Virtual Pilgrimage to Medjugorje

[Music] [Applause] praise be jesus and mary i welcome all of you to our virtual tour of metrogloria there are so many of you who wanted to come here in past 10 months but unfortunately we cannot travel so we decided to bring medjugorje to your homes to your houses and together we are going to visit the apparition hill blue cross cross mountain together we are going to walk through the history and we are going to share things some things about medjugorje you were not able to hear before as you can see i'm standing at the very heart of the parish of metrogloria which is not the heart of this parish but as john paul ii said the world's spiritual heart 40 years ago our lady appeared to six visionaries here in metrogloria according to their testimonies our lady is still appearing from six of them three of them still receive the apparitions on a daily basis and the other three have annual apparitions a different time of the year for each one of them and this is the gift which is going to last till the end of their lives 40 years ago our lady introduced herself as a queen of peace and she invited us all to return to god let's take a little walk the statistics say that over 30 million people have visited metrogloria they brought their broken hearts they came here looking for god's love they came here to find their lost hope they lost faith and they found it all pope's apostolic visitator archbishop hoser calls me gloria the spiritual lung of europe he said in this very place one discovers god's existence in his life in this very place we find out we discover that god's desires to be present in our life [Music] my [Music] the parish of medjugorje was formed in 1892 and it was consecrated to saint james saint james patron saint of pilgrims we can recall that the first apparitions occurred in the history occurred in this little town in spain called zaracoza to send james during that apparition time our lady told him that she came to encourage him and to help him and she asked him to build a church on that very place the apparition resulted with the first church dedicated to marry our lady of pillar when we compare that event which occurred 1981 years ago we can connect to medjugorje and we can say that still our lady is coming and telling us to be brave that she's coming to help us all when we listen to the heartbeat of metrogloria we can say that through the years it became stronger and stronger first of all because of the holy sacraments we live here in medjugorje and today i can say that medjugorje truly became the pillar of roman catholic church let's enter to saint james church to say a little prayer [Music] so [Music] so [Music] the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit amen our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil amen hail mary full of grace the lord is with thee blessed are thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb jesus holy mary mother of god pray for us sinners now with yahweh hour death amen glory be to the father and to the son and to the holy spirit as it was in the beginning it's now and ever shall be world without end amen our lady queen of peace pray for us in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit amen [Music] the construction of santa james church started in 1935. those were the years of poverty and at the time the parish was very very small citizens of five villages of the parish of medjugorje decided to place the church in a center in the middle of the field so that walking distance from each village was about the same church was built by their bare heads but we also say that it was built with and out of love it took them 35 years to finish the church it was consecrated and opened to the public in 1969 all of this area you see around the church was added after the apparition started in 80s and the 90s i told you that the church was too big at the time it was finished but as the years went by the years of the apparitions we find too small and all of this area you see around the church was added afterwards on both sides of the church there are these confessionals we say medjugorje is great because of the holy sacraments we live here and all of those priests who came to medjugorje the confessional of the world every evening then they come here to hear confessions i'm bringing you to the statue of saint leopold mandic who was capuchin franciscan croatian and who spent most of his lifetime in padova in italy they say that he was the greatest confessor during his lifetime people were waiting in line to go to confession to him they say they were waiting longer than 12 hours when his brother's priest asked him how come that he was not hungry or thirsty during those hours he would not take a sip of water he told them how can i be hungry when there are so many people who thirst for the absolution he was canonized by john paul ii in 1983 and we say that the franciscans placed him here on purpose next to the confessionals because all of us believe if you have any problems with confessions you come here to send leopold mandic and he always intercedes for you the building on my left hand side is the adoration chapel the parish of medjugorje is trying that every language group gets the holy mess in their mother's tongue in the morning but if you decide to spend some quiet time in medjugorje if you decide to spend some quiet time with jesus you'll find out that every afternoon the blessed sacrament is exposed the outside altar was finished in 1990. the crowds of majogoria became huge so they ended all of these benji's in last 40 years it happened many times that you were not able to find the seeds in this area here but it's beautiful to come here in the summer to see on those wide benches in front of me all of those priests who come from all over the world who can celebrate the evening services the evening mess here in metro gloria the biggest crowd i remember was here two years ago during the week of you festival when over 700 preschool celebrated the evening services [Music] so [Music] do [Music] so [Music] so [Music] the area we are walking right now used to be a tobacco field there was a huge vineyard in this area here in 2006 the parish of medjugorje finished this area here and if you look to my right hand side you will be able to see mosaics which represent the luminous mysteries of the rosary very often the groups and individuals come here during the day to recite the rosary which is one of the most important messages of our lady of mejori she asked us to pray the rosary on a daily basis and this beautiful alley leads to the special place which is also visited by thousands of pilgrims who come to major glory [Music] do [Music] this is one of the places of prayer we have here in metrogloria i brought you to the statue of risen christ which was placed here in 1998. it is the work of slovenian artist andre isaac and there are actually two stories the way the artist was inspired to make the statue the first one says that he was working with clay he pushed the cross which fell down and left the print on that clay he was working on the other one which i like the better says that he was praying the rosary on slovenian beach and while he was praying the rosary fell by mistake by coincidence on the ground and the cross of the rosary left the print on the sand and it finished up standing vertical to the ground you see the cross standing on the ground and also you see jesus who represents at the same time the moment of crucifixion but also the moment of triumph his victory over the death on jesus's clothes it says in latin i'm risen i'm with you again hallelujah around the statue behind this green fence there are the stations of the cross for all of those who are not able to climb to the cross mountain in 2001 when we celebrated the 20th anniversary of the apparitions of our lady of medjugorje this bronze statue started losing the liquid so far church has never given any statement about this event some famous people some scientists came here and they studied this event professor of padova university giuliano fanti a shroud scholar