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Divine Mercy Shrine, Surmanci

     Father Petar (Peter G.), a Polish priest comes each year with a family to celebrate the healing of their epileptic son (seizures of as many as 100 times a day) seven years ago here in Medjugorje as Father was praying over him.  Father is from Jersey Island in the English Channel.

  A few months ago, Father Petar celebrated the Divine Mercy Mass and prayer at the church in Surmanci and, during the services, prayed over each of the attendees.  One pilgrim, a 13 year old girl on crutches, was physically healed at this time.  The girl says that she saw an image with a dark veil, felt warmth, saw a light, then was physically healed.  She says that she heard Jesus tell her, "Stay close to Me". The girl, later that week, was at the Divine Mercy gift shop and pointed to a picture of Saint Faustina exclaiming, "That is the lady I saw!  Who is she?"  The documentation was left at the parish of Medjugorje (Surmanci is in the Medjugorje parish).   www.medjugorjecalls.org (November,2009)

Fr. Donald Calloway’s Homily in Medjugorje (September 18, 2003)

It was no coincidence that the gospel reading that day was Luke 7: 36-50, the story of the Pharisee and the sinful woman.

   There are no accidents in life. Everything happens because of a reason, because of God Our Father’s plan. My friends, each and every one of you is here in this church today -  St. James Church in Medjugorje -  because God, your Father, has brought you here. Mary, your Mother, has brought you here and, because there are no accidents, this gospel is meant to be heard by each and every one of you.

   God has a plan for you during your time here. You come from different places from all around the world -  everywhere you can possibly imagine. You have been brought here together, on this day, to hear this gospel proclaimed to you. As you know, this is a holy place. Our Lady has been appearing here for over 20 years. Miracles have happened here, too numerous to count - physical, spiritual healings, conversions of every kind. This is a moment for you, for me. It’s my first time here. God loves us so much – so very, very much.

   The gospel today is about conversion, and the Lord Jesus gives us an example of how to respond to His offer of forgiveness. And He gives us an example of how we should do it, and how we should not do it.

   We know that there is a Pharisee and a sinful woman. The Lord Jesus is invited to this Pharisee’s house, and by external appearances, it might appear that the Pharisee wants to know Jesus. But you know he really doesn’t. At no time does the Pharisee humble himself at the visitation of Jesus. He’s critical; he’s skeptical. “Who is this? Doesn’t He know that that’s a sinful woman?” At no time does he humble himself before Jesus. He doesn’t even perform the customary rite: in those days, in the Jewish household, when someone comes into your house, you wash their feet. The roads are dusty, and it’s a sign of humility to do that. He doesn’t do it. Jesus says he doesn’t do it. Why?  Because he’s not a humble man. He thinks he’s got it all together; he thinks he’s perfect. He doesn’t want to publicly display, before his fellow Jews, that he’s not everything, that the world does not revolve around him. And he looks at Jesus critically: “I doubt you are who you say you are.  Look at you. Don’t you know who is at your feet?” But, my friends, that is why he does not experience a conversion. He doesn’t humble himself; he thinks he’s got it all together, perfect. NO !

   What’s the next example that we’re given?  This woman, who is called a great sinner, and what do we make of that?  I make of it that she was either a prostitute or an adulteress – one of the two, perhaps both. Who knows?  But she is so humble, that she brings everything that she has -- an alabaster jar of oil, ointment, and she doesn’t even go to the front of Jesus to look at Him in the face. But to wash His feet, she has to get on her knees. And she goes down on her knees behind Him. She knows she is not worthy. “This is God; this is the Messiah; the God-man.”  And she bathes His feet with her tears of repentance.  She is crying her heart out, and Jesus doesn’t stop her.

   This is a lesson to this Pharisee, and to all in the household, of repentance and of what it’s all about in coming to know Jesus.  This is the way to humble yourself, to acknowledge all your baggage, all your “stuff.”  This woman probably knew that if she even entered this Pharisee’s home, she might be stoned. It doesn’t matter. This is the opportunity for conversion. Before her is the God-man. “I need forgiveness.”

   My friends, you’re here in Medjugorje. God, through Our Lady, through our Mother’s most tender and sweet heart, has brought you here. This is a holy place. Don’t be a skeptic; don’t doubt. Come to the feet of Jesus, and unburden yourself with all the things that have been weighing you down in your life. You may not be an adulteress, or an adulterer, or a prostitute or anything like that. But maybe you have been – you never know. I’ve been amazed when I preach, and afterward people have told me, “I can’t believe you said that.”  And it was true.

