Jodi

The first day we were there, our guide, Miki, said, “I assume that all of you came here for a miracle? The greatest miracle that you will get here is to go to Mass. The Eucharist is the miracle. That’s what this is about.”

One of my favorite things about Disney World has always been It’s a Small World. You go in to all the different countries, and they’re singing in their own language. The peak for me is at the end when everybody is dressed in white. They’re still singing in their own language. They’re still dressed in their culture. They still look the same, they’re just all dressed in white. From the time I was a little girl, I’ve always felt like, “This is just a hint of Heaven, of what Heaven must be like.”

Then when we go to Medjugorje, and there are people coming from all over the world, but everybody that’s there is there for one purpose, and that’s to grow closer to the Lord, to know God better and to see what these apparitions are about and to be where Mary was. 

We went to the Blue Cross and we did three Mysteries of the Rosary, that’s 15 decades of the Rosary. Everybody is kneeling or sitting, but there are people there from all over the world. We’re all praying the Our Father, the Hail Mary, and the Glory Be. Miki would hand the microphone to the Italians and they would lead it in Italian, but we’re all saying it in English. Then he would hand it to a Croatian, all these different languages, but we’re all praying it together. We’re all here in one mind, one spirit.

It reminded me of It’s a Small World in that one section where everybody is dressed in white.

We went to the English-speaking Mass, but at night there was a Croatian Mass, it was all said in Croatian. That was outside. That’s where you had everybody there. We each had little radios that translate everything that’s going on into English. But the beautiful thing about the Mass is if you go to Mass, you can follow along with what’s happening, but then we heard the Croatian homily in English. That was kind of like when everybody was speaking in their own tongue, but everybody could understand. 

When they say that Medjugorje is a piece of Heaven on Earth, where Heaven touches Earth, it’s not a big stretch of the imagination. 

One of the things that I loved at the Croatian Mass, and it’s just huge, massive, and it’s set up with the pavilion and that’s where all the priests are. How many priests are up there? 75? It’s just huge, all these priests up there. Then when it’s time to go out and distribute the Eucharist, they’re going out into the aisles. 

After everyone has received and we’re all sitting down or kneeling, I just happened to look up, and everybody is down, but all these beautiful priests are walking in their vestments down the aisles. Again, it was just a vision of Heaven for me. They were walking down in white down all the aisles. It was beautiful. 

It was physically and mentally challenging for me to climb the hill and the mountain. I say this over and over again, Cimela met me at the bottom of Cross Mountain with a glass of orange juice and it was not only the best orange juice I’ve ever tasted, it was probably the most refreshing thing I’ve ever had because you’re pushing yourself on that climb. 

It was challenging for me just to do it, but then you see the kids going up barefoot. 

As far as Mirjana, it’s hard for me not to be a little star-struck. You think of Saint Bernadette or these different visionaries that are saints now and here we are sitting at her table at her hotel. Her brother comes out and he’s serving our food and then her daughter, who is beautiful, and then Mirjana! She is serving us food! “Here’s your soup. Here’s your chicken.” She’s taking our plates away for us. She is serving us. What an example that is. 

Then when she sat down to talk to us about everything, somebody asked her, “What messages has Mary given for you, personally?” Mirjana said, “Our Mother has never even used my name. She has never given me a message directly for me. She always talks about ‘Dear children.’ It’s not ‘Dear Croatians.’ She doesn’t divide people up.”

The humility, that’s how I discern. There is nothing duplicitous about Mirjana. I don’t get that sense that she’s a deceiver.

I definitely feel she saw something, and then I have to question, “Okay, is this something diabolical then?” But it’s kind of like how Jesus says in the Bible, “If they’re not against us, they’re for us.” Why would Satan be telling people to go to Mass and read the Bible and go to confession.

One of the pilgrims had been there 20 years ago and she was talking about how much had changed. There are a lot of shops and hotels, but then I think, “Why would people be judgmental of that?” This was an impoverished area. These people worked hard all their lives, and they were faithful. They are very God-fearing, faithful people. It’s not extravagant. Why is it wrong for God to give them a means of providing for themselves? I don’t see that as being wrong.