Dear Friends,  Greetings from Medjugorje, where the Virgin Mary (the Gospa, in Croatian) is reported to have been appearing daily since June 24, 1981.  I arrived here overnight by bus on Thursday morning.  Like my experience in Chenslohova (the central pilgrimage shrine of Poland, in Krakov (Poland’s former capital), and Vienna (the very heart of Europe), this experience is an intense one of prayer and of visiting places of great spiritual power, of healing, and of new life through our Catholic Faith.

 The difference is that, until 30 years ago, Medjugorje was an extremely simple, nearly hidden, in Western eyes close-to-primative cluster of stone hamlets where the cultivation of basic crops, livestock, and tobacco kept the residents alive.  What kept them in touch with the larger world was the history of empires that over-ran and occupied this territory, the political alliance forged by Tito in created of six republics the socialist nation of Yugoslavia, the necessity that many men work in Austria, Germany, or Italy, but most of all their rock-hard Catholic faith, sustained for centuries by the Franciscans.

 I came to pray.  This marks the 25th anniversary of my first pilgimage to Medjugorje.  That summer, 1987, I spent a full 75 days in the village.  Things were so different then.  A Serbian dominated socialist government was still bent on snuffing out the phenomenon, and the opposition of Mostar’s bishop (whose jurisdiction includes Medjugorje), together with the hardships for those who would visit, tested the apparitions thorougly from the outside.

 The human imperfections of the six young visionaries and those to whom they turned for guidance and safety provided more ammunition for the opponents of the Gospa’s alleged apparitions.  In spite of a rising tide of obstacles, pilgrims began flooding in.  I would have joined them as early as 1983, when I walked across Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro and Macedonia en route to Greece and, finally, the Holy Land with the Bethlehem Peace Pilgrimage.  But we were tightly supervised and prohibited from deviating from our approved itinerary.  Yet in my heart, I already believed.

 Now, 31 years since the first day the visionaries claim the Gospa appeared to them on a barren hill, tens of thousands of pilgrims continue flooding in, and through, and back home again, inspired and deeply challenged to live their faith more fully.  I know what a tremendous difference these apparitions and my many experiences in Medjugorje have made for me.  I’m filled with gratitude as I return to be renewed once again in my priesthood, which received a life-saving infusion of grace when things were getting tough.

 If you’d like to know more about Medjugorje, simply google the word.  Be prepared, however, to find a substantial amount of negative press.  That way, you won’t be naive in approaching what I consider to be one of the most significant spiritual events of the past century in all of the world.  That, my brothers and sisters in Christ, is why, once again, I am here. 

 
Fr. Dean McFalls, St. Mary of the Assumption, Stockton, CA. July 5, 2012