Medjugorje: are the visionaries credible? Who they are, their mission

I had the opportunity to get to know the visionaries of Medjugorje when they were still boys. Now they are now trained men and women, each with his own family, except Vicka who lives in his family of origin, dedicating his day to welcoming the pilgrims. There is no doubt that the most eloquent sign of Our Lady's presence in Medjugorje is precisely these six young people to whom she asked much, entrusting them with a mission which by its nature requires great generosity. Any person with common sense should ask himself how six children, different from each other and each with their own lives, despite a basic cordiality that unites them, to witness for such a long time the daily appearance of the Mother of God, without ever having contradiction, without loss and without second thoughts. At the time, scientific experiments were carried out by teams of well-known doctors, which led to the exclusion of any form of hallucination and confirmed the inexplicability, from a purely scientific point of view, of the phenomena related to the apparitions. It seems that on one occasion Our Lady said that such experiments were not necessary. Indeed, simply observing the psychological normality of the children, their balance and progressive human and spiritual maturation over time is enough to conclude that they are completely reliable witnesses.

An English proverb states that to get to know a person well you have to eat a quintal of salt together. I wonder how many sacks of salt the inhabitants of Medjugorje have consumed together with these boys. I have never heard a local person doubt them. Yet how many mothers and fathers would have wished that one of their son or daughter would be chosen as witnesses of the Virgin Mary! In which country of the world are there no rivalries, small jealousies and conflicts of interest? However no one in Medjugorje has ever doubted that Our Lady chose these six and not others. There have never been other visionary candidates among the boys and girls of Medjugorje. Dangers of this kind have never come from outside.

Above all we must acknowledge the families of Bijakovici, the hamlet of Medjugorje from where the visionaries originate, of having disciplined the choices of the Gospa, as the Madonna is called there, without murmurs and without ever questioning them. Satan, to weave his tortuous intrigues, has always had to resort to foreign people, finding the locals waterproof.

Time passes is a great gentleman. If something goes wrong, sooner or later it comes to light. The truth has long legs and this can be seen by examining with serenity a period that is now approaching twenty years of daily apparitions. Among other things, it is the most difficult age of life, that of adolescence and youth, from fifteen to thirty years of age. Stormy age subject to the most unpredictable evolutions. Who has children knows very well what it means.

Yet the boys of Medjugorje have traveled this long path without fogging or eclipses of faith and without moral disbandments. Those who know the facts well know what burdens they had to endure from the beginning, when the communist regime persecuted them in various ways, stalking them, preventing the apparitions from climbing to the mountain and even trying to pass them off as mentally ill people. It was basically just boys. They thought it was enough to intimidate them. I once saw a secret police blitz that took Vicka and Marija away for questioning. The climate of the early years was full of threats. The daily encounter with the Heavenly Mother has always been the real force that has supported them.

Add to this the hostility of the local bishop, whose attitude, however you want to evaluate it, has represented and still represents a heavy cross to carry. One of the visionaries once told me, almost crying: "The bishop says I am a liar". Stuck in the side of Medjugorje remains a thorn constituted by the hostile attitude of some ecclesiastical circles and only God knows why in his wise direction he wanted the parish, and first of all the visionaries, to carry this cross.

It has been years of sailing in the waves of a rather rough ocean. But all this is nothing in the face of the daily effort of welcoming pilgrims. From the early days of the apparitions, thousands flocked from all over Croatia and beyond. Then began the unstoppable flood of visitors from all over the world. Starting from the early hours of the morning the houses of the visionaries were besieged by all kinds of people who prayed, questioned, cried and above all hoped that the Madonna would bend over their needs.

Since 1985 I have spent all my holidays, one month a year, in Medjugorje to help some visionaries in welcoming pilgrims. From morning to evening these boys, and especially Vicka and Marija, welcomed the groups, testified the messages, listened to the recommendations, prayed together with the people. Tongues mingled, hands intertwined, tickets of requests for Our Lady accumulated, the sick begged, the most agitated, first of all, of course, the Italians, almost attacking the houses of the visionaries. I wonder how families have been able to resist amid this relentless siege.

Then, towards evening, when people swarmed towards the church, here is finally the moment of prayer and apparition. An invigorating stop without which we could not have gone on. But then here is the dinner to prepare, friends, relatives and acquaintances invited to the table to serve, the dishes to wash and finally, almost always, the prayer group until late at night.

