Medjugorje - Thoughts from Afar

I do not know whether the Blessed Virgin Mary has appeared or is appearing at Medjugorje. I do know that thousands of people – possibly millions – do believe that She did appear there and continues to appear there. I wonder if their belief has consecrated - and continues to consecrate - the Medjugorje area, for I found it to be a wonderful place of peace, devotion and sanctity; perhaps form follows faith. I have no hesitation in recommending a pilgrimage to Medjugorje for these reasons.

While in Medjugorje we attended Mass – usually twice daily – with occasional Adoration, prayed the Rosary several times a day, visited some of the locations where the BVM is said to have appeared (Blue Cross, Apparition Hill, Cross Mountain) and offered personal prayers at these and other locations.

I did not experience at any time anything in the least supernatural. There were no healings, apparitions, voices, interior dialogues, supernatural flashes of light, disappearing crosses, rosaries transformed from base metals into gold, dancing suns, strange colours in the sky. Nothing.

On the other hand I was privileged and humbled to see thousands of people openly demonstrate their faith and love of God, sometimes walking barefoot, kneeling, hugging and kissing the cross and the statues of Mary, singing and praying with emotion, queuing for confession. None of this was new, what was different was the scale, thousands of pilgrims united in witness and adoration, and the sense of God’s presence, not just in the Host but also in a more general sense.

I have the Grace of faith in the sense that I believe absolutely and completely in the existence of God and fully affirm the Creed and the deposit of faith as taught by the Church. However, if the Church declares that the apparitions of Medjugorje are ‘worthy of belief’ they still do not belong to that deposit of faith and personal belief in them is not mandatory. Although I have no doubt that the visionaries are wonderful people and that many impressive fruits have their origins in Medjugorje, the reservations of the Bishop of Mostar-Duvno and his predecessor and colleagues continue to concern me and have not been overshadowed by the wonderful experience of prayer and worship in Medjugorje.

Also, while the Messages I have read and the ‘stones’ (daily prayer, fasting, bible reading, monthly confession, Communion) are all highly commendable, I am baffled by the continuous daily and monthly year-after-year transmission of similar requests, unheard of in any other Marian apparition, and the apparent flexibility of dates concerning signs and happenings.

Nevertheless, as I mentioned earlier, I would recommend Medjugorje as a Holy Place, worthy of pilgrimage. Concerning the apparitions and the origin of the messages, my strictly personal view is that the old Scottish legal judgement of ‘not proven’ applies.  

The Bosnia and Herzegovina area, including its religious community, suffered greatly over the last 70 years with the Second World War, imposition of the atheistic communist state of Yugoslavia and the vicious Bosnian War of 1992-1995. Peaceful only for the last 20 years, the shadow of recent war and martyrdom still lies over the land. By all accounts the peasants were strong traditional Catholics with a particular devotion to Our Lady and daily family prayers. The last 20 years have also seen real GDP double but unemployment still hovers over 40%, and corruption is widespread. However, Medjugorje has experienced a boom and the once-poor village of farmers and stone houses has been transformed into a buzzing hive of hotels, guest houses, souvenir shops and restaurants, attracting workers and investors from nearby and as far away as Italy.

I was interested in whether the local youth remain steadfast in the faith but it is impossible to distinguish locals and visitors at the Masses – even when they are in Croatian. The only sense I got was the comments by regular visitors that when they visit in low season (October to March) the churches are packed with locals and there are fewer non-Croatian Masses.

Nowadays - by my calculations – Medjugorje, with about one million visitors annually, ranks sixth on the global list of Christian shrines (after Guadalupe – 20M, Our Lady of Aparecida in Brazil – 7M, Lourdes – 6M, Fatima 4-5M, Santiago de Compostela 1.5M). This is a phenomenal achievement after only 34 years. Type ‘Medjugorje’ into Google and there are 5.7 million hits...this sounds impressive but it should be put into perspective; there are more than 100 million hits for each of Guadalupe, Fatima and Lourdes, while Aparecida merits 52 million and Compostela 38 million. Yes, there seem to be many websites promoting Medjugorje and the operation in Medjugorje itself is very well run and effective, but only time will tell whether it has the stamina to be a top-ranking site for pilgrims.   

