That is the impression I have from my Tour Guide, who has been there repeatedly over 26 years. He has assured a number of us going next year, we will not want to leave. Many miracles occur there. When we met our priest last night for dinner, who will be joining us as Spiritual Director on the trip, he assured us this weekend he will be promoting the trip at all Masses with brochure in hand!! That will be a clear and great endorsement for the week he will spend with us in Medjugorje, encouraging others to join us.
I sent the book Medjugorje: the Message to my sister for her birthday this May. While she has not yet commented on that, it is a further seed. I invited her she welcome on my trip next year. Maybe something will touch her.
30th annual Youth Festival opens in Medjugorje Cardinal De Donatis celebrates Mass to inaugurate the 30th Youth Festival being held in Medjugorje, Bosnia and Herzegovina. By Francesca Merlo Over 50,000 young people from all over the world have gathered in Medjugorje to reflect, this year, on the theme “Follow me”. The opening Mass, presided over by Cardinal Angelo De Donatis, Vicar General of Rome, on August 1st, inaugurated the start of the 6 day long Festival; while the closing ceremony is expected to be presided over by Archbishop Salvatore Fisichella, President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelisation on August 6th. Cardinal De Donatis began his homily by expressing amazement “at the grace that the Lord continually pours out upon us”. “Everything”, he said, “is grace”. Three indications The Cardinal said that in order to listen to Jesus when He said ‘Follow me’, it is necessary “that the Holy Spirit open our hearts and that He fill them with divine wisdom”. “Today’s gospel”, he continued, “presents to us the scribe of the New Covenant, the wise man according to the Gospel”. The Cardinal then went on to describe three indications “amongst others” that can be drawn from him. The first: As a good fisherman “The Kingdom of heaven- as we have heard of it - is similar to a fishing net”, began the Cardinal. “The net”, he explained, “is thrown at sea in order to collect as many fish as possible”. The fishermen then select the good fish, to be eaten, and the bad, to be discarded, he said. “Every Christian”, explained the Cardinal, “is like a good fisherman, who watches over the sea of his mind holding back the holy thoughts and throwing away the useless or poisonous ones”. “Courage”, said the Cardinal. “The Gospel invites us to purify our thoughts in order to welcome the thought of Christ. An evangelical heart asks for a free mind!” The second: Seeking the horizon of truth Cardinal De Donatis then introduced the second indication. “Jesus speaks of a Judgment”, he began. “This Judgment”, he said, “is a happy light of truth, not the judgment of a tyrant”. Cardinal De Donatis described the Final Judgment as the “triumph of divine love” for all those who believe. For those who have denied Christ, he continued, this light “full of goodness” will “highlight the truth of a life lived without fruit”. He explained that we must “anticipate the true judgment of God by immediately placing ourselves on the horizon of truth. A young Christian”, he concluded, “is wise” when he or she “speaks the truth, seeks the truth, offers the truth”. The third: Old with new Finally, the Cardinal introduced the third indication. The day’s Gospel, he said, “explains that the scribe of the Kingdom is the Christian who draws old and new things from the treasure of his heart”. This wonderful expression, he explained, can be used to understand the relationship between old and new. “The Old Testament prepares the New”, he said. But, he continued, it can only fully be understood when making reference to the Old. “Old and New need each other in order to open up to each other”. “The authentic Christian”, concluded Cardinal De Donatis, “is neither traditionalist nor progressive”. The authentic Christian “preserves the good taste of homemade bread” he said: “Fragrant and appetizing precisely because it is kneaded and baked with an ancient recipe”. https://www.vaticannews.va/en/church/news/2019-08/medjugorje-annual-youth-festival-opening-mass.html
The August 2nd, 2019 Message from Our Lady, Queen of Peace: "Dear children! Great is the love of my Son. If you were to come to know the greatness of His love, you would never cease to adore and thank Him. He is always alive with you in the Eucharist, because the Eucharist is His Heart. The Eucharist is the heart of faith. He has never left you. Even when you tried to go away from Him, He has not left you. That is why my motherly heart is happy when I watch how you-filled with love-return to Him, when I see that you are coming to Him by the way of reconciliation, love and hope. My motherly heart knows that when you set out on the way of faith, you are shoots-buds. But along with prayer and fasting you will be fruits, my flowers, apostles of my love; you will be carriers of light and will illuminate all those around you with love and wisdom. My children, as a mother I am imploring you: pray, think, and contemplate. Everything beautiful, painful and joyful that happens to you-all of this makes you grow spiritually, so that my Son may grow in you. My children, surrender yourselves to Him, believe Him, trust in His love, let Him lead you. Let the Eucharist be the place where you will feed your souls, and afterwards, will spread love and truth-will bear witness to my Son. Thank you."
