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What touches young people most in Medjugorje? What attracts them?

Their longing for peace, their thirst for the truth. The world deceives us so often. The media emphasise mostly negative things. Young people are very much manipulated in the area of sexuality, and attacked in their souls. This can lead to severe consequences if their faith has not been strengthened beforehand. The message of Medjugorje awakens in them a longing for true peace, and probably for God and for the family... for intact families. Many people come from broken families nowadays. It is very rare that one finds a family, where the love of the neighbour is really lived, where there is prayer, where parents do not divorce after the first difficulty. But, in my opinion, what draws them mostly to Medjugorje is their longing for God, and the longing to find a meaning to their lives. Here you can meet Mary and Christ more intensely than at home. Another important factor is that young people meet other young people, whom they perceive to have found peace, and to have immersed more deeply in the spiritual life.

Dragan Soldo: You went on pilgrimage to many other great Marian shrines. Can you say something about the specificity of Medjugorje?

Mons. José Domingo Ulloa: The specificity of Medjugorje is the gift of peace received here. This is what humanity is longing for today, and this gift is received in Medjugorje through our Mother Mary. It is not only about inner peace, but also about discovering that we are all brothers, and that conflicts and violence are not a solution. This peace should be shared with others.

Lidija Paris: You are born in Vukovar, and your father was born in Posusje. So many years after the war, it is noticeable that you still carry a deep inner pain remembering all that has happened. You came here with an envelope containing some photographs and some papers. This is all that remains of the first 40 years of your life…

Mirjana Kovač: I came to be in Medjugorje during these days that are still so painful for me. With faith in God, it is much easier for us to carry our cross. We unite our cross to the cross of Jesus, we offer everything to Him. Jesus allowed us this dignity. Thanks to my father and my mother who educated us in faith in God, and with the Rosary in the hand, during those days that are unimaginable for a human intelligence, we had the impression that we were somehow mysteriously supported. We were conscious that the worst could happen at any moment, but thanks to our faith in God, everything had another dimension. Death was closer to us then life…

Nowhere in the world has Our Lady ever spoken for such a long time and through so many messages to the people of this earth. This fact alone is so unique that it makes us wonder. The Messages have nothing spectacular nor sensational in them, as we journalists expect and as we are used to in news broadcasting. Many Messages are repetitions, deepening of the same content, offering help to make even the smallest step in faith; they are repeated invitations finally to do and to live what Our Lady already invited us to live. She motivates us again and again to turn to her to learn how to believe, to find Jesus, to find ourselves. All this is not particularly interesting for the demands of a journalist. No wonder, because the Messages are not passing news which seem a sensation today and become "cold coffee" tomorrow, according to the proverb: "There is nothing as old as yesterday's newspaper." The Messages are not like that. They are supports and helps to grow continually and in simplicity.

Thoughts to an Introduction

The request for us to read Holy Scripture can be found four times in the messages of Medjugorje. On October 18, 1984, a message said: "Today I call on you to read the Bible every day in your homes and let it be in a visible place so as always to encourage you to read it and to pray." A later message picks up on this one in a very specific manner: "Every family must pray family prayer and read the Bible!" (Message of February 14, 1985) Two further messages give reasons to why reading Sacred Scripture is so very important: "Pray and read the Sacred Scriptures so that through my coming you discover the message in the Sacred Scriptures for you.", and "Read Sacred Scripture, live it, and pray to understand the signs of the times." (June 25, 1991 and August 25, 1993)

An Inquiry into the Calling and Mission of the Church Today

If one inquires about particularly conspicuous signs of hope in today's Church, the new spiritual communities or movements are very often being mentioned. This is certainly justified since, as a whole, they represent an authentic Christian answer to the challenge of the cultural situation of the faith (cp. Medard Kehl SJ, "Communio" - a Paling Vision? In Voices of the Times, Journal no. 7/1997,453).

The Council documents have always stressed the community of the entire People of God in the mission and calling of the Church in the midst of the world. Also the bishops' synods of the last decades have acknowledged the community of the Church as a gift of the Spirit in the multitude of charisms and forms of life: The Calling and Mission of the Laity> (1987), Priestly Formation in Relation to the Present Times (1990) and The Consecrated Life (1994).

While thinking about the theme assigned, the word of John comes to mind: "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life -- the life was made manifest, and we saw it, and testify to it, and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest to us -- that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you may have fellowship with us; and our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ." (1 Jn 1:1-3)