Joseph – Virginia

My grandmother messaged me out of nowhere and was like, “You’re going to go to Medjugorje on these dates. I’m sure you’re going to enjoy it.” 

I was like, “Oh wow. Okay.” It was kind of an out of the blue thing. It was kind of an offer I couldn’t refuse. 

I was interested. I was like, “My grandma just payed for me to go to the other side of the world just for my faith. If someone is willing to do that for my faith, I’ve got to go there, and I’ve got to at least try.” So here I am.

I wasn’t 100% sure. At first I thought it was one of those trips where I would go here and it would just be a bunch of weirdo super-Catholics, and me and my sister would just be looking for the tourism aspect of it. 

It’s been really neat. You see a lot. You learn a lot. You get more familiar with your faith. It’s answered a lot of questions I’ve had. It’s shown me that the faith isn’t about everyone in it, it’s about you and what you can do with it. 

What really helped me was confession. I had previously had a bad experience in a confession. It left me doubting the faith more than I had already been. Coming here, I was able to talk to a priest and really get clarification. He showed me that some of the things I was doing, I wasn’t wrong to do, all I needed was more insight and more faith in it.

I was skeptical. I was like, “It’s probably just some lady making this crap up so she can make some money, and it’s working.” Then I came here and saw how humble she is. Then seeing the miracle of the sun, seeing how holy this place is, everything I’ve seen being here, it shows that that’s not what it was. How would some lady come up with all this stuff? All those tests, how can you prove her wrong? She hasn’t been proved insane. No one has proved her wrong yet. 

Mirjana showed me that meeting her didn’t matter. The apparitions aren’t really what we’re here for. It’s God. 

Mirjana was basically like, “You’re here for God. You really aren’t here for Mary. You aren’t here to see me. I am not the reason why you’re here. Yes, Mary called you here, but She called you here to be with Jesus.”

If you just take a minute and, even if you don’t believe, you try to open yourself up to the idea that maybe this is true, you’ll just feel it. It’s the type of thing that you have to be here to really feel it.