Famous Interview with Medjugorje VIsionary – “Meeting the Virgin Mary”

February 9, 2025 ourladyweeps

VISIONARY MARIJA OF MEDJUGORJE

February 7 , 2025

MARIJA IS THE VISIONARY OF MEDJUGORJE WHO, IN ADDITION TO THIS LONG INTERVIEW LIVE ON RADIO MARIA, HAS READ THE MESSAGE OF THE MADONNA EVERY 25TH OF THE MONTH AND MADE HER CONSIDERATIONS RESPONDING TO THE QUESTIONS OF FATHER LIVIO. THE RECORDINGS, ALL LIVE ON RADIO MARIA, ARE A CONSIDERABLE HISTORICAL HERITAGE ON THE APPARITIONS OF MEDJUGORJE (ABOUT 13 YEARS FROM 2012 TO 2024)) AND ARE MOSTLY AVAILABLE ON THE WEBSITE AND ON THE RADIO MARIA YOU TUBE CHANNEL.

MARIJA PAVLOVIC TELLS MEDJUGORJE

Interview conducted by Father Livio on Radio Maria (27 February 1998)

PL – Time is a great judge; time is an extraordinary medicine; time separates the good wheat from the tares. After sixteen years and eight months, a whole youth, the most beautiful part of life, during which six boys give their evening to Our Lady every day, making themselves available for her, we can say that this would be enough to convince us that we are facing something extremely serious and demanding even just from a purely human point of view. This evening we are here to listen to the personal testimony of Marija Pavlovic, one of the six visionaries of Medjugorje, speaking directly. In this regard, the first thing that interests us, through the microphones of a radio station like ours where there is so much talk about Our Lady and where learned courses in Mariology are held, is to know whether Our Lady is there or not.

M – The Madonna is there!

