Sun setting on "Apparition Hill" –— Medjugorje, Bosnia-Herzegovina
IT was my fourth, and last day in Medjugorje—that little village in the war-torn mountains of Bosnia-Herzegovina where the Blessed Mother has allegedly been appearing to six children (now, grown adults).
I had heard of this place for years, yet never felt the need to go there. But when I was asked to sing in Rome, something within me said, "Now, now you must go to Medjugorje."
I had a few hours before the cab ride back to the airport. I decided to climb "Apparition Hill", a rugged terrain which leads up to the spot where the Medjugorje seers say the Blessed Mother appeared to them. I began the journey over jagged rocks, passing several groups praying the Rosary in Italian. I finally came to a place where a beautiful statue of Mary, The Queen of Peace, stood. I knelt down among the stones, and began to pray the prayer of the Church, the Liturgy of the Hours.
In the Second Reading from the pastoral constitution on the Church in the modern world (Second Vatican Council), I read:
We must all undergo a change of heart. We must look out on the whole world and see the tasks that we can all do together to promote the well-being of the family of man. We must not be misled by a false sense of hope. Unless antagonism and hatred are abandoned, unless binding and honest agreements are concluded, safeguarding universal peace in the future, mankind, already in grave peril, may well face in spite of its marvelous advance in knowledge that day of disaster when it knows no other peace than the awful peace of death. —Gaudium et spes, nn. 82-83; Liturgy of the Hours, Volume IV, Pg. 475-476.
This is a document of Vatican II. And here I knelt beneath the Queen of Peace, who has allegedly come to this little patch of earth to announce that we need to pray for peace, and that this peace will only come through a change of hearts. I read on…
In saying this, however, the Church of Christ, living as it does in the midst of these anxious times, continues unwaveringly in hope. Time and again, in season and out of season, it seeks to proclaim to our age the message of the Apostle: Now is the hour of God’s favor, the hour for a change of heart; now is the day of salvation.
I sat back on the rocks and took a deep breath. Anyone who knows the messages of Medjugorje knows that Mary has repeatedly said, "This is a time of grace." Anyone who has read my own meditations here (The Trumpets of Warning!) knows that I have written this as well with an urgency. It just seemed to me an enormous coincidence. Whether or not one believes in the apparitions of Medjugorje, we are certainly obligated to heed the words of the Magisterium.
Now is the hour of God’s favor, the hour for a change of heart; now is the day of salvation.
As I walked back down the hill, I was filled once again with a sense that the time is short. That if these apparitions are happening, they may soon be coming to an end.
While on my flight back to North America, one of the visionaries in Medjugorje allegedly had an apparition with Mary once again. And this was her message:
"Dear children, my coming to you, my children, is God’s love. God is sending me to warn you and to show you the right way. Do not shut your eyes before the truth, my children. Your time is a short time. Do not permit delusions to begin to rule over you. The way on which I desire to lead you is the way of peace and love. This is the way which leads to my Son, your God. Give me your hearts that I may put my Son in them and make my apostles of you — apostles of peace and love. Thank you!" —Monthly message to Medjugorje seer, Mirjana Soldo, as translated from Croatian
