Following is an excerpt from a letter written by Pope John Paul II to his friends Marek and Sophia Skwarnicki while the war in Bosnia was causing great suffering to the people of the Balkans:
“…Hence, Marek, are also my wishes to you and your wife and the younger generation in the Skwarnicki family. I know that Sophia looks very much towards Medugorje and, of late, towards Ostra Brama for the reason of her entire past. I, actually, was in Ostra Brama, I even quoted from Mickiewicz there. I was not in Medjugorje but I also look in that direction. Please tell your wife about it. I look in that directioin and it seems to me that one cannot understand today’s terrible events in the Balkans without Medjugorje. This is another postscript to my letter in which I am sending you the Christmas Eve wafer so that you break it at the Christmas Eve table and share it with your wife, your family… It is Saint John of the Cross who wrote that our Lord Jesus showed us in the night of Bethlehem that, where there is no love, ‘it is necessary to graft love, in order to find love.’ And these are my wishes for you and for your entire community with which I continually try to remain a part of, also in prayer. For this is, in some sense, our common heritage. John Paul IIâ€
Marek remarks after the letter:
“And again about Medjugorje. ‘It seems to me that one cannot understand today’s terrible events in the Balkans without Medjugorje, ‘ writes the Holy Father at the time when the Balkan war intensifies…Over the years, the Blessed Mother had warned against hatred and sins of people leading to human calamity.â€