Now, I think people want to know if Mary of Nazareth is a person who is alive today.
Mary of Nazareth is alive today because this experience that I live with her in a concrete way has changed my life. I have learned a lot from her and I have seen how through the simplicity of daily life the Madonna has led us towards the depth of spiritual life.
Just to stay concrete, when did you last see the Madonna?
This evening at a quarter to six.
Describe to us exactly before, during and after the apparition, how all this happens.
The first time Our Lady appeared to us suddenly and we fled.
When did this happen?
It was June 24, 1981. Now we are used to it and we are no longer afraid of her. The first few days we prayed, because we thought that if we didn’t pray she wouldn’t come and stay with us. So we forced ourselves to pray. Instead now it is a normal thing, a habitual rhythm of our life. Now we gather in prayer and after we have started to recite the Our Father, the Hail Mary and the Glory be to the Father, the Madonna appears. A moment before we always see a light three times. At the beginning thanks to this light we could see from which direction the Madonna was coming.
Does it herald itself with bright flashes?
Yes, like a flash of a camera. Then it is time for the apparition. At that moment (they have done experiments on us) we remain insensitive, even though we are very sensitive and aware of all the people who are present with us.
For example, if someone takes a photograph, do you see it?
When I was operated on I told the doctor: give me a good dose of anesthesia! (note: Marija will explain later that she had the apparition under anesthesia anyway). When Our Lady arrives I kneel down, because by now it has become a normal thing and we are aware in our mind that there are people present, but at that moment we do not see her. We do not see anyone. We see a great light.
Oh, you don’t even see your surroundings?
No, no, for us the walls disappear and it becomes like a big meadow.
Describe the Madonna to us: I imagine she is a celestial creature.
Not exactly, because I always say that the Madonna is in heaven, but she is a mother; she is a person who is among us. To many who ask why the Madonna appears for so long, I always answer: the Madonna is a mother. She is a physical presence, because we can touch her, we can talk to her and hear her voice. For me she is like my mother. I always say that the Madonna is much sweeter than my mother. The Madonna has all the most beautiful things.
I mean, you can see she’s a mother.
You can see that she is a mother, but even when she speaks to us she has an expression that cannot be described. For example, if we have done something wrong, she does not need to say it, because we already feel it from her gaze that is so deep, so much so that once Jakov said: “when Our Lady looks at me she sees not only what is in my heart, but also what is inside my toe”. To say how Our Lady’s gaze is, so deep!
So, does his look tell you what he’s thinking?
Yes.
So, from his look, can you understand how much he loves you?
Yes. Even if we are bad, even if we are ugly, we know that Our Lady loves us. Now we are in the time of Lent and we must discover all our little altars, our defects. But we know, we are aware that Our Lady sees these defects of ours, but she loves us!
And he pities them.
He pities them and says: “You can change them!”
If you want, you can change. By inviting us to change, you show that you love us.
I see that Our Lady wants us to have a perfect life, but not a fanatical or strange life, but to be more and more perfect in the environment where we are. Our Lady herself said: “I want each of you to choose the path of holiness”. Here, living holiness in the environment, in the life where we find ourselves. As a mother, as a wife, I can express this holiness in a thousand ways. This is what I learned from Our Lady.
Listen, we will talk about these issues later, because I would like to focus first on the figure of the Madonna, because if you don’t inform us, who will inform us, since you have been seeing her for sixteen years and eight months every day? It is something impressive, that has never happened in the history of humanity. I am not among those who are fanatics of Medjugorje, but I have a reason that God gave me and also a good knowledge in this field. It has never happened in two thousand years of Christianity that there was a public and universal apparition that lasted so long. Of course, saints have had personal apparitions for long periods of their lives, but here we are talking about a public and universal apparition that involves the whole world. It is a completely exceptional event.
If we read the lives of the saints…..there are many who have had apparitions!
Yes, but I deny equality, because a private personal apparition is one thing and an apparition for the whole Church is another. This is an apparition for the Church and therefore an absolutely extraordinary fact. So let’s go back to the figure of the Madonna: you say she is a mother, but, from what I hear, she is very young. It seems she is less than twenty years old.
When the apparitions began, Our Lady was older than us…now we are older than Our Lady!
This is beautiful! How old do you think she looks?
We think from twenty years old up to twenty-three, twenty-four:
Very young!
Young, yes, very young.
Perhaps he is as old as he was at the time of the Annunciation?
I don’t know…maybe Christmas, when the Madonna always comes with Baby Jesus.
Out of curiosity: does she look Jewish or Croatian?
I don’t know. Many, for example painters, have asked me: “Who does the Madonna resemble?” Of all the images I always say that they are beautiful but they are not like the Madonna, because the Madonna has a harmony between the nose, the eyes, the mouth, the ears, the whole of the Madonna’s face is so harmonious that I have never found a Croatian girl or another who can be compared to her.
She is a heavenly beauty.
It is a celestial beauty that is impossible to describe.
But it has a real body.
Yes. I remember once, when I made an offering for life, that Our Lady appeared, prayed over us and embraced us when we offered her a novena for her intentions and this renunciation for life. I remember that on that occasion a boy, who was not one of us visionaries and who belonged to the prayer group, at the moment Our Lady prayed over him, felt two hands on his head, but he did not see Our Lady.
And so it has a real body.
Yes, she has a real body. For example, when we embraced the Madonna, we felt a body like one of us.
I heard, not from you but from Vicka, that on your birthday or name day you even exchange a kiss.
There are several occasions.
Let’s hear them.
It’s better not to, otherwise you’ll get jealous.
No, but when we get to heaven we will present the list of requests and say that it is up to us.
At that moment, who knows, we will be in some corner of paradise, while you will all have become seers…
So, we got to the kiss. On what occasion does the Madonna hug and kiss you?
On birthdays, name days…
Yours?
Yes, or even, for example, when you have a difficult time. I remember that in the first days of the apparitions, Our Lady stayed longer, up to two hours. Once they took us to the police and wanted to put us in prison, but since we were minors they made a scene to scare us. It was the time of communism; I remember that when I went to school I was always followed by some policeman in plain clothes. We were constantly monitored and since we were still children, Our Lady also became our friend and so we told Our Lady everything that had happened to us.
And she listened?
She listened.
But she already knew everything.
She already knew everything and who knows how tired she was!
And did he listen to everything? Did he listen to you like a mother?
Yes. We let off steam and Our Lady listened to us like a confessor.
And in those cases he encouraged you and kissed you?
He told us to offer these sufferings. For example, once we ran away and hid because an emergency car had come to get us. We hid under the bed in Jakov’s house, all six of us. The head of the hospital arrived, who has now become our friend.
In short, they wanted to make you look like crazy.
Then they took us to Mostar. We were in the emergency car of this hospital for the mentally ill, while our parents were following us in taxis, without having had time to change. I always say that we have passed our ordeal.
And did Our Lady help you, comfort you, console you?
Yes, we have always had a word, a hug, a kiss, but above all we have always discovered and clarified the meaning of suffering through Our Lady.
That is, Our Lady did not take away this difficulty from you, but consoled you and helped you to bear it, making you understand that you had to endure everything for the love of God?
Yes.
Listen, in your personal life have you ever had any particular moments in which Our Lady consoled you in a special way?
Yes, especially during adolescence, when we had to make our choices. We asked the Madonna for advice, but when it was time to make a decision, we had to make it ourselves.
Oh yeah?
Because Our Lady always said that God gave us freedom and in the freedom that God gives us we must choose. Everyone said that we were lucky because we had Our Lady. But when the moment of decision came, which was important for us because it concerned life, Our Lady always said: “you are free”.
You had to pray and decide according to your heart.
Yes, we always had to decide according to our heart and our mind and so we made our mistakes, banging our heads against the wall. For example, I remember when I started fasting for a period of time. At that time, Our Lady asked for fasting on Fridays, but I wanted perfection and so I started fasting on Tuesdays in honor of St. Anthony, for whom there is great devotion and there is a sanctuary nearby. Then also on Wednesdays, even though Our Lady had not yet requested it. So on Thursdays I no longer felt like eating and I reached the point where…
Anorexia?
It wasn’t anorexia. I was content with little because so many people came. I had become the official cook of the family, I prepared food, I spoke to people to give testimony and in the meantime I did all the housework.
I too was able to appreciate your pasta.
That’s why you’re so big!
You don’t know it, but we came down from the mountain after the apparition around half past eleven at night, we put on the pot of water and then at a quarter to midnight we threw in the spaghetti…
No, the water was put on at a quarter to twelve.
Anyway, at half past twelve the spaghetti were ready.
I once had a problem… There was a priest who had promised to help me prepare a spaghetti dish for about thirty young people with garlic, oil and chili pepper. But since he was tired from the trip he fell asleep on the sofa in the kitchen and started snoring. I was ashamed and didn’t dare wake up a priest! So I had to prepare everything myself. Then, when I put the pasta in, he woke up.
So, listen to Marija, you were fasting almost every day and what did Our Lady do? Did she call you back?
No, he didn’t call me back, but I started having some health problems and so I had my experience, which was very important for me.
She saw that you were wrong and let you make your mistakes.
Yes, yes we made our mistakes but then, thank God, through these mistakes we learned the exaggerations in fasting.
Let’s move on and continue to describe the Madonna. After the three flashes of light she appears as a living person, very young, of extraordinary beauty. Tell me, what is her voice like?
It’s a voice that is sweet, very youthful, but at the same time very serious. Sometimes, however, he laughs with us.
Is he laughing or smiling?
He smiles, but also laughs.
Does he laugh sometimes?
Yes, and she smiles often, for example when she is happy.
Does he sometimes have a serious face?
Yes, like when she has to tell us something and we would like to look for a hole to hide. But on the other hand we hear this voice so deep, so sweet! Her voice, like her look, is so deep that we cannot describe its beauty. We can say at the same time that it is like music, because, if you are sick inside, hearing the Madonna heals you.
It’s an extraordinary thing. And how does it have eyes?
The eyes are blue.
Yes, I agree that they are blue, but what do they look like?
Deep.
Do you know why I ask you? Having had the opportunity to witness many apparitions, I have observed in all six of you visionaries that after the apparition your eyes shine like stars.
It is probably the reflection of the eyes of the Madonna. For us, the apparition is a special moment. We cannot say that the Madonna appeared to us for five minutes, because we lose the sense of time.
So do you only know how long the apparition lasted?
We know this if we look at the clock afterwards. Even if the apparition lasts very little and Our Lady limits herself to praying with us or giving us her blessing, for us it is as if an hour or a day had remained.
Some people wonder why Our Lady came for such a long time. They have not understood that Our Lady came for sixteen years and eight months to call us to prayer and I think I have understood that she herself, with all her being, is a living prayer.
Yes, we learned through Our Lady not only to approach the Church. I was quite religious, because I come, like all of us, from a Catholic family that had Christian values. But with Our Lady we learned to live the traditional religion in a new and profound way…words fail us when we speak of Our Lady! We learned to live holiness. For us, holiness was only for cloistered nuns or for some categories of priests, not for example for our parish priest. Then with Our Lady we learned that holiness is actually for each of us.
In this it is perfectly in line with the Council which reaffirmed the universal call of all the faithful to holiness.
We then grew spiritually together with the Madonna….we fell in love with her in a certain sense. Especially at the beginning I don’t say that we were dependent, however the beauty of her face and her voice when she spoke attracted us…Then, little by little she brought us towards Jesus, towards the Church, towards the Eucharist and made us discover such a big, immense world. We are used to saying that we have known only a small part with the Madonna….
You Marija want to say that Our Lady did not stop you on herself, but brought you towards Jesus Christ and the Church. However, we have not yet exhausted our curiosity about Our Lady and would like to know more details. How is Our Lady dressed?
She is not dressed like we are today, because she arrives wearing a long, gray dress, with a white veil on her head.
So does he have a tunic?
We say like a tunic, but you can’t say it’s like a Roman tunic.
Is it going all the way down?
Yes, like a dress that you can see.
Is he wearing a seatbelt?
No, but the dress has pleats along the body.
A dress that touches the floor?
He disappears into the cloud.
Is the dress gray?
Yes.
And can you see her neck? Is it low cut?
No.
No, it’s not low cut. Is the neckline a crew neck?
Yes.
I ask you this because I believe that Our Lady arrives dressed in a very chaste and pure way, which must teach us something too.
I think that if someone not only sees the Madonna, but begins to pray and live the faith in a concrete way, then everything becomes important to him, even the way he dresses. I believe that a person who prays twenty-four hours a day and has chosen the path of holiness does not arrive in a short skirt or with a low neckline. This is what I learned from the Madonna. These are things that do not go together.
I also care a lot about this, because even externally we must be children of Mary. The veil then: she has a white veil on her hair. Can you see her hair?
Yes
What are they like?
Black, long.
Long? Aren’t they curly?
No, they are not curly.
Are they smooth?
Yes. Let’s say a little wavy, but not completely straight.
Is he tall, short or medium height?
It’s quite tall.
More than you?
I think so. More than me always, because when the Madonna appears she lands on a cloud. We have never seen her feet and so once Jakov, who always comes out with new things, said: “one time I will take the Madonna’s dress and see if she has shoes”. In fact, people often ask us if the Madonna is with sandals or bare feet.
So the feet are not seen and the Madonna is on a cloud. Be careful! In the various apparitions the Madonna’s clothes are very important, because through the dress she gives us a message, as well as through other visual signs. In this regard there are two signs, in my opinion very important, to interpret. The first is the crown of twelve stars. Does the Madonna have a crown of twelve stars around her head?
Yes.
Then describe to us this crown of twelve stars.
They are twelve stars that are not connected and appear to be natural stars, as when we see them in the sky.
It’s not a crown, let’s say, of gold. They are living stars.
Yes, they look like living stars and have no connection.
Did you count them?
Yes, many times.
Are there twelve?
Yes, there are twelve of them and with their light they give the Madonna a supernatural beauty. Together with the Madonna there is a light that always accompanies her, because she arrives in the light that highlights her person.
Is the light like a halo around?
No
How is it then?
It’s a light….
What emanates from her or what invests her?
Both.
Is the Madonna therefore enveloped in light?
Yes.
The second visual sign is the cloud under her feet. Look, in my opinion, the cloud is an important sign. In fact, Jesus, in his second coming, will come on the clouds of heaven. The cloud is a biblical sign of celestial royalty. The crown of twelve stars then refers to the woman clothed with the sun spoken of in the Apocalypse. Our Lady appears with these two biblical signs that certainly have a meaning.
For me it’s simpler to say this: Our Lady rests on a cloud and does not touch the earth.
She does not touch the ground, she is on a cloud, she has a crown of twelve stars. She is a celestial creature, which in a certain sense reminds us of the great sign that appeared in the sky, which chapter XII of the Apocalypse speaks about. In a simple way, deep teachings about the Madonna are contained here.
Once, speaking with a theologian, he told us that we, even though we were still children, said in five minutes what he said in an hour and a half of theology. We know nothing about theology, but with Our Lady we learned in simplicity a life of prayer, of offering and to put Jesus at the center of our life. Here, with Our Lady we learned a new life where Jesus is not up somewhere in the clouds, in the sky, but is here among us.
Then we will also talk about the messages, but first I would like to see how the apparition unfolds. When Our Lady comes, who speaks first?
The Madonna, always.
What does he say when he first arrives?
Praised be Jesus Christ.
And what do you answer?
May Jesus and Mary always be praised.
And after?
Afterwards, if the Madonna remains silent…
Where is his hands when he arrives?
It depends: sometimes he has his hands clasped and sometimes open. Then he changes, for example when he prays over the people present he stretches them out.
Well, pray over the people present with outstretched hands. But let’s proceed in order: so the Madonna arrives saying “Praised be Jesus Christ” and you answer “Always praised be Jesus and Mary”. After that, what normally happens?
If Our Lady remains silent, we begin to bombard her with the people we have heard and who have recommended themselves. If, on the other hand, Our Lady begins to say something, a message or some other word, at that point we listen. When we are the ones speaking, Our Lady tells us “enough” by starting to pray. She does not say “enough”, but begins the prayer.
That is, when you have finished presenting your intentions, does she gather herself in prayer?
We jokingly say that Vicka is the specialist in recommending…
I noticed that Vicka speaks more than anyone else during the apparition….
We usually say: “Vicka gives us some space too”. Each of us has some sick person to recommend and so, when we were all together for the apparition, sometimes Vicka and I almost had to jostle….
Did you still present prayer intentions?
Yes.
Then the Madonna gathers in prayer. Does she remain silent or pray aloud?
Sometimes out loud. Sometimes Our Lady makes spontaneous prayers.
And who do you address them to?
To God, always.
Always to God? Do you never say to Jesus Christ, the Father, or the Holy Spirit?
She addresses them to Jesus Christ and the Holy Trinity. On some occasions the Madonna prays in a language that at first we did not understand what it was, then we asked and she answered us that it was her mother tongue.
That is Aramaic?
Yes. Sometimes instead he prays silently with his hands outstretched.
I noticed that during the apparition you almost always say an Our Father and a Glory be to the Father and at that moment your voice is heard, which was not heard before.
Yes. Sometimes Our Lady also asks us to pray with her for other intentions.
Is it possible that Our Lady has made a mistake on some occasion and recited a Hail Mary? You know, it is in these small details that you can detect something that is wrong if there was one. It has never happened that during the apparition the visionaries, when their voice is heard reciting the Our Father and the Glory be together with Our Lady, have recited the Hail Mary. Praying with Our Lady it is clear that she does not make them recite the Hail Mary, but together with them she prays to God.
Many tests and studies have been done on us and they have found that we are normal. So when they come from some part of the world of visionaries, we say that first they have to go through our same path. I thank God that I was not alone as a visionary and I don’t know how poor Bernadette did it when they could say she was crazy. She was alone, while for me I say that I have a good defense behind me because there are six of us.
I have been able to verify that you have never contradicted each other, not even in the smallest details, even though there are six of you. You have always described the Madonna in the same way, even when, on certain holidays, she comes with a sparkling gold dress. You always fall to your knees at the same time when you are together for the apparition and you always report the same teachings. No one has ever been able to catch you contradicting each other, and yet it is not that you speak to each other or see each other much, in fact you are often dispersed in the world.
Each of us has his or her own life, even if sometimes we see and hear from each other. For example, I was very close to Vicka’s sister, Anna, but not with Vicka with whom, even before the apparition, I had no contact. I could say the same thing about some other visionaries. When there is a need to meet, we do it, but then each one, in his or her personal life, is on his or her own.
Let’s continue with the description of the apparition. After you have presented the prayer requests to Our Lady and prayed with her, how does the apparition end?
Our Lady prays again. Finally we ask for the blessing and she blesses the people and all the objects. She makes the sign of the cross like the priest. Then Our Lady says: “Go in peace”, gives us the blessing with the sign of the cross and goes away.
I heard Ivan say that when Our Lady goes away you see a bright cross.
You can see the cross, the heart and the sun.
What do these signs mean? We know what the cross means, but what about the other two?
We don’t know.
When Our Lady goes away, do these signs go away with her?
She goes and these three things remain.
We know what the heart means. Perhaps the sun is the symbol of the Eucharist. Who knows? We cannot know exactly. Let us remain on the figure of the Madonna, even if you, Marija, would perhaps like to talk about her messages now. You know, the first and most important message of Medjugorje is that the Madonna is there, she is alive and she is among us. My experience was exactly this when I came to Medjugorje for the first time. It was a winter evening in March 1985 and the 6:00 p.m. Holy Mass was being celebrated. We were still in the midst of the communist regime. Before the Holy Mass, the door of the little room in front of the sacristy where you had the apparition opened, from which I saw your beautiful smiling face emerge and greet me. During that Holy Mass I had the grace of being certain that the Madonna really appeared and was present. And this is the reasoning that I made, as in an inner light full of certainty: “Here is the Madonna, therefore Christianity is the only true religion”. In fact, if there is the Madonna, then everything regarding Jesus Christ and the Christian religion is true. This is what I understood in a flash of light and that was very important for me.
