Marija of Medjugorje: Our Lady told us precisely this in the messages ...

MB: Mrs. Pavlovic, let's start with the tragic events of these months. Where was it when the two towers of New York were destroyed?

Marija.:I was just returning from America, where I had gone to a conference. With me there was a Catholic journalist from New York who told me: these catastrophes happen to wake us up, to draw us closer to God. I made fun of him. I told him: you're too catastrophic, don't see so black.

MB: Aren't you worried?

Marija.:I know that Our Lady always gives us hope. On June 26, 1981, on her third appearance, she cried and asked to pray for peace. He told me (that day only appeared to Marija, editor's note) that war can be waged with prayer and fasting.

MB: At that moment, none of you in Yugoslavia thought about war?

Marija: But no! What war? A year had passed since Tito's death. Communism was strong, the situation was under control. Nobody could have imagined that there would be a war in the Balkans.

MB: So it was an incomprehensible message for you?

Marija: Incomprehensible. I only understood this ten years later. On June 25, 1991, on the tenth anniversary of the first apparition of Medjugorje (the first ever is June 24, 1981, but on the 25th is the day of the first apparition to all six visionaries, ed), Croatia and Slovenia proclaimed their separation from the Yugoslav Federation. And the next day, June 26, exactly ten years after that apparition in which Our Lady had cried and told me to pray for peace, the Serbian federal army invaded Slovenia.

MB: Ten years earlier, when you talked about a possible war, had they taken you for fools?

Marija: I believe that no one like us visionaries has ever been visited by so many doctors, psychiatrists, theologians. We have done all possible and imaginable tests. They even questioned us under hypnosis.

MB: Were there non-Catholics among the psychiatrists who visited you?

Marija: Of course. All early doctors were non-Catholics. One was Dr. Dzuda, a communist and Muslim woman, known throughout Yugoslavia. After visiting us, he said, “these guys are serene, intelligent, normal. The mad are the ones who brought them here. "

MB: Were these tests done only in 1981 or did they continue?

Marija: They have always continued, until last year.

MB: How many psychiatrists will have visited it?

Marija: I don't know ... (laughs, editor's note). We visionaries sometimes joke when journalists arrive in Medjugorje and ask us: isn't it that you are mentally ill? We answer: when you have documents that declare you as sane as we have them, come back here and discuss.

MB: Has no one speculated that the apparitions are hallucinations?

Marija: No, it's impossible. Hallucination is an individual phenomenon, not a collective one. And there are six of us. Thanks be to God, Our Lady called us
in six.

MB: How did you feel when you saw that Catholic newspapers like Jesus attacked you?

Marija: For me it was a shock to see that a journalist was able to write certain things without trying to know, to deepen, to meet some of us. Yet I'm in Monza, he shouldn't have done a thousand kilometers.

MB: But you will have put in a quote that not everyone can believe you, right?

Marija: Of course, it's normal for everyone to be free to believe or not. But from a Catholic journalist, given the prudence of the Church, I would not have expected such behavior.

MB: The Church has not yet recognized the apparitions. Is this a problem for you?

Marija: No, because the Church has always behaved this way. As long as the apparitions continue, he cannot pronounce himself.

MB: How long does one of your daily appearances last?

Marija: Five, six minutes. The longest apparition lasted two hours.

MB: Do you always see "La" the same?
Marija: Always the same. Like a normal person who speaks to me, and who we can even touch.

MB: Many object: the faithful of Medjugorje follow the messages that you refer more than the Holy Scriptures.

Marija: But Our Lady in the messages told us just this: "put the Holy Scriptures in plain view in your homes, and read them every day". They also tell us that we adore Our Lady and not God. This too is absurd: Our Lady does nothing but tell us to put God first in our lives. And it tells us to stay in the Church, in the parishes. Those who return from Medjugorje do not become an apostle of Medjugorje: they become a pillar of the parishes.

MB: It is also objected that the messages of Our Lady that you refer to are rather repetitive: pray, fast.

Marija: He evidently found us with a hard head. Obviously he wants to wake us up, because today we pray little, and in life we ​​do not put God in the first place, but other things: career, money ...

MB: None of you have become priests, or nuns. Five of you got married. Does this mean that it is important to have Christian families today?

Marija: For many years I thought that I would become a nun. I had begun to attend a convent, the desire to enter it was very strong. But the mother superior told me: Marija, if you want to come, you are welcome; but if the bishop decides that you must no longer speak of Medjugorje, you must obey. At that point I began to think that perhaps my vocation was to testify what I saw and heard, and that I could also seek the way of holiness outside the convent.

MB: What is holiness for you?

Marija: Live my everyday life well. Become a better mother, and a better bride.

MB: Mrs. Pavlovic, you can say that you don't need to believe: you know. Are you still afraid of something?

Marija: There is always fear. But I can reason. I say: thank God, I have faith. And I know that Our Lady always helps us in difficult times.

MB: Is this a difficult moment?

Marija: I don't think this. I see that the world suffers from many things: war, disease, hunger. But I also see that God is giving us so many extraordinary aids, such as the daily apparitions to me, Vicka and Ivan. And I know that prayer can do anything. When, after the first apparitions, we said that Our Lady invited us to recite the rosary every day and to fast, it seemed to us to be like saying?, Out of date (laughs, ed): even in us the rosary was a tradition outdated by a couple of generations. Yet when the war broke out we understood why Our Lady told us to pray for peace. And we have seen, for example, that in Split, where the archbishop had immediately accepted the message of Medjugorje and had prayed for peace, the war did not come.
It is a miracle for me, said the archbishop. One says: what can a rosary do? nothing. But every night, with the children, we say a rosary for those poor people who are dying in Afghanistan, and for the dead of New York and Washington. And I believe in the power of prayer.

MB: Is this the heart of the Medjugorje message? Rediscover the importance of prayer?

Marija: Yes, but not only this. Our Lady also tells us that war is in my heart if I don't have God, because only in God can peace be found. It also tells us that war is not only where bombs are thrown, but also, for example, in families that fall apart. He tells us to attend Mass, to confess, to choose a spiritual director, to change our lives, to love our neighbor. And it shows us clearly what is sin, because today's world has lost awareness of what is good and what is bad. I think, for example, of how many women abort without realizing what they are doing, because today's culture makes them believe that it is not bad.

MB: Today many believe they are on the verge of a world war.

Marija: I say that Our Lady gives us the possibility of a better world. For example, she said to Mirjana that she is not afraid of having many children. He did not say: do not have children because war will come. He told us that if we start to improve in small everyday things, the whole world will be better.

MB: Many are afraid of Islam. Is it really an aggressive religion?

Marija: I lived in a land that has undergone Ottoman domination for centuries. And even in the past ten years the Croatians have suffered the greatest destruction not from the Serbs, but from the Muslims. I can also think that today's events can serve to open our eyes to certain risks of Islam. But I don't want to throw petrol on the fire. They are not for religious wars. Our Lady tells us that she is the mother of all, without distinctions. And as a seer I say: we must not be afraid of anything, because God always guides history. Also today.