Svedectvá

Priest Leonid, redemptorist from Ukraine province, participated in the 15th International seminar for priest in Medjugorje and gave the testimony, first to the other participants and then to Radio Station Mir Medjugorje. We publish the testimony as it was given:

By Sharon Abercrombie

As a five-year-old, Christine Watkins was enchanted the night her family went to view an outdoor nativity scene in their Berkeley neighborhood. But when she asked her father who the man, the lady and the baby were, he said they were just part of a Christian fairy tale.

Chris Miller, Western Catholic Reporter, Wetaskiwin

As high school students sometimes do, Emma Fradd got involved in the party scene. She refused to attend Mass, and rejected anything to do with the Church.

"My mom raised me as a Catholic, but when I got to high school I stopped going to church. A lot of my friends were atheist, and they had a lot of influence on me. I didn't believe in God at all," said Fradd, 20, who hails from Port Pirie, a city in South Australia.

Damir Jug and Stjepan Bozic walked to Medjugorje from town called Velika Gorica at the north of Croatia. They started their pilgrimage on May 1st and arrived on the Ascension Thursday, May 13th. Damir came to Medjugorje for the first time, while Stjepan was coming to Medjugorje before in the past. “Every man has his own personal wishes and desires, we felt in our hearts that we need to come, and thanks to God and Our Lady, here we are. The journey was not easy, we were adjusting to every situation that we would encounter as we travelled.” They prayed before the Statue of Our Lady and climbed the hills despite the rain and difficult weather conditions. Apart from many pilgrims from Croatia, this Feast brought also pilgrims from Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, France, England, Ireland, United States, Canada, Mexico, Germany, Romania, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and China.

"Before coming to Medjugorje, I had sunk very low. My parents are atheists. When I was 9, they divorced on grounds of adultery. From that day, I let myself be carried away by all the evils of society. At 13, I started on drugs. My broken family had gradually reduced me to a state of fear and being turned in on myself, I moved forward without seeing, without living, like a ghost. 'Emptiness', that is the word which best described my inner state. I threw myself into the 'pleasures of the flesh' and went completely adrift. Last summer, I attempted suicide, and when I woke up at the hospital, I felt that life was horrible, with no way out, no future.

I still remember the first time I found a copy of Echo of Mary in the underground chapel of a Greek Orthodox church in my town. It was in 1997, in a little town in north-central Romania and I still hadn’t turned 17. I hungered for the living word and I needed to meet people who experience my same thirst; and this little publication was an immense gift. I immediately felt that Our Lady’s messages were nourishing me, freeing me, and immersing me in a Light which filled everything in me. Also the articles based on the witness of others and news within the Church gave me great joy for it made me understand that I wasn’t the only one to experience this intense desire for God, for holiness, and to surrender my own life totally to Him.

This period in which our Church celebrates the mystery of resurrection that lasts for fifty days was filled with many pilgrims in Medjugorje and press members from radio station “Mir” Medjugorje were able to find quite few interesting life experiences. Kim Yong Hwan, priest form Korea, said that he heard about Medjugorje in 2001 for the first time and in that year he was celebrating 25 years of his priesthood. At the same time, that was the year of great crisis for him, since he felt sort of spiritual emptiness in his vocation as a priest.

The Franciscan basilica at Tomislavgrad in Herzegovina, where the Croatian king, Tomislav, was crowned 900 years ago, saw a particularly solemn ceremony this year when a group of young men took their vows. Apart from the eight seminarians from Herzegovina, who were surrounded by the whole Franciscan family and a swarm of family members and friends, there were four brothers from abroad: three Americans and one Australian.

The many accounts of personal stories involving Medj. show how only the hand of God can get to the bottom of a person’s heart and radically change it.

This is the story of a young woman who lives in a religious community in Medj. She was born in a Catholic family; her parents practised their faith, but from when she was a little girl, she felt nauseated by everything they did. At first, out of respect, she hid these feelings from them, but when she was only 13, her heart was already distant from them, from prayer and from God.

My name is Candace Evans. I am 43 years old and live in New Hampshire (USA) with my husband and nine year old son. My parents, both deceased, were Jewish. My mother was an atheist. We never spoke of religion in our home so I never had any spiritual teaching or guidance as a child, nor later as an adult.

Ruth came from an atheistic background, and at the age of 28 knew nothing about God. Two years ago God revealed Himself to her and she had a profound conversion. She was baptized during the Easter Vigil of this Great Jubilee year, after 18 months of catechesis in which Our Lady's school of Medjugorje played a decisive role.

Mariana is an attractive, modern young woman, who works as an interior decorator in Mexico. In Medjugorje she told us: "I was very independent and active and, like all young people, I did what I wanted when I wanted, trying to get the most out of life.

He's a young long-haired man, tall and pleasant looking. Practically unnoticed, he made himself available for the Irish pilgrims all last summer. He accompanied them up Podbrdo and Krizevac. He prayed with them, spoke about himself and his conversion. When asked to sing during the evening adoration he happily conceded, but he never told the Franciscans in Medjugorje that music had been his vocation. When they found out, they asked him to tell them about his life, his rock and roll group, and his experience in Medjugorje. He thus replied to Fra Slavko's questions:

By Fr. Paddy Byrne

For over 20 years, thousands of Irish people continue to make pilgrimage to a tiny village in a mountainous and remote part of Bosnia in search of something that, when discovered, is truly wonderful.

Medjugorje, for so many, is not just a place. It is a way of life.

