ALLOW ME a break from Maria Valtorta for great news that should make a lot of difference in the lives of followers of the Blessed Mother’s apparitions in Medjugorje. For the first time since the apparitions started in 1981, a Vatican delegation is visiting Medjugorje for a youth festival there this month.
It can be recalled that in May 2018, the Pope named Polish Archbishop Henryk Hoser as his apostolic visitor, after recommendations by a papal commission that Medjugorje should be designated a pontifical shrine with Vatican oversight, and last May the ban on Catholic pilgrimages was lifted under a papal decree.
It is expected that official Church recognition of the supernaturality of the Medjugorje events will be soon.
Over 40,000 apparitions have been claimed over 38 years at Medjugorje, where six teenagers (now adults which families of their own) claim to have first seen the Virgin Mary on 24 June 1981. Vatican’s latest moves concerning Medjugorje is a great boost to believershopefully to nonbelievers, too.
From there, the Blessed Mother reminded humanity: “God exists.” The statement seemed superfluous as her apparitions necessarily presupposes God’s existence, but she must have considered the urgent need to emphasize the existence of God if only boost faith, if not to convince atheists.
And yes, the Vatican’s good eye on Medjugorje also energizes our belief on the events there, a spiritual inoculation against doubt. Consider, for example, what visionary Vicka, who was allowed to see Heaven, revealed about that ultimate Paradise for God’s faithful. Asked about what she saw, she said as follows:
“Heaven is a vast space, and it has a brilliant light which does not leave it. It is a life which we do not know here on earth. We saw people dressed in gray, pink, and yellow robes. They were walking, praying, and singing. Small angels were flying above them. The Blessed Mother showed us how happy these people are.”
Then asked how she knew people in Heaven were happy, Vicka replied: “You can see it on their faces. But it is impossible to describe with words the great happiness I saw in Heaven… In Paradise, when the Blessed Mother passed, everybody responded to Her, and She to them. There was a recognition between them…They were standing there communicating with Her, like in a tunnel, only it wasn’t exactly like a tunnel, but a tunnel is the closest comparison. People were praying, they were singing, they were looking…People in Heaven know the absolute fullness of a created being.”
Such information we get from Medjugorje should make us make a turn from modern awry gospels that are repeated everywhere: “Life is too short,” to imply that take in as much pleasure as we can while on earth since death leads us to utter blankness. It’s a thinking that erases the Church’s doctrine on everlasting life.
Or this modern advocacy: “Love yourself,” as if the world has worsened because humanity has always loved neighbors and so we must now love ourselves. It’s much against the Gospel’s “love your neighbor as yourself.”
Our faith now beefed up by the Vatican, let’s hear the Blessed Mother’s latest message to visionary Mirjana last July 25:
“Dear children! My call for you is prayer. May prayer be a joy for you and a wreath which binds you to God. Little children, trials will come and you will not be strong, and sin will reign but, if you are mine, you will win, because your refuge will be the Heart of my Son Jesus. Therefore, little children, return to prayer until prayer becomes life for you in the day and the night. Thank you for having responded to my call.”
Now we can more confidently live out Medjugorje in our lives. I suggest the forgotten sacrament of Confession among top concerns, just like in Medjugorje.
