Hello
everyone!
As
promised, I would like to tell you a little about this wonderful and most
peaceful place on earth - Medjugorje. This week, I will not be delving into The Next of Kin as I want to just focus on Medjugorje. I spent a week on pilgrimage from the 5th -12th September
with St Peter the Apostle parish in Woolwich organized by Marian Pilgrimages. We all experienced deep inner peace and the presence of God
and His love in unique ways. We got on so well as a group and we were very
united in every way. There was a wonderful bond of love.
I recently spoke to my pilgrim friends and they too feel
quite homesick for Medjugorje. The story of Medjugorje is taken from Tekton Ministries.
They specialize in pilgrimages. I have taken short extracts from it in order to give you a
peak into this extraordinary place.
They have put out an absolutely wonderful story. The Story
of Medjugorje is very much worth reading, however you can easily find many
other internet sites/ books that are dedicated to this mystical place.
Thank you so much Tekton Ministries and may God richly BLESS
you!
MEDJUGORJE
The Parish of Medjugorje is situated in the Herzegovina
region of Bosnia and Herzegovina, close to the border of Croatia and just 50
miles from the Adriatic Sea. The name “Medjugorje” literally means
"between mountains."
On June 24, 1981, two young girls were walking in the hamlet
of Bijakovici in the parish of Medjugorje when a woman holding an infant
appeared high on a hill among the boulders and brambles of Mount Podbrdo.
Instinctively, they knew it was the Virgin Mary, but they did not approach her.
They and four other children felt called to return the next day, and Our
Blessed Mother drew them to her, effortlessly transporting them up the
mountain, over boulders and thorny bushes. The Blessed Mother introduced
herself as the Queen of Peace. They fell to their knees and began to pray. She
prayed with them and promised to return the next day. Our Lady has regularly appeared
in Medjugorje ever since, as have countless stories of conversion and miracles,
making The Story of Medjugorje one of the most fascinating in modern church
history.
The messages that our Blessed Mother has shared with the
visionaries are messages of peace and love. Our Lady says God sent her to
Medjugorje as an act of grace to remind us that God does exist, and He loves
us. She comes as the Queen of Peace to bring the world back to her Son. She has
given us five “stones”, or weapons, to combat evil and bring us closer to
Jesus; they are prayer, fasting, scripture, Mass, the Eucharist, and the
Sacrament of confession. Through her miraculous works and messages, she longs
to open our hearts to God and help us to reorient our lives towards His Church and
the Sacraments, which so many of us have moved away from.
Our Lady told the seers that one day God would place a
“sign” on Mount Podbrdo (Apparition Hill) to prove to non-believers that the
apparitions took place. While many look forward to climbing the mountain to see
the Lasting Sign, many pilgrims fear missing out on this time of grace and want
to visit Medjugorje while the apparitions are still taking place.
At first, Mary appeared to all of the visionaries every day,
sometimes together and sometimes separately. She told the visionaries they will
each be entrusted with ‘secrets’ about events that will be revealed to the
world three days before each one occurs. When the Blessed Mother shares her
final secret with each visionary, she stops appearing daily to them.
On the 25th of each month, Our Lady delivers a message for
the world through Marija (one of the visionaries), which is translated and
released by the Parish Information Office.
***
In the next blog post I hope to include the latest message.
I anticipate that the Mother of God is desperately calling all of us to pray,
pray, pray!
Until next time I pray you have a wonderful week.
God Bless!
Olivia