came to me gloria and he studied this what we know is that to the certain point after the jesus feet the statue is filled up with cement and he did some calculations he said the amount of water which comes out the statue during one day is about one liter which is 33 times more than it would be if we are talking about condensation of this bronze statue the liquid which comes out 99 percent is the water and we find the traces of all those of all those minerals we find in the regular water the question is is jesus able to perform the miracles through the regular water when we think about our ladies of lords and the water and the miracles which occur over there also happen just through the regular normal water if you ask me what i think about this i'm going to quote uh father svetozar kralevich who used to live here in metro gloria and he said if i tell you it's a miracle i might not be right but if i tell you it's not miracle i might not be right either anyway thousands of pilgrims during the day come here they buy those hankies and as a present they wipe the liquid and as a present they take them back to their houses [Music] saint james church opens every morning with croatian 7 30 mass it closes late in the evening after the evening program we encourage people to attend the evening program because sitting to the pilgrims coming from all different corners of the world saying the same prayers you do you can feel the unity of the church jesus left to all of us why evening program if the operations took place in the morning it would be morning program but the apparitions are in the late afternoon that's why we have evening program father jose's old co was a pastor of metrogory when the apparition started those first couple days of the apparitions he was not in medjugorje when he arrived the police was already in town and he says that he was disturbed because that saturday afternoon thousand people went to the apparition hill and nobody came to church the next morning on sunday's mess father jose invited locals to come to church in the evening for the mess at six o'clock he was afraid that the children were not telling the truth lots of people came earlier than six o'clock and father you also started the rosary then the visionaries came they had the apparition in the church during that apparition time our lady asked us through the visionaries to pray the rosary before mass this is the way of preparation for the holy mass preparation for holy eucharist our way to say our own fiat as the virgin did we pray the rosary that we have strength to recognize jesus from that third of july till today the prayer has never stopped nothing or nobody has stopped the evening program nor the years of war nor the pandemic for the 40th anniversary of the apparitions we are going to remember those first days of major gorion to talk to some local people they are private and frankly speaking it took us a lot of time to make them to speak before the camera and when you ask the priest what is the greatest gift of mejori they are going to tell you conversions and vocations thousands of young people received vocation call in medjugorje [Music] good morning dear pilgrims we would like to share also a little bit more about history of the area where medjugorje is to put medjugorje in some kind of a geographical and a historical perspective for you so we what we can say about medjugorje is that it is a little perish still a little perish on the far south of a country today called bosnia and herzegovina to be more exact medjugorje is situated in herzegovina the rocky very mediterranean climate looking part of the country and herzegovina by its um population is predominantly a christian area on the east of herzegovina we have or people who respect the orthodox through the christian tradition and here on the western herzegovina we have predominantly roman catholic population so medjugorje uh is a parish that we don't know a lot of about its past especially about the past that happened prior to the mid 15th century when this area was conquered by the ottoman empire we have some information that medjugorje as a place existed prior to the ottoman conquest but we don't know whether medjugorje was parish a village few houses or anything bigger or smaller medjugorje as a parish as you well already know was founded in 1892 and the people were able to practice their faith after four centuries of not being able to during the ottoman rule medjugor the whole area of bosnia and herzegovina was deprived of churches was deprived of a liberty to profess the the christian faith openly so after the departure of the ottoman empire the church was able to re-establish its hierarchy here in this area as well so medjugorje becomes a parish in 1892 as i said and the first church that was built in medjugorje was not the one that we see behind my back although this is something very recognizable now as the church of saint james but rather a smaller church that was built few years after the establishment of the parish itself so prior to the foundation of the parish of medjugorje medjugorje belonged to a much bigger parish its center being in a small village to the north from medjugorje called gradnichi and after uh the parish of medjugorje was officially founded the people decided that it is of course appropriate to build their own church they chose saint james as their patron saint and they've as i said few years after the foundation of the church they were able to complete the first church unfortunately the first church of saint james does not exist anymore it was built on an unstable soil so few decades after its completion people the local people they they've noticed that the church itself is not as it should be so they had to unfortunately abandon the original site where the church was built and they started building what is today the church of saint james the old church was very simple by its shape it was a one and naive church with very modest decorations built out of the local stone on an unstable ground that unfortunately the people of medjugorje didn't have means to verify the stability of it prior to the construction so a few decades after the church was completed they've noticed that the church started losing its stability which means that the roof started being inclined the one belfry the one church tower that the church had started leaning slightly on the side so it was actually even considered as dangerous to stay in the church so that's also one of the reason one of the main reasons why uh the major gloria with its parish priest at that time father bernardin smalling decided to start and uh to build uh the new church so as you can see what we what you can see here the place that i'm walking through is all that is left of the old church the people of medjugorje of course not wanting to completely forget about the old church site they've decided to uh mark this area with these stones which represent the foundations of the old church of saint james so we are in grad michi you're probably wondering why did we arrive to this village what connection does it have with medjugorje we are just few miles up north from medjugorje and we wanted to show you the place actually this church of saint blaze that was the parish church of the vast parish that medjugorje belonged to as well prior to the foundation of medjugorje parish itself so this church that we can see is over is almost two centuries old it was built even in the times while the ottomans were still here to build the church at that time was extremely difficult because our franciscans who were here with the people were finding great great obstacles in order to build the church the ottomans did not want to give permission to build the church anywhere on the territory where they were ruling but franciscans were able through different uh means to uh obtain the permits from the turkish nobles from the sultan himself to build these churches so this little church basically covered an enormous area the whole region that uh we are now residing in and where of course medjugorje belongs to so in order to cover that vast area just