire to grow in the likeness of God. Prayer is the process of spring where everything bursts into bloom and flowers ; prayer brings me to long for God and for Paradise more than anything on earth. So, if through this process of conversion, and of prayer, the longing for God increases within me, then I am happy because within me God's life is already beginning. I cannot otherwise obtain this at the moment of death because death should only be an easy stepping stone to enter Paradise when we hear the voice of Jesus, "Come you that are blessed." It will be a difficult step for those who have to go to Purgatory, a terrible step forward for those who hear the voice saying, "Depart from me you cursed." You have come to ask what Our Lady wants - She wants conversion in order that you become saints, for your sanctification. It is only in this way that you will achieve the purpose of life and will be able to give evidence of the presence of Our Lady, to bring the joy of salvation and the peace of which both Our Lady and Jesus speak.

Without sanctification we will not be among those who save the world, we will not be counted among those who profess to be friends of God, or those who are able to implore God to take away chastisements as a consequence for the sins of humanity. Without sanctity we are unable to be happy on this earth or to enter Paradise. In conclusion, therefore, I invite you to accept seriously the presence of Our Lady and to live all Her messages. Your daily aim must be the sanctification of your life.

Editor’s note: We thank and acknowledge the Friends of Medjugorje Assoc. in Milano, Italy, who transcribed homilies by Fr. Tomislav Vlasic and Fr. Slavko Barbaric during the period 1984-1987. They put them into a 4-volume collection, and made them available to the public free of charge, asking only that we remember to pray for the most distant souls.

IN THE GALAXY OF 'STARS' IS LORETTA YOUNG AND HER ACCOUNT OF AN ANGELIC MYSTERY

By Michael H. Brown

We're not much for celebrity, and even wonder if it's in God's plan. In our culture we seem to use actors, actresses, and other prominent people to fill inner voids. The magic of television and the big screen turns folks into idols, which is not very healthy.

Note the word "magic," and also the word "idol." Often one is led to wonder from whence such charisma comes!

But that doesn't mean celebrities are bad people. Some are wonderful (literally: full of wonders). We have reported on former Treasury Secretary William Simon, who wrote about his rosary turning gold at Medjugorje. There is former football coach Don Shula, who also visited the famous apparition site, where his wife saw the miracle of the sun. There is actor Martin Sheen, who narrated a documentary on the place; who knows what he saw!

Now, to the formidable list of diplomats, cardinals, bishops, businessmen, royalty, singers, writers, politicians, actors, and assorted other famous people who have visited we can add Hollywood legend Loretta Young, a devout Catholic who died in 2000.

Before she passed, Loretta related the account of her pilgrimage for a book by Joan Wester Anderson, who writes all the wonderful angel books.

We weren't aware of it until recently, but in an authorized biography called Forever Young, the actress cited several fascinating (and, yes, "alleged") supernatural occurrences at Medjugorje. So powerful were the experiences that afterward Young began to pray 15-decade Rosary daily as well as to fast on Wednesdays and Fridays!

"Medjugorje solidified everything I'd always hoped and prayed for," said the superstar. "I have visited several shrines but no place has affected me quite as much."

While purchasing a statue at the apparition site in 1988, Young suddenly heard a woman shouting to look at the sun. According to the biography, Loretta's eyes had been scorched twice by klieg lights; if she stared at bright objects, her eyes would rather easily burn. "But before I realized what I was doing, I looked right at the sun, and it started to grow," she recounted.

What the actress saw was a pulsating golden orb grow from avocado size to the size of a watermelon -- changing to red, green, and white. "Then the Communion wafer appeared in the center of it," she said.

Young -- who in her heyday co-starred with the likes of Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., William Holden, and James Cagney -- had her most incredible experience after tripping on a step inside St. James Church and severely twisting her ankle.

Miracle of the Sun
She was with several companions, including her son. They figured it was a bad sprain. As pain shot through the famed actress, an Indian nun came from out of nowhere, telling them she was a physician and instructing them to bring Loretta outside.

There the physician left for a moment, "then returned, carrying what appeared to be a pot of mud and some bandages," notes Anderson. "She slathered the goop on Loretta's foot, and bound it up with bandages, telling her not to take the bandages off.