By all accounts Pope Francis is due to pronounce his view on Medjugorje sometime in the coming months. While it is alleged that Saint Pope John Paul II was a believer, the current Pope’s remarks about the messages have been interpreted as dismissive. It would not surprise me that he affirmed the status of Medjugorje as a Holy Place (echoing the 1991 Bishops Conference that described it as ‘a holy place, a shrine’) but deferred any decision on the origin of the messages – and perhaps even further restricted the ability of church authorities to promote or offer facilities to the visionaries until a final conclusion is reached.

But then I’ve been wrong before!  Why not visit and see for yourself?

Medjugorje - Day Eight

This was the last day so we decided to re-visit the Risen Christ statue as, during our previous visit and attempts to visit, there was a sizeable queue of 12-40 people waiting to visit the statue.

This thirty-foot solid bronze statue has allegedly been weeping liquid since 2001 from the right leg, near the knee and, apparently, has now started weeping liquid from the left knee as well. Sometimes the liquid is water or oil-like, sometimes it appears like blood.

Canny shopkeepers now sell linen squares imprinted on one side with the face of the Blessed Virgin Mary – a bargain at 10 squares for one Euro. The idea is that you use a linen square to mop up some of this liquid. There are steps to enable people to reach right up to the relevant spot – worn a brighter colour and shiny after all the rubbing – indeed the long queues are made longer by people slowly using all their ten squares before moving on. Presumably they intend to give the squares to friends or relatives who are sick or injured.

As we waited G was convinced that she could see tiny drops of liquid emerging and being dabbed by the linen cloths of worshippers. As she mounted the steps and got even closer she was absolutely certain that two small drops emerged, one after the other in two separate but close areas near the knee. Me? I never saw any liquid at all, but then my eyesight is not 20/20, even with spectacles. We each went close and, after praying, dabbed the approximate area with a tissue (and when I inspected mine, I still couldn't see anything. Perhaps you need faith? after working as an auditor for 20 years my faith faculty is probably all shrivelled up).

The design of the sculpture is such that Christ seems to rise from a cross-shaped tomb, leaving a hollow in the cross/tomb where His body was. It is very effective. Pilgrims have placed many flowers, photographs of loved and sick ones and other mementos in the hollow of the cross. As always it is affecting, especially the photos of youngsters.

The other pilgrims had finished breakfast when G and I got back to the hotel but the nice serving staff provided bread, butter, juice, cereal and milk – and then cooked us each a special giant ham omelette.

We left at 11am by minibus for Split and were soon fortifying ourselves with the Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary. After an hour we stopped for a comfort break at the splendidly-named Hip-Hop fuel stop and café. Temperatures were in their 90s now and forecast to exceed 100 degrees in the following week.  Our guide was envious of departure for cool, wet England. I took the opportunity to ask her about relations between Croats and Bosniaks since there seemed to be underlying tension in Mostar. However, she felt that the sides were prepared to tolerate each other and maintain peace; 20 years after the war, its wounds were still raw and no-one was prepared to contemplate another war - especially since the economy had improved so much.

 

Strangely, prices in the café seemed to be three times higher than normal...it was only in the coach afterwards that I remembered that we were now in Croatia and had been confusing Bosnia-Herzegovina exchange rates with Croatian ones; I could have had a bar of chocolate rather than limiting myself to a bottle of lemon tea.

 

Split Airport was jam-packed with sun-worshippers and pilgrims. The check-in area was swamped so entry to the airport was restricted, however, we only waited 10 minutes or so before being allowed access to the check-in queue. Similarly the line for Customs held about 100-150 people and after a smooth transition through Passport Control we reached the departure lounge - to find no seats available. To pilgrims who have climbed Cross Mountain this was no more than a minor inconvenience and after a silent prayer and a wait of 20 minutes, seats materialised.

 

Now, all that is left is to summarise my feelings about the pilgrimage, no easy matter, it has been a hugely positive spiritual experience...but lingering doubts remain.

Medjugorje - Day Seven

Breakfast at 8.15am followed by the ‘Final Day’ briefing from the guides, then 10am Mass at St James Church, a Caribbean priest saying Mass with eight other priests and two deacons on the altar.

Then, shopping in the 90-degree temperatures or, alternatively, a nap followed by dinner at 3.45pm.