with the help of um one church basically the franciscans were placing in the different parts of these this vast parish the so-called portable altars and for example the history is telling us that medjugorje as a village had two of these uh uh movable uh port uh altars that were that was probably the reason why medjugorje also was chosen to become a separate parish once when the church hierarchy was able to establish normal function here in herzegovina aside from the church there is an old parish home where prior to the building of this church the franciscans were residing and also they had a very very small chapel inside because they of course needed to celebrate the holy mass every single day as any priest has to but they didn't have church at the time so we will also be able to show you that little chapel where the franciscans were able to celebrate the holy mass other than that this place is basically a native parish of one of the greatest people that have that we were given uh here in the our region of herzegovina it is one of the franciscans his name was father didach buntich he lived on the passage from the 19th to the 20th century and not a lot of people know about an enormous deed that he was able to perform for the local people of this whole region other than being a priest of course he here as well in this parish he was born not too far away from here in a neighboring village that also belongs to the same parish and he went to a for two years he attended the little elementary school that the franciscans were able to open in this uh very sight basically behind below the church levels father didach is oftenly called in this area the herzegovinian moses and you're probably wondering why moses because of its great merit first of all father didach was a man who in the times when the great great poverty and great ignorance was ruling among the people here he was able to [Music] start and complete the uh great process of of teaching around 10 000 people at that time to read and write then of course during the unfortunate events of the great war of the first world war he was able to save 17 000 children from starvation in 1917 during the first world war this area was struck with a terrible terrible famine it was so it was so um terrible that people literally didn't have anything to eat so some historical records say that people used to peel the bark from the oak tree grind it and and in that way make it into some sort of a bread to be able to eat and you can imagine that that was barely edible but that was the only available nourishment for them so in those circumstances while the people were literally dying of hunger dying of famine father didac through the different political and cultural connections that he had at the time still in the war struck austro-hungarian empire he was able to put 17 000 children not only catholics but different different denominations different religions muslims and so on and to put them on the trains to move them into a northern region of what is today croatia where there is a lot of land there there was always a lot of food and in that way 17 000 lives were saved so join us in in visiting this little place that we are so happy to show you so we are now in the ground floor of the parish house of the parish of grad michi send blaze this parish it is interesting actually to notice that uh there is a connection of this parish with dubrovnik some of you already know that the patron saint of dubrovnik the city the majestic city on the croatian coast on the far south of the croatian coast for more than 1 000 years saint blaze is considered as the patron saint of dubrovnik so dubrovnik merchants who were always very eager to go into hinterland we are not too far away actually from from dubrovnik now and um they they used to travel in uh towards bosnia to trade for different goods and very often they actually had to pass through herzegovina because that we are in between bosnia and dubrovnik and in that way they would of course make contact with the local people so it is probably that they brought with themselves this devotion to sent blaze the patron saint of against the sicknesses of the throat and of course for us creations it's very very important to emphasize that he is a patron saint of of dubrovnik so the church itself is consecrated as i said to sam blais but franciscans prior to building this church they had to celebrate holy mass somewhere so in this stone made house one of the main thing one of the main necessities was to build a chapel so one of the first things that they did was constructing a chapel a small chapel where they were able to celebrate holy mass every single day sometimes few people would join them because you will witness that the chapel is not it's very very small few people can basically fit in there [Music] [Music] [Music] although it sounds a little bit strange for us from this time from this time but this basically this room that i'm in now was a school for local children for many many years during the time when the franciscans were basically not only our priests but our teachers the our keepers of culture and of our traditions especially during the times of the ottomans when the christians were not they didn't have an opportunity to get any kind of education unless they would get enrolled into these uh islamic schools that were run by the ottoman empire the franciscans were the ones who actually started educating the population and this was one of the schools this room was one of the schools that the franciscans opened in the hall of herzegovina today it is an ethnographic museum so all these objects that you can see around me are collected throughout the village throughout the parish and exposed here to show all the tools and objects that people used in their regular lives what is also very important for us to know is that father didach attended two years of elementary school here in this in this room and that was basically the start of his education so that he can educate thousands of people afterwards in his mission so we are now in the one of the oldest churches in the whole of herzegovina as i said it is nearly two centuries old for european terms it's not that much but keep in mind that during the ottoman rule 400 years of their rule in our region all the churches were destroyed so they had to be rebuilt again this church was one of the first that was built here as i said consecrated to send blaze and of course it is very very um there are great festivities here every year on the 2nd of february when we celebrate on the 3rd of february when we celebrate the feast of send plays of course what is also interesting is that in order to complete this church even in the times while the ottomans were still here uh the franciscans had to meet certain criteria certain conditions that the attacks were always imposing on them so of course when it comes to this church it is now much bigger than what it used to look like in the in the its original size because of course to build this church the ottomans uh conditioned the franciscans that it had to be smaller than the um then the smaller in height than the smallest of the towers that turks used to have in every village in order to collect the um the attacks from the people so on one of the sides of the church there is actually even now the line that shows us up to what point the church was built originally so this line i hope that you can see it this line just above the windows is the line up to where the church was originally built and then further on everything that you can see above of course with the roof was added afterwards after the turks left bosnia and herzegovina and the austro-hungarian empire came so it is special for us to be here because of course this parish this church here in no sense gave birth to the parish of saint james to the parish of madriga dear pilgrims welcome to tiharina among the pilgrims who come to medjugorje there are very few who do not visit this church and this parish we are about 40 minutes of drive due west from medjugorje and as i said this is one of the obligatory stops of the