Medjugorje News & Articles

by Patrick Madrid

Many adherents of the alleged apparitions at Medjugorje to whom I have spoken personally have invoked the (also alleged) fondness and support of Pope John Paul II for it. "The Pope was in favor of Medjugorje," they reason, "and given what a good and holy pontiff he was, it's highly unlikely that Medjugorje could be anything other than an authentic Marian apparition. And, conversely, it's an even stronger reason for believing in Medjugorje."

This is a form of what's known as an a fortiori argument. For example, one might say, "If I think that Medjugorje is true, that's all well and good. But if even the pope thinks it's true, then the possibility that it is true is much stronger, much more likely."

Argyll, Scotland (CNN) -- Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow was enjoying a pint at his local pub in the Scottish Highlands when he got an idea that would change his life -- and the lives of thousands of others.

It was 1992, and MacFarlane-Barrow and his brother Fergus had just seen a news report about refugee camps in Bosnia. The images of people suffering in the war-torn country shocked the two salmon farmers, who'd visited there as teenagers and remembered the warmth of the Bosnian people.

"We began saying 'Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could just do one small thing to help?' " MacFarlane-Barrow says.

During the 70’s, in Germany. Monica was 17 when she lost her mother whom she loved very much. She was left behind with three siblings and her father who was a non-practicing protestant and an architect near Bonn. Monica detested her father. He had very little interaction with his children, so she found him cold, rigid, and insensitive. Since she was unable to connect with him on a heart level, she moved out at 17, using her studies as an excuse.

The warm surf of La Jolla, Calif., isn't a setting people associate with the Virgin Mary. But on many days, there is a surfer whose passion for the perfect wave is nothing compared to his head-over-heels love for the Holy Mother.

His name is Donald Calloway and he picked up surfing as a military brat bouncing around the United States and Japan.

He also picked up marijuana, heroin, LSD, shoplifting and money laundering for the Japanese mafia. By the age of 20, he had a rap sheet, a drug habit and serious thoughts of suicide.

"After having gone to two rehabs, been in jail, kicked out of a foreign country, I was at my crisis in life. ... I picked up a book that my parents had on their bookshelf about the Virgin Mary," Calloway said.

The following is Deacon Ken Finn’s account of his remarkable interactions with Mary, the Mother of God.

My first encounter with the Blessed Mother happened when I was travelling in an RV with my wife, Marie. We co-authored a Catholic Bible-study, called The Bread of Life, and we were making a grand circle, clock-wise through the outer states of the country, introducing our study to parishes. One night, at the beginning of our trip, we parked our RV in the parking lot of the mission in Santa Barbara, and as we lay down to go to bed, our conversation turned to the sadness of people who are unable to bond with their mothers from birth. My wife and I had adopted three children, who were about eight weeks when we got them, and we wondered if they might have been deprived of the precious gift of early bonding.

A young man from the United States, Michael, came to Medjugorje in March and he just sent me a letter. I share it with you because it may encourage and inspire each one of us in our personal call to prayer in the midst of our daily concerns.

"My last pilgrimage to Medjugorje was life changing for me, as the Gospa revealed to me early in the pilgrimage that I needed to pray for peace in my soul. I realized that, though I prayed and believed and had many miracles happen to me in the past, I still did not have much peace inside me. It was hard for me to pray with love, to mean what I was saying.

“Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.”
(John 20,21)

To all parishioners, pilgrims, friends, benefactors, and to all men of goodwill a

Blessed and Happy Easter!

Parish priest and the Franciscans

Photos

... A striking example of the healing power of the cross is Jaime Jaramillo, affectionately known as Papa Jaime in his home country of Colombia. Papa Jaime is one of the stories in a book I wrote called Full of Grace: Miraculous Stories of Healing and Conversion through Mary’s Intercession. For many years now, he has single-handedly rescued children who actually live in the underground sewer canals of Colombia. Again and again, he picks up his cross and enters the sewers. Here’s how he speaks of his experience.

"I was raised in a devout Lutheran home in New York and always believed in God, but from my teen years onward I rejected organized religion, believing it was created totally by man and not by God. After marrying Ed and reluctantly agreeing to raise our children Catholic, I told him, ' Don't EVER expect me to become Catholic. You have to be born that way - you'd have to be crazy to choose it voluntarily! ' I rejected the Church's teachings, thinking they were made up by men who had nothing better to do than make people feel guilty and miserable. I occasionally went to church with my family, but found it profoundly boring.