What does Medjugorje represent? by Sister Emmanuel

Sr. Emmanuel: Medjugorje? an oasis in the desert.

What does Medjugorje actually represent for those who come to visit it or who live there? We asked SR. EMMANUEL who, as is known, has lived in Medjugorje for several years and is one of the rumors that keeps us updated on what is happening in that "blessed land". “I would like to slightly modify the question and I would say: what should Medjugorje become to satisfy the need of all those pilgrims who come from all over the world? Our Lady said two things about it: "I want to create an oasis of peace here". But we ask ourselves: what is an oasis?

Those who have traveled to Africa or the Holy Land and visited the desert have noticed that the oasis is a place in the middle of the desert where there is water. This underground water gushes to the surface, irrigates the earth and produces an incredible variety of trees with different fruits, fields with colorful flowers ... In the oasis everything that contains a seed has the opportunity to develop and grow. It is a place where there is profound harmony because flowers and trees are created by God. And He gives not only harmony but also abundance! Men can live there peacefully because they have food and drink, as well as animals which, although living in the desert, can drink, feed and give man milk, eggs, etc. It is a place of life! In Medjugorje, in the oasis created by the Madonna herself, I noticed that all sorts of people can find the right food (suitable for her), but can also become in turn a tree that gives fruit to others

OUR WORLD IS A DESERT
Our world today is a desert where young people especially suffer, because they ingest poison every day through the mass media and the bad example of adults. From an early age they assimilate things that can even destroy their soul. Satan walks in this desert. In fact, as we repeatedly read in the Bible, the desert is also the place where the devil is found - and we must fight it if we want to stay with God. God then creates a place in the middle of the desert where you can live in grace and grace , and we know that water is also the symbol of grace.
How does Our Lady see Medjugorje? Like a place where a source of grace flows, "an oasis", as she says in a message: a place where her children can come and drink the pure water that comes from the side of Christ. Blessed water, holy water. Every time I pray in the grove next to my house and a group of pilgrims join me, known as they slowly change. I could take a picture before and after praying the rosary and demonstrate how their faces change: they don't even look like the same people!
Here in Medjugorje there is an incredible grace for prayer. Our Lady wishes to give it to us and wants us, inhabitants or pilgrims of the village, to become fruits, good to eat, to give ourselves to others who are still in the desert, hungry and thirsty.

THE ENEMY OF MEDJUGORJE

We must protect this oasis because the devil is very active here, it insinuates itself among the people who want to fight together and breaks harmony, unity. He would also like to remove the water, but he cannot do it because it comes from God, and God is God! On the other hand, it can soil the water, it can disturb, prevent pilgrims from immersing themselves in prayer, listening to the messages of the Madonna, making sure that they remain on a superficial level and get lost in distractions. "Satan wants to turn pilgrims into curious ones".
People who do not look for the Madonna but only fun come to Medjugorje. It comes from nearby centers, from Citluk, Ljubuski, Mostar, Sarajevo, Split, etc. because they know that in Medjugorje there is a concentration of the world like never before in this region. Then there are those who want to receive something from their stay in Medjugorje, but much depends on the way they are prepared by the guides. I have seen so many groups returning home without knowing almost anything about what really happens here. The reason is that they did not pray well and dispersed in a thousand laps, without receiving the true message of Medjugorje and the touch of grace. These are anxious because they want to photograph everything and everyone. But so they cannot immerse themselves in prayer! Everything however depends on the spiritual ability and depth of the guide. How beautiful it is when it has only one purpose: to guide souls towards conversion and true peace of heart!

THE PLACE OF THE MEETING

Someone wonders why, here in Medjugorje, vocational retreats or courses of Sacred Scripture are not organized - all of which, among other things, Our Lady encourages. I think that Medjugorje is a place where we simply meet the Madonna and learn to pray. Then at home, after having lived this beautiful meeting, Mary will say through prayer how to continue. There is everything in the world and, if you are looking, you will find where you can deepen what you have received here in Medjugorje.
Perhaps in the future different initiatives will be born, but so far Our Lady has wanted to carry out the simple meeting with her. People need their mother, they need to be in a place where they heal themselves internally and physically. You arrive as an orphan and you become a child of the Madonna.
My invitation is this: come to Medjugorje, go to the mountains, ask Our Lady to visit you, because this is a place of daily visitation. She will do it, even if you will not feel it with your external senses. His visit will come and maybe you will realize it at home when you find yourself changed.
Mary wants us to live the encounter with her maternal Heart, with her tenderness, with her love for Jesus. Come here in the arms of the Mother and all solitude will end. There is no longer room for despair because we have a Mother who is also queen, a Mother who is also very beautiful and powerful. Here you will walk differently because there is Mother: here you take his hand and you will never leave it.

MOTHER TERESA HOLDS HER HAND

One day Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who longed to come to Medjugorje, told an episode from her childhood to Bishop Hnilica (Rome), who asked her what she attributed her great success to: "When I was 5 years old," she replied, I walked with my mother through the fields, towards a village a little distant from ours. I was holding mom's hand and was happy. At one point my mother stopped and said to me: “You took my hand and you feel safe because I know the way. In the same way you must always look at your hand in that of Our Lady, and she will always guide you on the right path in your life. Never let go of his hand! " And I did it! This invitation was printed in my heart and in my memory: in my life I always held Maria's hand ... Today I don't regret having done it! ". Medjugorje is the right place to grab Mary's hand, the rest will come later. This is such a profound encounter, it is almost a psycho-affective shock and not just a spiritual one, because in a world where mothers are in front of a computer or away from home, families break up or risk breaking. Men are increasingly in need of the Heavenly Mother.

MORE THANKS TO THE VISIONARIES

So, let's organize this meeting with our Mother, read the messages and at the moment of the apparition, let's open ourselves internally. In Vicka, Our Lady said, speaking of the moment of the apparition to the visionaries: “When I come, I give you graces as I have never given to anyone so far. But I want to give these same graces to all my children who open their hearts to my coming ”. We cannot then be envious of the visionaries, because if when she appears we open our hearts we receive the same graces, indeed even more grace than them, because I have the blessing of believing without seeing, (and they no longer have that because they see!)

A BOUQUET, A MOSAIC - IN THE UNIT

Every time we open our hearts and welcome the Madonna, she does her maternal work of purification, encouragement, tenderness and chases away evil. If everyone who visits or lives in Medjugorje lives this, then we will become what the Queen of Peace told us: an oasis, a bouquet of flowers where there is all the possible range of colors and a mosaic.
Each small piece of the mosaic, if it is in the right place, creates a wonderful thing; if instead the pieces mix together, everything becomes ugly. We must therefore all work for unity, but that unity centered on the Lord and his Gospel! If someone intends to create unity around him, if he feels the center of unity to be created, it becomes a false, all-human thing that cannot last.!
Unity is done only with Jesus and not by chance. Maria said: “Worship my Son in the SS. Sacramento, fall in love with the Blessed Sacrament on the altar, because when you adore my Son you are united with the whole world "(September 25, 1995). He could have said more, but Our Lady said this because worship is what unites us in truth and divinely. Here is the real key to ecumenism!
If we live the Eucharist in all its aspects with the heart, if we make Holy Mass the center of our life, then in Medjugorje we will truly create this oasis of peace dreamed of by Our Lady, not only for us Catholics, but for everyone! To our thirsty young people and to our anguished and deeply troubled world for what they lack, then water, food, beauty and divine grace will never fail.

Source: Eco di Maria nr. 167