pilgrims who visit warrior this church the church itself is consecrated to the immaculate conception that the parish of tiharina stands under the heavenly protection of elijah the prophet saint elijah is in this is at the same time the patron saint of all of bosnia and herzegovina pilgrims come they celebrate mass here with their priests and they come to admire the beauty of this statue even though we say that this is the church of the immaculate conception what we can see in front of us is the statue of our lady of grace how come well the story says that in somewhere in 1960s we were still here at that time under the communist rule of yugoslavia this parish as many in herzegovina was struck by poverty so even in the church itself they did not unfortunately have the statue of our lady that is something that they couldn't make peace with because devotion to the blessed mother among the folk in herzegovina is really really enormous so they wanted to acquire the statue at those times in yugoslavia unfortunately there was no place to do that so the parish priest of tihalin at that time had to go all the way to rome to acquire the statue they say that his intention was to get the statue of the immaculate conception but when he came to rome and he was going through different shops to find the suitable statue having seen this statue he literally fell in love and he bought it coming to the border at that time in between italy and yugoslavia unfortunately he was stopped and the government officials the customs they didn't allow him to bring in the statue actually they conditioned the entry of the statue into the country by paying an enormous enormous fee so there was a lot of problems with that statue the people had to again fundraise in order to pay for that fee whilst the statue was standing at the border crossing in the warehouse waiting to be admitted into the country finally they realized they were able to gather enough money to pay the custom fee and the statue was brought here and throughout the whole journey from the border to here the people were afraid that the statue might be damaged while it was waiting in that warehouse but when they brought it here and they removed all the casing wooden case that she was enclosed closed in the statue emerged untouched and as beautiful as you can see it even now the present parish priest of tihagian musa he likes to say that this statue is really really beautiful as you can see but he says you know when this statue is the most beautiful it is most beautiful when you kneel in front of it so this parish also in the history of the events in these 40 years has also been remembered as a parish where father jose zolfco the parish priest of medjugorje from 1981 that he was transferred to after having been released from prison where he was placed by the communist authorities being charged for some attempt of insurrection against the the yugoslavian government so after he was released from prison he was stationed in this parish and the pilgrims would come to this parish as well to hear his testimony welcome to shirakibrig welcome to the center of the spirituality in herzegovina this magnificent church is consecrated to the assumption of the blessed virgin mary the most important the greatest feast day marion feast day that the people of the of herzegovina observe here this church brings has a huge importance for all the local people here in herzegovina for all the roman catholics because it is the first church built by the franciscans after the even during the time of the ottoman rule here the church itself was built in it was started to be built in 1846 by the franciscans who went through a lot of difficulties just even to start to build it all the franciscans who serviced the population of herzegovina during the ottoman rule had to be stationed in far up to the north in bosnia region where the franciscan monasteries managed to survive the ottoman domination here in herzegovina all the monasteries that we used to have once prior to the turkish arrival prior to the ottoman rule were destroyed so the franciscans were coming but they could not stay for a very long time in this region so finally they've decided to move here all those franciscans who had their roots here in herzegovina who were born in this region decided to come back and when they came back they found a little little village few miles to the from this spot here where they built their first house and they built also the little small chapel consecrated to the 12 apostles that chapel has been refurbished now and it still exists and the people like to call it the herzegovinian porsche uncle when a memory of porsche uncle in assisi and san francis of course so when they've decided to ask the ottoman authorities to build the church it was not just asking for permission and obtaining it certain criteria needed to be satisfied and those criteria were not very easy the ottomans conditioned the franciscans that they will give them the permit to build the church only if they can prove that the church once stood here 400 years ago and of course it was impossible to prove something like that namely because of the ottomans themselves who destroyed every single trace in chris of christianity um material uh trace of christianity during their rule here so the franciscans went to the turkish noble to ask for permission and then they had to use even to be a little bit cunning to use some tricks in order to obtain the possibility to build the church so this story very famous story about building of this church talks about the franciscan who went with the local people in a very remote village of this region and they found an old medieval tower they used the scarved stones from that tower and they brought the stones here in this area they didn't know whether the church was here before or not but this is the cho this is the spot that they chose so what they did they were digging in the rocks into the ground presenting them as the remains remains of the once the church that could have existed here so after they dug in the stones they covered them with ground and they left that this area for the nature to take its course after two years it looked like nobody has dubbed dugged here anything so they invited the turkish noble the ottoman noble to come and verify the ground so they came and they started digging they uncovered the carved stones and they concluded that there was a church there before so that's how the church was allowed to be built the one that you can see now is not the same church that they've started building in 1846 they didn't have a lot of means so they built a church that looked mostly like a very long house with one steeple in front of it and of course adjacent to it they've started building the monastery as well it was in 1905 after the turks had left decades after the turks had left after the ottomans had left that uh father didach buntich started the construction of the church as we see it today it is a beautiful three nave basilica where he himself has been buried this area although it may look to you deserted is very much frequented by the people of this region especially on the most important marian feast of herzegovina the assumption of the blessed virgin mary on the 15th of august so truly this presents the nucleus the very the very center of the faith of the people of herzegovina of course years after this in 1981 we were rewarded by her presence by our lady's presence in medjugorje having a very turbulent history full of conquests and invasions herzegovina does not lack lack its tragic moments as well so one of the most tragic moments for our history here was happened actually in 1945 at the end of the second world war when on february 2nd 7th the franciscans come who were residing in this franciscan monastery in shiroki breg were brutally murdered by the communist forces who advanced over this area and their bodies were thrown into a natural cave that looks arranged now of course because it is a memorial now but there was a cave here a natural cave here where their bodies were thrown covered with lime and burnt the very guilt