Thank goodness you were a priest…..
You understand well Marija that for me it was a great grace….
When I opened the door I said to myself: “Ah, ah, we got him…”
This is why we are very interested in the living person of the Madonna, because if she exists, then it is easy to understand that Christianity is the only true religion and to accept all the truths of the Christian religion. Then the Eucharist is also true, the Pope is the Vicar of Christ on earth….But now let’s see something else very concrete. Every 25th of the month you receive a message. How does all this happen?
At first, Our Lady began to give a message to the parish through me every Thursday. I told myself many times that I was not worthy and that it was not possible. Then I saw that Our Lady gave each of us a task and I thought that this could be my specific task. Then one day Our Lady began to give the message every 25th of the month. Immediately after the apparition, I take a pen and paper that I prepare beforehand, and I write the message that I received. The first time I wrote the message I began to cry, because I was sure that the message was written exactly, but…
Wait, Our Lady gives messages to all of you visionaries, but how did it happen that your messages are, so to speak, official, that is, given to the parish and spread throughout the world?
At first they were all official, but…
But now yours have become, I would say, the regular ones, starting from 1984 every Thursday and then from 1987 every 25th of the month. This is the characteristic.
Yes, but tomorrow or next 25th Our Lady could say that she no longer gives messages. What I would like to say is that for me it is a gift that I cannot explain. I would also like to say that, when I write the message on paper after the apparition and I reread it, it seems to me that the text does not correspond and that there is something wrong and then I have a crisis. I have always had some problems with grammar and I thought that perhaps I had not written well…
Does Our Lady speak Croatian?
Yes, Our Lady speaks to us in Croatian… But then I remember word for word what Our Lady told me, because it remains in my memory for a while, and so I verify what I have written.
Some messages are quite long, how do you remember them?
I remember above all the image of the Madonna and her words that seem like the harmonious sound of a bell… I don’t know how to say it.
It stays in your mind like the music of the words.
Yes, something like that. However, I am always in doubt not so much because of the accuracy of the writing, but because when it is written it becomes so poor, like a flower without petals. It no longer has that strength, that fullness…
The written message is no longer the Madonna who is saying it.
Yes, then little by little I began to read and reread, I began to meditate and pray and so I began to feel in my heart: “Ah, this is it!”. Therefore I say that it is not enough to take the message and read it only once….
So, you are not just a tape recorder.
Yes, in a way I am.
Okay, but you have to be careful, you have to learn, remember and rewrite faithfully.
Yes, but after the appearance I write it right away. I write it right away like this…
And is it good for you?
It’s good for me because I prayed during the day. The 25th is a special day for me.
Do you pray on the 25th?
I pray every day, but especially on the 25th.
Then you see I’m right. You’re not really a tape recorder, because you prepare yourself spiritually for the message.
Yes, but we also prepare for the moment of the apparition, although sometimes it can happen that Our Lady appears even if we are not praying. Once I remember that I was in the car and my sister Milka was chatting. It was quite a long trip and we had sung and already recited the three parts of the rosary. Suddenly Our Lady appeared.
But what time was it?
It was a quarter to six.
Ah, but it was the exact time.
But since we had already sung and prayed, we had taken a moment of pause before starting to pray again and so the moment of the apparition came. Milka began to say: “What’s happening? Why don’t you answer me?”, then she realized that the moment of the apparition had arrived. At that moment I can’t be in contact with anyone.
Were you in the car?
Yes, and Our Lady appeared.
And did you realize you were in the car?
Yes.
I heard that something similar happened recently too.
For many it may seem impossible. But Our Lady once appeared to me while I was on a plane, when I went to Brazil once. They had invited me and the parish priest for 25 days and we moved from one city to another. The meetings were attended by many people and took place not in the Church but in the stadium. Despite the change in time, the moment of the apparition was always the same.
That is, did the Madonna appear at that time?
No, it appeared at this time. On that plane trip, it happened that a stewardess recognized me and told me that that morning she had to go to another part of America, but instead they had sent her to Brazil. She was angry with her boss for this decision. She was a Medjugorje native and when she found out that I was there and that was the time of the apparition, she said: “Our Lady arranged this, not my boss!”
So the Madonna is not tied to space and place. You live here in Monza and the Madonna appears to you every day in your home.
Yes.
And to the four of you who have daily visions, she appears at the same time, even if you are in different parts of the world. However, it seems to me that Our Lady is not necessarily tied to time either. In fact, sometimes she appears at other times. Do you feel it? Does she warn you?
We know when Our Lady usually comes, which is a quarter to six in Medjugorje, but we always feel something in our hearts.
I think it sometimes appears in the morning too, for example.
Yes, sometimes. For example, Jakov, when he has to travel, asks Our Lady to appear first. Our Lady respects these little things. For me, when it is time for the apparition, I am not ashamed of anyone and I do not care if I am on the plane and if there are people looking at me, perhaps thinking that I am crazy. Ivan also says that he is not there and so he prefers to have the apparition at another time in his house or in a suitable place. Our Lady respects these little things that we ask of her.
But sometimes the Madonna did not appear.
These are special moments. Once Our Lady did not appear to us when we were in the rectory. It was the first few days and they had forbidden us to go to the apparition hill. We wondered what was happening. Then Our Lady appeared to us later and told us that the police had bugged the rectory because they wanted to harm the friars. That is how we discovered the danger.
Our Lady certainly has no problem identifying bugs! Listen, we know that Our Lady asked Vicka for four pauses in the apparitions, each lasting forty days, as a sacrifice to offer. Let me now reveal a little secret about you. Once when I came to Medjugorje, I think it was September 1987, you weren’t there, because you had gone to Split for a week’s retreat. I was a bit upset, because I didn’t find you as usual. When you returned, you were a bit anxious and you confided in me that Our Lady had asked you for a week’s suspension of the apparitions as a sacrifice to offer.
Yes, there are these little sacrifices that Our Lady asks of us and that cost a little because we are very attached to her. When Our Lady told Mirijana that she would no longer appear to her daily (Mirijana now has apparitions every 18th March, her birthday) she began to cry and in the following days she prayed and waited for Our Lady, who however did not come.
How do you feel after the apparition?
I always feel a great joy. Even if Our Lady is sad sometimes, it is always a great joy for us. We are sad too because Our Lady gives us a reason for her sadness, but then we keep her presence in our hearts and it is something that fills us with such great joy that we have to hide it, because someone might think we are crazy and so we try to control ourselves.
Listen, Marija, being available for sixteen years and eight months every evening for the meeting with the Madonna seems like a huge sacrifice to me.
No, because…
You are young and you have the right to live your life. Every evening, let’s think about it for a moment, keeping yourself free for the Madonna seems to me an extraordinary commitment.
Yes, it is a commitment, but we have embraced it with joy, because after all Our Lady has left us this freedom of decision… Once, speaking with Father Slavko, who is my spiritual father, he said: “I can’t stand this freedom anymore”. In fact, sometimes he had a certain idea of his to propose to me, but I responded that we should instead seek God’s will, which was perhaps different from what he thought. It was perhaps a question of small things, but very important for growth and I used to say that I was ready to make sacrifices as long as I was sure that it was God’s will.
In your opinion, what are the reasons for Mary’s long stay among us?
I think that one reason is because humanity is going in the direction that Our Lady herself said, that is, towards a world without God, where paganism is stronger than ever. Then because every man needs it: we see that so many young people no longer have a sense of life and commit suicide in such a natural, so peaceful way, because they no longer know why to live. Our Lady came and remains for so long to give us the sense of life that is God.
So, as Our Lady says in one of her messages, precisely because man wants to build a world without God, she comes to call us and bring the world back to God. However, she also said that she came to Medjugorje to realize what she began in Fatima. What do you think this means?
It is the only message where Our Lady mentioned another apparition. In my opinion, through the message of Fatima, Our Lady asked above all for conversion and now Our Lady here in Medjugorje continues to call us to conversion in a concrete way. When pilgrims come to Medjugorje, they feel the need to change their lives and return home with something. When I go to Lourdes I go on a pilgrimage, but when I return home my life continues as before. When you return from Medjugorje, however, you feel the need to create a prayer group and to be more active in the Church and in your parish. I think that Our Lady, through these little things, wants to change each of us. If we are Christians, then they must recognize us by the love we have among us like the first Christians, who recognized them because they loved each other. Our Lady, through her love, wants to help us understand that God is love and, as she said in many of her messages, that each of us is important in her plan for the salvation of humanity. So we, as Our Lady said in some of her messages, must become the outstretched hands of God and of Our Lady, especially towards those who do not know God.
Certainly! So Our Lady comes to bring the world back to God and to complete the great plan of conversion.
Not only for this, but also for other reasons, I’m sure.
She herself said that she came to reawaken faith, to instruct us in prayer, to guide us on the path of holiness, to show us the way of salvation… It seems to me that the most important message is that of prayer. How did you learn to pray from Our Lady? What does the prayer of the heart consist of?
We usually say that by praying you learn to pray, because if you decide to give God time in that moment you begin to feel the prayer, as happened to us. At the beginning Our Lady had asked us to pray the 7 Our Fathers, Hail Marys and Glories and the Creed. It was the first prayer we learned to recite with Our Lady. We didn’t know how to pray the rosary, because usually our grandmother led it and we were that generation that forgot. So we began to pray the Our Father, the Hail Mary and the Glory be to the Father, sometimes all night until morning, and so little by little we began to feel the prayer. At the beginning we prayed because we wanted Our Lady to continue to be with us, then we began to feel the need for prayer and through it the need to understand Our Lady more and to be closer to Jesus, to understand him more and to feel his presence through prayer. So we began to experience our little growths, our little stairs that each of us climbed by praying more and more. I remember that when we began night adoration as a prayer group, around three in the morning we were overcome by sleep. So, knowing that at that hour was our weak moment, we began to read and sing the psalms and so four in the morning passed, then at five the priest arrived for the Holy Mass and at six we returned to our homes. After a night of prayer we were so happy that we greeted the people who left their homes still asleep, because they had just woken up, while we were full of joy. So we began to feel this need and this sweetness of prayer and that man does not live by bread alone, but also by prayer which has become life for us. We began to wake up early in the morning to climb the hill of the first apparitions (Podbrdo) or the mountain of the cross (Krizevac) to do the Via Crucis with bare feet as a gesture of renunciation and as a victory over ourselves. It also helped us a lot to say yes to fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays, dedicating more time to prayer, not only that, but also giving up going out with friends to have fun to go to the hill to pray. We too, like all other young people, had moments of celebration, for example on the occasion of a birthday and I remember that in the first days, when the place of the apparition was not as accessible as it is now, VicKa said: “Look, we are here celebrating the birthday of one of our neighbors, while the world right now needs our prayers so much.” So we headed to the place of the apparition, but we got lost in the middle of the bush and stones and returned home the next morning without finding it. We had not even brought a torch, because Vicka was sure she would find it.Since we understood that during the night without the flashlight, in the middle of those identical bushes, we would not have found the place, we waited for the morning praying. So we slowly changed our mentality: we no longer found pleasure in staying there to have fun, listening to traditional music even if it was beautiful, because we liked praying more.
You have gradually discovered the beauty of prayer.
Yes. Then, after some time, persevering in prayer and making sacrifices, the moment of prayer of the heart arrives where you begin to feel that it is not only you with your will and your being who decides the prayer, but you begin to feel the prayer that rises from the heart like a spring. For example, the book of the Russian Pilgrim gave me great help, because I was closed like a hedgehog, but nevertheless I was looking for my time of prayer and to personally discover continuous prayer and this book helped me a lot. Then each of us, I am used to saying, finds his own recipe, because I could not say that the Russian Pilgrim led me to the prayer of the heart, as it comes when God wants, when the Holy Spirit enlightens us and then this interior time of prayer of joy arrives.
When you speak of prayer, do you mean the various forms of prayer: personal prayer, the rosary, prayer before the crucifix, Holy Mass, adoration…?
All together. I think that praying only the rosary is not a complete prayer, as well as reading only the Holy Scripture. You have to understand a little of everything, like a meadow of flowers, where many different flowers form a harmony, so it is with the prayer of the heart.
However, it seems that Our Lady particularly emphasized the rosary and the Holy Mass.
Yes, Our Lady told us that the rosary is her favorite prayer. We often brought her flowers at the time of the apparition, but Our Lady told us that the gift she likes most is the rosary. Then Our Lady told us that the most important center of our life is the Holy Mass and she told us to live the Mass not as an encounter with the priest but with God, with the living Jesus Christ and she also told us to prepare ourselves for the Holy Mass with prayer.
Is it true what I heard Father Slavko say (I don’t know if you said it or Our Lady) that the Holy Mass is more important than the apparition?
We are the ones who have understood that the Holy Mass is more important, because it is as if the Madonna had put a veil in front of herself, not a visible veil, to indicate to us that Jesus Christ must be the center of our life. The Holy Mass is the strongest and most beautiful moment.
Besides coming with Baby Jesus at Christmas, it seems to me that the Madonna came on Good Friday, with Jesus next to her…
Yes, with Jesus crowned with thorns, scourged….This happened on two occasions. Once when we were taken away and interrogated by the police.
The police were terrible, I saw it with my own eyes.
It was in front of every house and they also used the special police, because they thought we were being manipulated. Tito had been dead for a year, the situation was very critical and they thought we were being manipulated to destroy Yugoslavia.
And then, at a time when you were being harassed by the police, the Madonna appeared with Jesus?
Yes, with the suffering Jesus.
And did Jesus look at you?
Jesus was so covered in blood, so suffering that he didn’t look at us.
Didn’t he speak?
No, she did not speak, but Our Lady told us how much Jesus had suffered for love of each of us. Consequently, we too, for love of Jesus, had to offer these small sacrifices of ours.
So on two occasions the Madonna appeared with Jesus at her side as he was during his Passion. But, since the Madonna often asks for renunciations and sacrifices, tell us something about it. How did you understand this message?
We understood it by living it, because Our Lady once said: “You cannot talk about fasting if you do not fast”, so if each of us begins to fast and make sacrifices, then we understand its value. Our Lady also invited us to make novenas of little flowers, giving up something very concrete for us, even if it does not seem very important, such as sweets, television and those things to which we are most attached.
At your house I noticed that you made little sacrifices by giving up chocolates and small, tasty things of that kind. Does the Madonna appreciate these sacrifices?
Yes, she appreciates them very much and the little things, the very little ones, are very important to her.
They are small for us, but not for her. Listen, when I came to Medjugorje the first few times, it was 1985, you told me that your prayer group, the one led by Ivan, who often meets with Our Lady at night on the mountain to pray, was offering in a special way prayers and little sacrifices that Our Lady had requested. A few weeks later Our Lady, in one of her Thursday messages (it was September 5, 1985), said that Satan’s plan had failed and she had publicly thanked you for the sacrifices that you young people had offered. In the messages of the previous Thursdays Our Lady had repeated several times that Satan was strong and that he was trying to make his plan fail. I remember that you were very busy praying and offering little sacrifices and then finally Our Lady said: “Dear children, Satan’s plan has failed… I thank the young people in particular for the sacrifices they have offered.”
Yes, Our Lady has asked for prayers and sacrifices many times. I feel like saying that they were very sincere prayers, very heartfelt, very well done. There were young people who decided to pray, especially because they were led by a supernatural force. They were not visionaries, but they were always with us, they began to live like us and each of them had their own interior experience to be able to say that Our Lady was present there and they believed in it a thousand percent and lived the messages a thousand percent. Even today, when I speak with some of them, there is always this absolute conviction, like the one you said before about Christianity when you arrived in Medjugorje the first time.
Yes, I have been gifted with the deep certainty that Christianity is the only true religion.
So for all those in the prayer group there was a total certainty that the Madonna was appearing. We did not know about other religions, but it was a reality that the Madonna was present, that God exists and that what our grandparents and our parents tried with difficulty to transmit to us had now become a concrete reality for us, so concrete that we had become more convinced than our parents, not only us visionaries, but also the other young people who were with us.
Listen, Marija, I noticed something that is a bit typical of the apparitions of Medjugorje and that is, it is certainly true that Our Lady chose six boys, but it seems from her messages that in a certain sense she also chose the parish. In fact, in some Thursday messages she says that among all the parishes in the world, this one of Medjugorje is the one that is dearest to her. And in fact I noticed that the entire community of Medjugorje, beyond human limitations and defects, believed in the apparitions. Is this true or not?
But I think that Medjugorje must be in the heart of each of us. We must not stop at the limits of the parish, because I see that it is something ideal… Our Lady looks at the parish church, at the mountain of the cross, at the mountain of the apparition but then goes beyond. I want to say that not only we who were born in Medjugorje, but all those who come and live our experience, for example climb the mountain of the cross that was built in 1933 before the apparitions, they too are part of this parish…
Here, the cross has a fundamental importance in the pedagogy of the Most Holy Mary. She herself said that the cross built on Krizevac in 1933 was in God’s plan. Our Lady asks for renunciations and sacrifices and asks for prayers for the sick. Here I would like you to tell us in a few words about your experience of suffering. At one time you donated a kidney to your brother and for me personally it was a gesture that deeply affected me. This would be enough for me to take these apparitions of Our Lady seriously, because you donated the kidney at a very young age, you must have been about twenty years old, and I considered it a gesture of great generosity. I heard a testimony of yours, which I would now like to recall as a comfort to the sick and the suffering, where you said that Our Lady appeared to you while you were under the knife and followed the entire operation with great maternal concern. Tell me a little about this extraordinary event.
It’s a small part of my life that is a bit special and that I usually don’t talk about, but on the other hand it was a very strong and very painful experience for me, also because, by removing a kidney I no longer have the strength I had before. Before saying goodbye my mother told us: “I thought I was losing a child and now I’m losing both of them”, because I was quite skinny. But I was very calm, very at peace.
At the time I saw you as very determined.
I thought: “It’s a good opportunity to go to heaven!”. Vicka and Jakov went to heaven and then came back. I always say that if I had gone I would not have come back, because I would not have gotten a return ticket and I would have always remained in heaven! Our Lady had told me that on that occasion she would have been with me, but I thought that she would have been close to me like this, like everyone else….
Ah, you told Our Lady that you had made this decision?
Yes.
And what did she answer you?
Our Lady did not answer me: do or don’t do. She left me free to decide. I told myself that I would do all the tests and they would show whether it was God’s will or not. If it is not God’s will, I thought, they will find something… they will tell me that I have heart problems and that I cannot have the operation and at that point I would understand that it was not God’s will. When the time came for the operation, when I entered the operating room, (when you usually enter you cannot take anything with you) I asked the doctor if I could bring the rosary because I said to myself: here we don’t know… it is possible that something could happen and if I die I at least have the rosary, which is my strongest weapon. I felt that I had fallen asleep because of the anesthesia and at a certain point I saw Our Lady. Her face changed expression…
So she was watching you while they were operating on you?
She was on top of me and looking at me and then I explained to the doctor that…
That is, the Madonna followed the whole operation, which lasted how long?
Four and a half hours.
And you had the apparition all that time?
I do not know.
However, did you have the apparition while you were under general anesthesia and did you notice from the face of the Madonna that she was following the operation?