(I’ve been wondering about exactly how many people attend evening Rosary and International Mass. I thought it was 2,000-3,000 but Diana the guide thought 5,000-7,000. So, today I counted the benches: there are 2,840 four-person benches (with arms) in the inner circle and 3,605 five-person benches (without arms) in the outer circle. Usually the inner circle benches are full and up to half of the outer circle benches. That makes about 4,642 people (out of a maximum capacity of 6.445) so I am comfortable quoting a regular Mass attendance figure of 4,000-5,000).

At 5pm we had a talk that was not very well publicised - perhaps deliberately - so as not to annoy the Vatican authorities by seeming to pre-judge their verdict on the apparitions by inviting one of the visionaries onto the altar to participate in the talk. There were only a few hundred people present in the outdoor area – perhaps the 85+ degree temperatures were a factor - as a priest introduced the talk, and then the visionary Jakov Colo spoke for about 40 minutes.

Jakov prefaced the talk by saying that he had decided not to involve pilgrims directly with his apparitions but to restrict himself to talks/lectures. He then spoke simply, directly and with great relevance and insight on key aspects of faith. The structure of his talk was: (no commencing Creed) reflection1, Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be and so on until reflection 7, Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be.  

He made the interesting comments that people coming to Medjugorje should not look for signs or attend visionaries but examine their lives and change them, and that the significance of witnessing consists not in description of things seen but how the quality of our changed lives impacts others (perhaps another way of expressing St Francis’ dictum ‘preach, and if necessary use words’.)

International Mass was at 7pm and there was an excellent critique of blind consumerism during the homily, expertly translated. This was followed by the Creed, seven Our Fathers, Hail Marys and Glory Be’s, which was then followed by the Blessing of articles and prayers for healing.

There was a new English-language translator for the last two evenings and she was excellent; clear, concise and her phrasing, emphasis and modulation of tone seemed to more effectively convey the Croatian original then her predecessor who sounded younger and tended to get a little lost. Sadly, we returned the hired radios, a bargain at 10 Euros for a week. Pilgrims can use a regular radio to listen to the Mass translations from Croatian to English on 94.3FM (or to other languages - including Chinese Cantonese - on a different frequency) but the tour guides like those from Joe Walsh Tours who use radios use a different frequency so I do not think you can use your personal radio to access these frequencies and may need to hire one that covers all the frequencies (but I am not 100% sure on this point).  

As we walked to the St James Church just after 10pm the priests were still busy hearing confessions in the open air and there were queues for several languages. Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at the outdoor altar was an incredible experience. The vast seating area was full; many knelt on the bare ground while dozens of people walked around looking for seats. We arrived late at 10.15pm and eventually found seats at the very furthest distance from the altar. Although there were probably around 7,000 people present, there was complete silence, broken only by the sound of crickets and the occasional hum of distant traffic. There were people of all ages and nationalities, including the infirm elderly, vast numbers of youths, children and babies in prams

The PA system worked to perfection; we were perhaps 150 metres from the altar with its giant monstrance, yet, when there was a prayer or song, every word came across clearly and distinctly. There were Bible readings in several languages (including English and Arabic), hymns and songs of praise, chants of Emanuel, Jesus and Amen, Tantum ergo Sacramentum, Kyrie eleison and others. This was sublime worship, respectful, adoring, involved. The 45 minutes we spent flew past and the end when a priest blessed up with the monstrance came much too soon.

There was an all-night adoration in St James Church starting from 11pm in thanks for the receipt of the monthly message on the 25^th of each month by visionary Marija. We briefly popped in and, as expected, the church was almost full.     

Medjugorje - Day Six

English Mass was held in St James Church at 10am, with eight priests and two deacons on the altar. As usual the church was packed, with a large Irish contingent. Indeed, the concluding hymn was Our Lady of Knock with the refrain:

Golden Rose, Queen of Ireland

All my cares and troubles cease
As we kneel with love before you
Lady of Knock, our Queen of Peace.

The main celebrant was a priest from our hotel and the other three concelebrated. The four are vastly different characters: today’s lead is middle-aged, occasionally in a wheelchair, usually leaning on a stick, and stays in the background; another, tall and thin, has a distinct transatlantic accent, developed from working many years in the deep south of the US, where we underwent a baptism of fire during Hurricane Katrina; the third is more elderly, rather strict-looking in appearance and always wears black clerical garb - but has a great singing voice for both religious and secular songs, and at the end of last night’s Rosary he went through all the hymns to Mary that I knew and many more, ending with a superfast litany; the fourth is a wonderful character, smaller, stouter, kindlier, with a constant mischievous smile and a twinkle in his eye, often joking with and hiding from the guides, laid-back to the extent that he lies down to rest at the slightest opportunity – for example, between Rosary mysteries - but he is appropriately serious and focused when hearing confessions. A lovely man and priest.    