Which young man could have resisted this type of life? Which would face it? Who wouldn't have lost his psychological balance? Yet after many years you find yourself in front of serene, calm and balanced people, certain of what they say, humanly understanding, aware of their mission. They have their limitations and flaws, fortunately, but they are simple, clear and humble. The six boys are the first and most precious sign of Our Lady's presence in Medjugorje.

THE GROUP COMPONENTS

On the first day, June 24, 1981, four of us saw the Madonna: Ivanka, Mirijana, Vicka and Ivan. Milka, Marija's sister, also saw her, but the day after the first four Marija and Jakov joined; while Milka was at work, and the group you so complete. Our Lady considers the feast day of St. John the Baptist to be a day of preparation, while the anniversary of the apparitions must be considered on June 24. Starting from 25, Our Lady began to send messages every 1987 of the month, as if to underline the particular meaning of this day which recalls the great holidays of the Annunciation and Christmas. The Mother of God appeared on the Podbrdo hill at whose feet are the houses of Bijakovici, while the visionaries were on the road that many pilgrims now travel to go to the "Field of Life" of the boys of Sister Elvira. Our Lady motioned for them to come closer, but they were paralyzed by fear and joy together. In the next days. The apparitions moved to the present place of the mountain and, despite the stony ground and the dense bushes of pungent thorns, the encounters with the Madonna took place at close range, while an increasing number of people, counted in the thousands, crowded around. Since that June 25 the group of visionaries has remained unchanged, although only three of them have apparitions every day. In fact, Mirijana has ceased to have daily apparitions since Christmas 25 and meets the Madonna every March 1982, the day of her birthday.

In turn, Ivanka meets the Madonna every June 25, since the daily visions ended for her on May 7, 1985. Jakov ceased the daily apparitions on September 12, 1998 and will have the apparition of the Madonna every Christmas. However, it should be noted that the Gospa moves very freely with the visionaries, in the sense that these indications are not binding on her. For example, Vicka asked six times for a break in the apparitions (four forty and two forty-five days), as a sacrifice to offer. I noticed that the six boys chosen by the Madonna, despite having rather rare contacts between them and being now scattered in different parts of the world, feel a compact group. They have a lot of respect for each other and I have never caught them in contradiction. They are perfectly aware of having the same experience, even if everyone has their own personal way of witnessing it. At times they have been approached to the six visionaries of the local people with charisms of another nature, such as the inner locutions. These are very different phenomena and ranging from the daily apparitions and meets the Madonna kept separate. The Church on the other hand pronounces on the apparitions, while it does not examine the origin of the inner locutions.

There were not even visionaries who came from outside, who claimed to join the boys. One of the dangers that unsuspecting pilgrims may incur is that some prestigious personages present as coming from Our Lady of Medjugorje from the messages he draws from many other sources or from other supposed visionaries, which have nothing to do with the six boys who are the recipients of the apparitions. . A lack of clarity on this point by those who have a duty to supervise on the spot could harm the cause of Medjugorje itself.

Our Lady has constantly protected her six "angels", as she called them in the early days, and has always prevented the attempts cleverly studied by satan, the indefatigable forger, to alter the group, adding or replacing the components. The Church then made it clear from the beginning, as the bishop first and the commission of the Croatian Bishops' Conference then limited the scope of their investigation to the testimonies of the group formed by the Mother of God on June 25, 1981.

On this point it is necessary to have very clear ideas. For her great plan Maria has chosen a concrete parish and six boys who live there. These are his decisions, which must be respected, as the locals demonstrate on the other hand. Any attempt to change the cards on the table must be ascribed to the eternal deceiver who operates, as always, through human ambitions.

THE MISSION OF THE SIX SEERS

By attending the visionaries of Medjugorje I was able to see their great joy, lasting over time, for having been chosen by Mary. Who wouldn't be? They realize that they have received a great grace, but at the same time they carry a big responsibility on their shoulders. As in La Salette, Lourdes and Fatima, the Mother of God has shown that she chooses the poor, the small and the simple for the great tasks. The social and family context of these apparitions is very similar. These are peasant families from very poor places, where, however, a firm and sincere faith is still alive.

Now the social situation in Medjugorje has improved. The influx of pilgrims and their reception in homes has brought some well-being. The construction activity gave value to the land. Most families, including those of the visionaries, have restored or built their homes. Home and work are part of the daily bread that every Christian asks Heavenly Father for.

The parish has considerably strengthened its reception structures, thanks to the offerings of the pilgrims. However, the overall picture is not that of wealth, but of a dignified life, where the only work available is linked to pilgrimages.