of those franciscans was none the only guilt if we can call it a guilt was that they did not want to renounce cross they did not want to renounce jesus 30 of them were killed on the in front of the church of the assumption of the blessed virgin mary their names are placed at this plaque in front of the entry to the memorial center as well and when people come and look at their ages it is even visible that some of them were not even priests yet they were seminarians 30 of them were lined up in front of the church and they were given a choice to step on a cross to renounce christ or to die all 30 of them chose death rather than rather than negate our lord the gruesome crime that was committed over the franciscans who were here in 1945 was not forgotten although the local population was not supposed to speak about it's not supposed to visit this visit the spot where the bodies of the franciscans were literally thrown in even all of that even they were facing a lot of threats by the communist government they've succeeded the people with the franciscans who remained they've succeeded to bring the bodies the mortal remains of those martyrs into the church of the assumption of the blessed virgin mary and here they are all of the martyrs of shiro kibrig who gave their lives for christ the cause for their beatification has been started and of course it will take some time until all those investigations have to be completed on the other hand people of shiro kibrig people of this parish still already revered them as their great intercessors in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil hail mary full of grace the lord is with thee blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb jesus holy mary mother of god pray for us sinners now and in the hour of our death amen glory be to the father and to the son and to the holy spirit as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be world without end amen may the divine assistance remain always with us and may the souls of the faithful departed through the mercy of god rest in peace amen in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit amen [Music] at the very beginning of the apparitions visionaries ask our lady why she chose medjugorje for her operations our lady said i have found a strong faith if you ask me or anybody who grew up in this area here believe me our lady because of the faith of local people could have appeared in any village which surrounds metro glory theologians say that she picked up this place because medjugorje literally translated into english means between the hills the first day of the apparitions on 24th of june 1981 occurred right here where i'm standing behind me you can see the apparition hill on that day we celebrate the feast day of saint john the baptist we know that he is the first the only prophet we have in the new testament and when we read the old and new testament we can see whenever god was sending us the signs these signs came from the hills from the mountains on that day our lady held baby jesus in her arms as she wanted to give jesus one more time to all of us two girls ivanka and mariana came to medjugorje to spend summer holidays with their grandparents this area where we are standing right now which is today the parking place used to be a field it belongs to the family of ivankovic of late ivan ivankovic but the family has never used this area and the children from this section of medjugorje used to pray play together at this area here mariana and ivanka came hoping that they would meet some of their friends they said here on these rocks you see behind me they were talking they say it became boring and they started walking towards the village ivanka said that in that moment she felt the call in her heart to look towards the hill and she saw the blessed mother above the hill this direction when we think about 1981 every family in majogoria used to have sheep used to have couple goats which means that the hills you see around us were not so green as they are today because the goats were getting the food on these hills our lady was pretty far away from them and ivanka says in her heart she felt that that was the blessed mother and she said to miriana mariana look i think i see our lady on the hill mariana did not even bother to look towards the hill and she said to ivanka yeah our lady didn't have any other business but to visit two of us two girls started walking towards the village where they met milka maria's visionary sister who was going to gather the sheep and later on vitska joined them when milka met the two girls she said ivanka was so pale that she asked her what happened to her and ivanka begged now all three girls to come back towards the place from where she saw our lady all four of them came here and they saw the blessed mother way in a distance holding the baby in her arms and waving to them to come closer two boys ivan ivankovic and ivan dragacevic the visionary the visionary they were running from ivan's house to other events house carrying the apples in their shirts and they were in a hurry to watch basketball game at other evan's house whose father was working in germany at that time that was the only colored tv they had in neighborhood ivan says vizca started calling begging them to get closer and when boys joined the girls they saw the blessed mother on the hill they threw away those apples and ran away even visionary ran into his house locked himself in the room he was so scared that he said if he had ten locks would he would have locked them all and he never shared the word with his parents the other ivan ivan ivankovic has never shared anything about that experience seeing boys running four girls started running as well and ivanka says they ran into the first house on the road they when they entered the house they yelled that they saw the blessed mother on the hill but people picked up the apples which were standing on the on the table and started throwing at them all six of them had restless night ivanka says when she came to her granny's house when she shared with her brother sister and granny what she saw she said that her brother and sister were teasing her so much that every topic every subject they started talking about they were teasing her and asking her tell us again who did you see on the hill mariana visionary says that she was so restless through the night that she learned pretty soon the only time she was able to find peace was while she was praying hail mary the next day milka maria's visionary sister was dragged by her mother into the field and probably her mom thought that something was wrong with her and milka says all day long her mother did not let her to make a step away from her observing her talking to her and in the evening all of them felt this call this urge to come back to the same place ivan ivankovic was locked in the room by his granny mom and his sisters and he has never seen our lady again milka's mom did not let milka to go out and when you talk to milka today she is going to tell you that it was horrible because she had to come she had to go but mother never let her to go out maria her sister joined the children and since then till today maria started receiving the apparitions on a daily basis when they came here some of them were escorted by elders because they were so persistent to come they found some kids playing soccer among them was yakov a visionary who was only nine and a half at one point all six of them ivan maria vitka miriana ivanka and yakov saw our lady on the hill and they felt this enormous power radiating out of our lady that the other people say that they were looking at the sky and speeding up the hill that nobody was able to keep that pace on the third day of the operations the hundreds of locals from surrounding area started climbing the hill using this very top you see which had existed before the operation started of course the path was not wide as it is today somebody asked one of our friars why we have so many rocks on the hill and he said that all of those pilgrims who come to me jogori leave their hearts of stone here on the hill