Matthew – 16 years old

There’s a lot of things that came together where it was like, “Wow, Mary is really calling me to go.”

I didn’t know that Medjugorje existed. Dena first mentioned it in theatre class, and I started to think about it, but I’m just thinking to myself, “There’s no way I’m leaving the country.” I’ve never left the country before. So this is a first. 

And then I knew that my mother couldn’t come and that was gonna freak her out. So I was like, “There’s absolutely no way that I’m going.” But it still stayed on my mind and I wasn’t sure why. 

And then later in catechism class, we received a paper that was talking about Medjugorje, and they said that the next class, we’re all gonna go to the auditorium and there’s gonna be a talk about Medjugorje. I was like, “Okay, yeah, that’s kind of weird.”

We went there and Dena was talking and she convinced me to go. She was giving a testimony, and she just poured her heart out. I just remember, I was freaking out because there were a lot of things that came together for me to know that I had to go. 

As soon as the talk was done, I was like, “Mom, I have to go.” And she let me go.

It’s been amazing. I’ve grown closer to the Blessed Mother than I’ve ever been before. I struggle to pray the Rosary. I pray every now and then, not as often as I can, just whenever I have a problem or in bed to go to sleep. 

I had a rosary. It was a one decade rosary and it was made with a chain. It was the one that I was praying with the whole trip and I prayed a lot of Rosaries on it and the chain turned to gold. And I know that’s a thing that happens here a lot. It never happened to me so I was kind of freaking out. 

A lot happened. It’s definitely been an emotional roller coaster because I had the rosary and I was super happy and I was like, “I’m gonna pray with it forever.” 

And then the other day, during Mirjana’s talk, I felt Mary call me to do something with the rosary. She wanted me to give it to Mateo. I think he’s sick. He has a deformity in his face. So I gave it to him, but I didn’t want to because I felt like it was special to me and I didn’t want to get rid of it. But she kept tugging at my heart and I feel like I would feel worse if I didn’t give it to him. So I did what She said.

I told him the Blessed Mother wants him to have this. I told him that the chain had started to turn to gold.

Do you believe our Blessed Mother is coming here?

I don’t have any doubts. I think I did slightly before, but I knew about what happed in Fatima and I definitely believed that. Just watching the videos of Mirjana, she looks like she’s in a lot of pain before she goes up there, and immediately her head snaps up and it’s like there’s no pain. She’s so happy. You can’t fake that. And you definitely can’t fake rosaries turning to gold.