At the beginning the situation was very different. The context was that of hard peasant work and gray and stunted poverty. Our Lady loves to choose her most precious collaborators in these environments. She herself was a small girl from an unknown village when God showed her his predilection. There remains a mystery hidden in the heart of Mary so that her gaze has rested on this parish and precisely on these children.

We are led to think that particular gifts should be deserved and that their recipients are favorites. When we receive graces or special charisms we ask ourselves: "But what have I done to deserve it?". From that moment we look at each other, trying to discover merits that we didn't know we had. In reality God chooses his instruments with sovereign freedom and on many occasions taking them from the garbage.

Graces of this type are undeserved and the real problem is to correspond with fidelity and humility, in the awareness that others in our place could do better than us. On the other hand, Our Lady herself has stressed on several occasions that each of us has an important place in God's plan for the salvation of the world.

When asked by the visionaries why she chose them, Our Lady replied making them understand that they were neither better nor worse than the others. Also as regards the election of the parishioners, the Virgin wanted to emphasize that she had chosen them as they were (24.05.1984), that is, with their positive and negative aspects. In these answers the criterion of normality seems to emerge. The boys chosen by Maria were not even among the most fervent in terms of religious practice. Many others attended church more than they did. On the other hand, it is known that Bernadette had been excluded from the first communion for deficiencies in the knowledge of the catechism.

We also know how hastily the shepherd children of Fatima prayed the rosary before the apparitions. In La Salette the situation is even more precarious, because the two visionaries do not even recite the morning and evening prayers.

Whoever receives a task also receives the graces necessary to fulfill it. Our Lady sees hearts and knows how to make the best of each of us. He entrusted to the boys of Medjugorje a mission whose breadth and importance have not yet fully manifested. It has never happened in public appearances that the Virgin asked for such an intense and prolonged commitment, such as to absorb the whole life of a person. At the crucial passage of the millennium, it will be almost two decades that Our Lady asks the boys to meet with her every day and to witness her presence and her message before the world.

It is a task that demands loyalty, courage, a spirit of sacrifice, perseverance and perseverance. We wonder if this extraordinary mission entrusted to very young people is fulfilled well. In this regard, the answer is adult, they responded in the best way. God does not expect them to come to forced heights of holiness. The two shepherd children of La Salette will never be raised to the honors of the altars. Their lives have been quite troubled. However, they perfectly fulfilled their mission in the greatest fidelity, remaining loyal to the end to their testimony on the message received.

Saints also have their flaws. Let alone young people still at the beginning of the spiritual journey. Two fundamental virtues count in this type of mission: humility and faithfulness. The first is the evangelical awareness of being useless and defective servants. The second is the courage to bear witness to the gift received, without ever denying it. The visionaries of Medjugorje, as I know them, despite their limitations and defects, are humble and faithful. Only God knows how holy they are. This on the other hand is true for everyone. Holiness is a long journey that we are called to follow up to the last moment of life.

I was very impressed with what biographers tell about Saint Joan of Arc. After she had avoided the stake by signing an abjuration document, on the other hand urged by the ecclesiastical college that judged her, the internal "voices" from which she was guided warned her that if she had not witnessed the mission that God had entrusted to her, she would have lost eternally.

Our Lady can be very happy with the teenagers she chose long ago. They are now adults, fathers and mothers of families, but every day they welcome her and bear witness to her in a world often distracted, incredulous and mocking.

Someone wonders why five of the six witnesses of the apparitions married, while none has completely consecrated himself to God according to the ordinary ways of the Church. Only Vicka did not marry, devoting herself full time to witnessing the messages, but as far as her future is concerned, she completely relies on the will of God, without making predictions.

In this regard it should be noted that from the earliest times of the apparitions, Our Lady replied to the visionaries who asked for advice on the choice of their own state that it would be good to consecrate themselves completely to the Lord, but that they were free to choose. Indeed, Ivan went to the seminary, but was unable to progress because of the gaps in his studies. Marija in turn longed to enter a convent, without however having internal certainty on the way that God indicated to her. In the end, five out of six chose for marriage, which is, let us not forget, an ordinary way of holiness, which today in particular needs witnesses. It is an orientation certainly foreseen by heaven and which, if you think about it, allows the visionaries that availability to the plans of Mary which they could not enjoy in the rigid structures of consecrated life. Our Lady is concerned that the boys chosen by her are witnesses of her presence before the Church and the world and their current situation is probably the most suitable for the purpose.