Yes, for example at the moment of the first cut I saw that the Madonna made a grimace on her face but then it also seemed like she was controlling everything.
This is one of the most shocking things I have ever heard and we must take the lesson that comes from it, because Our Lady acts in the same way with us every day, taking care of all our suffering. In one of her messages she said that she watches with apprehension every step of ours on the path to holiness and we can therefore think that she also shares our tears.
I think we need to be more aware and not let any suffering fall into the void, but we need to exploit it by offering it to Our Lady and to God, because then the reward and grace also come. If a person is suffering, for example, does not see, well while I can see a flower and rejoice in it, she can only touch it. However, if she offers this thing she will be able to find in her heart the joy that I have seeing it….
So Our Lady knows everything about us, sees all our suffering, follows us everywhere and watches over us continuously.
Yes, and she continually invites us to offer all our suffering and pain without saying: I hurt here, I hurt there. On the contrary, we must try to offer with patience and love and keep Jesus before us. Once the Madonna told us: take the crucifix in your hand and look at it. I sometimes tell myself that, if when I have a suffering, I had the courage to take the cross and look at it, it would pass immediately.
Do you see this crucifix that we have here in the chapel? Our Lady sent this to us. We don’t know who gave it to us. A truck arrived once, on a Friday at noon, with this crucifix dripping with blood and the courier didn’t know who the donor was; he only told us that he was from Val Gardena. It arrived right at noon, when Jesus was on the cross in the greatest suffering. We never knew who sent us this impressive crucifix, but we understood the importance of the cross in a radio that bears the name of Our Lady. By the way, Marija, have you seen Our Lady cry?
Yes, already on the second day of the apparitions. What impression did it make on you? It was July 26, 1981 and exactly ten years later, on July 26, 1991, the war broke out.
Yes, exactly ten years later.
So you had the apparition on the mountain, then she appeared to you alone crying?
Yes, we were on the mountain and I went home on the steepest and most difficult path, not the one we do now which is easier, because since the apparition and the prayer were over I thought of going back home. Our Lady appeared to me and asked me to tell people to pray because only with prayer and fasting can wars be averted and also to ask people for conversion and forgiveness. It was the first message of peace but also the first message in which Our Lady cried and where she was very concrete.
Was she actually crying, were tears falling from her eyes?
Yes, yes, I saw the tears that ran down her eyes onto her dress and fell into the cloud. That time I, who was the most closed of all, spoke. I was in shock and I had to transmit this message as soon as possible so that the Madonna would not cry anymore.
It was the message of peace…that is, he said: peace, peace, peace!
Yes, then reconciliation between man and God and men among themselves. Then she said to pray for peace first in our hearts, then in families and finally in the world. And so Our Lady began to give the first messages, which then remained the most important, that is, the messages of peace, prayer, fasting, confession, Holy Mass, conversion.
Conversion which is walking on the path of holiness
Yes.
Listen, Marija, it’s a personal opinion that I ask you. A statuette of the Madonna of Medjugorje cried tears of blood in the hands of the Bishop of Civitavecchia, Monsignor Girolamo Grillo. I remembered a message from the Madonna on May 24, 1984 where she says that her heart weeps tears of blood for every child who is lost in sin. Well, maybe you too have heard about this fact and I ask you for a completely personal opinion.
Yes, I have heard about it and I also once heard the Bishop give his testimony through Radio Maria. For me it has a very great meaning, not so much because the Madonna cried, as I have seen her cry too, but because she cried tears of blood and she cried near Rome.
Yes, Civitavecchia is a diocese bordering that of Rome.
The whole thing says a lot.
Is there a big meaning?
Yes, in my opinion yes, but then speaking I wouldn’t want to…
It was just a personal opinion I was asking you..
Our Lady told us: pray for the Holy Father because I have chosen this Pope for these times.
Did the Pope say that he chose her for these times?
Yes, I think that all together, even all the prelates, priests, bishops, cardinals who are in Rome, Our Lady not only calls us but everyone on the path of holiness. We must be aware. I think in a particular way also in this moment when we see that the Holy Father has less strength, and also in the coming years when we will be in the transition from this millennium to the other, when we will be in the transition from one Pope to another and when we will be in the decision of a new Pope, we must let ourselves be guided by prayer and by the Holy Spirit, because above all we who say we are Christians must be so with life and with facts.
If you, Marija, had the opportunity to speak face to face with the Pope, what would you tell him?
So many things.
I know you would really like to talk to the Holy Father, but since if not him at least his nuns are listening to Radio Maria, what would you say to him?
First and foremost, that we love him and pray for him as he himself asked, but not only an Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory, but much more. And then many other things…
But first of all, let us love him and pray for him…
Yes, through this experience with Our Lady we feel ourselves in the Church and even though we have problems with our Bishop, we always say that we want to let ourselves be guided by the Church and that is how we feel, especially after Our Lady said that this Pope was chosen by her. Many times, I don’t know, for example, today Our Lady speaks and tomorrow morning the Pope speaks and they are the same things…
We at Radio Maria also highlighted this coincidence.
The most important thing is to be aware of our responsibility as Christians because, even looking at this situation in Italy, I live here now, it seems to me that we are moving towards communism….
I would say towards materialism. You have lived atheistic and materialistic communism.
Yes, but atheism arrives here too because through consumerism we put mammon in first place and so God remains in last place…. I don’t know, I see it like this. When I came to Italy I thought of St. Leopold Mandic who came here and became a saint. Here, I said to myself, I’ll go too so I can become a saint.
Listen, Marija, I consider the fact that you came to Italy providential.
Me too.
Do you think so too? What does your husband think?
Let’s ask him.
Yes. So, Paolo, what do you think about the fact that Marija, after she became your wife, came to live here in Italy.
I am also convinced that it is not a coincidence. I have always thought so and we have always thought so together since the very first moment. Perhaps we can say that we have not yet understood the reason why. It is still an open question, a question without an answer, but one of which we are both deeply convinced.
Listen, Paolo: not a leaf falls without God’s will. I have been friends with Marija for a very long time and when I heard that she was getting married I was very happy, because I was sure that she had chosen by letting herself be guided by God’s will. Now Marija is your wife and mother of your children, but at the same time it seems to me that you see clearly that she has a special mission to fulfill and it seems to me that you are very motivated to help her.
Without a doubt very motivated, very involved. I made this mission mine from the beginning and if it were not so I think we would not be here and we would not have gotten married.
So you help him in accomplishing something that is a very important mission.
My helping her is being at her side. In reality, it is not that my help is special. Her role is to bear witness to events that she has lived, this exceptional experience that she has lived and that she is still living. Bearing witness is a task all hers that should not be mine, except tonight when you ask me a question. However, it is being at her side, being close to her. We have decided to share our life and therefore I am at her side, I am close to her.
Listen, Paolo, since I have been going to Medjugorje, and it has been about fifteen years, I have never noticed, as far as the six boys are concerned, that there is something wrong, apart from their human limitations, their defects, but never once has my ear whistled to signal me something that would make me suspicious. And yet God has given me this gift of having very sensitive antennas, as is normal for someone who works in radio. You, who are her husband and who have followed her and been close to her for many years, have you noticed anything that has made you doubt the apparitions?
Paolo, don’t bring out my flaws!
But, I say, the defects confirm the apparitions!
This is a question that deserves a very serious answer: absolutely not! In my opinion, this is proof and I can say that I do not need any more proof. I met Medjugorje in 1985 and the truth shone before my eyes like the sun. It was like a flash of lightning. I believe that when one encounters the truth, one feels that it is the truth, one feels it intimately in one’s conscience, one does not need anyone to tell it to one, one recognizes the truth within. I can say that in all these years I have always found confirmation of the coherence of the visionaries among themselves, between what they say and the message of the Gospel and I have never found a flaw, even the slightest.
Even though he is a Bocconi graduate! (note: Paolo, Marija’s husband graduated from Bocconi University in Milan).
Listen, Paolo, but as far as Marija is concerned, have you ever had any doubt that she was the victim of some hallucination or deception?
No, it is not possible. You have to think that I live with her in a personal dimension, of an intimate relationship, that probably no one has lived and for a long time. So for me it is impossible to think that Marija could be lying or that there could be something that is not true.
I agree that she cannot lie, but that she can be deceived or deceive herself…?
No, I don’t think so, it doesn’t seem reasonable, plausible, in short it would be like saying that when it rains the water goes up. No, the water goes down! Enough, there’s not much to beat around the bush.
There is an evident transparency.
Absolutely! What hurts me very often is to see (at least as far as I know for sure) that people, maybe even inside the Church, judge Medjugorje, judge the truthfulness of the facts without having taken the trouble to meet the visionaries, without wanting to hear the story of the events from their own mouths, without informing themselves and without studying. I see, and unfortunately I find it being at Marija’s side at least 95% of the time when she moves to give testimonies, that very often the negative judgments on the facts of Medjugorje are given on prejudices, on preconceptions and in an uninformed way.
It is true. However, it is my belief that, even to accept this brightness of Medjugorje, a particular grace is needed.
Yes, that for sure. I would say that from this point of view I agree with Father Jozo when he says that those who go to Medjugorje are called. You see it in many situations of people who, not wanting to, not thinking about it, suddenly managed to go and people who instead would like to go, but have difficulties, and are unable to go.
Marija, what awaits us in the future?
Let’s hope for heaven.
Vicka and Jakov were physically taken to the afterlife to see heaven, purgatory and hell and Ivan had the same experience alone. However, his testimony does not have the same value as Vicka and Jakov’s because they were together. You personally (let’s leave aside for the moment Mirijana and Ivanka who now have only one apparition a year), regarding the afterlife, what did Our Lady make you see?
We all saw during the apparition, like an image seen from a window, heaven, purgatory and hell and Our Lady told us that she was showing them to us to say that they exist, that the afterlife exists.
Can you describe heaven, purgatory and hell?
Yes, first of all heaven. We saw a large space with many people dressed in tunics, like the Roman ones, of different colors and we saw that they were praising God and were full of joy and Our Lady told us that those people who had gone to heaven had sought and lived God’s will here on earth and now that they are in heaven it is for them a continuous knowing of God more and a thanking him for everything he has done for them. Then we saw purgatory. There we did not see the people, but we heard their voices. Our Lady told us that the people who are in purgatory when they were on earth at some moments were sure that God exists and at others not, so now they are in purgatory. Their greatest suffering is knowing that God exists, that he is there and not being able to go to him. Our Lady asked us to pray a lot for the souls in purgatory so that they can go to heaven as soon as possible. Finally we saw hell. We saw a big fire and in the center a young and very beautiful girl who entered this fire and then came out becoming similar to a beast… she transformed… and the Madonna told us that God has given everyone freedom and that each of us with our own freedom responds. They lived in evil, in sin and chose hell with their freedom and God is not the one who sends us, but we are the ones who choose to go there.
It is we who want to go to hell by acting against the will of God and it is not God who sends us. I have noticed however, since I am finishing writing a book of Catechesis for young people and just in these days I wrote the chapter on hell, that the description that Lucia of Fatima makes of hell has some similarity with yours. There too they speak of a sea of fire and of men and demons who assumed frightening forms of horrible animals…
I personally never read these things.
I think it is a good thing that you do not read them, so that you do not run the risk of being influenced. Listen, Marija, before I close, allow me to ask you a few small curiosities for the benefit of the Radio Marija audience that follows Medjugorje more closely. I know that you, as far as the questions you ask Our Lady, sometimes cannot ask them, sometimes Our Lady does not answer you, but sometimes Our Lady answers you.
Yes. Lately Our Lady answers very rarely, because she invites us to pray and always says that the Lord enlightens us in our hearts.
I think that once, at the invitation of a priest, you asked the Madonna a question about Maria Valtorta.
Yes, I asked her if it is true and Our Lady replied that it can be read. She did not say if it is true or not true.
And finally, tell us what awaits us in the future. What do these secrets that Our Lady has given you concern?
The secrets are secrets for now, until Our Lady tells us…Our Lady has already given all the secrets to Marijana and Ivanka, which are ten, and not all of them to us yet. Our Lady, through Miriam, asked us to choose a priest as our spiritual guide, but then each of us during these years has a spiritual father…
So nobody knows the secrets except you?
Through Miriam, Our Lady asked us to choose a priest as a guide, and one day the moment may come when he will be able to transmit them.
But Mirijana didn’t tell him?
Nothing for now.
So nobody knows these secrets?
No, just us.
In your opinion, is there anything to be afraid of about these secrets?
We always say that secrets are secrets and we do not want to express any opinion. Some are joyful and some are sad. We can say that regarding the seventh secret, Our Lady asked through Mirijana for prayers and fasting and it was attenuated.
I see that you have three children and therefore you are not afraid of the future.
There are the pious women of propaganda who say that either with the stick or with the word people must convert. Once I was in Milan in the Cathedral to pray in the afternoon, because my husband had to do a job and I could not be with him. At the time we were newly married. A lady came and threw a message in my hand and I wondered what it was. It was the message of the 25th of the month….
Did he give you the message on the 25th?
Yes and he probably boasted, who knows, of having distributed three hundred messages but I said to myself: but is this the way to give them? Terrible!
And so there are many people who think that by fair means or foul one must convert, and instead we see that God is love and that He calls us to help others with love, not by forcing them to convert, but by giving the example of our life, and one, seeing how we love one another, in that moment will also see and live his conversion.
Marija, I see that we have to come to a conclusion and I would like to ask you to extend a greeting to the sick people and, since we are in the youth catechesis program, to address a thought to the young people.
Yes, during the moment of the apparition we always recommend all the people. This evening I thought that, once I had reached the conclusion, I would have to greet several people, even the grandparents who are waiting with the children who are at home and who knows if they will have resisted the battle! Then all the people who have met Medjugorje, especially the sick that we have met and encouraged to pray and many other people full of problems that I meet every day. I see that there is so much suffering that we have learned to always offer. Tomorrow, when the moment of the apparition will come, I will recommend to Our Lady all the people present this evening and all those who have heard us. Our Lady puts us all in her big heart. I am sure that, when tomorrow we go to heaven, when there will be neither pain nor tears, we will understand the value of suffering and we will laugh. Now we are in this valley of tears, as we say when we pray, but tomorrow, when we are in heaven, when we are like butterflies, without all the pain, then we will laugh and give thanks because through these sufferings we have conquered a place in heaven. Here I invite especially the sick not to leave any suffering lost for nothing, but to offer everything to God, even for the souls in purgatory who are in such great need and of whom Our Lady also said that they intercede before God for us.
And for young people?
For young people I always invite and repeat: seek God because I myself was young, even if now I am not so old. I am not yet 33 years old and in any case I always tell young people that I thank the Madonna who took me in the time of youth, when we had not yet experienced the many dangers in which young people find themselves today. In America, in a meeting held by Father Jozo, a boy had the idea of writing these words on a bracelet: what would Jesus do if he were in my place at this moment? What a beautiful idea, I thought, and it is precisely the Holy Spirit who inspired this boy, who then gave a bracelet with this writing to all the young people and also to Father Jozo. Here we must be aware of what Jesus would do in our place. A young person must be aware that he is a Christian and a Catholic and that our life is a gift from God. Many times one says: I am 18 years old and I am free from my parents, I can do what I want… Instead our life is a gift from God and we must be aware of this gift and respect it, both the gift of life and that of health, because many times we abuse in many things. And also look for Jesus, because when we begin to look for something we can find Jesus, because Jesus is so immense that we can put him everywhere and at the same time so small that we can also put him in the pocket of our Jeans, so I always repeat to young people: look for Jesus because Jesus will give you the solution for your whole life.
And for families?
For families: “Pray, pray, pray” as Our Lady always says. We have a custom, when we get married, to put a hand on the cross and the priest with the stole ties them together to signify that not only my husband and I are tied together, but we are also tied to Jesus in a special way and we put Jesus first in our lives. Here, especially to those who say they are Christians, I would like to remind them to be aware that especially today many families are breaking up, that many young people no longer have a sense of life and are looking for an ideal family because their family was separated, was desperate. They begin to make many plans, but then the suffering begins and they no longer have the strength to go on. I always say that we must imitate the Holy Family. If we begin to live like Joseph, Mary and Baby Jesus, we will all become saints.
For priests and nuns?
For priests to live the priesthood in a concrete way, as Our Lady always says, calling priests her beloved sons. Priests must be aware of this reality of being favored and called in a very special way. If a priest does not pray he becomes a businessman and does not do the priest and if there comes a time when you do not know what to do, start praying and Jesus will open all the doors and all the windows and if you have problems in the parish or your own, start praying. I have always seen, when I have approached priests to talk to them, that the moment they begin to pray and live the Holy Mass, at that moment they discover the joy of their vocation to the priesthood. As for nuns, they certainly have a great charisma. After priests, they are the most suitable people today, in a world where there are so many sects and so many people who are searching. Speaking with doctors, with professors they told me that many people need someone to talk to and I would like to urge the nuns to be available to listen like a confessor, because even just listening gives a lot. The nuns can do a lot through this concrete testimony. The nun is a woman and the woman is very open, very concrete, much more than a man, in the sense that she sees the needs of the moment. Today we especially need this concreteness. A nun can be a great missionary in society, listening to people, inviting them to pray, going to their homes and taking care of the sick, the elderly, the children and so they can do a lot. We have an elderly nun, almost on the point of death, who loves children very much and the other nuns told me that every week she takes the Madonna of Fatima and does the procession with the children of the nursery, rain or no rain, and for them it is the most beautiful moment of the whole week. To say how an elderly nun, who we think is of no use, like many elderly people we have at home, can be useful. Our Lady once said of the elderly that they are the pillars of our families against Satan. If we help them and lead them to prayer, they become a source of graces.
Finally, Marija, what advice do you give to Radio Maria?
To pray at Radio Maria, because if it puts Jesus first, then it becomes bigger and bigger and this family of Radio Maria, as you call it, is built not on sand but on rock, which is prayer. I think that if you pray, it does not collapse.
Do you think the Madonna listens to her?
Sometimes! But he likes Roberta more than you.
Well, it’s clear that women get along well.
But I think you have to taste your morning “coffee” to see what it tastes like.
Now that we’ve reached the end, all you have to do is say hello to the listeners.
Let us pray. Let us place in the heart of Our Lady this evening in a special way all the listeners, all of us present here, so that the Lord may bring us closer to him also through this experience of mine. I feel only as an instrument through which Our Lady wants to bring more hearts closer to her heart. I will now recite an Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory, thinking of all of you, of all your problems, of all the people who listen to Radio Maria and I am sure that Our Lady listens tonight and is always with us and feels our needs and our prayers. Let us pray in a special way for the people whom Our Lady says are far away. Through Mirijana she has recently asked us to pray in a special way for those who are far away, as Our Lady calls them. Let us also pray in a special way for those who must leave this earth and who are on their way to heaven. Also for all the people who are in hospitals, in nursing homes, who are alone and abandoned, who think that there is no one and are not aware that God, the Madonna and the guardian angel are always with them, so that they may be serene and think that after death life continues and that after this valley of tears there is….. the valley of joy. Let us pray for everyone and conclude with the prayer.