   God has you here for a reason – to experience the mercy and forgiveness of Jesus, to humble yourself, to empty yourself. You’ve come here yourself with concerns on your own heart. Some of you have come here as mothers whose children are away from the Church, whose spouses are away from the faith. You, yourself, may be struggling with addictions, sexual sins. Come to Jesus! This is the place to do it. He’s brought you here for conversion. Is that not what Our Lady is saying?  This is a great place where mercy is poured out. The Divine Mercy Blood and Water flow when we repent, when we allow ourselves to be converted, to wash the feet of Jesus with our tears of repentance. And He will turn those tears into tears of joy!

   I know a young man, 11 years ago, who was not a Catholic, who was not even really a Christian -  baptized an Episcopalian when he was 10, but his family never really lived the faith. This young man did everything you can possibly imagine, between the ages of 12 and 21. You name it; he did it. He used every kind of drug you can possibly imagine: opium, crack, heroin, cocaine, marijuana, LSD, mushrooms. Alcohol was a given -- everything. Dropped out of high school, was literally kicked out of another country, went to jail three times, twice in another country, once in this country; was homeless; living in a tree trunk on macaroni and cheese and marijuana; tattoos; long hair down to his waist; foul mouth – dead in sin because he never humbled himself to the TRUTH that sets free the hearts of men.

   And then, one day, in 1992, this young man read a book called The Queen of Peace Visits Medjugorje, and it rocked his world. It changed everything in this young man’s life – everything. Within eight months, he became a Catholic. Within a year, he joined a religious community. And he’s never been to Medjugorje.

   But he’s here now, and he’s a Roman Catholic priest and he’s here before you today celebrating Mass for you. God has His ways. When we humble ourselves, God comes down and says, “I want you to know Me and to love Me passionately, and all these things you pursued in your life before, with zeal and ardor and fervor, turn to Me and love Me.”

   I’d like to think that this woman [in the gospel] was Mary Magdalene. Who knows? We’re not given her name, but we know what she went through, what graces she received, what conversion she went through.

   My friends, these days are days of grace for you. I don’t know how long you’re here – if you’re leaving this afternoon. Maybe you just arrived yesterday. Don’t let the graces pass you by!  Maybe you’ve never confessed some things.

Unburden yourself. Maybe you’ve had an abortion. Go to Jesus; go to Confession. Maybe you’ve got shameful things

on your soul, shameful things you never confessed. Go to Jesus.  Jesus is the Divine Mercy.  There is nothing that falls outside of the shadow of the Cross – NOTHING! Go to Him. Lay it all out. Lay your alabaster jar before Jesus. “Lord, I don’t care what people think. I don’t care if I walk around crying the whole time I’m here. I want to have a conversion. I want to know You, I want to love You with everything.”  Let the tears flow,  if they come, if you’re given that gift.

   Maybe you drink too much; maybe you use contraception in your marriage. Go to Jesus. Get it all out. Don’t let the grace pass you by. Who knows -  this could be the time of your visitation. Don’t respond like the Pharisee.

   You’re broken; we’re all broken. And yes, I’m a priest, but I still need so much conversion in my life – so much. That is why I am here – a pilgrimage of thanksgiving, but a pilgrimage of re-conversion, re-committing myself to the Lord Jesus Christ and to Our Lady, our sweet and tender Mother.

   Don’t miss the grace. God loves you. Tell Him everything, and you’ll walk away from this place free, dancing like a little child, to be a child of God again – to be free to go home and let the journey, the adventure of becoming a saint of God again.

   God love you all.

Editor’s note: Fr. Calloway, M.I.C., lives in Steubenville, OH. His conversion story is chronicled in his newest book, No Turning Back: A Witness to Mercy. My review of his book can be found on Amazon.com. I gave it five stars. I could hardly put it down. You can visit Father’s website, www.fathercalloway.com for more information.

The Disappearing Priest

By Tony Zuniga

   Fr. Jozo is considered by many to be a living saint. He went to prison to protect the six visionaries when the communists attempted to jail them. Maime [my wife] and I went to his Mass at St. Elijah’s church, about an hour from Medjugorje. And even though we were told that the Mass would be in Croatian, and that we would not understand it, we were asked to just simply look at Fr. Jozo and listen. God would do the rest. We did, and God did.

   At the moment of Consecration, when the bread and wine are changed into the Body and Blood of Christ during the Mass, Fr. Jozo repeated Jesus’s words, “This is My Body!”  As he slowly raised the Sacred Host, I heard two loud thumps to my right. Startled, I turned my head in that direction. Two women who were standing nearby had just dropped hard on their knees, as if hit by a two by four. I found out later that one of them did not believe in Jesus, and the other one did not believe in Mary.  Apparently their conversion took place in an instant. tant.

