Medjugorje: the visionary Jelena speaks of her experience with the Madonna

 

Jelena Vasilj, 25, who studies theology in Rome, on holidays in Medjugorje often turns to pilgrims with the knowledge we know, to which she now also adds theological precision. So he spoke to the young people of the Festival: My experience is different from that of the six visionaries ... We visionaries are the testimony that God calls us personally. In December 1982 I had the experience of my Guardian Angel, and later of the Madonna who spoke to me in the heart. The first call was the call to conversion, to purity of heart to be able to welcome Mary's presence ...

The other experience is on prayer and I will only speak to you about this today. In all this time what has been most encouraging has been that God calls us and then reveals himself as the One who is, the one who was, and who will always be. The first belief is that God's faithfulness is eternal. This means that it is not only we who seek God, it is not only loneliness that drives us to seek him, but God himself is the first who found us. What does Our Lady ask us? That we seek God, asks for our faith, and faith is the practice of our heart and not just one thing! God speaks in the Bible a thousand times, speaks of the heart and asks for the conversion of the heart; and the heart is this place where He wants to enter, it is the place of decision, and for this reason Our Lady in Medjugorje asks us to pray with the heart, which means deciding and giving oneself totally to God ... When we pray with the heart, we give ourselves. The heart is also the life that God gives us, and that we see through prayer. Our Lady tells us that prayer is true only when it becomes the gift of oneself; and again that when the encounter with God causes us to thank him, this is the most evident sign that we have encountered him. We see this in Mary: when she receives the Angel's invitation and visits Elizabeth, then thanksgiving, praise is born in her Heart.

Our Lady tells us to pray for the blessing; and this Blessing was the sign that we had received the gift: that is, that we were pleasing to God. Our Lady showed us different forms of prayer, for example the Rosary ... The prayer of the Rosary is very valid because it includes an important element: repetition. We know that the only way to be virtuous is to repeat the name of God, to always have him present. For this reason, saying the Rosary means penetrating the mystery of heaven, and at the same time, renewing the memory of the mysteries, we enter the grace of our salvation. Our Lady convinced us that after the prayer of the lips there is meditation and then contemplation. An intellectual search for God is fine, but it is important that prayer does not remain intellectual, but goes a little further; must go to the heart. And this further prayer is the gift that we have received and which allows us to encounter God. This prayer is silence. Here the word lives and bears fruit. The brightest example of this silent prayer is Mary. What primarily allows us to say yes is humility. The greatest difficulty in prayer is distraction and also spiritual laziness. Here too it is only faith that can help us. I must gather and ask God to give me a great faith, a strong faith. Faith gives us to know the mystery of God: then our heart opens. As for spiritual laziness there is only one remedy: asceticism, the cross. Our Lady calls us to see this positive aspect of renunciation. She does not ask us to suffer in order to suffer, but to give space to God. Fasting must also become love and bring us to God and allow us to pray. Another element of our growth is community prayer. The Virgin always told us that prayer is like a flame and all together we become a great force. The Church teaches us that our adoration must not only be personal, but communal and calls us to come together and grow together. When God reveals himself in prayer, he reveals to us ourselves and also to mutual communion. Our Lady places the Holy Mass above all prayers. She told us that at that moment the sky descends to earth. And if after so many years we do not understand the greatness of the Holy Mass, we cannot understand the mystery of the Redemption. How has Our Lady guided us in these years? It was only a path in peace, in reconciliation to God the Father. The good we have received is not owned by us and therefore it is not just for us ... She referred us to our pastor to start a prayer group and she also promised to lead us herself and asked us to pray together for four years. In order for this prayer to be rooted in our lives, first he asked us to meet once a week, then twice, then three times.

1. The meetings were very simple. Christ was at the center, we had to say the rosary of Jesus, which is focused on the life of Jesus in order to understand the Christ. Each time he asked us for repentance, the conversion of the heart and if we had difficulties with people, before coming to pray, ask for forgiveness.

2. Afterwards our prayer became more and more a prayer of renunciation, abandonment and gift of ourselves, in which all our difficulties had to be given to God: this for a quarter of an hour. Our Lady called us to give our whole person and belong totally to her. After that the prayer became a prayer of thanksgiving and ended with the blessing. The Our Father is the essence of all our relationships with God and each meeting ended with the Our Father. Instead of the Rosary we said seven Pater, Ave, Gloria especially for those who guide us.

3. The third meeting of the week was for dialogue, exchange between us. Our Lady gave us the theme and we talked about this theme; Our Lady told us that in this way she gave herself to each of us and shared our experience and that God enriched each of us. The most important thing is spiritual accompaniment. He asked us for a spiritual guide because, to understand the dynamics of the spiritual life, we must understand the inner voice: that inner voice that we must seek in prayer, that is, the will of God, the voice of God in our heart.