To see Our Lady with your eyes is a most beautiful thing

Medjugorje Visionary Ivanka’s talk on May 3, 2011

…To see Our Lady with your eyes is a most beautiful thing. But if you see her only with your eyes and do not feel her with your heart, then that is not worth a lot. That is why I can tell you that my prayer is the same as your prayer is. My closeness to God is the same as yours….For thirty years I have been asking always the same question, God, why did you choose me? Why did you give me this great, great gift, but at the same time this great, great responsibility? And before you people who are living now here on earth, why did you give me this responsibility when I can’t get to you when I stand before you God? I accepted everything, and I have been praying to Her that She gives me strength that I can think what She wants me to think. In my life, I have fallings, ups and downs. As She told us the very first day, not to be afraid of anything. She told us that She was going to be with us all the time. This is what Our Lady told us, but it is also something She is telling to the entire world. When we fall down, we just call to Her and She is going to help us to stand up again. Our Lady told us that with prayer and fasting, we can stop wars, we can stop disasters. She came to show us the way that leads to Her Son, because God did not distance Himself from us, but we have distanced ourselves from Him. The love of Our Lady shows me that constantly She has been calling us and telling us, “Dear children, come back and take the way of conversion, Confession, fasting, penance and Holy Eucharist.”

In 1981, I was a girl of fifteen. I was born and grew up in a Christian family, but I never heard, I had never known about the other apparition sites. Back in 1981, my family was living at that time in Mostar and visionary Mirjana’s family was living in Sarajevo. Every summer, at the end of school, we use to come here to spend summer holidays. On the 24th of June, 1981, that summer, that little walk the two of us took, changed our lives completely, but also changed the lives of the entire world. That afternoon, we girls had an agreement that we would meet outside the village.

Mirjana and I were the first who came and we were waiting for other kids to join us. I really do not know how much time we spent waiting over there, but we got tired of waiting and we started walking towards the village. While we were walking, something was calling me, I do not know even today what was that that was calling me to look over towards the hill. When I looked towards the hill, I saw the Mother of God. I pushed Mirjana and I said, “Mirjana, look, there is Our Lady on the hill.” Mirjana didn’t even bother to look towards the hill and she said, “Do not tell me this foolish stuff.” I kept my mouth shut, and we started walking towards the village. When we reached the first houses we met Milka, visionary Marija’s sister, who was going to gather the sheep. I do not know what she saw on my face. The only thing she told me was, “Ivanka, how do you look like? What happened to you?” Walking together back with the two girls, I told them what I saw. And when we came back to that very place at the foot of the hill, both of them looked towards the hill and now the three of us saw everything that I saw before. All emotions were mixed in our hearts. There were tears. There were prayers. There was singing. In the meantime, the visionary Vicka walked by and she noticed that something was going on with us. She asked us, “What is wrong with you? What happened to you?” We told her, “Come, come, we see Our Lady.” When we told her this, she took off her flip-flops and ran towards the houses. She met two boys, two Ivans, and she told them, shared with them what we had told her we saw. The three of them came back to us. They saw also the same thing. Our Lady was maybe 400 – 600 meters away from us, and She was waving for us to get close to Her. Even though there were six of us, none of us dared to go up the hill. Fear conquered all the feelings that we had.

I do not know how much time we spent at the foot of the hill. I know that some of us went back to their houses and a couple of us ran into the first house on the road. So scared, we really ran into that house. We said that we saw the Blessed Mother. I can recall very well that there were apples on the table. Those people started throwing the apples at us. They told us that we are normal and that this is not possible. Run away. Go back to your homes and do not repeat this. Do not say this to anybody else. When I came back to my granny’s house, I shared with my brother, sister and granny what I saw. I remember very well that my brother and my sister were teasing me so much. Granny told me, “My dear child, that is not possible.” She told me probably somebody was guarding the sheep up on the hill. I can tell you, till today, that was the longest night of my life. I was questioning and asking myself what was going on with me. I was wondering if I truly saw what I saw. I was scared that maybe I was going crazy. What was going on with me? Whoever we told that we saw the Blessed Mother, everybody told us that that was not possible.