Erba, headquarters of Radio Maria. 27 February 1998

Note: The interview was released in Italian.

The spoken diction has been slightly modified in the written text. VISIONARY MARIJA OF MEDJUGORJE

Featured Article

By Father Livio Fanzaga

February 7 , 2025

in MEDJUGORJE

https://youtube.com/watch?v=7yniLhKS-2M%3Ffeature%3Doembed

MARIJA PAVLOVIC TELLS MEDJUGORJE

Interview conducted by Father Livio on Radio Maria (27 February 1998)

M – The Madonna is there!

Now, I think people want to know if Mary of Nazareth is a person who is alive today.
Mary of Nazareth is alive today because this experience that I live with her in a concrete way has changed my life. I have learned a lot from her and I have seen how through the simplicity of daily life the Madonna has led us towards the depth of spiritual life.
Just to stay concrete, when did you last see the Madonna?
This evening at a quarter to six.
Describe to us exactly before, during and after the apparition, how all this happens.
The first time Our Lady appeared to us suddenly and we fled.
When did this happen?
It was June 24, 1981. Now we are used to it and we are no longer afraid of her. The first few days we prayed, because we thought that if we didn’t pray she wouldn’t come and stay with us. So we forced ourselves to pray. Instead now it is a normal thing, a habitual rhythm of our life. Now we gather in prayer and after we have started to recite the Our Father, the Hail Mary and the Glory be to the Father, the Madonna appears. A moment before we always see a light three times. At the beginning thanks to this light we could see from which direction the Madonna was coming.
Does it herald itself with bright flashes?
Yes, like a flash of a camera. Then it is time for the apparition. At that moment (they have done experiments on us) we remain insensitive, even though we are very sensitive and aware of all the people who are present with us.
For example, if someone takes a photograph, do you see it?
When I was operated on I told the doctor: give me a good dose of anesthesia! (note: Marija will explain later that she had the apparition under anesthesia anyway). When Our Lady arrives I kneel down, because by now it has become a normal thing and we are aware in our mind that there are people present, but at that moment we do not see her. We do not see anyone. We see a great light.
Oh, you don’t even see your surroundings?
No, no, for us the walls disappear and it becomes like a big meadow.
Describe the Madonna to us: I imagine she is a celestial creature.
Not exactly, because I always say that the Madonna is in heaven, but she is a mother; she is a person who is among us. To many who ask why the Madonna appears for so long, I always answer: the Madonna is a mother. She is a physical presence, because we can touch her, we can talk to her and hear her voice. For me she is like my mother. I always say that the Madonna is much sweeter than my mother. The Madonna has all the most beautiful things.
I mean, you can see she’s a mother.
You can see that she is a mother, but even when she speaks to us she has an expression that cannot be described. For example, if we have done something wrong, she does not need to say it, because we already feel it from her gaze that is so deep, so much so that once Jakov said: “when Our Lady looks at me she sees not only what is in my heart, but also what is inside my toe”. To say how Our Lady’s gaze is, so deep!
So, does his look tell you what he’s thinking?
Yes.
So, from his look, can you understand how much he loves you?
Yes. Even if we are bad, even if we are ugly, we know that Our Lady loves us. Now we are in the time of Lent and we must discover all our little altars, our defects. But we know, we are aware that Our Lady sees these defects of ours, but she loves us!
And he pities them.
He pities them and says: “You can change them!”
If you want, you can change. By inviting us to change, you show that you love us.
I see that Our Lady wants us to have a perfect life, but not a fanatical or strange life, but to be more and more perfect in the environment where we are. Our Lady herself said: “I want each of you to choose the path of holiness”. Here, living holiness in the environment, in the life where we find ourselves. As a mother, as a wife, I can express this holiness in a thousand ways. This is what I learned from Our Lady.
Listen, we will talk about these issues later, because I would like to focus first on the figure of the Madonna, because if you don’t inform us, who will inform us, since you have been seeing her for sixteen years and eight months every day? It is something impressive, that has never happened in the history of humanity. I am not among those who are fanatics of Medjugorje, but I have a reason that God gave me and also a good knowledge in this field. It has never happened in two thousand years of Christianity that there was a public and universal apparition that lasted so long. Of course, saints have had personal apparitions for long periods of their lives, but here we are talking about a public and universal apparition that involves the whole world. It is a completely exceptional event.
If we read the lives of the saints…..there are many who have had apparitions!
Yes, but I deny equality, because a private personal apparition is one thing and an apparition for the whole Church is another. This is an apparition for the Church and therefore an absolutely extraordinary fact. So let’s go back to the figure of the Madonna: you say she is a mother, but, from what I hear, she is very young. It seems she is less than twenty years old.
When the apparitions began, Our Lady was older than us…now we are older than Our Lady!
This is beautiful! How old do you think she looks?
We think from twenty years old up to twenty-three, twenty-four:
Very young!
Young, yes, very young.
Perhaps he is as old as he was at the time of the Annunciation?
I don’t know…maybe Christmas, when the Madonna always comes with Baby Jesus.
Out of curiosity: does she look Jewish or Croatian?
I don’t know. Many, for example painters, have asked me: “Who does the Madonna resemble?” Of all the images I always say that they are beautiful but they are not like the Madonna, because the Madonna has a harmony between the nose, the eyes, the mouth, the ears, the whole of the Madonna’s face is so harmonious that I have never found a Croatian girl or another who can be compared to her.
She is a heavenly beauty.
It is a celestial beauty that is impossible to describe.
But it has a real body.
Yes. I remember once, when I made an offering for life, that Our Lady appeared, prayed over us and embraced us when we offered her a novena for her intentions and this renunciation for life. I remember that on that occasion a boy, who was not one of us visionaries and who belonged to the prayer group, at the moment Our Lady prayed over him, felt two hands on his head, but he did not see Our Lady.
And so it has a real body.
Yes, she has a real body. For example, when we embraced the Madonna, we felt a body like one of us.
I heard, not from you but from Vicka, that on your birthday or name day you even exchange a kiss.
There are several occasions.
Let’s hear them.
It’s better not to, otherwise you’ll get jealous.
No, but when we get to heaven we will present the list of requests and say that it is up to us.
At that moment, who knows, we will be in some corner of paradise, while you will all have become seers…
So, we got to the kiss. On what occasion does the Madonna hug and kiss you?
On birthdays, name days…
Yours?
Yes, or even, for example, when you have a difficult time. I remember that in the first days of the apparitions, Our Lady stayed longer, up to two hours. Once they took us to the police and wanted to put us in prison, but since we were minors they made a scene to scare us. It was the time of communism; I remember that when I went to school I was always followed by some policeman in plain clothes. We were constantly monitored and since we were still children, Our Lady also became our friend and so we told Our Lady everything that had happened to us.
And she listened?
She listened.
But she already knew everything.
She already knew everything and who knows how tired she was!
And did he listen to everything? Did he listen to you like a mother?
Yes. We let off steam and Our Lady listened to us like a confessor.
And in those cases he encouraged you and kissed you?
He told us to offer these sufferings. For example, once we ran away and hid because an emergency car had come to get us. We hid under the bed in Jakov’s house, all six of us. The head of the hospital arrived, who has now become our friend.
In short, they wanted to make you look like crazy.
Then they took us to Mostar. We were in the emergency car of this hospital for the mentally ill, while our parents were following us in taxis, without having had time to change. I always say that we have passed our ordeal.
And did Our Lady help you, comfort you, console you?
Yes, we have always had a word, a hug, a kiss, but above all we have always discovered and clarified the meaning of suffering through Our Lady.
That is, Our Lady did not take away this difficulty from you, but consoled you and helped you to bear it, making you understand that you had to endure everything for the love of God?
Yes.
Listen, in your personal life have you ever had any particular moments in which Our Lady consoled you in a special way?
Yes, especially during adolescence, when we had to make our choices. We asked the Madonna for advice, but when it was time to make a decision, we had to make it ourselves.
Oh yeah?
Because Our Lady always said that God gave us freedom and in the freedom that God gives us we must choose. Everyone said that we were lucky because we had Our Lady. But when the moment of decision came, which was important for us because it concerned life, Our Lady always said: “you are free”.
You had to pray and decide according to your heart.
Yes, we always had to decide according to our heart and our mind and so we made our mistakes, banging our heads against the wall. For example, I remember when I started fasting for a period of time. At that time, Our Lady asked for fasting on Fridays, but I wanted perfection and so I started fasting on Tuesdays in honor of St. Anthony, for whom there is great devotion and there is a sanctuary nearby. Then also on Wednesdays, even though Our Lady had not yet requested it. So on Thursdays I no longer felt like eating and I reached the point where…
Anorexia?
It wasn’t anorexia. I was content with little because so many people came. I had become the official cook of the family, I prepared food, I spoke to people to give testimony and in the meantime I did all the housework.
I too was able to appreciate your pasta.
That’s why you’re so big!
You don’t know it, but we came down from the mountain after the apparition around half past eleven at night, we put on the pot of water and then at a quarter to midnight we threw in the spaghetti…
No, the water was put on at a quarter to twelve.
Anyway, at half past twelve the spaghetti were ready.
I once had a problem… There was a priest who had promised to help me prepare a spaghetti dish for about thirty young people with garlic, oil and chili pepper. But since he was tired from the trip he fell asleep on the sofa in the kitchen and started snoring. I was ashamed and didn’t dare wake up a priest! So I had to prepare everything myself. Then, when I put the pasta in, he woke up.
So, listen to Marija, you were fasting almost every day and what did Our Lady do? Did she call you back?
No, he didn’t call me back, but I started having some health problems and so I had my experience, which was very important for me.
She saw that you were wrong and let you make your mistakes.
Yes, yes we made our mistakes but then, thank God, through these mistakes we learned the exaggerations in fasting.
Let’s move on and continue to describe the Madonna. After the three flashes of light she appears as a living person, very young, of extraordinary beauty. Tell me, what is her voice like?
It’s a voice that is sweet, very youthful, but at the same time very serious. Sometimes, however, he laughs with us.
Is he laughing or smiling?
He smiles, but also laughs.
Does he laugh sometimes?
Yes, and she smiles often, for example when she is happy.
Does he sometimes have a serious face?
Yes, like when she has to tell us something and we would like to look for a hole to hide. But on the other hand we hear this voice so deep, so sweet! Her voice, like her look, is so deep that we cannot describe its beauty. We can say at the same time that it is like music, because, if you are sick inside, hearing the Madonna heals you.
It’s an extraordinary thing. And how does it have eyes?
The eyes are blue.
Yes, I agree that they are blue, but what do they look like?
Deep.
Do you know why I ask you? Having had the opportunity to witness many apparitions, I have observed in all six of you visionaries that after the apparition your eyes shine like stars.
It is probably the reflection of the eyes of the Madonna. For us, the apparition is a special moment. We cannot say that the Madonna appeared to us for five minutes, because we lose the sense of time.
So do you only know how long the apparition lasted?
We know this if we look at the clock afterwards. Even if the apparition lasts very little and Our Lady limits herself to praying with us or giving us her blessing, for us it is as if an hour or a day had remained.
Some people wonder why Our Lady came for such a long time. They have not understood that Our Lady came for sixteen years and eight months to call us to prayer and I think I have understood that she herself, with all her being, is a living prayer.
Yes, we learned through Our Lady not only to approach the Church. I was quite religious, because I come, like all of us, from a Catholic family that had Christian values. But with Our Lady we learned to live the traditional religion in a new and profound way…words fail us when we speak of Our Lady! We learned to live holiness. For us, holiness was only for cloistered nuns or for some categories of priests, not for example for our parish priest. Then with Our Lady we learned that holiness is actually for each of us.
In this it is perfectly in line with the Council which reaffirmed the universal call of all the faithful to holiness.
We then grew spiritually together with the Madonna….we fell in love with her in a certain sense. Especially at the beginning I don’t say that we were dependent, however the beauty of her face and her voice when she spoke attracted us…Then, little by little she brought us towards Jesus, towards the Church, towards the Eucharist and made us discover such a big, immense world. We are used to saying that we have known only a small part with the Madonna….
You Marija want to say that Our Lady did not stop you on herself, but brought you towards Jesus Christ and the Church. However, we have not yet exhausted our curiosity about Our Lady and would like to know more details. How is Our Lady dressed?
She is not dressed like we are today, because she arrives wearing a long, gray dress, with a white veil on her head.
So does he have a tunic?
We say like a tunic, but you can’t say it’s like a Roman tunic.
Is it going all the way down?
Yes, like a dress that you can see.
Is he wearing a seatbelt?
No, but the dress has pleats along the body.
A dress that touches the floor?
He disappears into the cloud.
Is the dress gray?
Yes.
And can you see her neck? Is it low cut?
No.
No, it’s not low cut. Is the neckline a crew neck?
Yes.
I ask you this because I believe that Our Lady arrives dressed in a very chaste and pure way, which must teach us something too.
I think that if someone not only sees the Madonna, but begins to pray and live the faith in a concrete way, then everything becomes important to him, even the way he dresses. I believe that a person who prays twenty-four hours a day and has chosen the path of holiness does not arrive in a short skirt or with a low neckline. This is what I learned from the Madonna. These are things that do not go together.
I also care a lot about this, because even externally we must be children of Mary. The veil then: she has a white veil on her hair. Can you see her hair?
Yes
What are they like?
Black, long.
Long? Aren’t they curly?
No, they are not curly.
Are they smooth?
Yes. Let’s say a little wavy, but not completely straight.
Is he tall, short or medium height?
It’s quite tall.
More than you?
I think so. More than me always, because when the Madonna appears she lands on a cloud. We have never seen her feet and so once Jakov, who always comes out with new things, said: “one time I will take the Madonna’s dress and see if she has shoes”. In fact, people often ask us if the Madonna is with sandals or bare feet.
So the feet are not seen and the Madonna is on a cloud. Be careful! In the various apparitions the Madonna’s clothes are very important, because through the dress she gives us a message, as well as through other visual signs. In this regard there are two signs, in my opinion very important, to interpret. The first is the crown of twelve stars. Does the Madonna have a crown of twelve stars around her head?
Yes.
Then describe to us this crown of twelve stars.
They are twelve stars that are not connected and appear to be natural stars, as when we see them in the sky.
It’s not a crown, let’s say, of gold. They are living stars.
Yes, they look like living stars and have no connection.
Did you count them?
Yes, many times.
Are there twelve?
Yes, there are twelve of them and with their light they give the Madonna a supernatural beauty. Together with the Madonna there is a light that always accompanies her, because she arrives in the light that highlights her person.
Is the light like a halo around?
No
How is it then?
It’s a light….
What emanates from her or what invests her?
Both.
Is the Madonna therefore enveloped in light?
Yes.
The second visual sign is the cloud under her feet. Look, in my opinion, the cloud is an important sign. In fact, Jesus, in his second coming, will come on the clouds of heaven. The cloud is a biblical sign of celestial royalty. The crown of twelve stars then refers to the woman clothed with the sun spoken of in the Apocalypse. Our Lady appears with these two biblical signs that certainly have a meaning.
For me it’s simpler to say this: Our Lady rests on a cloud and does not touch the earth.
She does not touch the ground, she is on a cloud, she has a crown of twelve stars. She is a celestial creature, which in a certain sense reminds us of the great sign that appeared in the sky, which chapter XII of the Apocalypse speaks about. In a simple way, deep teachings about the Madonna are contained here.