Diverted for a moment, neither Loretta nor those around her noticed that the nun had disappeared. They never saw her again. But, miraculously, what she had done caused the pain to disappear. Young was able to finish the pilgrimage.

When she returned, a visit to the doctor revealed that it wasn't a sprain after all. Loretta, as it turns out, had broken six bones in that foot. When they took off the bandages, it suddenly swelled to twice its normal size!

Somehow those muddy bandages had kept her foot pain-free throughout the journey.

On a return trip there with her husband, Jean, their tour group stopped to speak with the seer Vicka. Later, when Jean went to

to take a rosary out of his pocket, everyone gasped.

As in the case of William Simon, the links had turned to gold. The lesson? "Abandonment to His will -- isn't it thrilling to watch it work?" asked the legendary actress.

www.spiritdaily.com

THE MOTHER WHO LOVES ME – A ROSARY LITANY

By Bernard Gallagher

Our Father

Hail Mary

Glory be

First decade

The Mother who calls me, The Mother who loves me

The Mother who invites me, The Mother who loves me

The Mother who implores me, The Mother who loves me

The Mother who waits for me, The Mother who loves me

The Mother who embraces me, The Mother who loves me

The Mother who unites Herself with me, The Mother who loves me

The Mother who draws me to Her heart, The Mother who loves me

The Mother who carries me in Her heart, The Mother who loves me

The Mother who opens Her heart to me, The Mother who loves me

The Mother who loves me immeasurably, The Mother who loves me

Glory be to the Father...

Ave, Ave, Ave Maria

Second decade

The Mother who believes in me, The Mother who loves me (response)

The Mother who feels my pain, The Mother who loves me

The Mother who suffers with me, The Mother who loves me

The Mother who speaks to me, The Mother who loves me

The Mother who tells me that She loves me, The Mother who loves me

The Mother who tells me I am important, The Mother who loves me

The Mother who wishes me to be beautiful, The Mother who loves me

The Mother who thanks me, The Mother who loves me

The Mother who prays with me, The Mother who loves me

The Mother who brings me Peace, The Mother who loves me

Glory be to the Father...

Ave, Ave, Ave Maria

Third decade

The Mother who comes to me, The Mother who loves me

The Mother who leads me, The Mother who loves me

The Mother who walks with me, The Mother who loves me

The Mother who instructs me, The Mother who loves me

The Mother who prepares me, The Mother who loves me

The Mother who helps me understand, The Mother who loves me

The Mother who renews me, The Mother who loves me

The Mother who is always with me, The Mother who loves me

The Mother who does not leave me alone, The Mother who loves me

The Mother who says to me, I am your Mother, The Mother who loves me

Glory be to the Father...

Ave, Ave, Ave Maria

Fourth decade

The Mother who teaches me, The Mother who loves me

The Mother who encourages me, The Mother who loves me

The Mother who inspires me, The Mother who loves me

The Mother who guides me, The Mother who loves me

The Mother who believes in miracles, The Mother who loves me

The Mother who rejoices with me, The Mother who loves me

The Mother who desires for me, The Mother who loves me

The Mother who protects me, The Mother who loves me

The Mother who watches over me, The Mother who loves me

The Mother who covers me with Her mantle, The Mother who loves me

Glory be to the Father...

Ave, Ave, Ave Maria

Fifth decade

The Mother who blesses me, The Mother who loves me

The Mother who prays for me, The Mother who loves me

The Mother who intercedes for me, The Mother who loves me

The Mother who seeks God’s grace for me, The Mother who loves me

The Mother who is tender with me, The Mother who loves me

The Mother who says, do not be afraid, The Mother who loves me

The Mother who shares Her joy with me, The Mother who loves me

The Mother who presents me to Jesus, The Mother who loves me

The Mother who is a gift to me, The Mother who loves me

The Mother who keeps calling me, The Mother who loves me

Glory be to the Father...

Ave, Ave, Ave Maria

“The Medjugorje Message,” http://crownofstars.blogspot.com

We thank Bernard Gallagher, Helen Bell, Peggy Angstadt and Diana Stillwell for their photos in this issue.