So the word about what we saw, spread around the other villages. The next day, all of us gathered together at the very same place as the day before. I can recall very well that I was held by my granny. She told me that whatever was going on up there, you were not going. But the six of us saw the light on the hill. We started running up the hill so fast that nobody was able to catch us. You see, I always wonder how am I going to describe, to bring closer to you that love, that beauty we saw? And I can tell you that my eyes have never seen anything more beautiful than Her. Our Lady looks like a young person, I would say maybe 19 or 21 years of age. She always has a gray dress, a white veil, and a crown of stars. She has the most beautiful, the most gentle blue eyes, black hair, and She always floats on a cloud. I can tell you that the human dictionary is too poor to describe the peace, the love, the security we felt in our hearts when we came to Her. At that very moment, I knew that that was the Blessed Mother of God. You see that I was given a grace, that I was the first one to start talking to Her. Two months before that day, my mother had passed away. The moment I came to Her, I asked Her: “Our Lady, where is my mom?” She smiled back to me and said: “Your mom is with me.” Then Our Lady looked over the six of us and She told us not to be afraid of anything, that She was going to be with us all the time. From the very first day until today, it is the same.

Through all these years, if Our Lady was not with us all the time, we would not have been able to accomplish everything that we did. She introduced Herself here in this village as the Queen of Peace. The first message She gave was the message of peace, prayer, conversion, Confession, penance and fasting. So from the very beginning, these are the main messages of Medjugorje. In these messages, if you really live them, accept them with your heart, you are going to get all the answers to your questions.

At the very beginning, Our Lady invited all of us to pray the Creed, Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be seven times, everyday. Through all these years, Our Lady has invited us to pray all 15 decades of the Rosary on a daily basis. She invited us to fast on bread and water twice a week. She invited all of us to open our hearts towards Her so that we can pray with the heart. Prayer becomes something for you that you cannot live without. It becomes like air for you. It becomes your spiritual food. As you need to feed your body with food and water, you also need to nourish and feed your souls with prayer.

From 1981 to 1985, I had the apparitions on a daily basis. During those years, Our Lady dictated to me Her biography, and She told me the future of the world and of the Church. I have all of this written down, and when Our Lady tells me to whom and when to give this, I will do so. On the 7th of May, 1985, I had the last daily apparition, and that was the day I was given the 10th secret. I was told that I was not going to have the apparitions on a daily basis anymore. So starting in 1985 until today, I have an annual apparition on the 25th of June. On my last daily apparition, Our Lady gave me this great, great gift – a gift that was not only given to me, but to the entire world. All of you here probably wonder if there is a life after this life. I am standing here before you as a living witness, and I can tell you that the life after this life does exist. Here, Our Lady tells us, is just a short journey we are taking for the eternal life. Dear God gave me this grace that I was able to see my late mother. I saw her the same way I am seeing you here right now. My late mother gave me a hug. She told me, “My dear child, I am proud of you.” I am telling, everyday Our Lady comes and gives hugs to each one of us. She comes to us and She tells us, “Dear children, do not be afraid – attend the way of conversion, Confession, penance and fasting, prayer and Holy Eucharist.” We are free people. Our Lady is showing us the right way. Of course, we are going to make the decision of what road we are going to take. So from the six visionaries, each one of us has a different mission. Some of them pray for the youth, for the sick, for the priests, for those who haven’t felt God’s love yet. My mission is to pray for families.

Our Lady invites all of us to respect the sacrament of Holy Matrimony. She wants us to renew the family prayer, that we attend the Holy Mass on Sundays, and to have at least have one Confession monthly. The most important thing to be in the center of our family life is the Holy Bible. I always say that the man who wants to turn a new page in his life, the first step in order to do this is to reconcile with himself. This we can only do through the sacrament of Holy Confession, the sacrament of reconciliation. After that, we need to go the center of our Christian life, and that is the Holy Mass where Jesus comes alive. We need to open to Him our hearts. If we are sincere, if we are true, He is going to heal every wound that we carry in our heart. Our Lady says that satan is so strong, he wants to attack and destroy our families. The only way we can be protected from him is through prayer, because everything is born in the family. In the family the good priest is born. In the family a good daughter or politician is born. If our family is health, the entire world is going to be healthy. Many of us say that we do not have time for prayer, that we do not have time for families, but God gave us all the time in the world. We just need to use that time and spend that time in prayer…I pray everyday for all families in the world. I kindly ask all of you to pray for our families. I would like to give you thanks because you came to hear the messages of Our Lady this morning. I am thankful even more because you desire to carry Her back to your homes, to your countries, and to carry the messages of Our Lady back to your families and to carry the messages of Our Lady to your churches and to your countries. I am thankful because you are going to become the apostles of peace, and you are going to give witness to other people with your life. May Our Lady always protect you and God keeps you on your way in your life. We are going to say thanks for this meeting with a prayer.