Croatian is the language of locals in Medjugorje. ‘Pilgrimage’ in Croatian means “Walk with God”. ‘Medjugorje’ means ‘between mountains’, referring to the hills that surround this amazing place. We all felt as we were indeed walking with God in a special and meaningful way every minute of our pilgrimage.
Deciding to go in the first week of May because it’s Our Lady’s month, the weather we expected was to be not too warm and not too chilly either. We had wonderful weather every day of our pilgrimage, regardless of the weather forecast which forecasted rain and even thunderstorms. We had sunny, warm weather every day.
Twenty-seven people travelled there in our party. Thank God a young Capuchin friar, Brother Sheline, joined us and was our amazing spiritual guide.
We had an extraordinary, wonderful time individually on a personal and collectively on a group level as well.
Many pilgrims in our group shared personal stories of healing, newly found faith, insights, answers, encounters, special personal moments of extraordinary graces.
We are praying about it and planning to find the way to share these incredible testimonies with you and all the parishioners who are opened to hear them.
We had a great, local guide, a lady who was born and raised there in a Medjugorje. She was a genuine, devoted catholic and obviously to her and to all locals the events there are credible. They believe in it all and stand for it boldly even though it began 44 years ago in the middle of brutal communist dictatorship where the local police tried everything to threaten them and stop them spreading the news of the apparitions of Our Lady to the six children from June 1981, the time of the first apparition.
Our guide did her job with a mission in mind to serve a higher purpose, God. She treated us like Our Lady had personally invited each one of us.
She took us around the most famous locations there: St James’s Church, where we had nightly, powerful masses, homilies, rosaries, adorations, healing services and confessions. We were together at the two famous hills pilgrims often climb, where apparitions began. She took us to incredible speeches and testimonies of local priests and citizens, who had extraordinary stories to share, conversions linked to Our Lady, The Queen Of Peace of Medjugorje -as they refer to her there.
A few thoughts from pilgrims since we came back;
“The sense of love and spirituality was so strong throughout Medjugorje. Everyone we met was helpful and caring, from the amazing staff in the hotel, to our guides on the pilgrimage and the people on the street. Thank you to the people of our entire parish in helping those who wished to travel to Medjugorje reach this place of adoration and wonder.”
“My time in Medjugorje was amazing and everyone who is able to should go there as they will enjoy it and get something out of it”
“I have never visited a place where the guides engage so deeply with the place and pass that on. The amount of young people there and with such natural enthusiasm.”
“I liked the hill walking and Patrick’s castle. Next time I’m going to run up them.”
“The good news about a pilgrimage is you get your feelings back. Bad news about a pilgrimage is you get your feelings back.” Boy did it happen to me, every day. Through confession and sharing I experienced many days of emotional healing with fellow pilgrims and the presence of Our Lady Of Peace. Amazing place, amazing pilgrims. “
“Wonderful experience! Would go again tomorrow!”
Conclusion:
We want to say thank you to the parish, sponsors and prayer supporters who all stepped up with their share of support. We had an amazing time and we can only encourage everyone to consider making a pilgrimage to any shrine, but especially to Medjugorje, to this oasis of Heaven on Earth meant to help particularly our turbulent age of confusion and unbelief.
One absolutely outstanding experience for us, I think, was in the meaningful ways we were able to connect and grow together as a community: friendships were born and would love this strengthening experience of fellowship to spread and grow among our parishioners.
We soon will come up with an opportunity to meet and share and hear our experiences and possibly we will come up with a regular prayer group meeting as well occasionally online and sometime in person.
We still are thinking and praying about the best next step or fruit to bear from our pilgrimage supported by you all. Thank you again.
Katalin