and they receive the hearts of flesh in 1989 the parish placed the plaques in bronze which represent the joyful mysteries of the rosary and as the years were passing by they added sorrowful and glorious mysteries of the rosary when we climb the hill we always pray the rosary pray the rosary for our intentions and also the rosary for all those people who ask us to pray for them the word about the apparition spread so quickly that on the third day there were already hundreds of people coming to major gory from surrounding area in order to make sure that what children see truly comes from god visionaries were given holy water and it's interesting that with a visionary said to our lady she blessed her with holy water and she said if you come from god stay with us but if you do not come from god leave they say our lady smiled back to them and she said i am the blessed virgin mary queen of peace [Music] on that third day of the apparitions after our lady had introduced herself to the visionaries the apparition was over and everybody took their way back home coming down the hill maria visionary was stopped by our lady on this very place where i'm standing today during that apparition time maria saw behind our lady the simplest wooden cross our lady started crying and she said peace peace peace and only peace peace must reign between man and god peace must be among all people this was the first public message given by our lady when the parish was donated these plaques and brooms which represent joyful mysteries of the rosary they decided to place visitation in this area where our lady gave the first public message and they wanted to remind us all what elizabeth said to mary when she came to visit her she said who am i that mother of my god comes and visits me this is the question we can ask ourselves but when we read the messages of our lady of medjugorje we can tell that her invitation is very personal that our lady is speaking directly to each one of us [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] i'm standing at the side of the first operation as it was said many many times this is the very place where i haven't touched the earth as i told you our lady brought the visionaries here until 2001 on this place where the statue is standing today there was simplest aluminum cross in 2001 korean family donated the statue of our lady to major gori the story says that the mother who was a roman catholic who is roman catholic came with her son who was young and sick had many problems and many seizures her husband who was buddhist at that time kept telling to his wife look at what your god did to our son woman came from south korea to me jogori and of course was praying for healing of her son to intercession of our lady but nothing happened till the last day when she started the way of the cross up to the cross mounting by herself but she never went further than the fourth station we remember the stations of the cross the fourth station is the one where jesus meets his sorrowful mother the woman was crying to our lady asking her to give her strength as mary had strength to follow jesus on his way to crucifixion their son was healed and father converted to roman catholic and as a thanksgiving the family donated this statue to major guardian as you can see on that side of the statue it says in korean in english our lady pray for peace for korean peninsula nothing is really built here because through the visionaries of medjugorje our lady promised that she was going to leave the permanent sign sign of her presence here in midjokori and visionaries know exactly what this sign is going to be and when it's going to happen this is the place of prayer that's why i'm kind of whispering even there are today very few people on the apparition hill many of them come here they leave the burdens to our lady i always tell them mary is our mother and whatever you carry in your heart come to this place and give it all to our lady because she's going to intercede for you she is going to intercede for you before her son so that he can answer your prayers in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit remember almost gracious virgin mary that never was it known that anyone who fled to die protection implored thy help pursued thy intercession was left unaided inspired by this confidence i fly to the o virgin of virgins my mother judy do i come before thee i stand sinful and sorrowful o mother of the word incarnate despise not my petitions but in thy mercy hear and answer me amen in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit amen [Music] good morning dear pilgrims perish of major goria has changed physically a lot during those 40 years but there are still places that remained almost the same one of these places is this path that i'm about to take it goes from the church through the vineyards and fields and leads to the apparition hill when you walk on this path you will encounter a pilgrim or a group of pilgrims and you will see the rosary beads in their hands and you will hear the prayer we name this path pilgrim's path [Music] sometimes here in the midst of the fields i cannot help the feeling that it is not i getting closer to the hill but rather it is the hill getting closer to me [Music] before you get to the base of the hill you will come across this garden where in the summer 1981 very special event took a place [Music] in a 40 years here in medjugorje our lady has been calling us for a prayer she calls us to pray from our hearts so far with slavenka you have already visited a place where children stood when they first saw our lady up on the hill you have visited a place where she spoke for the first time to the children and also a place where she gave her very pers for very first message message of peace today we are at the place that is being touched by our lady too or simply a blue cross in the summer 1981 when the events of medjugorje started children visionaries the local people here had many problems too with the local authorities with the officials soon after the operation started police was everywhere also not long after it would be forbidden to climb the hill one day even dragacevic one of the visionaries was little late to meet his friends the other visionaries up on the hill and he was coming up towards the hill from his home which is not too far away when he came to the foot of the hill he realized that he's late but also he met a friend here from the village who was looking for even to tell him that the police was on its way to the hill looking for the children so even for a moment didn't know what to do of course he was scared and then he remembered right here at this place there was an old abandoned barn so he came here it was all in bushes it couldn't be seen from the road so he found a safe place to sit down and pray while praying our lady came to him she encouraged him she invited him to tell the other visionaries to call their friends young people and a form a prayer group so they did and they would meet here secretly for a few years and then in the midst of 80s the pressure from the local author from the authorities seized so the bushes were cleared the stones flattened more and more people were coming to pray to the hill and also here in the midst of 80s even together with one of his friends from the prayer group wanted to leave a little sign here so they made a plain wooden cross just a plain cross and of course they wanted to make it to look better and they painted it painted blue pilgrims often ask us why blue well it is our lady's color of course but the truth is they didn't have much money to buy the paint but even's father at the time was painting the fence in front of the house so he had a little jar of a blue color left hence the blue cross the wooden cross stood here for many years but later on because as we know the wood doesn't last it was changed changed with this iron cross and a beautiful statue white statue of our lady was placed here back in a time the whole place looked different bushes you couldn't come to this place easily but over the years it was widened and flattened and