Medjugorje Website Updates

An apparition of Our Lady of Medjugorje for Mirjana, 2. June 2010

By Sharon Abercrombie

As a five-year-old, Christine Watkins was enchanted the night her family went to view an outdoor nativity scene in their Berkeley neighborhood. But when she asked her father who the man, the lady and the baby were, he said they were just part of a Christian fairy tale.

"Pie Jesu" is from Cecilia's album "The Healing Voice", and this is a simple but very touching prayer.

Chris Miller, Western Catholic Reporter, Wetaskiwin

As high school students sometimes do, Emma Fradd got involved in the party scene. She refused to attend Mass, and rejected anything to do with the Church.

"My mom raised me as a Catholic, but when I got to high school I stopped going to church. A lot of my friends were atheist, and they had a lot of influence on me. I didn't believe in God at all," said Fradd, 20, who hails from Port Pirie, a city in South Australia.

Damir Jug and Stjepan Bozic walked to Medjugorje from town called Velika Gorica at the north of Croatia. They started their pilgrimage on May 1st and arrived on the Ascension Thursday, May 13th. Damir came to Medjugorje for the first time, while Stjepan was coming to Medjugorje before in the past. “Every man has his own personal wishes and desires, we felt in our hearts that we need to come, and thanks to God and Our Lady, here we are. The journey was not easy, we were adjusting to every situation that we would encounter as we travelled.” They prayed before the Statue of Our Lady and climbed the hills despite the rain and difficult weather conditions. Apart from many pilgrims from Croatia, this Feast brought also pilgrims from Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, France, England, Ireland, United States, Canada, Mexico, Germany, Romania, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and China.

"Before coming to Medjugorje, I had sunk very low. My parents are atheists. When I was 9, they divorced on grounds of adultery. From that day, I let myself be carried away by all the evils of society. At 13, I started on drugs. My broken family had gradually reduced me to a state of fear and being turned in on myself, I moved forward without seeing, without living, like a ghost. 'Emptiness', that is the word which best described my inner state. I threw myself into the 'pleasures of the flesh' and went completely adrift. Last summer, I attempted suicide, and when I woke up at the hospital, I felt that life was horrible, with no way out, no future.