Medjugorje testimony of David

Narcotics are not a drug, MARY is!

Other languages: English, Deutsch, Italiano

“I’d like to bring my testimony to as many Christians as possible because it is not only mine, but it is the testimony of Our Lady of Medjugorje who acted in me! I feel the need to do this so that people might come to know that Mary loves us all equally and that she truly exists! She is not a myth of the church: She is our Mother!

First of all I’d like to say that I left without anyone having invited me or having referred to me how beautiful that place was. All I knew was that there were visionaries there who see Our Lady and that’s it. I can clearly say that the Queen of Peace called me! I actually didn’t even know who I was going with and I wasn’t aware of the programme. I threw myself into it without asking myself too many questions because I felt that I needed to go there. There can be no other explanation…it was a calling!

I am not a “holy” young man and in my life I’ve tried everything that the world offers, and unfortunately every type of drug… Given that by now I’ve tried everything I must say that today’s society wants to fill in the emptiness in ourselves with ridiculous and senseless things! Even if they do give us joy, this is momentary, if not instantaneous happiness! The happiness that is given to us by God is durable and it is repeated day after day. To ensure that this happiness lasts, we must cultivate faith in Christ and never tire of praying and living as He wishes us to. If we let go even a little we can very easily lose our way and it is not easy to believe in God: it is easier not to believe, in this way we free ourselves of all responsibility and we live as we wish, perhaps happy but free of all obligations. I am saying this because I have experienced it on my own skin and I have to thank the Lord if on more than one occasion he gave me his hand to lift myself up!

In the times we live in the Devil has never had such devastating power: divorces, abortions, drugs, crimes of all kinds. He wasn’t even this powerful during the NaziFascist era! The people who are most affected are young people who are born and grow up with a heart of gold but who then only too often stray far from the right values…. During these times we often hear people saying: There is no God! This is the most terrible thing that a human being can say. And so who created this marvellous world? And who created man? Who gave us love, the sense of forgiveness, compassion, charity towards our weaker neighbour etc…? If we don’t ask ourselves these questions then we want to flee from reality!

For our entire existence we cannot run away from reality, we need to ask ourselves some questions: Why do I exist? What am I doing here in this world? If we don’t have the anchor that is Christ, then everything is in vain, because life loses all sense of value and is meaningless. If we don’t have a relationship with Christ we end up worshipping the money God and satisfying our bad habits. I experienced this personally, satisfying our own bad habits does not lead to a great sense of happiness, but rather, it makes us become more and more eager to possess things and to satisfy our craziest desires! We can only obtain inner peace with God!

When at the age of twenty we feel as though we are seventy then something is not right and we need to give ourselves some time to meditate on what we are doing wrong, or find a solution; but this world turns too fast and therefore we often abandon the idea! I found this time for myself by going to that extraordinary place that is Medjugorje where Our Lady reigns all over!”

“I had opened the door to the Virgin!”

“Finally, the destination: Medjugorje, after a long journey lasting no less than 13 hours! Upon our arrival we immediately go to the little chapel at Vicka’s house, where the priest who was accompanying us celebrated the Mass. I didn’t receive the Eucharist because I hadn’t been to confession since Christmas!

On the first evening two beers were the only company that my friend and I had. But the news that the day after we were to go to participate in the apparition of Our Lady to Mirjana filled me with enthusiasm, a sense of excitement mixed with curiosity.

Already in the early morning there was a large crowd of people; I tried to make some space for myself to approach the visionary, but it was impossible. People were reciting the rosary with Mirjana, and she was on her knees praying. All of a sudden I saw this young woman looking towards the heavens with her eyes shining like diamonds and speaking to something that was above her….She was speaking to Our Lady….while there was an atomic silence all around!

Nobody could see the Virgin apart from her, but you could feel a sensation of absolute peace and there was an atmosphere full of love towards those who were present. We all understood that we were participating in something unique, I felt myself vibrating! When the apparition ended, Mirjana said that Our Lady had blessed all those present, asking to pray to her always and promising that she would be alongside everyone who invoked her. It was incredible that the Virgin looked at me in my heart and blessed me, me, not someone of great virtues! It was a dream and I immediately came to understand the exceptional nature of it.