The same guitarist-singer from last night’s Rosary led the praise, her beautiful soprano voice with its mild quavering timbre soaring above the congregation. We stopped to thank her on the way out and, in response to a query, she assured us that she was not a professional misician, just a pilgrim from Donnegal. What a voice! What a gift - and she uses it well to offer praise and support worship.

 

 

In the afternoon we went for a walk in the church grounds and visited the statue of the Risen Christ. I don’t know much about it but I recall that the knee is supposed to leak an unknown liquid thicker than water but thinner than treacle. The shops here sell packs of ten linen squares with the image of Our Lady printed on them so that people can dip them in the mysterious liquid. When we visited there was a queue of about ten people and several had their ‘squares’ with them and were busy rubbing the knee of the statue.

 

Later, after saying the Divinc Mercy chaplet, the guide talked about a former priest of the parish, Fr Slavko Barbaric, who died at age 54 while climbing Cross Mountain. He is revered locally for protecting the visionaries from the (local and church) authorities, for creating an orphanage and children’s homes for orphans and for doing many ‘works of mercy.’ He was also an effective confessor, and did much to publicise the apparitions and create an effective infrastructure for visiting pilgrims. According to an alleged message from the Blessed Virgin, he is now in Heaven, so a visit to his grave is often made by locals and visitors, particularly those wanting his intercession. Indeed, his grave is adorned with quite a number of candles, testimony to the attachment to his memory.

 

I had the feeling that Joe Walsh Tours are scraping the barrel a bit for ‘events’; a review of the draft tour agenda showed that we have still not had the advertised ‘meeting with the visionaries’ that was scheduled to happen on two separate days, or the talk with one of the local Franciscan priests.

During dinner, I questioned the tour guide, first asking her if the local Bishop of Mostar-Duvno (who is responsible for Medjugorje Parish) was supportive of the apparitions. She replied that he was not, his personal view was that the apparitions were not supernatural (I knew from the internet that he had expressed this view some years ago, but he might have changed in the meantime). Interestingly, she then went on to say that the visionaries had reigned back all public discussions or promotions of the apparitions either at the request of the authorities or to avoid prejudicing the upcoming Vatican pronouncement. That explains the gaps in our schedule!

As usual, International Mass in Croatian at 7pm followed by prayers, with about 50 priests on the altar and several thousand people present.

Medjugorje – Day Five

We set off from the foot of Cross Mountain at 5.40am. No, it’s not a mistake, at 5.40am. Due to the heat of the day, high eighties to low nineties Fahrenheit (about low 30s Celsius) we began our climb as it was getting light, the crickets were chirping to welcome the dawn and the vendors’ shops were already open for business at the foot of the mountain.

According to the guide, the origin of the cross on the mountain is as follows. The people of Medjugorje Parish have always been poor, mainly subsistence farmers. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, due to several successive years of too little rain in summer and too much in winter, harvests were poor and thousands died from starvation. They approached the local Bishop with a plan to build a huge cross on top of their highest local mountain. This coincided with the Vatican requesting parishes worldwide to commemorate the 1,900^th anniversary of Jesus’ death. When the Vatican heard of the plan for the cross, Pope Pius XI contributed a piece said to be from the original True Cross and this relic is contained in the crossbeams of the cross. Even the name of mountain was changed to Krizevac, meaning Cross Mountain.

The cross was constructed in 1933, it is over eight meters (or 27 feet) high, the mountain itself is 1,700 feet above sea level (although the base is already at a height of about 500 feet). In 1933 there was no heavy lifting machinery available so volunteers carried the sacks of cement and sand, the barrels of water, tools and the steel bars all the way up to the top. There is what is referred to as a path to the top today. There isn’t. A path is a smooth track and there is no such thing; only rocks, large and small, many jagged, some smooth, and an occasional patch of mud. What has been done is that the trees and shrubs have been removed for a width of six to ten feet in a zig-zag process meandering up the mountain side until the top. In 1933 they did not even have the benefit of such a ‘path.’    