It tells so many stories of human conversion, healing, forgiveness and most importantly brings God’s people to a place of peace. A peace celebrated by thousands of addicts who now live lives freed from the chains of addiction because of a spirituality that builds inner confidence and renews faith and hope in life.

... "My journey to this small distant village between two mountains will always remain as one of the most memorable events in my life. Truly Medjugoje has changed my views and perceptions about life. Because of Medjugorje, I live my life all over again. I cried the day I left Medjugorje knowing that I will miss this place all my life."

When I was only nine years old, I used to go around telling everyone that I wanted to be a priest. At that time I wasn't even baptized yet (I was baptized at the age of eleven) but even then I had already fallen in love with Jesus. I used to go to the bookshop near my school to buy pictures of Jesus and I used to look at these pictures and talked to Jesus for ages. It never occurred to me then that there are no women Catholic Priests!

Nicole Bettini, 29, of St. Peter in Forest Lake has become a consecrated virgin during a consecration rite Nov. 17, 2007 at St. Peter. She serves as the parish's director of youth and family apostolate and as coordinator of confirmation. Archbishop Harry Flynn was presiding at the Mass.

By his own admission Liam Stewart has made more comebacks than Frank Sinatra.

Eight years ago the man of steel made a miraculous recovery after being declared clinically dead when he choked on a scone, and now after an absence of three years he's decided to return to competitive body building in the Northern Ireland and World championships.

He's also agreed to talk about his life in a BBC documentary - 'Life Changing Experiences'.

Today for the first time Liam speaks frankly about the bad relationship he had with drugs and alcohol and how for the past 16 years he's stayed clean and sober. He also claims annual visits to Medjugorje have changed his life - and how "unexplained things" happened to him when he visited there.

Click here to read the whole article on DerryJournal.com

She says her faith began in 2005, when she joined a group of friends in Medjugorje, the Croatian shrine that has drawn Catholic pilgrims in their millions since 1981, when a group of local children claimed to have had visions of the Virgin Mary.

‘Something clicked,’ says Mandy. ‘Things kept happening that I can’t explain. We were having dinner when an image of Mary appeared on a white tablecloth 10ft away. We all saw it – everyone in the room.

Full transcript of Paddy Kelly's live speech in Medjugorje, August 4th, 2008:

Do not be afraid! … To be the saints of the new millennium, if you become what you are, you will set the whole world on fire. I have come here to tell you a true story of a young man in whose heart these words tangled and in consequence changed his life. It was as if God himself were speaking to him through the mouth of Pope John Paul II at the World Youth Days in Rome in the year 2000.

During the year 2008, Fr. Juan-Carlos LISA spent ten months in Medjugorje. Shortly before going back to Argentina, he gave his testimony for Radio MIR Medjugorje and for Glasnik mira.

“I’d like to bring my testimony to as many Christians as possible because it is not only mine, but it is the testimony of Our Lady of Medjugorje who acted in me! I feel the need to do this so that people might come to know that Mary loves us all equally and that she truly exists! She is not a myth of the church: She is our Mother!

The Medjugorje Screensaver can be downloaded and used free of charge. It contains photos from section Pictures & Photos taken by Marek Gayer in Medjugorje and also contains selected music tracks from a music album Gospa Oratorio. You can also freely listen to or download the full music album in mp3 format at Gospa Oratorio website and burn your own CD or listen on your MP3 player.

Mrs. Katarina Bednarczyk Sieminska (55) from Kazimierz Dolny near Lublin came on foot from Poland to Medjugorje. She walked 62 days; she made this pilgrimage with empty hands trusting only in God’s Providence. She carried only a cross, the breviary and a geographic map. The prayer intention of this pilgrimage was for the peace in the world, for the reconciliation of the whole world, which is one single God’s family. She is married, has no children. Her husband is an artist, a painter.

This year’s festival saw the participation of young people from sixty countries; 310 priests co-celebrated the first Mass and 440 of them co-celebrated the last one. How can we count the number of people present? Some estimates speak of twenty thousand communions distributed at each Mass, but there were certainly many, many more people than this present.

"In 1992 my life changed dramatically," says Father Donald Calloway. "I had a profound conversion experience after reaching rock bottom."

Rock bottom indeed! Now a 31-year-old priest who serves as assistant rector at the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, Father Calloway had been a runaway youngster who was immersed in everything from drug abuse to theft.

Recently, a group of students from the University of Notre Dame in the USA spent their Spring Break in Medjugorje. While there, they met a priest from Canada, Fr. Mike, who was able to spend time with them sharing his experiences and encouraging them. One night, he shared with them his testimony and a special message :

He was ordained at the age of 26, and six months later he was involved in a terrible automobile accident. Upon impact, he found himself below a tunnel of light that he knew was the portal to heaven. He experienced in that moment great joy, and a completeness he had never known. He was going to meet Jesus, and he was filled with peace. But then he became aware that he was being asked to return to his life on earth, that his work was not over. He said he was returning with an incredible desire to tell everyone he met that life is short, that God is real, and that we must not waste a moment on anything less than God. He then woke up in the hospital.

Before I married my wife Becky, who is Catholic, I was raised as a Methodist. After several years of receiving communion in a Catholic church, I was told that I was not allowed to take communion because I was not Catholic!  More out of frustration than anything else at the time I joined the Church. I was so busy with my life and was so marginal at both being a Methodist and a Catholic that I could barely tell the difference. My life was all about working in a dog-eat-dog high-tech Company for 50+ hours a week and was full of stress, and anxiety. Then after twenty five years of living in a pressure cooker, the lid flew off.