The caresses of children

Later on we went to a large house where we offloaded some foodstuffs. When we entered, a nun explained to us that it was an orphanage for children who had been orphaned by war or who had been abandoned by families that were too poor. I had never been in an orphanage…. We said a few prayers with the nun and the children and then we left.

It was then that something truly moving occurred. All the children of the orphanage came out and harassed us just to receive a caress. One of them linked himself onto our driver with a hug as though he was his father! What suffering and what a desire those children had to be loved! We who have lived with our parents in idleness and with all gifts from God cannot even imagine it. We left them unfortunately with a sense of mortifying regret. In the society in which we live we don’t even think about these realities, we pretend that they don’t exist but we must see them with our own eyes to believe!

I had to open up to her

During the afternoon I wandered around the streets of Medjugorje alone and arrived in front of a hill that led up to the statue of Our Lady on the summit. It was the hill called Podbordo where the first apparitions occurred. And so I began to climb up in slippers and I noticed that as they were climbing up, everyone else was praying the rosary. I said nothing, I sat on a stone around half way up and there I tried to enter into harmony with Our lady but I couldn’t feel anything at all! Medjugorje and the Virgin hadn’t yet unveiled their faces to me. As soon as I returned to the hotel I knew that people were going onto Podbordo where I had just been. What boredom, again…!

We went up along this jagged mountain of steep stones like everyone else and we also recited the rosary; but I wasn’t so enthusiastic about it because it was so hot and I was thinking more about the heat than about prayer! Having arrived at the summit, I sat down for a few minutes before the white statue of Our Lady and then I came back down on my own through a little laneway called the laneway of silence. But I felt an enormous sense of anger and disappointment because I couldn’t throw away the evil that was within me; I remember that I hurled the bottle that I was carrying in my hand on the ground several times in frustration. I still didn’t understand that I had to open up to the Queen of Peace!

A single light in the darkness

During the evening time there was to be the adoration of the Eucharist and I had no idea what it was about. All I saw was that in the square behind the church lots of young people were also gathering to go to this thing.

I isolated myself from my group and sat down there at a distance of about ten metres. The square was brimming with young people and there was an enormous silence. At the bottom, on the large altar, there was a light that illuminated the Most Blessed Sacrament, that was the only light on, around it the whole square was in darkness. In various languages and with brief prayers, a priest guided the adoration to Jesus, the Most Blessed Sacrament.

It was all new to me. In that darkness, the light of Most Blessed Sacrament rendered the idea that he alone is the Light and whoever does not live in him shall live in darkness. I was moved. Being there was just beautiful! Nevertheless, due to a series of misunderstandings, I ended the evening in a bar with some friends of mine. The group leader came to look for us all over Medjugorje and gave out to us, because he was very worried: where had we gone?! To tell you the truth, he treated us harshly and at the time I was furious because it had been ten years since anyone had given out to me like that.

I was really angry because I found everything to be absurdly exaggerated. Reflecting then during the night, I understood that perhaps he had done it for our own good because we were throwing away a great opportunity to be united with Our Lady: we would never have met the Blessed Virgin in any bar! Having understood this I managed to relax.

“But do you want to change or not?”

The next day, the person responsible took me aside and asked me if I really wanted to change or not, because in his view I hadn’t the slightest intention. I immediately understood that I was getting it all wrong and that I needed to open up more towards Our Lady: I didn’t want to throw away this opportunity, because if Our Lady had called me there, she certainly wanted to talk to me and I wanted to talk to her. We went back to the square where the church for the Mass is…..

Around the church there were tens and tens of priests from all over the world who were confessing all the faithful who wanted to confess. I thought about the fact that since Christmas I hadn’t “emptied the bag” full of bitterness, defeats and disappointments. And so I decided to go to confession. I found a very tactful priest and when I told him my story we cried together and he thanked me for having given my testimony; then we parted our ways and he gave me his blessing.

Mass was on but I didn’t go; I had finally freed myself….I walked around for a long time aimlessly and I cried about all the suffering and pain that I had accumulated. There was truly a lot of pain that I had been carrying around, really a lot and I cried for a long time. Normally I never cry, but the sensations that I felt during those moments are indescribable. I felt free and the time had come to meet the Queen of peace. It was an emotion that split me in four… I cried and cried and cried for about an hour. I felt like a new spirit, I had never felt that type of relief after a confession. There was something strange: I had opened the door to the Virgin!”

