Medjugorje Website Updates

Today I finished moving of the site to a new address, that should be more easy to remember and matches better to the name of the site: www.ourlady.eu. Although the old address www.olm.name should work also, I recommend of using the new address, because www.olm.name will work only until May 2007. The site was unavailable during whole the yesterday due to this change but should be up and running from today without further problems.

The 17th International Youth Festival - Mladifest 17 – will take place in Medjugorje from August 1st to August 6th, 2006. The theme of the encounter is, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Ps 119 [118]:105) ( “Dear children … witness with your life that you believe and live the Word of God.” - Message of January 25, 2006

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…

We added Russian language, and we support most of the features in Messages section for the Russian language.

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.

We added Bulgarian and Czech languages, and we support most of the features in Messages section for these languages.

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)

Someone said that the problem of the meaning of history is precisely in this, does man know and is he at all aware and is it granted to him to discover the truth about himself while that history is still ongoing. Namely, does history, which offers so many signs of coincidences, so much irrationality, still reveal, in spite of everything, the necessity, which brings along some sort of justification for everything that has happened in the past?

On June 24, 1981, six children in the town of Medjugorje, Yugoslavia (today, Bosnia-Herzegovina), began to experience phenomena which they alleged to be apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This apparition had a message of peace for the world, as well as a call to conversion, prayer and fasting. It also entrusted to the children secret messages about events to be fulfilled in the future. These "secrets," confided individually to different visionaries, have not been revealed to the public. The apparitions themselves have continued almost daily since 1981, with some of the now young adults continuing to experience them regularly (those who have not yet received all the secrets intended for them) and others not. Originally they occurred on a hilltop near the town where a large Cross commemorating the Redemption exists. They have since occurred in many other places, including the parish church, St. James, and wherever the visionaries happen to be located at the time of the apparition.

The French Bishops

During the last assembly of the Bishops of France, a question put by a member of the Conference was the subject of a written response by Msgr. H. Brincard, Bishop of Puy-en-Velay, responsible for overseeing the Association of Marian organizations. This response was made at the request of the Permanent Council. Regarding some facts having a certain repercussion, Bishop Brincard wanted solely to bring an ecclesial light, which we can hope will contribute to strengthening the unity of the People of God. Is not the Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church, in a very particular way, the servant of this unity?

The text is taken from the official bulletin of the French Episcopal Conference (SNOP), No. 1064, printed in La Documentation Catholique of 7 January 2000.

On other places of pilgrimage where Our Lady was appearing, some miracles have happened, and this is beautiful. But here, for such a long time, Our Lady is giving messages, is continuing to speak. I would say that, here, Our Lady continues to speak to the humanity. She is not doing it from a pulpit, but as a mother. Those who want to hear and to obey – they listen. Those who do not want – they don’t listen. Our Lady is continuing to speak here. I think that this is because the time, in which we live, is powerful and important as no time before. I our time, Our Lady is observing as a mother, seeing our reality and coming to help us to think again about our way of life and about the world in which we live.