This video has a brief introduction about the Youth Festival but then shows yesterday's apparition of Our Lady to Mirjana. Those who struggle with belief in these monthly apparitions to Mirjana should really study these recent videos. Mirjana now suffers from severe back problems which disappear completely during the appparition but instantly return at the end of the apparition. If she is acting she must be one of the world's greatest actors....
Perhaps I missed something in this video, but all I saw and heard was some person being upset as often happens at the apparitions.
I feel bad for Mirjana. She appears to have great discomfort prior to the apparition with back spasms and tears. I hope these thousands of young people completely embrace the Way to Jesus by living lives of prayer, reconciliation, and the Eucharist.
Today is Our Lady's actual birthday! Here is a quote from a Medjugorje forum item from 2012: September 8 can be viewed as Our Lady’s ‘official’ birthday celebrated by the Church. But for followers of Our Lady’s messages from Medjugorje there is another date in the calendar put aside for celebrating the Gospa’s birthday – August 5, best considered as Our Lady’s ‘private’ birthday. This was revealed to the visionaries very early on in the history of the Medjugorje apparitions. • Mention of this date was also made by Fr René Laurentin and published the same year in his book, Is the Virgin Mary Appearing at Medjugorje? He wrote: At the end of May 1984, Jelena and Mirjana, with whom I spoke on June 10, had received from the Virgin a call to celebrate August 5 as the 2,000 birthday of her birth. The feast was to be celebrated by two days of fasting and a day of celebration... The three days of fast (they added one) ended in a day of intense prayer in the Church and on the hill (of apparitions). There were many conversions and confessions. One of the priests said to me: “I will remember this day more than my 20 previous years as a confessor.” According to the young people (the visionaries), Mary had said who had heard confessions that day would have great joy... • The visionary Mirjana also spoke about Our Lady’s ‘private’ birthday in an interview with the author Jan Connell, who wrote in her book, Visions of the Children: In the first few days of the Apparitions, the Blessed Mother was most gracious about the fear of the six visionaries, and gentle about the personal suffering each was enduring. She told the Children: “Do you know my real birthday is August the 5th?” The Children said no, they did not know that. The Blessed Mother continued: “Would you Children like to give me some presents?” Jacov sorrowfully blurted, “Dear Blessed Mother, I don’t have any money!” The Blessed Mother smiled joyfully and said: “Oh Jacov, my dearest little one, you don’t need money for my birthday presents! Tonight when you go home, no matter what your feelings tell you, no matter how you are stimulated, rather than speak the pain in your heart, run outside and look at the heavens and cry out, ‘Its all for the love of you, Dear Jesus.’” Mirjana said the next evening at the Apparition, the Blessed Mother thanked Jacov for his gifts from the previous evening. By the time the Blessed Mother’s birthday arrived, Mirjana said that Jacov “was just bursting”. He had billions of presents for the Blessed Mother! High-strung and nervous by nature, young Jacov could hardly contain himself during the long rosary prayers that preceded the Apparition. Finally the moment came. The great flashes of light announced the arrival of the Queen of Heaven and Earth. As Jacov saw her he literally reached up and grabbed at the Mother of God as he cried out. “Happy Birthday, Dear Blessed Mother!” Realising what he had done, Jacov fell on the floor in shame and fear. Mirjana said she saw the Blessed Mother tenderly lean down and pick him up as she took his little nail-bitten hand in hers and kissed it. And here is a clip of a very young visionary Marija confirming the day. Marija is now a mature lady with a family but continues to see Our Lady every day.
I do see someone become very emotional, exclaiming in tears to Mary that she sees her. The rest of the video is evidence she did not turn off recording. It would appear she eventually put her phone in her purse.
from the August 2019 issue of the Spirit of Medjugorje newsletter Terri Enright Smith, of the MIR group, reported in the June/July 2019 issue of The Medjugorje Star that on her recent pilgrimage, visionary Mirjana shared that two emissaries from the Pope recently visited her. They came to apologize for the Pope’s remarks on the plane in May of 2017 when he mocked Medjugorje and alluded to Our Lady as a postal director. The emissaries said that the Pope had been given misinformation on the apparitions. http://www.spiritofmedjugorje.org/issues/August2019pdf.pdf
Also, it was Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich who was told that our calendar is 6 years ahead of Christ's actual birth/death. So Jesus died in 26AD, not 33AD according to what this great mystic of the church was shown.