just recently it was made little more accessible to all the pilgrims to come here and pray evenspraya group still exists even sprayer group meets here from time to time but after the few years when it first started even received the permission from our lady that occasionally he may invite other people to join the group during their meetings during the prayer and when at the time when our lady would appear many glorious evenings people experienced at this place many many great graces were poured out here another question that our pilgrims often ask us is why two blue crosses well the answer is simple the original place uh where the original cross was placed is just there but this cross here was placed some 20 years ago simply the prayer group they wanted to make a place where they can sit where the guys with the guitars can find a comfortable seat so that they have more space to pray and that more people can fit in here this is the place of a powerful prayer the whole hill is a place of a powerful prayer but when we think about the prayer group we think of our lady who's been calling us all these years to pray but not only to pray only in our heart she's calling us not only for the personal prayer but she calls us to bring the prayer into our families into our communities by the example of ivan's prayer group she's been teaching us how important prayer is in our lives i've already said that this prayer group still exists they still meet and sometimes at this place here but meanwhile this place became a place for all pilgrims for everyone who feels the call of our lady in their hearts i always when i look at those rocks and remembering the way how wild this place was how wild these rocks were and then yet we see those nice smooth rocks that people climb over in order to go further up on the hill i remember father jose always saying look at these rocks look how sharp wild this limestone is but then you look furthermore you see the smooth nice flat rock it's the millions of people who climbed this hill billions of prayers that were prayed on this hill father used to say when you see that you realize that is the power of the prayer just imagine what prayer does to this stone imagine only what it can do to human heart and let us pray now let us pray together our father slavos prayer in thanksgiving to our lady prayer from my heart to your hearts today i want to express my gratitude thank you mary for having come here thank you for every message for every single word and especially for calling us your dear children thank you because i can really trust that i'm dear to you and that you'll love me thank you for calling me to pray so that i may understand your love and cry and jump for joy thank you because you said that i'm important to you and that without me you cannot realize your plans this morning on your hill podbardo my soul is singing a song of thanks to you and together with you praises the lord because he sent you here i know that you are the humble servant of the lord but allow me to praise and thank you blessed are you o mary queen of peace together with elizabeth the whole parish and all pilgrims my soul rejoices what did we do to do to deserve the grace that the mother of our lord comes to us i praise you with the visionaries and their families i praise you with the parish community and the pilgrims i praise you with all families who have accepted you and now live in peace i praise you with all the prayer groups of the world because you teach us how to pray i praise you with all those who have confessed and have made the peace with the lord i praise you with all those who at your intercession have been healed in spirit soul and body i praise you together with all those who celebrate the anniversary of your apparitions here and in the world i praise you for everything that the lord will do in the future through you i praise you in the name of all of those who have been and who still are against your coming here because you would like you would also like to show your gentle motherly love to them together with you i pray to the lord to give peace to every heart and give unity to my people together with you i pray to the lord that you your immaculate heart will triumph in the world and that peace is bestowed upon the world at your intercession may the almighty god be blessed now and forever amen and just little something for the end i would love to ask you when you come on your pilgrimage to major gorilla you will be coming with us your guides here with the group but would you please at least once come here alone in the late afternoon just come find yourself a seat here anywhere perhaps on the bench here in front of the any of those two crosses or pick up just any rock around here they're all comfortable trust me i believe so maybe more or less sit silently and find the prayer in your heart you will not regret it on the contrary you will cherish it for the rest of your life there are 33 steps here just recently the local people made them they present 33 years that jesus spent here on earth with us [Music] [Music] every pilgrim who comes to metro glory wants to climb to the cross mountain to make the way of the cross as you can see the path is not easy it's rocky as the apparition hill and it takes you about one hour one hour and a half to reach the top in twenties of the last century a couple people from this region here went to rome i want you to imagine that journey the area was very rural at the time and they used every vehicle to reach the room from there when they came back they brought the relics of the holy cross in 1933 when we celebrated the 1900th anniversary of jesus's crucifixion pope pius xi encouraged people all over the world to commemorate that year medjugorje parish decided to place the cross at the top of the mountain when the construction was started the relics were placed in the center of that cross since then till today the jogoria parish celebrates the triumph of the holy cross on the first sunday after the birthday of our lady the first sunday after the eighth of september and that was the only time in the year when the parish was going up the hill when the apparition started back in 1981 the people started coming to medjugorje at that time they lived in the communist yugoslavia and sometimes they were forbidden to climb to the apparition hill one day through wizka visionary our lady invited young people of mejori to climb to the cross mounting to go to the top and to have a meeting with her when you talk to vitka to the youth about that event they are going to tell you that they were racing laughing racing up the hill and they were so impressed with themselves when they reached the top because they made the journey which is about one mile long in about 20-25 minutes they were waiting for the arrival of our lady but she did not come the next day when vitska had the apparition she asked the blessed mother why she did not appear to them and she told them that they were not behaving the proper way and she asked them to start doing the way of the cross up this big mountain since then till today the parish first placed the wooden crosses just to mark the stations of the cross which are nicely divided so it gives you time to meditate about the stations you read in 1987 they placed these plaques in bronze which represent the stations of the cross which are the work of the same italian artists who did the plaques on the apparition hill carmelo putzolo they are special because each one of them has the blessed mother as you can see she is presented as she radiates and the artist said since mary followed the followed jesus on his way to crucifixion she was the first one who did the way of the cross we are doing today as i said every pilgrim wants to make the way of the cross some of them are not able to do it and sometimes they come with the groups and they just wait by the first station they just wait at the foot of the cross mounting from all of these places we visit with the groups we like the cross mounting i'm talking about the guides of mejori we like the cross mounting the most because sometimes you