Once, speaking with a theologian, he told us that we, even though we were still children, said in five minutes what he said in an hour and a half of theology. We know nothing about theology, but with Our Lady we learned in simplicity a life of prayer, of offering and to put Jesus at the center of our life. Here, with Our Lady we learned a new life where Jesus is not up somewhere in the clouds, in the sky, but is here among us.
Then we will also talk about the messages, but first I would like to see how the apparition unfolds. When Our Lady comes, who speaks first?
The Madonna, always.
What does he say when he first arrives?
Praised be Jesus Christ.
And what do you answer?
May Jesus and Mary always be praised.
And after?
Afterwards, if the Madonna remains silent…
Where is his hands when he arrives?
It depends: sometimes he has his hands clasped and sometimes open. Then he changes, for example when he prays over the people present he stretches them out.
Well, pray over the people present with outstretched hands. But let’s proceed in order: so the Madonna arrives saying “Praised be Jesus Christ” and you answer “Always praised be Jesus and Mary”. After that, what normally happens?
If Our Lady remains silent, we begin to bombard her with the people we have heard and who have recommended themselves. If, on the other hand, Our Lady begins to say something, a message or some other word, at that point we listen. When we are the ones speaking, Our Lady tells us “enough” by starting to pray. She does not say “enough”, but begins the prayer.
That is, when you have finished presenting your intentions, does she gather herself in prayer?
We jokingly say that Vicka is the specialist in recommending…
I noticed that Vicka speaks more than anyone else during the apparition….
We usually say: “Vicka gives us some space too”. Each of us has some sick person to recommend and so, when we were all together for the apparition, sometimes Vicka and I almost had to jostle….
Did you still present prayer intentions?
Yes.
Then the Madonna gathers in prayer. Does she remain silent or pray aloud?
Sometimes out loud. Sometimes Our Lady makes spontaneous prayers.
And who do you address them to?
To God, always.
Always to God? Do you never say to Jesus Christ, the Father, or the Holy Spirit?
She addresses them to Jesus Christ and the Holy Trinity. On some occasions the Madonna prays in a language that at first we did not understand what it was, then we asked and she answered us that it was her mother tongue.
That is Aramaic?
Yes. Sometimes instead he prays silently with his hands outstretched.
I noticed that during the apparition you almost always say an Our Father and a Glory be to the Father and at that moment your voice is heard, which was not heard before.
Yes. Sometimes Our Lady also asks us to pray with her for other intentions.
Is it possible that Our Lady has made a mistake on some occasion and recited a Hail Mary? You know, it is in these small details that you can detect something that is wrong if there was one. It has never happened that during the apparition the visionaries, when their voice is heard reciting the Our Father and the Glory be together with Our Lady, have recited the Hail Mary. Praying with Our Lady it is clear that she does not make them recite the Hail Mary, but together with them she prays to God.
Many tests and studies have been done on us and they have found that we are normal. So when they come from some part of the world of visionaries, we say that first they have to go through our same path. I thank God that I was not alone as a visionary and I don’t know how poor Bernadette did it when they could say she was crazy. She was alone, while for me I say that I have a good defense behind me because there are six of us.
I have been able to verify that you have never contradicted each other, not even in the smallest details, even though there are six of you. You have always described the Madonna in the same way, even when, on certain holidays, she comes with a sparkling gold dress. You always fall to your knees at the same time when you are together for the apparition and you always report the same teachings. No one has ever been able to catch you contradicting each other, and yet it is not that you speak to each other or see each other much, in fact you are often dispersed in the world.
Each of us has his or her own life, even if sometimes we see and hear from each other. For example, I was very close to Vicka’s sister, Anna, but not with Vicka with whom, even before the apparition, I had no contact. I could say the same thing about some other visionaries. When there is a need to meet, we do it, but then each one, in his or her personal life, is on his or her own.
Let’s continue with the description of the apparition. After you have presented the prayer requests to Our Lady and prayed with her, how does the apparition end?
Our Lady prays again. Finally we ask for the blessing and she blesses the people and all the objects. She makes the sign of the cross like the priest. Then Our Lady says: “Go in peace”, gives us the blessing with the sign of the cross and goes away.
I heard Ivan say that when Our Lady goes away you see a bright cross.
You can see the cross, the heart and the sun.
What do these signs mean? We know what the cross means, but what about the other two?
We don’t know.
When Our Lady goes away, do these signs go away with her?
She goes and these three things remain.
We know what the heart means. Perhaps the sun is the symbol of the Eucharist. Who knows? We cannot know exactly. Let us remain on the figure of the Madonna, even if you, Marija, would perhaps like to talk about her messages now. You know, the first and most important message of Medjugorje is that the Madonna is there, she is alive and she is among us. My experience was exactly this when I came to Medjugorje for the first time. It was a winter evening in March 1985 and the 6:00 p.m. Holy Mass was being celebrated. We were still in the midst of the communist regime. Before the Holy Mass, the door of the little room in front of the sacristy where you had the apparition opened, from which I saw your beautiful smiling face emerge and greet me. During that Holy Mass I had the grace of being certain that the Madonna really appeared and was present. And this is the reasoning that I made, as in an inner light full of certainty: “Here is the Madonna, therefore Christianity is the only true religion”. In fact, if there is the Madonna, then everything regarding Jesus Christ and the Christian religion is true. This is what I understood in a flash of light and that was very important for me.
Thank goodness you were a priest…..
You understand well Marija that for me it was a great grace….
When I opened the door I said to myself: “Ah, ah, we got him…”
This is why we are very interested in the living person of the Madonna, because if she exists, then it is easy to understand that Christianity is the only true religion and to accept all the truths of the Christian religion. Then the Eucharist is also true, the Pope is the Vicar of Christ on earth….But now let’s see something else very concrete. Every 25th of the month you receive a message. How does all this happen?
At first, Our Lady began to give a message to the parish through me every Thursday. I told myself many times that I was not worthy and that it was not possible. Then I saw that Our Lady gave each of us a task and I thought that this could be my specific task. Then one day Our Lady began to give the message every 25th of the month. Immediately after the apparition, I take a pen and paper that I prepare beforehand, and I write the message that I received. The first time I wrote the message I began to cry, because I was sure that the message was written exactly, but…
Wait, Our Lady gives messages to all of you visionaries, but how did it happen that your messages are, so to speak, official, that is, given to the parish and spread throughout the world?
At first they were all official, but…
But now yours have become, I would say, the regular ones, starting from 1984 every Thursday and then from 1987 every 25th of the month. This is the characteristic.
Yes, but tomorrow or next 25th Our Lady could say that she no longer gives messages. What I would like to say is that for me it is a gift that I cannot explain. I would also like to say that, when I write the message on paper after the apparition and I reread it, it seems to me that the text does not correspond and that there is something wrong and then I have a crisis. I have always had some problems with grammar and I thought that perhaps I had not written well…
Does Our Lady speak Croatian?
Yes, Our Lady speaks to us in Croatian… But then I remember word for word what Our Lady told me, because it remains in my memory for a while, and so I verify what I have written.
Some messages are quite long, how do you remember them?
I remember above all the image of the Madonna and her words that seem like the harmonious sound of a bell… I don’t know how to say it.
It stays in your mind like the music of the words.
Yes, something like that. However, I am always in doubt not so much because of the accuracy of the writing, but because when it is written it becomes so poor, like a flower without petals. It no longer has that strength, that fullness…
The written message is no longer the Madonna who is saying it.
Yes, then little by little I began to read and reread, I began to meditate and pray and so I began to feel in my heart: “Ah, this is it!”. Therefore I say that it is not enough to take the message and read it only once….
So, you are not just a tape recorder.
Yes, in a way I am.
Okay, but you have to be careful, you have to learn, remember and rewrite faithfully.
Yes, but after the appearance I write it right away. I write it right away like this…
And is it good for you?
It’s good for me because I prayed during the day. The 25th is a special day for me.
Do you pray on the 25th?
I pray every day, but especially on the 25th.
Then you see I’m right. You’re not really a tape recorder, because you prepare yourself spiritually for the message.
Yes, but we also prepare for the moment of the apparition, although sometimes it can happen that Our Lady appears even if we are not praying. Once I remember that I was in the car and my sister Milka was chatting. It was quite a long trip and we had sung and already recited the three parts of the rosary. Suddenly Our Lady appeared.
But what time was it?
It was a quarter to six.
Ah, but it was the exact time.
But since we had already sung and prayed, we had taken a moment of pause before starting to pray again and so the moment of the apparition came. Milka began to say: “What’s happening? Why don’t you answer me?”, then she realized that the moment of the apparition had arrived. At that moment I can’t be in contact with anyone.
Were you in the car?
Yes, and Our Lady appeared.
And did you realize you were in the car?
Yes.
I heard that something similar happened recently too.
For many it may seem impossible. But Our Lady once appeared to me while I was on a plane, when I went to Brazil once. They had invited me and the parish priest for 25 days and we moved from one city to another. The meetings were attended by many people and took place not in the Church but in the stadium. Despite the change in time, the moment of the apparition was always the same.
That is, did the Madonna appear at that time?
No, it appeared at this time. On that plane trip, it happened that a stewardess recognized me and told me that that morning she had to go to another part of America, but instead they had sent her to Brazil. She was angry with her boss for this decision. She was a Medjugorje native and when she found out that I was there and that was the time of the apparition, she said: “Our Lady arranged this, not my boss!”
So the Madonna is not tied to space and place. You live here in Monza and the Madonna appears to you every day in your home.
Yes.
And to the four of you who have daily visions, she appears at the same time, even if you are in different parts of the world. However, it seems to me that Our Lady is not necessarily tied to time either. In fact, sometimes she appears at other times. Do you feel it? Does she warn you?
We know when Our Lady usually comes, which is a quarter to six in Medjugorje, but we always feel something in our hearts.
I think it sometimes appears in the morning too, for example.
Yes, sometimes. For example, Jakov, when he has to travel, asks Our Lady to appear first. Our Lady respects these little things. For me, when it is time for the apparition, I am not ashamed of anyone and I do not care if I am on the plane and if there are people looking at me, perhaps thinking that I am crazy. Ivan also says that he is not there and so he prefers to have the apparition at another time in his house or in a suitable place. Our Lady respects these little things that we ask of her.
But sometimes the Madonna did not appear.
These are special moments. Once Our Lady did not appear to us when we were in the rectory. It was the first few days and they had forbidden us to go to the apparition hill. We wondered what was happening. Then Our Lady appeared to us later and told us that the police had bugged the rectory because they wanted to harm the friars. That is how we discovered the danger.
Our Lady certainly has no problem identifying bugs! Listen, we know that Our Lady asked Vicka for four pauses in the apparitions, each lasting forty days, as a sacrifice to offer. Let me now reveal a little secret about you. Once when I came to Medjugorje, I think it was September 1987, you weren’t there, because you had gone to Split for a week’s retreat. I was a bit upset, because I didn’t find you as usual. When you returned, you were a bit anxious and you confided in me that Our Lady had asked you for a week’s suspension of the apparitions as a sacrifice to offer.
Yes, there are these little sacrifices that Our Lady asks of us and that cost a little because we are very attached to her. When Our Lady told Mirijana that she would no longer appear to her daily (Mirijana now has apparitions every 18th March, her birthday) she began to cry and in the following days she prayed and waited for Our Lady, who however did not come.
How do you feel after the apparition?
I always feel a great joy. Even if Our Lady is sad sometimes, it is always a great joy for us. We are sad too because Our Lady gives us a reason for her sadness, but then we keep her presence in our hearts and it is something that fills us with such great joy that we have to hide it, because someone might think we are crazy and so we try to control ourselves.
Listen, Marija, being available for sixteen years and eight months every evening for the meeting with the Madonna seems like a huge sacrifice to me.
No, because…
You are young and you have the right to live your life. Every evening, let’s think about it for a moment, keeping yourself free for the Madonna seems to me an extraordinary commitment.
Yes, it is a commitment, but we have embraced it with joy, because after all Our Lady has left us this freedom of decision… Once, speaking with Father Slavko, who is my spiritual father, he said: “I can’t stand this freedom anymore”. In fact, sometimes he had a certain idea of his to propose to me, but I responded that we should instead seek God’s will, which was perhaps different from what he thought. It was perhaps a question of small things, but very important for growth and I used to say that I was ready to make sacrifices as long as I was sure that it was God’s will.
In your opinion, what are the reasons for Mary’s long stay among us?
I think that one reason is because humanity is going in the direction that Our Lady herself said, that is, towards a world without God, where paganism is stronger than ever. Then because every man needs it: we see that so many young people no longer have a sense of life and commit suicide in such a natural, so peaceful way, because they no longer know why to live. Our Lady came and remains for so long to give us the sense of life that is God.
So, as Our Lady says in one of her messages, precisely because man wants to build a world without God, she comes to call us and bring the world back to God. However, she also said that she came to Medjugorje to realize what she began in Fatima. What do you think this means?
It is the only message where Our Lady mentioned another apparition. In my opinion, through the message of Fatima, Our Lady asked above all for conversion and now Our Lady here in Medjugorje continues to call us to conversion in a concrete way. When pilgrims come to Medjugorje, they feel the need to change their lives and return home with something. When I go to Lourdes I go on a pilgrimage, but when I return home my life continues as before. When you return from Medjugorje, however, you feel the need to create a prayer group and to be more active in the Church and in your parish. I think that Our Lady, through these little things, wants to change each of us. If we are Christians, then they must recognize us by the love we have among us like the first Christians, who recognized them because they loved each other. Our Lady, through her love, wants to help us understand that God is love and, as she said in many of her messages, that each of us is important in her plan for the salvation of humanity. So we, as Our Lady said in some of her messages, must become the outstretched hands of God and of Our Lady, especially towards those who do not know God.
Certainly! So Our Lady comes to bring the world back to God and to complete the great plan of conversion.
Not only for this, but also for other reasons, I’m sure.
She herself said that she came to reawaken faith, to instruct us in prayer, to guide us on the path of holiness, to show us the way of salvation… It seems to me that the most important message is that of prayer. How did you learn to pray from Our Lady? What does the prayer of the heart consist of?