 

There are bronze images of the 14 Stations of the Cross paced at equal distances all the way up to the top (plus a couple of extra ones and a memorial to Fr Barbaric).

 

We set off, G and I with climbing boots and poles, most of the grannies with a stout stick – while three men and a young lad went barefoot.

We adore you O Christ and we bless you

For by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.

Fr Martin led the prayers at each Station, ending with a beautiful rendering of ‘Were You There when they Crucified my Lord?’

 

memorial to Fr Slavko Barbaric
 

It was hard work. In all, it took us three and a half hours to go up to the top and then come back down – but all the grannies, granpas and youngsters made it. The 11^th to 12^th Station was the most difficult with extra-large rocks that made huge steps necessary.

At the top there was the cross where we said a prayer. We had each carried a small stone from the base – in our hand, not in a bag or pocket - all the way to the top, and now we deposited it with the prayer and left both in the care of Our Lady. Some of the objects left at the cross were sad, the photo of the young boy, presumably dead or very ill, for example, and several of the pilgrims carried personal family burdens with them.

The cross bears a legend: To Jesus Christ, Redeemer of the human race, as a sign of their faith, love and hope, in remembrance of the 1900 years since the death of Jesus.

It was very still and peaceful at the top, a light wind was blowing and there were panoramic views of the surrounding countryside. Many of the pilgrims sat alone, lost in reverie.

view of St James Church from Cross Mountain

 

making the way down the mountain...very carefully!

The route down was quicker but not much easier, it was a different challenge, mostly of keeping balance. All the grannies etc. made it!

 

Sadly, we passed one elderly gent who had fallen and badly hurt his head and his knee. Fifteen minutes later, I counted nine uniformed emergency personnel making their way up the mountain, four carrying a stretcher. I believe they may have been First Aid volunteers from Medjugorje.

When we were in the taxi (5 Euros) back to town, G and I remarked how well we felt; there was not the least fatigue, my bad knees and my painful broken elbow gave me not the slightest trouble on the climb. As we devoured our waiting breakfast with relish, G, who eats sparingly and is famously self-disciplined - and slim as a result - went for seconds. Now, that’s a miracle!

Mass was in the Conference Hall celebrated by an Indian (I think) priest serving in an Irish parish who sang much of the Mass. I’m close to being tone deaf myself but the priest was slightly better. A different priest then offered me the Host from the chalice saying ‘Blood of Christ.’ I thought I was hallucinating – that’s what getting up at 4am does to you – but there was nothing wrong with the local choir (of three persons) who were outstanding, including one lady who both sang and played the violin.

 

Evening Mass at 7pm in Croatian at the outside altar with several thousand present – and an orchestra of 20-25 players plus a choir of 40 – wonderful! The simultaneous radio translation into English kept cutting out – I think my radio is faulty – and I had a problem relating the priest’s introductory remarks about men needing liquid courage to go to a dance with homily remarks about getting closer to Jesus. Never mind, the crowd were commendably devout as usual, and the priests distributed Communion effectively to the vast crowd, several persons on their knees waiting for the wafer. The sense of reverence was palpable.

At 9pm it was completely dark. We met in front of the statue of the Queen of Peace and one of our tour priests blessed our candles and we then processed to the special area set aside for burning candles with its large crucifix faced by rows of candle holders. There are benches behind for supplicants to sit and pray in front of the crucifix as their candles burn. The area is usually very busy – and unusually, everything is carried out in complete silence.

Fr Martin catches up on his sleep after a tough day

Afterwards, the priests led us to another part of the site where there are large tiled representations of each of the Mysteries of Light. As we walked there, a large group passed us, two abreast, holding up their flickering candles and chanting a hymn to Mary in some Slavic Language. Magical. Our own Rosary was special too, the area was silent expect for the chirping of crickets and the distant roar of traffic (chattering Italian worshippers going home were quietened by the tour guide putting a finger to his lips). After each mystery a singer accompanied by her guitar sang a relevant hymn, her beautiful voice shimmering in the air – and this being an Irish audience, soon had a choral accompaniment! Fr Martin, having led one of the mysteries took the opportunity to catch up on some sleep...  