   Then my own miracle happened.  When I turned back toward the altar to see Fr. Jozo, he disappeared right in front of my eyes. The Sacred Host remained floating in mid air, but Fr. Jozo just wasn’t there. I rubbed my eyes. I looked under and around the altar. All I could see was the Sacred Host, floating and vibrating, about three feet above the altar. My heart was pounding. So I turned to Maime to tell her to look, but could not reach her. The church was packed with people, and Maime had her head down in adoration. So I turned to the left, and saw another woman staring and looking towards the altar, shocked, just like I was.

   After Mass, I went directly to this woman. Before I could ask her anything, she asked me, “Are you going to tell me about the disappearing priest?”  My heart leaped with joy. For a moment I thought I had imagined things, or I was the only one who had experienced this. But this woman challenged me, “What did this miracle mean to you?”

   I answered quickly and without hesitation. “Jesus Christ is above everyone and everything, including His own Mother, more important than the priest, and all of us. He is the center of our existence, the core of our being, the King and Lord of our lives, the Master of our destiny, our friend and personal Savior!”  The woman smiled and said, “Good! Now, go out into the world and tell everyone you meet what you saw and experienced here.”

   The miracle of Medjugorje, however, is not the outer, incredible manifestations we see with earthly eyes, but the continual transformation, in tremendous numbers, of the lives and souls of people who go there. Many who went to Medjugorje had never been inside their churches in forty or fifty years. Today, they are daily communicants. Marriages are strengthened and blessed. Young people who lived in sin, from drugs, to sex, to hatred, and kids who had abandoned their families and forgotten about Jesus are liberated from all evil, and now feel free and forgiven. Today, after returning from Medjugorje, they go out and preach the Good News wherever they find themselves. The people of God have returned to God and are now rejoicing.

Editor’s note: The above is an excerpt from the book Mother of the Most Beautiful Love in the World, Copyright 1995.

   Please pray for a superabundant outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon this Commission.

A: No, radical Islam is not so dangerous, but we are too weak. Let me give you an example. When I was talking with Italians on Saturday, the question was: “There are so many Muslims who come to Italy now and they change everything. We are not allowed anymore to have crosses in our hospitals, in our schools.”  I immediately stopped that gentleman and I said, “Who is taking that cross off the wall - you or that Muslim?”   He said, “ I…but…”.  I said, “There is no ‘but’ -  there is no excuse.”  We are weak. We are weak in our faith, and then everyone else is allowed to do whatever they want. If Jesus is the one who teaches me to open the door to everybody, I have to do it. The same Jesus teaches me to open you the door, and if that Jesus is an obstacle to you, to whom I open the door, then go back home. That is what I think. We always put the guilt onto someone else, but we never start with ourselves. What am I like? What do I do for God? How much is my faith strong?  How much am I ready to do for my faith? So it’s easiest to say, “They’re radical; they’re this; they’re that.” With my God I can do anything. I lived in Sarajevo, and most of the people are Muslims; very few Orthodox. But we had a cross and Our Lady in our home. Those people were coming to our home. They were asking, and I would explain to them what that is all about. But no matter what price I had to pay, I would never ever take that cross or Our Lady off the wall, because our parents told us as well, “If you have to die for God, then you will live forever.”  But if you say no to God, then you will die forever.

Message to Mirjana on March 18, 2010

"Dear children! Today I call you to love with all your heart and with all your soul. Pray for the gift of love, because when the soul loves it calls my Son to itself. My Son does not refuse those who call Him and who desire to live according to Him. Pray for those who do not comprehend love, who do not understand what it means to love. Pray that God may be their Father and not their Judge. My children, you be my apostles, be my river of love. I need you. Thank you."

The Eyes of the Icon

By David J Sheehan

   In June 1998, when I went on my first trip to Medjugorje, I saw the striking Icon of the Resurrection, in the Chapel of the Cenacolo. This strange and beautiful mural is above the tabernacle there. Christ, the Alpha and the Omega, is pulling Adam and Eve out of their tombs of death. Their chains have been broken by the hammer blows and the nails driven into the body of Christ. On the left side of the Icon, the Old Testament is represented by the prophet John the Baptist, King David and King Solomon. On the right side of the Icon are the Apostles and a young man, representative of the many young men who died in the arms of Christ. This young man, Nicolas, converted to Christ before his body gave out under the weight of his own cross of AIDS. The Icon captivated our small group while we heard the testimonies of two young men who had overcome their own drug addiction with the help of God and Sister Elvira’s Cenacolo program. The stories of the young men were fascinating, but it was the eyes of the Icon that transfixed me.