We usually say that by praying you learn to pray, because if you decide to give God time in that moment you begin to feel the prayer, as happened to us. At the beginning Our Lady had asked us to pray the 7 Our Fathers, Hail Marys and Glories and the Creed. It was the first prayer we learned to recite with Our Lady. We didn’t know how to pray the rosary, because usually our grandmother led it and we were that generation that forgot. So we began to pray the Our Father, the Hail Mary and the Glory be to the Father, sometimes all night until morning, and so little by little we began to feel the prayer. At the beginning we prayed because we wanted Our Lady to continue to be with us, then we began to feel the need for prayer and through it the need to understand Our Lady more and to be closer to Jesus, to understand him more and to feel his presence through prayer. So we began to experience our little growths, our little stairs that each of us climbed by praying more and more. I remember that when we began night adoration as a prayer group, around three in the morning we were overcome by sleep. So, knowing that at that hour was our weak moment, we began to read and sing the psalms and so four in the morning passed, then at five the priest arrived for the Holy Mass and at six we returned to our homes. After a night of prayer we were so happy that we greeted the people who left their homes still asleep, because they had just woken up, while we were full of joy. So we began to feel this need and this sweetness of prayer and that man does not live by bread alone, but also by prayer which has become life for us. We began to wake up early in the morning to climb the hill of the first apparitions (Podbrdo) or the mountain of the cross (Krizevac) to do the Via Crucis with bare feet as a gesture of renunciation and as a victory over ourselves. It also helped us a lot to say yes to fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays, dedicating more time to prayer, not only that, but also giving up going out with friends to have fun to go to the hill to pray. We too, like all other young people, had moments of celebration, for example on the occasion of a birthday and I remember that in the first days, when the place of the apparition was not as accessible as it is now, VicKa said: “Look, we are here celebrating the birthday of one of our neighbors, while the world right now needs our prayers so much.” So we headed to the place of the apparition, but we got lost in the middle of the bush and stones and returned home the next morning without finding it. We had not even brought a torch, because Vicka was sure she would find it.Since we understood that during the night without the flashlight, in the middle of those identical bushes, we would not have found the place, we waited for the morning praying. So we slowly changed our mentality: we no longer found pleasure in staying there to have fun, listening to traditional music even if it was beautiful, because we liked praying more.
You have gradually discovered the beauty of prayer.
Yes. Then, after some time, persevering in prayer and making sacrifices, the moment of prayer of the heart arrives where you begin to feel that it is not only you with your will and your being who decides the prayer, but you begin to feel the prayer that rises from the heart like a spring. For example, the book of the Russian Pilgrim gave me great help, because I was closed like a hedgehog, but nevertheless I was looking for my time of prayer and to personally discover continuous prayer and this book helped me a lot. Then each of us, I am used to saying, finds his own recipe, because I could not say that the Russian Pilgrim led me to the prayer of the heart, as it comes when God wants, when the Holy Spirit enlightens us and then this interior time of prayer of joy arrives.
When you speak of prayer, do you mean the various forms of prayer: personal prayer, the rosary, prayer before the crucifix, Holy Mass, adoration…?
All together. I think that praying only the rosary is not a complete prayer, as well as reading only the Holy Scripture. You have to understand a little of everything, like a meadow of flowers, where many different flowers form a harmony, so it is with the prayer of the heart.
However, it seems that Our Lady particularly emphasized the rosary and the Holy Mass.
Yes, Our Lady told us that the rosary is her favorite prayer. We often brought her flowers at the time of the apparition, but Our Lady told us that the gift she likes most is the rosary. Then Our Lady told us that the most important center of our life is the Holy Mass and she told us to live the Mass not as an encounter with the priest but with God, with the living Jesus Christ and she also told us to prepare ourselves for the Holy Mass with prayer.
Is it true what I heard Father Slavko say (I don’t know if you said it or Our Lady) that the Holy Mass is more important than the apparition?
We are the ones who have understood that the Holy Mass is more important, because it is as if the Madonna had put a veil in front of herself, not a visible veil, to indicate to us that Jesus Christ must be the center of our life. The Holy Mass is the strongest and most beautiful moment.
Besides coming with Baby Jesus at Christmas, it seems to me that the Madonna came on Good Friday, with Jesus next to her…
Yes, with Jesus crowned with thorns, scourged….This happened on two occasions. Once when we were taken away and interrogated by the police.
The police were terrible, I saw it with my own eyes.
It was in front of every house and they also used the special police, because they thought we were being manipulated. Tito had been dead for a year, the situation was very critical and they thought we were being manipulated to destroy Yugoslavia.
And then, at a time when you were being harassed by the police, the Madonna appeared with Jesus?
Yes, with the suffering Jesus.
And did Jesus look at you?
Jesus was so covered in blood, so suffering that he didn’t look at us.
Didn’t he speak?
No, she did not speak, but Our Lady told us how much Jesus had suffered for love of each of us. Consequently, we too, for love of Jesus, had to offer these small sacrifices of ours.
So on two occasions the Madonna appeared with Jesus at her side as he was during his Passion. But, since the Madonna often asks for renunciations and sacrifices, tell us something about it. How did you understand this message?
We understood it by living it, because Our Lady once said: “You cannot talk about fasting if you do not fast”, so if each of us begins to fast and make sacrifices, then we understand its value. Our Lady also invited us to make novenas of little flowers, giving up something very concrete for us, even if it does not seem very important, such as sweets, television and those things to which we are most attached.
At your house I noticed that you made little sacrifices by giving up chocolates and small, tasty things of that kind. Does the Madonna appreciate these sacrifices?
Yes, she appreciates them very much and the little things, the very little ones, are very important to her.
They are small for us, but not for her. Listen, when I came to Medjugorje the first few times, it was 1985, you told me that your prayer group, the one led by Ivan, who often meets with Our Lady at night on the mountain to pray, was offering in a special way prayers and little sacrifices that Our Lady had requested. A few weeks later Our Lady, in one of her Thursday messages (it was September 5, 1985), said that Satan’s plan had failed and she had publicly thanked you for the sacrifices that you young people had offered. In the messages of the previous Thursdays Our Lady had repeated several times that Satan was strong and that he was trying to make his plan fail. I remember that you were very busy praying and offering little sacrifices and then finally Our Lady said: “Dear children, Satan’s plan has failed… I thank the young people in particular for the sacrifices they have offered.”
Yes, Our Lady has asked for prayers and sacrifices many times. I feel like saying that they were very sincere prayers, very heartfelt, very well done. There were young people who decided to pray, especially because they were led by a supernatural force. They were not visionaries, but they were always with us, they began to live like us and each of them had their own interior experience to be able to say that Our Lady was present there and they believed in it a thousand percent and lived the messages a thousand percent. Even today, when I speak with some of them, there is always this absolute conviction, like the one you said before about Christianity when you arrived in Medjugorje the first time.
Yes, I have been gifted with the deep certainty that Christianity is the only true religion.
So for all those in the prayer group there was a total certainty that the Madonna was appearing. We did not know about other religions, but it was a reality that the Madonna was present, that God exists and that what our grandparents and our parents tried with difficulty to transmit to us had now become a concrete reality for us, so concrete that we had become more convinced than our parents, not only us visionaries, but also the other young people who were with us.
Listen, Marija, I noticed something that is a bit typical of the apparitions of Medjugorje and that is, it is certainly true that Our Lady chose six boys, but it seems from her messages that in a certain sense she also chose the parish. In fact, in some Thursday messages she says that among all the parishes in the world, this one of Medjugorje is the one that is dearest to her. And in fact I noticed that the entire community of Medjugorje, beyond human limitations and defects, believed in the apparitions. Is this true or not?
But I think that Medjugorje must be in the heart of each of us. We must not stop at the limits of the parish, because I see that it is something ideal… Our Lady looks at the parish church, at the mountain of the cross, at the mountain of the apparition but then goes beyond. I want to say that not only we who were born in Medjugorje, but all those who come and live our experience, for example climb the mountain of the cross that was built in 1933 before the apparitions, they too are part of this parish…
Here, the cross has a fundamental importance in the pedagogy of the Most Holy Mary. She herself said that the cross built on Krizevac in 1933 was in God’s plan. Our Lady asks for renunciations and sacrifices and asks for prayers for the sick. Here I would like you to tell us in a few words about your experience of suffering. At one time you donated a kidney to your brother and for me personally it was a gesture that deeply affected me. This would be enough for me to take these apparitions of Our Lady seriously, because you donated the kidney at a very young age, you must have been about twenty years old, and I considered it a gesture of great generosity. I heard a testimony of yours, which I would now like to recall as a comfort to the sick and the suffering, where you said that Our Lady appeared to you while you were under the knife and followed the entire operation with great maternal concern. Tell me a little about this extraordinary event.
It’s a small part of my life that is a bit special and that I usually don’t talk about, but on the other hand it was a very strong and very painful experience for me, also because, by removing a kidney I no longer have the strength I had before. Before saying goodbye my mother told us: “I thought I was losing a child and now I’m losing both of them”, because I was quite skinny. But I was very calm, very at peace.
At the time I saw you as very determined.
I thought: “It’s a good opportunity to go to heaven!”. Vicka and Jakov went to heaven and then came back. I always say that if I had gone I would not have come back, because I would not have gotten a return ticket and I would have always remained in heaven! Our Lady had told me that on that occasion she would have been with me, but I thought that she would have been close to me like this, like everyone else….
Ah, you told Our Lady that you had made this decision?
Yes.
And what did she answer you?
Our Lady did not answer me: do or don’t do. She left me free to decide. I told myself that I would do all the tests and they would show whether it was God’s will or not. If it is not God’s will, I thought, they will find something… they will tell me that I have heart problems and that I cannot have the operation and at that point I would understand that it was not God’s will. When the time came for the operation, when I entered the operating room, (when you usually enter you cannot take anything with you) I asked the doctor if I could bring the rosary because I said to myself: here we don’t know… it is possible that something could happen and if I die I at least have the rosary, which is my strongest weapon. I felt that I had fallen asleep because of the anesthesia and at a certain point I saw Our Lady. Her face changed expression…
So she was watching you while they were operating on you?
She was on top of me and looking at me and then I explained to the doctor that…
That is, the Madonna followed the whole operation, which lasted how long?
Four and a half hours.
And you had the apparition all that time?
I do not know.
However, did you have the apparition while you were under general anesthesia and did you notice from the face of the Madonna that she was following the operation?
Yes, for example at the moment of the first cut I saw that the Madonna made a grimace on her face but then it also seemed like she was controlling everything.
This is one of the most shocking things I have ever heard and we must take the lesson that comes from it, because Our Lady acts in the same way with us every day, taking care of all our suffering. In one of her messages she said that she watches with apprehension every step of ours on the path to holiness and we can therefore think that she also shares our tears.
I think we need to be more aware and not let any suffering fall into the void, but we need to exploit it by offering it to Our Lady and to God, because then the reward and grace also come. If a person is suffering, for example, does not see, well while I can see a flower and rejoice in it, she can only touch it. However, if she offers this thing she will be able to find in her heart the joy that I have seeing it….
So Our Lady knows everything about us, sees all our suffering, follows us everywhere and watches over us continuously.
Yes, and she continually invites us to offer all our suffering and pain without saying: I hurt here, I hurt there. On the contrary, we must try to offer with patience and love and keep Jesus before us. Once the Madonna told us: take the crucifix in your hand and look at it. I sometimes tell myself that, if when I have a suffering, I had the courage to take the cross and look at it, it would pass immediately.
Do you see this crucifix that we have here in the chapel? Our Lady sent this to us. We don’t know who gave it to us. A truck arrived once, on a Friday at noon, with this crucifix dripping with blood and the courier didn’t know who the donor was; he only told us that he was from Val Gardena. It arrived right at noon, when Jesus was on the cross in the greatest suffering. We never knew who sent us this impressive crucifix, but we understood the importance of the cross in a radio that bears the name of Our Lady. By the way, Marija, have you seen Our Lady cry?
Yes, already on the second day of the apparitions. What impression did it make on you? It was July 26, 1981 and exactly ten years later, on July 26, 1991, the war broke out.
Yes, exactly ten years later.
So you had the apparition on the mountain, then she appeared to you alone crying?
Yes, we were on the mountain and I went home on the steepest and most difficult path, not the one we do now which is easier, because since the apparition and the prayer were over I thought of going back home. Our Lady appeared to me and asked me to tell people to pray because only with prayer and fasting can wars be averted and also to ask people for conversion and forgiveness. It was the first message of peace but also the first message in which Our Lady cried and where she was very concrete.
Was she actually crying, were tears falling from her eyes?
Yes, yes, I saw the tears that ran down her eyes onto her dress and fell into the cloud. That time I, who was the most closed of all, spoke. I was in shock and I had to transmit this message as soon as possible so that the Madonna would not cry anymore.
It was the message of peace…that is, he said: peace, peace, peace!
Yes, then reconciliation between man and God and men among themselves. Then she said to pray for peace first in our hearts, then in families and finally in the world. And so Our Lady began to give the first messages, which then remained the most important, that is, the messages of peace, prayer, fasting, confession, Holy Mass, conversion.
Conversion which is walking on the path of holiness
Yes.
Listen, Marija, it’s a personal opinion that I ask you. A statuette of the Madonna of Medjugorje cried tears of blood in the hands of the Bishop of Civitavecchia, Monsignor Girolamo Grillo. I remembered a message from the Madonna on May 24, 1984 where she says that her heart weeps tears of blood for every child who is lost in sin. Well, maybe you too have heard about this fact and I ask you for a completely personal opinion.
Yes, I have heard about it and I also once heard the Bishop give his testimony through Radio Maria. For me it has a very great meaning, not so much because the Madonna cried, as I have seen her cry too, but because she cried tears of blood and she cried near Rome.
Yes, Civitavecchia is a diocese bordering that of Rome.
The whole thing says a lot.
Is there a big meaning?
Yes, in my opinion yes, but then speaking I wouldn’t want to…
It was just a personal opinion I was asking you..
Our Lady told us: pray for the Holy Father because I have chosen this Pope for these times.
Did the Pope say that he chose her for these times?
Yes, I think that all together, even all the prelates, priests, bishops, cardinals who are in Rome, Our Lady not only calls us but everyone on the path of holiness. We must be aware. I think in a particular way also in this moment when we see that the Holy Father has less strength, and also in the coming years when we will be in the transition from this millennium to the other, when we will be in the transition from one Pope to another and when we will be in the decision of a new Pope, we must let ourselves be guided by prayer and by the Holy Spirit, because above all we who say we are Christians must be so with life and with facts.
If you, Marija, had the opportunity to speak face to face with the Pope, what would you tell him?
So many things.
I know you would really like to talk to the Holy Father, but since if not him at least his nuns are listening to Radio Maria, what would you say to him?
First and foremost, that we love him and pray for him as he himself asked, but not only an Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory, but much more. And then many other things…
But first of all, let us love him and pray for him…
Yes, through this experience with Our Lady we feel ourselves in the Church and even though we have problems with our Bishop, we always say that we want to let ourselves be guided by the Church and that is how we feel, especially after Our Lady said that this Pope was chosen by her. Many times, I don’t know, for example, today Our Lady speaks and tomorrow morning the Pope speaks and they are the same things…
We at Radio Maria also highlighted this coincidence.
