USA and Latinoamerica
Medjugorje Parish
Medjugorje, the chosen people
In 1981, due to the beginning of the apparitions, the life of the parish changed. Our Lady has chosen, besides the six visionaries, the whole parish of Medjugorje and the pilgrims to be her witnesses and supporters. This is particularly explicit in the following message: "I have chosen this parish in a special way, for I wish to guide it. (March 1, 1984)
Attracted by the apparitions and by Our Lady's call, the people - first the parishioners, then people from the surrounding area and finally people from all over the world - began to gather there and to pray. From the beginning of the apparitions, persecutions of the visionaries, their parents and families, parishioners, priests and even pilgrims began.
The visionaries were taken for police interrogation and psychiatric examinations; they were always found to be in good health. This was also confirmed by examinations carried out on them in subsequent years. Father Jozo Zovko, who was the parish priest at the time, was arrested a month and a half after the first examinations.
A communist court sentenced this innocent man to prison. Thanks to Our Lady's apparitions, Medjugorje was transformed from an ordinary rural parish into a place that gathers a multitude of pilgrims from all over the world (every year it is visited by more than two and a half million pilgrims), and therefore, into one of the greatest centers of prayer in the world, comparable to Lourdes and Fatima.
Countless testimonies of pilgrims testify that it is precisely in this place that they have found faith and peace. According to the unanimous testimony of the visionaries, Our Lady gives them messages to be transmitted to the parish and to the world. They are mainly about PEACE, FAITH, CONVERSION, PRAYER and FASTING.
Parishioners and pilgrims must first become witnesses of the apparitions and messages, and then, together with the visionaries, collaborate with the Queen of Peace for the fulfillment of her plan: the conversion of the world and its reconciliation with God.