Mirjana’s talk on November 4, 2009
Is there anyone among you for the first time in Medjugorje? (A large part of the pilgrims raised their hands). You really waited for so long – twenty-eight years. (laughter) So because of you, I will start from the beginning.
That summer in 1981, I came to Medjugorje to spend my summer vacation like every other summer before. June 24th is St. John the Baptist Feast Day so nobody would work in the fields. Ivanka and me desired to be alone for awhile. We were taking a walk along the foot of what we call Apparition Hill today. At that time there were no houses nearby. Once we felt tired, we sat down at the foot of the hill, and at one moment Ivanka told me that “I think that Our Lady is on the hill.” I didn’t even look because for me that was impossible. Because we grew up in Yugoslavia, in communism, we didn’t have freedom of faith here. So I didn’t know about Lourdes or Fatima. I didn’t even know that Our Lady could come on earth. The way I thought was She is in Heaven and we pray to Her, because we did pray every single night with our parents. But they were not talking to us a lot, because they were afraid. So when Ivanka said to me that she thinks that Our Lady is on the hill, in a little rude way, I replied to her. I said, “Yea, Our Lady has nothing else to do and She will come to the two of us.” I left her standing there, and I wanted to go back to the village. But as I was reaching the first houses of the village, I had a call within myself. Simply, that call was so intense that I had to come back. When I came back, I saw Ivanka on the same spot, and she said to me, “Look now, please.” I was able to see a woman in a long grey dress, holding an infant baby in her arms. Everything was very strange, because nobody climbed the hill, especially in not such a long dress with an infant baby in their arms. There was not even that path we have today that was made by the feet of the pilgrims. In that very moment, I felt all possible emotions within myself: fear, misunderstanding, love, beauty. And then in all that confusion, what prevailed within me was to run away, to escape. I wanted to go back to my home. But as I was reaching the first houses in the village, I felt that I had to come back to my friend. That call was so intense that I simply came back. So that day, June 24th was simply escape without approaching Our Lady.
When I came home, I said to my grandmother, “I think that I saw Our Lady.” She said to me, “You better take your Rosary, go to your room and pray and let Our Lady be where She is – in Heaven.” I truly did spend that entire night in prayer, because only in prayer I was able to have peace. The next day I was helping my uncles like every other day before, but around the time when I saw Our Lady the day before, I felt that same call within myself. I said to my uncles that I had to go back to the foot of the hill. They came along with me because they felt responsibility. When we reached the foot of the hill, we could see that half of the village was there already because with every visionary, somebody came along. We saw Our Lady on the same spot, but this time She did not have baby in Her arms. So that day, June 25th, was the first time that we approached Our Lady. That is how our daily apparitions started.
Very shortly we were receiving apparitions on the hill. As I have already told you, it was the time of ex-Yugoslavia communism. Police came right away and they surrounded the hill. Whoever would try to climb the hill would end up in prison. But those first days, Our Lady presented a lot of miracles, so that everyone from the village was able to see something. For example, the Cross on Cross Mountain would disappear and Our Lady dressed in white would appear. You could see the world MIR written in the middle of the sky, that means peace, then two miraculous physical healings, so that the people from the village believed us and they were helping us. Because of that, every night we would have the apparition on a different spot, so that they would never know ahead of time where we would be. Such were daily apparitions that I had until Christmas, 1982. That was when I received the tenth secret. Our Lady said to me to choose a priest to whom I will reveal the secrets. So I chose a priest and I am suppose to tell him ten days in advance, what will happen and where. Seven days we are suppose to spend in prayer and fasting, and three days ahead of time, he is supposed to reveal to the world. He doesn’t have the right to choose whether to say or not to say. He accepted this mission and he has to fulfill it according to God’s will. But Our Lady always says, do not talk about the secrets, you better pray, because the one who perceives me as Mother and God as Father has no fear of anything. Our Lady said that only those who have not come to know the love of God yet, those people have fear. But we, as human beings, we always talk about the future – what, when, or where will happen. But I always repeat the same. Who among us present here can say for sure that we will be alive tomorrow? Therefore, Our Lady has been teaching us that we should be ready every single moment to come before God and not to talk about the future.
A part of the crowd of English-speaking pilgrims anxiously waiting to hear what the visionary Mirjana Soldo will soon share with them about Our Lady and Her messages just two days after Mirjana’s 2nd of the month apparition of Our Lady Queen of Peace of Medjugorje on the day designated for prayers for unbelievers.