The most important thing is to be aware of our responsibility as Christians because, even looking at this situation in Italy, I live here now, it seems to me that we are moving towards communism….
I would say towards materialism. You have lived atheistic and materialistic communism.
Yes, but atheism arrives here too because through consumerism we put mammon in first place and so God remains in last place…. I don’t know, I see it like this. When I came to Italy I thought of St. Leopold Mandic who came here and became a saint. Here, I said to myself, I’ll go too so I can become a saint.
Listen, Marija, I consider the fact that you came to Italy providential.
Me too.
Do you think so too? What does your husband think?
Let’s ask him.
Yes. So, Paolo, what do you think about the fact that Marija, after she became your wife, came to live here in Italy.
I am also convinced that it is not a coincidence. I have always thought so and we have always thought so together since the very first moment. Perhaps we can say that we have not yet understood the reason why. It is still an open question, a question without an answer, but one of which we are both deeply convinced.
Listen, Paolo: not a leaf falls without God’s will. I have been friends with Marija for a very long time and when I heard that she was getting married I was very happy, because I was sure that she had chosen by letting herself be guided by God’s will. Now Marija is your wife and mother of your children, but at the same time it seems to me that you see clearly that she has a special mission to fulfill and it seems to me that you are very motivated to help her.
Without a doubt very motivated, very involved. I made this mission mine from the beginning and if it were not so I think we would not be here and we would not have gotten married.
So you help him in accomplishing something that is a very important mission.
My helping her is being at her side. In reality, it is not that my help is special. Her role is to bear witness to events that she has lived, this exceptional experience that she has lived and that she is still living. Bearing witness is a task all hers that should not be mine, except tonight when you ask me a question. However, it is being at her side, being close to her. We have decided to share our life and therefore I am at her side, I am close to her.
Listen, Paolo, since I have been going to Medjugorje, and it has been about fifteen years, I have never noticed, as far as the six boys are concerned, that there is something wrong, apart from their human limitations, their defects, but never once has my ear whistled to signal me something that would make me suspicious. And yet God has given me this gift of having very sensitive antennas, as is normal for someone who works in radio. You, who are her husband and who have followed her and been close to her for many years, have you noticed anything that has made you doubt the apparitions?
Paolo, don’t bring out my flaws!
But, I say, the defects confirm the apparitions!
This is a question that deserves a very serious answer: absolutely not! In my opinion, this is proof and I can say that I do not need any more proof. I met Medjugorje in 1985 and the truth shone before my eyes like the sun. It was like a flash of lightning. I believe that when one encounters the truth, one feels that it is the truth, one feels it intimately in one’s conscience, one does not need anyone to tell it to one, one recognizes the truth within. I can say that in all these years I have always found confirmation of the coherence of the visionaries among themselves, between what they say and the message of the Gospel and I have never found a flaw, even the slightest.
Even though he is a Bocconi graduate! (note: Paolo, Marija’s husband graduated from Bocconi University in Milan).
Listen, Paolo, but as far as Marija is concerned, have you ever had any doubt that she was the victim of some hallucination or deception?
No, it is not possible. You have to think that I live with her in a personal dimension, of an intimate relationship, that probably no one has lived and for a long time. So for me it is impossible to think that Marija could be lying or that there could be something that is not true.
I agree that she cannot lie, but that she can be deceived or deceive herself…?
No, I don’t think so, it doesn’t seem reasonable, plausible, in short it would be like saying that when it rains the water goes up. No, the water goes down! Enough, there’s not much to beat around the bush.
There is an evident transparency.
Absolutely! What hurts me very often is to see (at least as far as I know for sure) that people, maybe even inside the Church, judge Medjugorje, judge the truthfulness of the facts without having taken the trouble to meet the visionaries, without wanting to hear the story of the events from their own mouths, without informing themselves and without studying. I see, and unfortunately I find it being at Marija’s side at least 95% of the time when she moves to give testimonies, that very often the negative judgments on the facts of Medjugorje are given on prejudices, on preconceptions and in an uninformed way.
It is true. However, it is my belief that, even to accept this brightness of Medjugorje, a particular grace is needed.
Yes, that for sure. I would say that from this point of view I agree with Father Jozo when he says that those who go to Medjugorje are called. You see it in many situations of people who, not wanting to, not thinking about it, suddenly managed to go and people who instead would like to go, but have difficulties, and are unable to go.
Marija, what awaits us in the future?
Let’s hope for heaven.
Vicka and Jakov were physically taken to the afterlife to see heaven, purgatory and hell and Ivan had the same experience alone. However, his testimony does not have the same value as Vicka and Jakov’s because they were together. You personally (let’s leave aside for the moment Mirijana and Ivanka who now have only one apparition a year), regarding the afterlife, what did Our Lady make you see?
We all saw during the apparition, like an image seen from a window, heaven, purgatory and hell and Our Lady told us that she was showing them to us to say that they exist, that the afterlife exists.
Can you describe heaven, purgatory and hell?
Yes, first of all heaven. We saw a large space with many people dressed in tunics, like the Roman ones, of different colors and we saw that they were praising God and were full of joy and Our Lady told us that those people who had gone to heaven had sought and lived God’s will here on earth and now that they are in heaven it is for them a continuous knowing of God more and a thanking him for everything he has done for them. Then we saw purgatory. There we did not see the people, but we heard their voices. Our Lady told us that the people who are in purgatory when they were on earth at some moments were sure that God exists and at others not, so now they are in purgatory. Their greatest suffering is knowing that God exists, that he is there and not being able to go to him. Our Lady asked us to pray a lot for the souls in purgatory so that they can go to heaven as soon as possible. Finally we saw hell. We saw a big fire and in the center a young and very beautiful girl who entered this fire and then came out becoming similar to a beast… she transformed… and the Madonna told us that God has given everyone freedom and that each of us with our own freedom responds. They lived in evil, in sin and chose hell with their freedom and God is not the one who sends us, but we are the ones who choose to go there.
It is we who want to go to hell by acting against the will of God and it is not God who sends us. I have noticed however, since I am finishing writing a book of Catechesis for young people and just in these days I wrote the chapter on hell, that the description that Lucia of Fatima makes of hell has some similarity with yours. There too they speak of a sea of fire and of men and demons who assumed frightening forms of horrible animals…
I personally never read these things.
I think it is a good thing that you do not read them, so that you do not run the risk of being influenced. Listen, Marija, before I close, allow me to ask you a few small curiosities for the benefit of the Radio Marija audience that follows Medjugorje more closely. I know that you, as far as the questions you ask Our Lady, sometimes cannot ask them, sometimes Our Lady does not answer you, but sometimes Our Lady answers you.
Yes. Lately Our Lady answers very rarely, because she invites us to pray and always says that the Lord enlightens us in our hearts.
I think that once, at the invitation of a priest, you asked the Madonna a question about Maria Valtorta.
Yes, I asked her if it is true and Our Lady replied that it can be read. She did not say if it is true or not true.
And finally, tell us what awaits us in the future. What do these secrets that Our Lady has given you concern?
The secrets are secrets for now, until Our Lady tells us…Our Lady has already given all the secrets to Marijana and Ivanka, which are ten, and not all of them to us yet. Our Lady, through Miriam, asked us to choose a priest as our spiritual guide, but then each of us during these years has a spiritual father…
So nobody knows the secrets except you?
Through Miriam, Our Lady asked us to choose a priest as a guide, and one day the moment may come when he will be able to transmit them.
But Mirijana didn’t tell him?
Nothing for now.
So nobody knows these secrets?
No, just us.
In your opinion, is there anything to be afraid of about these secrets?
We always say that secrets are secrets and we do not want to express any opinion. Some are joyful and some are sad. We can say that regarding the seventh secret, Our Lady asked through Mirijana for prayers and fasting and it was attenuated.
I see that you have three children and therefore you are not afraid of the future.
There are the pious women of propaganda who say that either with the stick or with the word people must convert. Once I was in Milan in the Cathedral to pray in the afternoon, because my husband had to do a job and I could not be with him. At the time we were newly married. A lady came and threw a message in my hand and I wondered what it was. It was the message of the 25th of the month….
Did he give you the message on the 25th?
Yes and he probably boasted, who knows, of having distributed three hundred messages but I said to myself: but is this the way to give them? Terrible!
And so there are many people who think that by fair means or foul one must convert, and instead we see that God is love and that He calls us to help others with love, not by forcing them to convert, but by giving the example of our life, and one, seeing how we love one another, in that moment will also see and live his conversion.
Marija, I see that we have to come to a conclusion and I would like to ask you to extend a greeting to the sick people and, since we are in the youth catechesis program, to address a thought to the young people.
Yes, during the moment of the apparition we always recommend all the people. This evening I thought that, once I had reached the conclusion, I would have to greet several people, even the grandparents who are waiting with the children who are at home and who knows if they will have resisted the battle! Then all the people who have met Medjugorje, especially the sick that we have met and encouraged to pray and many other people full of problems that I meet every day. I see that there is so much suffering that we have learned to always offer. Tomorrow, when the moment of the apparition will come, I will recommend to Our Lady all the people present this evening and all those who have heard us. Our Lady puts us all in her big heart. I am sure that, when tomorrow we go to heaven, when there will be neither pain nor tears, we will understand the value of suffering and we will laugh. Now we are in this valley of tears, as we say when we pray, but tomorrow, when we are in heaven, when we are like butterflies, without all the pain, then we will laugh and give thanks because through these sufferings we have conquered a place in heaven. Here I invite especially the sick not to leave any suffering lost for nothing, but to offer everything to God, even for the souls in purgatory who are in such great need and of whom Our Lady also said that they intercede before God for us.
And for young people?
For young people I always invite and repeat: seek God because I myself was young, even if now I am not so old. I am not yet 33 years old and in any case I always tell young people that I thank the Madonna who took me in the time of youth, when we had not yet experienced the many dangers in which young people find themselves today. In America, in a meeting held by Father Jozo, a boy had the idea of writing these words on a bracelet: what would Jesus do if he were in my place at this moment? What a beautiful idea, I thought, and it is precisely the Holy Spirit who inspired this boy, who then gave a bracelet with this writing to all the young people and also to Father Jozo. Here we must be aware of what Jesus would do in our place. A young person must be aware that he is a Christian and a Catholic and that our life is a gift from God. Many times one says: I am 18 years old and I am free from my parents, I can do what I want… Instead our life is a gift from God and we must be aware of this gift and respect it, both the gift of life and that of health, because many times we abuse in many things. And also look for Jesus, because when we begin to look for something we can find Jesus, because Jesus is so immense that we can put him everywhere and at the same time so small that we can also put him in the pocket of our Jeans, so I always repeat to young people: look for Jesus because Jesus will give you the solution for your whole life.
And for families?
For families: “Pray, pray, pray” as Our Lady always says. We have a custom, when we get married, to put a hand on the cross and the priest with the stole ties them together to signify that not only my husband and I are tied together, but we are also tied to Jesus in a special way and we put Jesus first in our lives. Here, especially to those who say they are Christians, I would like to remind them to be aware that especially today many families are breaking up, that many young people no longer have a sense of life and are looking for an ideal family because their family was separated, was desperate. They begin to make many plans, but then the suffering begins and they no longer have the strength to go on. I always say that we must imitate the Holy Family. If we begin to live like Joseph, Mary and Baby Jesus, we will all become saints.
For priests and nuns?
For priests to live the priesthood in a concrete way, as Our Lady always says, calling priests her beloved sons. Priests must be aware of this reality of being favored and called in a very special way. If a priest does not pray he becomes a businessman and does not do the priest and if there comes a time when you do not know what to do, start praying and Jesus will open all the doors and all the windows and if you have problems in the parish or your own, start praying. I have always seen, when I have approached priests to talk to them, that the moment they begin to pray and live the Holy Mass, at that moment they discover the joy of their vocation to the priesthood. As for nuns, they certainly have a great charisma. After priests, they are the most suitable people today, in a world where there are so many sects and so many people who are searching. Speaking with doctors, with professors they told me that many people need someone to talk to and I would like to urge the nuns to be available to listen like a confessor, because even just listening gives a lot. The nuns can do a lot through this concrete testimony. The nun is a woman and the woman is very open, very concrete, much more than a man, in the sense that she sees the needs of the moment. Today we especially need this concreteness. A nun can be a great missionary in society, listening to people, inviting them to pray, going to their homes and taking care of the sick, the elderly, the children and so they can do a lot. We have an elderly nun, almost on the point of death, who loves children very much and the other nuns told me that every week she takes the Madonna of Fatima and does the procession with the children of the nursery, rain or no rain, and for them it is the most beautiful moment of the whole week. To say how an elderly nun, who we think is of no use, like many elderly people we have at home, can be useful. Our Lady once said of the elderly that they are the pillars of our families against Satan. If we help them and lead them to prayer, they become a source of graces.
Finally, Marija, what advice do you give to Radio Maria?
To pray at Radio Maria, because if it puts Jesus first, then it becomes bigger and bigger and this family of Radio Maria, as you call it, is built not on sand but on rock, which is prayer. I think that if you pray, it does not collapse.
Do you think the Madonna listens to her?
Sometimes! But he likes Roberta more than you.
Well, it’s clear that women get along well.
But I think you have to taste your morning “coffee” to see what it tastes like.
Now that we’ve reached the end, all you have to do is say hello to the listeners.
Let us pray. Let us place in the heart of Our Lady this evening in a special way all the listeners, all of us present here, so that the Lord may bring us closer to him also through this experience of mine. I feel only as an instrument through which Our Lady wants to bring more hearts closer to her heart. I will now recite an Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory, thinking of all of you, of all your problems, of all the people who listen to Radio Maria and I am sure that Our Lady listens tonight and is always with us and feels our needs and our prayers. Let us pray in a special way for the people whom Our Lady says are far away. Through Mirijana she has recently asked us to pray in a special way for those who are far away, as Our Lady calls them. Let us also pray in a special way for those who must leave this earth and who are on their way to heaven. Also for all the people who are in hospitals, in nursing homes, who are alone and abandoned, who think that there is no one and are not aware that God, the Madonna and the guardian angel are always with them, so that they may be serene and think that after death life continues and that after this valley of tears there is….. the valley of joy. Let us pray for everyone and conclude with the prayer.

Erba, headquarters of Radio Maria. 27 February 1998

Note: The interview was released in Italian.

The spoken diction has been slightly modified in the written text.f

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