   Christ seems to look at me, questioning, “Are you going to trust Me? Are you going to trust me with your life? Are you going to trust Me with everything, and follow Me?” The others leave the Chapel, but I stay on. I have to leave soon when our cab comes for us, but I return again and again, year after year. Oh, I make the excuse that I go back to Cenacolo to buy a few things there in the gift shop to help the young lads out. I do enjoy their music and always purchase a CD or two. But, when no one is looking, I go back to the Chapel and stare at the Icon. Our Lord is present within the tabernacle and I am not alone. He is also present in some strange way in the eyes of the Icon. It is a mystery. He does not speak, but this is not a passive Christ; He is an active One, pulling Adam and Eve out of their death grave of sin, in the first moments after His sacrifice has been consummated. He does for them what they could not do for themselves. As He raised Lazarus from his tomb in Bethany, so does He raise the dead from their tombs in eternity.

   Christ beckons with His eyes. I don’t know if I can trust this strange Man from Galilee. I want more information. When I ask Him where He is going, He responds, “Come and see.”

   I am afraid. He might send me to the darkest parts of the Congo or, worse yet, He might return me to my own town and make me bear witness to my neighbors. I would rather stay here.  It is quiet and prayerful, here in the Chapel with the Icon. It is safe to stay here in the village of Medjugorje. I want to stay, but I know I must leave. I must leave because I must take Christ with me. I must take Him out of the Icon and back to the world.

   Let’s stay here awhile longer. We won’t call it procrastination; we will call it meditation. Jesus will have none of that. I am on the hook. I have to come closer to the Icon. Something or Someone draws me closer. He is pulling me into the boat with His net. I struggle and cry out that I am not worthy. He says, “I know, but I picked you anyway. Come here and keep me company. I will show you Resurrection!”

   We are fish in the bottom of the boat, gasping for oxygen, wanting to go back to our old, comfortable ways of living. We knew those waters, but this boat we do not know, and it is painful. The Master Fisherman lets us die. We die to our old selves and, for a time, everything seems black. Maybe this is the end.

   Then, a transformation takes place. We begin to live again for the Master and through the Master. He has brought us back. But why? Why should He bring us back to new life? It is His love. It is His Sacred Heart, where first His Mother was conceived, eons before She conceived Him. This is why He brings us back. Total Love cannot die even if It is nailed on a cross. We fish have changed; we are not the same. What has happened? Christ has happened. Christ has come into us with full Communion. We are fully alive, fully resurrected, but what will our lives be like now?

   Here begins the mystery of Jesus Christ. Jesus calls us to come closer, to look into His eyes of love in the Icon, and to see through His eyes another world that is within our grasp. What is this other world like? It is a world where prayer and fasting stop wars; where people love each other and help each other, knowing that kindness shown to a stranger is a return of kindness to God, our Creator. It is a world where people accept martyrdom rather than deny Him. It is the Kingdom of God.

   I am still afraid, but Christ has caught me in His net. He has grasped me by His nail-scarred hands and is pulling me into the boat. He is pulling me through the Icon to His side of reality, to the really Real. The fish has given up struggling.  

Editor’s note: Dave is from Crowley, TX.

  Twenty years ago, my husband planted a small row of grapes for me in our backyard, at the edge of our garden, because I love grapes. After my first trip to Medjugorje in 1998, the grapes meant even more to me, because there are lots of grape vineyards there. I don't need much to make me think of Medjugorje, because I try my best to live it every day, but it is nice to look out the window and see a physical reminder.
   Each winter, after the leaves had fallen off, when I would look out my kitchen window, I would see, instead of the grape vines, three crosses, which were actually the stakes that held up the vines. I felt so blessed to have three crosses in my backyard and associated them with the crosses in my life.
   Then, one day last spring, I looked out my window and was shocked to see that the crosses were gone! The vertical stakes were there, but the crossbars were gone. I could see that my neighbor had done this, because he enjoys pruning my grapes for me. For some reason, he must have found it necessary to take the crossbars down. The one in the middle had been replaced with two pieces of wood in such a way that now the middle cross was shaped like a “Y.”  It seems silly, but I felt such a loss when I saw the crosses were gone. I may have even shed a tear.
   The following week, I was lamenting my loss of the crosses to someone. Later during our conversation I showed him the beautiful prayer card (with Our Lady's Prayer for the Sick) that we enclose with the prayer cloths we distribute.  The picture on the front is the statue of the Risen Jesus in Medjugorje. As soon as he looked at it, he said, "There's your ‘Y’ in the grapes." I looked down at the picture of the Risen Jesus with His arms extended and sure enough, it resembled my “Y” in the grapes!  I began to cry tears of "holy amazement" (as St. Faustina calls it). How awesome is that?  I have the Easter story represented in my grapes!!! First the three crosses, and now the Risen Jesus!!!
   So now, when I look out the window at my grapes, I no longer feel a sense of loss that the crosses are gone, but I have a sense of HOPE in the Risen Jesus. I smile every time I look out. God is so awesome!
   "Only with love and prayer, little children, can you live this time which is given to you for conversion. Place God in the first place, then the risen Jesus will become your friend." (3/25/99)