The Spirit of Medjugorje

Medjugorje Message March 25, 2024

"Dear children! In this time of grace, pray with me for the good to win in you and around you. In a special way, little children, pray united with Jesus on His Way of the Cross. Into your prayers put this humanity which wanders without God and without His love. Be prayer, be light, and be witnesses to all those whom you meet, little children, so that the merciful God may have mercy toward you. Thank you for having responded to my call."

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"Yes, I Will Carry This Cross"

By June Klins

      Although most testimonies about Medjugorje touch my heart, some do more than others. Fionnuala Prunty's heartfelt witness on "Fruit of Medjugorje" (Episode #367) on www.marytv.tv was one I knew I wanted to share with our readers. I will not do it justice in this short space, so I hope you will go to Mary TV and watch it in its entirety.
     Fionnuala, who is from Ireland, began praying the Rosary around the age of three. By about age six or seven, she was praying at least five Rosaries a day! "Our Lady always protected me. She went everywhere with me," she attested.
     When Fionnuala was 16 years old, she and her 15 year-old sister and 10 year-old brother were hit by a drunk driver two days before Christmas. Her leg was all twisted and in two halves. A priest anointed all of them before the ambulance came. Her sister died on Christmas Day. Her brother had a fractured skull, but went home after a week. Fionnuala spent the following year in and out of hospitals. At one point, they put a pin in her leg and it kept coming out, so they had to remove it and, when they did, her leg bone telescoped and she ended up with one leg 1 1/4 inch longer than the other. So she had to wear a corrective shoe on the shorter leg for balance.
     Fionnuala always wanted to be a nurse, but after completing her schooling and passing the state exams, she was disappointed to find that no hospital in Ireland would hire her because of her leg. So she took a civil service job, but did not like it. She was depressed and missing her sister. One night, her cousin, a priest, took her to a prayer meeting, and she thought, "I've come home." She continued to pray the Rosary every day. "Our Lady was my special friend," she said.
     Eventually, Fionnuala got married and had a baby. She realized right away that something was wrong with him because he screamed all the time, turned blue, and wouldn't feed. She took him to three doctors who all told her she was an overanxious mother. When the baby was three months old, she finally found a doctor who listened to her, and told her to take him immediately to the Children's Hospital. The doctor there told her the baby had congenital heart disease and that he was going to die, but that they could give him some medication to stabilize him and possibly do surgery.