This has been revealed in Maria Valtorta's Poem of the Man God. When Joseph's brother asks him when he intended to marry Mary, he replied: When Mary is sixteen. After the feast of the Tabernacles. The winter evenings will be sweet for the newly weds!...» and he smiles again looking at Mary. A smile of a gentle secret understanding. A smile of a brotherly chastity giving comfort.
I wonder if we will ever celebrate in this lifetime - Christmas on Christ's actual birthday, whenever that truly is? After the Warning or Permanent Sign? Just a thought. Poses questions of accuracy of other dates. Maybe what is more important is to celebrate them PERIOD! Course we want to know, being curious children wanting to honor more fully. It's like anything else. I would rather honor a friend or family on their birthday rather than that on another day or in another month.
Tonight, Our Lady said she would meet everyone at the Blue Cross. Ivan said: This is the most important part of this meeting with Our Lady. She came very happy and joyful and she greeted us with her motherly greeting, praised be Jesus, my dear children. After this she prayed for a longer time over all of you, especially those present who were sick. After this she said, Dear Children, in this time of mercy in a special way I wish to call you to prayer. Perseverance in prayer. So many times I have said that my Son has allowed me to stay here together with you because I wish to teach you and to raise you/educate you because I wish to lead you to my Son. Therefore, decide for Him. Put Jesus in the first place in your families, pray in front of Him, so that you can receive graces. The mother prays for all of you and intercedes for you to her Son. Then Our Lady blessed all of us with her motherly blessing. She blessed everything we brought for blessing. Then she left in prayer and in the sign of the light and the cross, saying: Go in peace, my dear children.
Most Famous Exorcist Said Medjugorje Is Center For Battle Against Evil [Rough translation] From La Luce di Maria: World-famous exorcist Father Gabriele Amorth was one of the first priests to go to Medjugorje and one of the first supporters of the truthfulness of the Marian apparitions. It seems that the well-known priest kept a book of secret notes that he replenished every time he returned to Bosnia. Recently deceased, the late Father Amorth was one of the most influential exorcists of the Catholic Church of the 20th century. The priest fought all his life so that the Vatican would recognize the order of the exorcists and eventually achieved success. Now the exorcist priests have a structured international association and clear intervention procedures. Starting in the 1980s, Father Amorth became one of the most convinced supporters of the veracity of the apparitions in Medjugorje. At the time the Church was investigating and for decades did not express an opinion on that phenomenon. Unfortunately the exorcist could not see the recognition before he died. At the end of a long investigation, in fact, the Ruini commission judged the first seven apparitions to be true. The secret notes on Medjugorje Father Amorth’s other great battle can be considered the recognition of the Medjugorje apparitions. The first journey of the priest in the place of Marian worship took place in 1981 and already in that case he was fully convinced of what we saw. In fact, in a secret notebook, the exorcist wrote: “The children [seers] are sincere.” In the presence of the Madonna he believed blindly and “with all of himself,” convinced that the Bosnian visionaries and pilgrims were the Madonna’s army against the evil one. Struck by the faith of these seers and by the fact that the Madonna had chosen that place to counter the advance of evil, Father Amorth came back several times. During each visit, the exorcist prayed, met pilgrims and spoke with the visionaries, then he would write down his impressions (those notes today are a book entitled ‘An army against evil’). Today he would be satisfied with the opening of Pope Francis to this place, sanctioned by the presence of his Vicar at the recent Youth Festival. https://spiritdailyblog.com/apparit...-medjugorje-is-center-for-battle-against-evil
August 25, 2019 message "Dear children! Pray, work and witness with love for the Kingdom of Heaven that it may be good for you here on earth. Little children, God will bless your effort a hundred fold; you will be witnesses among peoples, souls of unbelievers will feel the grace of conversion and Heaven will be grateful for your efforts and sacrifices. Little children, witness with the Rosary in hand that you are mine and decide for holiness. Thank you for having responded to my call."
