Medjugorje
September 21, 2011 A.D.
Talk From Medjugorje Visionary Ivanka September 7, 2011
Praised be Jesus and Mary! Why am I standing here in front of you? What do I have to say to you? I am a common mortal person, the same as all of you are. Why has God chosen me? Why has He given me this enormous gift and, in the same way, an enormous, enormous responsibility, here in front of you people who live here on this earth and in the same way, when I get into Heaven one day? I have accepted everything that has been given to me. The only thing that I ask from God and Our Lady is not to leave me in this pathway, to give me the strength, because by myself I would not be able to do all of this.
To see Our Lady, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, with the eyes is something really beautiful, but to only see Her with your physical eyes and not to feel Her with your heart – from that you have nothing. That is why I stand here in front of you this morning, to tell you my prayer has the same strength as yours. My closeness to God is the same as your closeness to Him. The only thing that depends upon us is how much we want to open ourselves to God. I am here in front of you to tell you that God is here among us, that He has not distanced Himself from us, but that we people have distanced ourselves from Him. He has sent His Mother to us for Her to show us the right way which we need to take. Even though I come from a Christian family, never did I hear before that Our Lady could appear, and let alone, that I would be able to see Her one day and to witness this here in front of you.
In 1981, I was a little girl, fifteen years old. In that year, my family lived in Mostar and Mirjana’s family lived in Sarajevo. Every year when school would end and summer holidays would begin, we would come here to spend our holidays in Medjugorje. Here we have a custom that on feast days and Sundays we don’t work at all. The 24th of June in 1981, all of us attended Holy Mass, and after Holy Mass, some girls agreed to meet that afternoon. In that afternoon, Mirjana and I were the first ones who met. Like any other teenager, we were chatting with each other and just waiting for the other girls to arrive. We got tired of waiting, so we decided to go back to our houses. Returning towards my house, not even today do I know why I turned my head towards the hill, when I looked towards the hill, I saw the Mother of God. When this happened to me I had to say it. I said, “Mirjana look, Our Lady is there.” She didn’t even bother to look. She just said to me, “What kind of silliness are you talking about.” I kept quiet then and we continued our walk. When we got to the first houses in the village, we encountered Milka. I do not know what she saw in my face. She only asked me, “Ivanka, what happened to you? Why do you look like that?” Answering her question, I said to Milka what I had seen. When all three of us went back to the same spot, all three of us were able to see the same thing. The only thing I remember is that all the emotions got all mixed up inside of me. We were crying. We were laughing. We were singing. We were praying. In the meantime, Vicka arrived and she saw that something strange was happening with us. Then we said to her, “Hurry, we are able to see Our Lady. Come.” When we said that to her, she took off her shoes and ran back to her house. Then she met two boys, both by the name of Ivan, and she said to them what we had said to her. The three of them came to us. They were able to see the same thing that we were able to see.
Our Lady was standing about 400 to 600 meters away from us. She was inviting us with Her hand to come closer to Her, but we were so afraid that we did not dare to approach Her any closer than we were. Now I don’t know how much time we spent there. The only thing that I know is that some of us ran back to our houses while others of us ran to the first houses we were able to see. We ran into that house all in tears and in fear, and we said to those people what we had seen. I remember that on their table were apples which they threw at us. They said to us, “What are you talking about? Are you normal? Do not say anything ever like that. Go back to your homes and never say anything like that again.” When I came to my home, I said to my grandmother and to my brother what I had seen. Every word that I said my brother and my sister were laughing at it. My granny said, “My dear child, that is not possible. You probably saw someone on the hill minding the sheep.” And I can say simply today that that night was the longest night of my life. I was questioning myself – what is happening with me? What did I see? What is going on with me? Did I go crazy?
Whoever we shared this with, with all of those older people, they said to us that something like that is not possible. That evening and the next day, people heard what we had seen. We agreed that at the same time as the previous day we would go back to the same spot just to see if we would be able to see Her again. I remember very well my granny was holding my hand, and she said to me, “Whatever is going on up there, you are not going.” When the six of us were able to see the light three times, we were climbing up so fast that no one was able to catch up to us. When we came closer to Our Lady, how can I, my dear friends, describe to you the beauty of Our Lady and those emotions that I was able to feel. Not even up until today have I ever seen something so beauty. She is a very young girl, about nineteen or twenty years old. She wears a grey dress, white veil and She has a crown of twelve stars. She has beautiful, gentle blue eyes and black hair. She floats on a cloud. The inner peace and the Motherly gentleness, the Motherly warmth – there are no such words in this world that can describe all that. At that moment, I knew that this was the Mother of God.
Two months before that, my mom had died. I asked Our Lady, “Dear Lady, where is my mom?” She smiled and then She said to me that she was with Her. Then Our Lady looked at all six of us and She said to us not to be afraid of anything and that She would be with us always. From the every first day until today, it has been like that because if She hadn’t been with us we wouldn’t be able to cope with all of this. Some people came to us because they saw that something was happening with us. The following day when we were going to climb the hill again, we were advised to bring Holy Water and Blessed Salt and just to sprinkle that person with Holy Water. When Our Lady appeared, Vicka poured Holy Water on Our Lady. And she said, “If you are from God stay with us, but if you are not from God please go away.” Then Our Lady smiled and She said, “I am the Queen of Peace.” The first message Our Lady has given to us is, “Peace, peace, peace.” Afterwards She invited us to prayer, conversion, fasting, penance, and Holy Mass. From the very first day until today, these are the most important messages. Whoever lives these messages, you have the questions and the answers in them.
From 1981 to 1985, I had daily apparitions. Through those years, Our Lady shared with me about Her life, about the future of the Church and about the future of the world. I was writing down all of that and when Our Lady says to me when and to whom I will give it, I will give it then. The 7th of May, 1985 was the last day of my daily apparitions. Our Lady said to me that I will no longer be able to see Her every day. From 1985 until this year I see Her once a year on the 25th of June. On the 7th of May, 1985, She gave me an enormous, enormous gift – in the same way for me and for the entire world. If you here are asking yourselves is there a life after this one, I stand here before you as a living witness to say to you that it does exist. This life here is only a short journey to eternity. Dear God has given me the grace that I was able to see my mom in the same way that I can see here today you. My mom hugged me and she said to me, “My dear daughter, I am so proud of you.”
Heaven opens itself every day and says to us, “Dear children, take the way of peace, penance, conversion, fasting, and prayer.” Our Lady is showing us the way, but we have the free will to decide what we want to do. All six of us visionaries have a mission. Some pray for priests, for youth, for families, for sick ones. Some pray for those who do not know the love of God yet. My mission is to pray for the families, because Our Lady invites us to respect the sacrament of marriage, to renew the family prayer. She invites us to go to Holy Mass on Sundays and to go to Confession every month. The most important is that in the center of our family is the Sacred Scripture. Our Lady says that satan is so strong that he wants to destroy our families. We can defend our families in togetherness and praying together. Whoever wants to change his or her life, the first step that person needs to take is to start with Holy Mass with Confession. After that is to go to the center of our Christian life and that is Holy Mass where Jesus is alive, where He waits for us. But it is up to us whether we want to open our hearts. If we open ourselves to Jesus, it will be easier for us to cope with life’s problems. I have said a hundred times, the Church is not just buildings, we are the living Church. Let us start with the living Church praying together, that God helps us to defend us from satan and all the evil he wants to do in this world. Let us all put God in the first place in our lives and in that way it will be easier for us because He is the one who helps us to stand up when we fall. Every day I pray for all the families in the world. In the same way, I ask from you that you pray for our families. And now we will thank God for this meeting with prayer. – Ivanka