feel like you accomplish everything while you are climbing and doing the stations of the cross while you are praying you can meditate upon your own life like on this station jesus falls for the first time i think it happened to all of us that we heard the bad news in our lives that something bad happened and like jesus did we ended on our knees and on this way we learned that jesus is on our side that we have to get up and that we have to walk through the life because resurrection meets us at the top of the cross [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] first of all i would like you to know that i prayed for all of you for all of those who visited metrogory and for all of those who are going to visit metrogory one day when you make this a journey up to the cross mounting you always think is the same with our spirituality in life it's the same like walking towards jesus because the path is not easy there are places where you run there are the places where you go backwards but also there are the places where you just want to sit and rest i told you journey normally lasts about one hour and a half and it takes you about 40 minutes to get down to the base of the hill but when you reach the top first of all you see this beautiful view of medjugorje now you can tell that mejiagori is really between the hills the local people built this cross it took them about six months the construction was started in 1933. i told you it was built for 1900 anniversary of jesus's crucifixion that's why the back of the cross says 33 1933 i told you that the relics of the holy cross are placed right in the center of this cross which is eight and a half meters high so you cannot see it if you look at the front there are the words written in croatian the cross says to jesus christ the redeemer of mankind as a sign of faith love and hope was built by father bernardin smallian and parish of metrogloria the foot of the cross says deliver us from every evil jesus if you look around you see these amplifiers i told you that since 1934 till today the parish of majogoria celebrates the triumph of the holy cross on the first sunday after the birthday of our lady and people from all of this region you see around come here to participate in that holy mess when the apparition started i told you the parish did not climb to the cross mountain but only that one time in the year when our lady invited us to do the stations of the cross going up to the cross mountain police came and they forbid the local people to climb to the any of the hills nor the apparition hill or the cross mountain so visionaries used to hide from government authorities and sometimes the last moment they would decide where they would have the operation and now when you look to the valley of metrogory when you look to the parish of mediogori i can tell you that whole village is the apparition side in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit amen jesus you accepted suffering for the love of us and so it has become our redemption we thank you for your cross we thank you for your wounds and for three hours of agony we thank you for your words on the cross by which you gave us mary as our mother here is your mother you said we thank you for your words on the cross by which you show us what forgiving really means father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing in this hour we come to your cross and offer you all our sufferings the sufferings of the families of the church of the world we know you o jesus will redeem us mary loving mother under the cross pray with us and for us by the cross this sign of salvation almighty god may deliver us from all evil by the cross this sign of triumph almighty god may liberate all those who suffer from the influence of evil by this holy cross god may give us all the graces we need the graces of reconciliation and of peace of love of faith and of salvation by this sign of the cross almighty god may bless and protect all of us in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit amen father barbaric was born and grew up in the area not far away from michigan he went to school to germany he became the franciscan priest and also he graduated psychology at the beginning of 1982 father slavko was sent to medjugorje to talk to visionaries and to investigate events a couple days later he fell in love with our lady and i can tell you that many things we do today in metro gloria we're started by late father slavko like the adorations of the blessed sacrament which we have couple times a week and at san james church father slavko was very busy he was talking to the pilgrims and besides croatian language when he came here he spa spoke german and he told to himself that every day till the end of his life he's going to study foreign languages for one hour every day and as the years went by father islam could learn to speak english italian spanish hungarian and french so just try to imagine how busy he was hearing confessions from all of those pilgrims coming to medjugorje giving the lectures he used to say that sleeping was a waste of time and the only hour he had for himself was early early in the morning so every morning he used to climb to the apparition hill or to the cross mountain when the war broke out in former yugoslavia in 1991 and that lasted till 95 officially but it truly lasted till 96 father slavko started prayers for peace we still do that every sunday the parish of mejoria gathers at the foot of the apparition hill and they pray going up the hill all 15 decades of the rosary every friday at 2 o'clock p.m they gather at the base of this mountain and they do the crustaceans of the cross as i said they pray for peace if you come here and if you join our local people i always tell pilgrims not to go because we grew up on these rocks you know our people are like mountain goats on 24th of november 2000 it was friday and father slavko led the way of the cross i have to tell you that sometimes there are few people but sometimes there are several hundred who joined the franciscans and it was pretty big crowd father's love collected the way of the cross and imagine it was friday three o'clock in the afternoon and on this place here when he finished everything father slavko said let's pray let's say a prayer for one of us who is going to be the first one to die to meet god and he prayed our father he prayed hail mary and he said may the souls of the faithfully departed through the mercy of god rest in peace and he dropped that major heart attack he was only 54 years old the next day our lady gave the regular monthly message through maria visionary which she gives every month and the last sentence of that message goes i desire to let you know that father slavko has been born into heaven and he intercedes for you on the first anniversary of his death the man from community of chanakolo which is community forex drug addicts which has houses all over the world including three houses in the united states of america since he helped the opening of chernakolo house cynical house here in metrogloria the men from community of chinacolor made this image and they gave a vow to god that they would carry this rock up the mountain and during their stations of the cross that this rock is not going to touch the ground to touch the soil so as i said in the memory of late father slavko barbaric this stone was placed here in 2001 for the first anniversary of father slavko's death it was pleasure to meet this man and all of those pilgrims who came to me earlier know who i'm talking about and i can tell you that father slavko was very jolly man he used to make us all guides you know if we met him early in the morning you know going with our pilgrims up the hill if we met him he made us all to pick up the garbage pilgrims left on the apparition hill over the cross mountain he wrote several books about the messages of our lady of megicoria which you can buy at the franciscan gift shop and which i recommend with all my heart father slavko intercede for us [Music] you

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Published: Wed Sep 15 2021