Medjugorje - Day Four

The 6am thunderous clanging of the church bells was accompanied this morning by real thunder and lightning with torrential rain…but by 8am the sun was out, the sky was blue and by 10am the wet streets had dried. 

By 10am the 60 Joe Walsh pilgrims were on a coach for the 30-minute trip to Mostar, the sixth largest town in Bosnia-Herzegovina (B-H), population 110,000, and one that suffered horribly during the 1991-1995 war.

The guide gave us a brief potted history of B-H as we drove along. Basically - as far as I remember it – the Croats originated from the Iraq/Iran area and migrated to this area in the 7^th Century, became Christians in the 9^th century and were conquered by the Turks in the 13^th-14^th centuries. The Turks ruled for several centuries (during which period the Christian Croats were persecuted) until the Austro-Hungarians came along in 1878 and favoured their fellow-Christian Croats. All was well until Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated in Sarajevo (then in Bosnia, now the capital of B-H) and World War One followed. Then World War Two arrived and Yugoslavia rose out of its ashes, ruled by Tito (who also persecuted religion) until the fall of the Communist states and the War of Independence 1991-1995 that split the former Yugoslavia into 7 separate territories (B-H, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia).

The guide had everyone’s rapt attention – not just because the talk was fascinating but because if you looked out of the right hand windows it was a sheer drop of several hundred metres to the valley far below; for 15 minutes the road performed a winding zig-zag along the top of a mountain - and we said the rosary with especial fervour, eyes closed.

We survived and debussed to attend 11am Mass at St Peter & Paul Church, which was destroyed three times – in the first and second world wars and in 1992 during the war of independence – but re-built each time, and now includes a Franciscan monastery and tower whose height makes it a landmark throughout the city.

The church is not completed yet, its walls and barrel vaulting are bare concrete but it has excellent acoustics. Father Joe from our party said Mass, including the Our Father and Hail Mary in Irish Gaelic.

There was a poignant memorial in the entrance - a board with the photographs and personal data of 66 Franciscan priests martyred by the Communist partisan in 1945 because they were religious; the youngest was just 20.

There is still tension between Croatians and Bosniaks, a fellow pilgrim was told that parking a car with a crucifix on the rear view mirror in the ‘Moslem’ area of the city was inviting the paintwork to be scratched. A local guide said that they were determined to forget the horrors of 20 years ago and aggression was now restricted to the supporters of Croatian versus Bosniak football teams...however, I was not completely convinced, if only because supporters of the far-right BPS nationalist party, founded by a Bosnian former Army Commander, sees to want to resume hostilities as suggested by the graffiti below.

Some of the wounds of war...
 

 

After Mass the tour guide took us on a brief tour of the Old Town. As we walked along we could see more buildings still pockmarked by bullet, shell and splinter holes and others that were completely destroyed – although there is a lot of re-building work going on and I assume the worst examples of damage have now been repaired or replaced by modern buildings.

The highlight was viewing the Old Bridge, built by the Turks in 1566 – but completely destroyed in the war in 1993 and rebuilt about 10 years ago; it now has UNESCO World Heritage status. Youths were jumping from the parapet into the river Neretva for small change provided by the crowd of tourists – many of them Koreans – waiting below.

Then we visited the Old Town with its wall-to-wall Middle Eastern bric a brac, familiar to anyone who has visited a souk or Hindu bazaar. There is an old mosque with a minaret providing the best view of the city, open to the public for a small fee. What struck me though was a novel but chillingly apt local souvenir; rifle, handgun and machine gun cartridges welded together to form brass warplanes, tanks or artillery pieces…     

G and I stopped for lunch at Sadrvan Restaurant and ordered what we thought was closest to the local cuisine: bey soup (chicken stock, meat, veg and rather a lot of starch) and a mixed platter of local dishes (fapraka, dalme, Bosnian cookies, small cevap, cevap duvec, boiled potatoes, rice sour cream) and a glass of the local red blatina (not much body but palatable). It all came to a modest Euros 23.69 (£17) for the two of us. A small soft ice cream at the bus station provided dessert.