St. James Church

St. James Church

      Fionnuala said that after the baby was on the medication, for the first time in his little life, he was able to smile. Sadly, he did not survive the operation though. "I remember holding him in my arms when he was dead and just thanking God that I was the mother of such a beautiful baby boy. I knew that Our Lady, the Blessed Mother, knew how I felt because She had Her dead Son in Her arms as well."
     The doctors told Fionnuala that she could have another baby, that it was not genetic. So, a year later she had her second son, and he was born exactly the same way. They baptized him and then rushed him to the Children's Hospital. They told her to take him home and they would do open heart surgery in a few months to a year. At three months, he had heart failure, so they rushed him to the hospital. He was to have the operation on Spy (Holy) Wednesday. Every prayer meeting in Ireland was praying for him. Fionnuala got a call from a lady in Queensland who told her that every prayer meeting in Queensland was praying for him as well. Afterwards, the doctors told her that this was the best result they had ever gotten in that hospital for that type of surgery! The baby went home 10 days later. He is now 34 years old!
     Someone had asked Fionnuala if these trials didn't cause her to drink or take drugs. She replied, "The Rosary is my valium; the Rosary is my alcohol… The Rosary always calms me."
     After this, the doctors told Fionnuala not to have any more children, that all her children would be born like this. She continued to pray three or four Rosaries a day, and a year later she had her third son, and he was born healthy. The doctors again warned her not to have any more children, but she continued to pray. Two years later, she had a daughter, who was also born healthy.
     When Fionnuala's daughter was a year old, an acquaintance of her husband's offered her a free ticket to Medjugorje. Since Fionnuala couldn't afford to go there, she was happy to accept the ticket. She knew it was going to be hot there, so she bought a pair of sandals; but since the trip was only a week or so away, she did not have time to get the lift put on the one for the shorter leg. She did not care, though, because no one knew her there.
     This was in 1991, and the war had started. Fionnuala was very anxious about leaving her young children. When she got there, she thought to herself, "Is Our Lady really here? I'd feel something if She is." But then she realized she wasn't feeling anxious anymore! "I wasn't worried and hadn't even thought about the children. I had this peace I hadn't been used to come over me." So, she decided to go to the church. It was very crowded because, at the time, they did not have the outside space, and all the parishioners went to the church every night. The Rosary was being prayed when she got there. She saw the visionaries go up into the choir loft for their apparition, and when the bell rang to announce the apparition, she just prayed, "Blessed Mother, I don't want anything. I don't want to see the sun spinning in the sky. I don't want to see miracles. You don't have to prove anything to me. I know you're here, and I'm just so grateful to be standing here." As she prayed that prayer, she got a burning in her leg – "really hot heat." The heat was moving slowly down her leg from the hip area. "It wasn't painful," she explained, "just strong heat." She began to be frightened, thinking something was wrong with her leg, so she rubbed it trying to make it go away. She said it felt like hot needles going into her leg.
     When the apparition was over, and they let more people in for Mass, Fionnuala decided to go upstairs to get a seat, to see if it would help if she sat down. It didn't help the burning, but she looked down and noticed that for the first time in 18 years, her knees were together! Then she stretched out her legs and saw that her feet were together perfectly! She moved around trying to make her leg go back, and it wouldn't.
     After Mass, Fionnuala's friend found her and asked her what was going on. She knew something was up. When they got back to the house, Fionnuala stretched out on the bed and asked her friend if her legs were the same length. When she said, "Yes", Fionnuala asked her again. This was her first day in Medjugorje. She had not even slept there yet!
     The next day, Fionnuala ran into someone she knew from home. He said he had seen her but did not think it was her because she was walking perfectly. This was the confirmation she needed!
     When Fionnuala went back to Ireland, she went to her doctor and told him what happened. He measured her leg and questioned her over and over. Eventually he said, "I'm a believer. It's Divine Providence. I cannot explain it any other way." That night, the doctor called Fionnuala at home and asked her again to tell him what happened. He was in awe.
     Fionnuala began to give her testimony around Ireland and in the houses where she stayed when she went back to Medjugorje. She even met Fr. Slavko when he came to Ireland for a conference, and she gave her testimony there.

"All of God's purposes are to the good. Although we may not always understand this, we can trust in it."
~St. Philip Neri, our patron saint this year

     Believe it or not, this is not the end of the story though. When Fionnuala's daughter was about six, Fionnuala was in another accident and hurt her neck. She had been working with children with special needs at the time, but because of her neck injury, she had to give it up. So, she prayed to Our Lady and to Jesus. "I came to know Jesus. Mary always leads you to Jesus. Jesus has become my hero!" She received a grant and went to the university and got degrees in Theology and Psychology, and went on to get a Masters in Theology and Health Care Chaplaincy. She became a chaplain at the hospital. "I think God always has another plan," she beamed.
     Then Fionnuala gave some updates on her children. Her middle son developed epilepsy at age 14, but is doing very well on medication. He is a scientist at the University of Massachusetts. Her daughter developed epilepsy at 17, and she is now a social worker. And her son who had the heart disease developed epilepsy at 19, and is on medication for the rest of his life. He may need a heart transplant in the future. (Please keep all of them in your prayers.)
     Fionnuala ended her testimony by saying, "I just pray, and God takes care of everything. I feel that no matter what cross you have to carry, just say to Jesus, 'Yes, I will carry this cross.' I promise He will carry it for you."


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