The procession of joy

“The evening of the procession came through the streets of Medjugorje. “It’s so boring!”, I said to myself, imagining the sad processions that take place in my home town: head down and rosary… “What monotony!” A pizza would have been better! Circumstances had it though, that at the end of the dinner, the procession started along the road. In front of us there were young people from all over the world, waving the flags of their country: Austrians, Swiss, Italians, Croatians, Americans, Koreans…Some of them were singing, others were playing music and many of them were actually dancing! “Good heavens” – I said to myself – “it’s not the usual procession! They aren’t crying, they are rejoicing!” There was only one instant of perplexity before throwing myself in, but then I decided to taste everything that Medjugorje was giving me, and I threw myself into this interminable column of young people…I was rejoicing with them, even if I didn’t know them nor did I understand their language; I really felt like I was walking together with many brothers. All with one love, Mary. I felt that this enormous line, consisting of thousands of people, was forming a single body.

We walked for several kilometres and I didn’t even notice. It was incredible, during the procession I experienced the same shiver of elation that drugs give you, but that is only an illusion! What I was experiencing on the other hand, was pure reality. I was also under the impression that Our Lady had given me her hand, to walk with her. This was the most enthusiastic part of the entire pilgrimage. For the whole night I thought about what I had felt and with great difficulty I managed to fall asleep…

New Horizons… shining with the sunshine.

Another important meeting awaited me the next day: the New Horizons Community. It houses young people who have managed to get out of drug addiction. I had already heard people talking about it on television and I had been struck by it.

As soon as I arrived, I noticed the face of these young people: their faces were shining like the sun…I told two of them my story, and then I listened to their stories. Truly impressive! These young people had experienced terrible suffering and hardship, more than I had. But now they were new people, emptied of the rot that drugs had created. It was incredible to see how these young people had decided to opt for the beauty of life. They had come in like corpses and now, thanks to prayer, faith and work, they had a new life under Our Lady’s divine protection. In short, it wasn’t the usual community with the atmosphere of a barracks! I almost felt a certain sense of envy upon seeing their way of being together, full of love towards each other…It was a beautiful sight to see their faces, which were once undoubtedly gloomy and now as bright as diamonds thanks to Mary’s intercession. What I saw there urged me to believe even more…

My sins, like snow in the sun.

A last great moment awaited me to complete my journey of inner healing. It happened at the end of a Holy Mass. There were many priests on the altar and they started to say a series of blessings, but before receiving them, you had to ask for forgiveness within your soul for the sins that they named…I felt myself freeze over due to the depth of those blessings and the truth of what they were saying: I had committed all those sins! Normally I don’t like people seeing me crying, but the impact was too strong and I cried…cried…cried!

I asked for forgiveness for all the sins I had committed against God, against myself and against my neighbour, and I gradually felt that the Lord absolved me. I cried also because I felt so small before the Lord, who only asks you to repent, and then he forgives you…. True flashes of heaven!

The departure was foreseen for the next day. I was taken by bitterness, mixed with the insecurity of returning home, because I know that I would have found many temptations. I wanted to remain a little more….

He who hesitates is lost!

Returning to your own reality and seeking to continue the pathway born in Medjugorje is not easy, the devil tries to make you forget the feelings you felt there, reducing them to a brief parenthesis that has now passed. We must always commit to remembering what has been lived and avoid the many distractions that are encountered in daily life. When you are in Medjugorje, you have an almost spontaneous urge to pray, but things are different at home. You must therefore give yourselves the gift of time to pray, although sometimes it is a burden to take the rosary beads into your hands…Whether you want to or not, this is a very important means that puts us into direct contact with Mary! If you let go, then you will slowly lose your faith. I experienced it in the past: he who hesitates is lost! Let us pray, even if we don’t really want to, because he who asks it shall be given onto him…We often feel that Mary and Jesus are far away; it is not true, they are beside us, it is we who fail to perceive their presence because we allow ourselves to be distracted by the world!

If my testimony succeeds in making some young people rediscover faith – especially those who have a past similar to mine – I will be truly proud, because my existence has not been in vain, it will have borne fruit! A fruit that I now thought was dead within me, and that Mary exhumed making me feel all of her love, allowing me to understand how important I am for Her.

Let us pray! Because nothing is impossible for God…

Davide

 

For God to live in your hearts, you must love.

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