On the way back we took a different route – but still ended up driving along the edge of precipices. Father Joe led us in the Rosary and then a rendition of ‘O What a Beautiful Morning’ to commemorate the re-building of Mostar. Many with eyes closed lapsed into sleep and the half-hearted attempts at song soon petered out...

outdoor Mass at the Altar behind St James' Church

Evening International Mass in Croatian at 7pm was followed as usual by the Creed and (seven times) Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be.  I believe this was Mary’s favourite prayer according to a message and I think I read somewhere that it was an earlier Franciscan favourite too. As usual there were several thousand people there from the preceding Rosary who attended Mass and then the various prayers and blessings afterwards – a truly impressive sight!

Medjugorje – Day Three

We were wide awake when the tolling church bells shattered the morning quiet at 6am. Half an hour later our group of 60 pilgrims was striding through the fields, past the vineyards, loudly declaring the Sorrowful Mysteries. It was beautiful, the early sun bright but cool, the first stallholders setting out baskets of fruit as we strolled by.

Half an hour later, after passing the home of one of the visionaries (Vicka’s, I think), we began our ascent of Apparition Hill. I must confess that G and I felt a little over-dressed. We had followed instructions and were equipped with proper hill trekking boots and two trekking poles each. The majority of our companions were middle aged and elderly Irish men and women, many without sticks, some wearing sneakers, plimsolls or court shoes, a few barefoot. There were even kids, one girl wearing plastic diamante-decorated plastic sandals. They were dressed for an afternoon stroll while we were ready to ascend the Himalayan foothills!

 

It was incredibly rocky and steep, a few patches of sun-baked mud between the rocks, sharp thorn bushes everywhere else. Our trekking poles were soon put to good use and G soon lent one of her poles to an elderly and overweight lady who was struggling.

 

 

 

Up we climbed, stopping every 50 metres at a plaque illustrating one of the five Joyful Mysteries where we took out our beads and said a decade, led by one of the Irish priests. In 45 minutes or so we had reached the top and veered right to the place where the Virgin Mary allegedly appeared to the visionaries.

 

It was now marked by a statue of the BVM, a copy of the one outside St James’ Church. For the first 20 years of the apparitions, the location was marked by a wooden cross; the Communist authorities occasionally tore it down but the villagers promptly replaced it. The location has a great view over the valley, fields and vineyards to the village of Medjugorje. Many pilgrims knelt and prayed before the statue of Mary or at a nearby crucifix.

We saw two seriously disabled people being carried up in chair-litters, borne aloft by four men, one at each corner. What a wonderful thing to have such caring and practical friends (I suspect their ancestors did the same and removed part of the thatched roof to lower their friend into the room where the great Healer waited!).

G, who has a talent for lightening burdens, had acquired two gardener’s kneeling pads - one Euro each from a local shop - which made sitting on the rocks more comfortable. (They were also invaluable for placing on the wooden kneelers in St James’ Church – if you plan to visit and have a wonky knee or a tender bottom, please acquire a kneeler and a couple of trekking poles – the latter were useful on the way up, invaluable on the way down.)  

After a late gulped breakfast - with a hard-boiled egg takeaway for later - we shot off to 10am English Mass at St James.  

In the afternoon we took taxis (5 Euros for a car of four) to Cennanolo, a community for recovering alcoholics and drug addicts that has a large house and workshops on the outskirts of Medjugorje. The place was absolutely swarming with organised tours of visitors. As we arrived a large group of several dozen was leaving and half an hour later another group arrived. Our lot of 60-70 was treated to a lecture by two former addicts, now part of the community...and invited to visit the gift shop. It was not the most meaningful and informative visit to a charity – but one thing sticks in my memory. Joseph was proud of the fact that many of the addicts who had entered the community had transformed their lives to the extent that several had become priests and nuns. ‘You can recognise the nuns’ he said with a smile ‘- they still have tattoos on the neck and arm.’    

some of the languages in which Confessions may be said

In the early evening I visited the Confessions area; Medjugorje is well known for encouraging examinations of conscience. There were several priests offering Reconciliation in Croatian, Italian, Polish, German and several other languages, including two English confessors. There number of queuing penitents was about 60-70 with the Italians predominating. I joined a queue of merry Irish pilgrims who were joking about the relative severity of priests they knew. In no time at all I was in the confessional, it was face-to-face with a kneeler separating us, and then I was out again, lighter.

St James Church (again)

 

The Outdoor Altar behind St James Church

a portion of the crowd at the evening Rosary said in Croatian

The night ended with Mass in Croatian, followed by Adoration of the Cross. As usual, several thousand attended.