During that apparition on Christmas, 1982, Our Lady also said to me that I was not to have Her daily apparitions any more, but that it will be only once a year, every March 18th, as long as I live. She also said that I was going to have some extra-ordinary apparitions. Those apparitions started on August 2, 1987, still having lasting, and I do not know until when I will have them. Those, every second of the month apparitions, are also prayer for unbelievers. Our Lady never says unbelievers. She always says those who have not come to know the love of God yet, and Our Lady is asking our help. When Our Lady says our help, She doesn’t mean only the six visionaries but all those people who perceive Her as Mother. Because Our Lady says that we are capable of changing unbelievers but only with our prayers and our own examples. Our Lady asks from us to put in our daily prayers, in the first place, the prayers for unbelievers. Because Our Lady has been emphasizing that most of the bad things in the world like war, crime, abortion, divorces, drugs, are coming from unbelievers. That is why Our Lady says when you pray for them, in fact you pray for yourself and your own future.
Besides prayer, Our Lady is asking our example. She doesn’t ask from us to preach. She would like from us to talk from our own life, so that unbelievers can see God and God’s love within ourselves. I would like to ask you to kindly accept this in a most serious way, because if you were able to even once see the tears on Our Lady’s face because of unbelievers, I am so certain you would pray from the bottom of your heart. Because Our Lady says that this time is the time of decision and that we who call ourselves God’s children have great responsibility. When Our Lady says pray for unbelievers, She would desire that we do it in Her way. That means first to feel love for them, to accept them as our own brothers and sisters who were not lucky enough as we were to come to know the love of God. And only once we feel like that, we will be able to pray for them. We should never judge or criticize them or force them. We should simply love them, pray for them and offer them our own example. Every one of us has an unbeliever, maybe in our home, our working place or close to our home. That unbeliever is our responsibility. That unbeliever is looking at us and our own life, the way we behave. Let me give you a cute, maybe even a funny example. We visionaries usually attend the early morning mass, but sometime we prefer to go to the evening Mass because we love that one more. One time when I came, the church was packed. But I was able to see a little bit of space on a bench. As I have a problem with my back, I intended to sit. When I sat down, all those people sitting on the bench started yelling at me. I don’t have to clarify to you that those were Italians. (laughter) “This is our own bench. Who do you think you are? We have occupied that,” etc. I stood up. I didn’t say a word. Then a lady was passing by and she recognized me, so after that, they wanted to give me the whole bench to sit. (laughter) But why am I saying this to you? Imagine if I were an unbeliever, who was for the first time entering into a Catholic Church and those who claimed that they were Catholic would welcome me in that way. Would I ever desire to enter into that church again? And whose responsibility would that be? That is why Our Lady says we who call ourselves God’s children we have great responsibility.
Our Lady gave every one of us six visionaries a mission to pray for. My mission is to pray for unbelievers, Vicka and Jakov pray for the sick, Marija for the souls in Purgatory, Ivan for the priests and for the youth, and Ivanka for families. But Our Lady’s most important message that She has constantly been repeating is the Holy Mass, but not only on Sunday. In the beginning of the apparitions, when we were still children, Our Lady said to us, “if you find yourself having to choose between Holy Mass or seeing me in the apparition, you must choose to attend the Holy Mass because during the Holy Mass my Son is with you.” In all these years of apparitions, Our Lady has never said pray and I will give you. She always says pray so that I can pray to my Son for you. Jesus is always in the first place. Many of the pilgrims who come to Medjugorje believe that we the visionaries are privileged. They think it is enough to say a word to us because God will accept our prayers better than their prayers. But that is the wrong way of thinking. Because Our Lady, as Mother, She doesn’t have privileged children. For Her, I am the same as every one of you. Our Lady is using us. She uses me in order to give the messages. But She chose everyone of you. That is what She said in one of Her messages on January 2nd. In Her personal way She was really addressing directly pilgrims. She said, “Dear children, I invited you. Open your heart; allow me to enter in order to be able to make you become my apostles.” It means that we all have the same importance for our Mother.
