Visionary, Mirjana, tells the story that a year or so after Pope John Paul II died, while waiting for the moment of Our Lady’s apparition on a particular second of the month, she noticed a pair of “elegant leather shoes†near the statue of Our Lady. Mirjana learned after the apparition who the shoes belonged to. Mirjana said:
“After the apparition, a man who had been a close friend of Pope John Paul II approached me. He asked me not to share his identity…The man told me that John Paul II had always wanted to come to Medjugorje, but as the pope, he was never able to. So, one day, the man joked with the pope, saying, ‘If you never make it to Medjugorje, then I’ll go and bring your shoes there. It will be as if you were able to set foot on that holy ground.’ After John Paul II passed away, the man felt a calling to do exactly that. After the apparition, the man gave them to me, and I think about the Holy Father every time I look at them.â€
Mirjana keeps the shoes in a glass case in the entrance of her home.