If there is anyone who is privileged, the way I concluded, looking at Our Lady’s messages, then we are talking about priests because She never said what they should do. She always talks about what we should do for them. She says that they do not need you to judge or criticize them. They need your prayers and your love. Because God will judge them the way they were as priests, but God will judge you the way you treated your priests. Our Lady says that if you lose respect towards your priests, you will lose respect towards the Church and, in the end, towards the dear God as well. During the apparitions on every second of every month, Our Lady always emphasizes the importance of priests. She says, “Do not forget to pray for your shepherds. Their priestly hands are blessed by my Son.” The same, as She is giving us Her blessing, She says, “I am giving you my Motherly Blessing, but the greatest blessing you can receive on earth is a blessing coming from your priest. When they bless you, it is my Son, Himself, blessing you.” That is why I am kindly asking you, when you go back to your parishes, show to the others that you were in Our Lady’s school. If your priest is not doing the way that you think he should do, do not judge or criticize him around. You better take the rosary and pray to dear God for him, because that is the way to help him and not through judging. Because only Dear God is supposed to judge, and His judging is completely different from ours. In this world that we live in, there is so much judging and so little of love. Our Lady desires that we may be recognized by or through love.
Mirjana smiles at the crowd of English-speaking pilgrims on November 4, 2009 as she shared with them stories of the beginning days of the apparitions and the lessons Our Lady has continued to teach her through the apparitions here in Medjugorje.
Our Lady is asking from us to bring back the prayer of the Rosary in our families. Our Lady says that there is nothing that can unite the family like when you pray together. Our Lady says parents have great responsibility before their children, because parents are those who are supposed to put the seeds of faith in their children. They can do it only if they pray together and attend the Holy Mass together, because children deal only with what they see in their homes. What they should see for their parents that God is in the first place. We cannot talk to our children about the importance of the Holy Mass, if they don’t see that the Holy Mass is in the first place for us. We cannot talk to them about the importance of prayer, if they don’t see us praying. That is why Our Lady says parents have great responsibility because children do only what they see.
Our Lady is asking from us – fasting. Her way of fasting is bread and water. She is asking Wednesdays and Fridays. She doesn’t ask fasting from those who are sick, but those who are truly, really sick. She says that those people will realize through their prayer what they can do instead of fasting. But if you have never prayed an entire Rosary everyday so far, if you have never fasted twice a week so far, I would like to recommend you do the way Our Lady did with us in the beginning. The first thing that She was asking of us to pray on a daily basis was the Creed and then seven times the Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be. After some time, She was asking one Rosary a day and to fast on Friday. Then some time after, She asked of us to add the second part of the Rosary on a daily basis, and then some time after the third part, as well, of the Rosary and to fast on Wednesday. We visionaries will hope that She will stop at this. (laughter) This can be an example to you as well. Step by step. It is important that you desire to do it, that you give your hand to Our Lady and you walk with Her to Jesus. Because we can possess anything in this world, but if we do not have peace, we have nothing. The only and true peace is the one given to us by Jesus Christ. That is why Our Lady is offering to us Her hand in order to bring us to Her Son.
In order to be able to make it, Our Lady is asking from us Confession. Our Lady says that there is no man on earth who doesn’t have a need for monthly Confession. She never mentioned women. If Jakov were here he would say, “yea, She didn’t because you need to go every week.” (laughter) As a sister, I would like to recommend you one thing. Since you have already done so much for Our Heavenly Mother, you did such a long journey, and even here in Medjugorje always running back and forth with Mass, visionaries, etc., do that final step as well. Cleanse yourself, same as Our Lady said on Monday, because pure hearts are capable of receiving gifts. Do that final step as well. This is only a recommendation and advice; it is not that you have to do.
Our Lady asks of us to bring back the Bible in our families. When Our Lady gives me a message, She does not explain that message to me. The same like every one of you, I also have to pray in order to understand what God desires to tell me. When Our Lady says bring back the Bible, I believe that we all have a Bible. But Our Lady desire a simple plan, to open it every day, to read a few sentences, it doesn’t matter how much. But that the Bible truly be present because Our Lady said the Bible has all the answers to every question we have. On this Monday, we cannot say Our Lady was happy or sad. I would say more that She was decisive. She gave us the message. And I would like to recommend to you, do not allow anyone to comment the message for you. Explain that message for yourself because Our Lady and God are talking to us directly, individually to everyone of us. We are not all the same persons. That is why, I believe, that every one of us will find in the message what God is telling to that person. I personally take the Rosary, pray, and read the message. I am trying to find out where am I in all of this. Our Lady blessed all of us and all religious articles we had for blessing. Now this is would be what I was planning to say, now you can ask whatever you may be interested in.
Part II – Questions and Answers will be posted in the next couple of days.
