My Medjugorje experience by Daniel Magareno

Going to Medjugorje was an incredible experience for me. This was a trip I never thought I would take. I heard about this pilgrimage from Sharon, who happens to work for a pilgrimage company. I told her about my interest in going to Medjugorje, but it would be too expensive for me. The cost of the pilgrimage was above $3,000. Sharon later contacted me a few weeks later, saying she had spoken with the director of the pilgrimage company, and he gave me a huge discount because I was a seminarian. Sharon also told me she had gathered a large sum of monetary donations, enough to cover my pilgrimage costs. In fact, she had received so much money that she gave me the leftover $200 as spending money. I was surprised I was given this opportunity at no cost at all and was also amazed of the incredible generosity of people.

 I left for my pilgrimage at the end of May 2015 and flew all the way to Split, Croatia. Once I left the airport at Split, I was amazed at the beauty of the area. Split is located at the coast of Croatia along the Adriatic Sea. The Adriatic Sea looked peaceful and had a beautiful mix of aqua blue with royal blue. The water was so clear one could see the bottom of the sea. The temperature was probably around 80⁰F, which felt great with a light cool breeze from the sea. From the airport, our whole group of 12 people was put into two vans, and then we drove off to Medjugorje for about two hours. During this drive we crossed the border over to Bosnia-Herzegovina, which is the country where Medjugorje is located.

Once I was in Medjugorje, I was amazed by its similarities to the small towns of Mexico. The houses looked almost the same because of how they were built out of concrete and bricks, including the inside of the homes. These types of homes would never be found at all in Michigan because they cannot contain heat. The town overall was very peaceful. Cars rarely drove by since this was a small town, and people could easily go anywhere in a just a few minutes by walking. The town has a small local population, but there are large numbers of pilgrims throughout the year. These pilgrims came from many different places such as Spain, but the majority of the pilgrims came from Italy. Whenever I heard people speaking Italian, I could understand them, but I did not know exactly how to respond in a fluent way. Since there were so many Italian pilgrims, there were stores where people only spoke Italian. Since not everybody understood English in Medjugorje, people had to at least make an attempt of speaking Italian. Luckily I had learned some Italian phrases beforehand and once in while I would speak in Spanish to them with an Italian accent, which worked most of the time. Italian overall was the main language I had to use there, even though the native language there is Croatian. I was not able to understand Croatian at all, and I did not learn any Croatian words while being there.

Medjugorie

The reason Medjugorje is a pilgrim site for Catholics is that there are Marian apparitions happening almost every day there. These apparitions started happening there to some young teens back in the mid-1980s when the area was known as Yugoslavia. Today these teens, who are now mature adults, still experience Marian apparitions. These adults experiencing the Marian apparitions are known as visionaries. Some of these visionaries have apparitions happening every day at a specific time. Only they can see Mary in the presence of everyone. While I was there, I was present for two Marian apparitions. The second apparition I was present at was the one that impacted me the most. This second apparition took place at the blue cross. The blue cross was placed at the bottom of Apparition Hill. It is named Apparition Hill because it is the site where the first Medjugorje apparition happened.

For this apparition, there was a crowd of over 2,000 people who gathered around the visionary Mirjana. Mirjana kneeled in front of the blue cross. The whole crowd started praying the rosary together until she told us to stop praying because the Blessed Virgin Mary was appearing to her. During the apparition, it was completely silent in the whole town. The town was so silent that there were no dogs barking and not even birds were heard chirping. The silence was kept completely for about five minutes throughout the town. During the apparition, I looked around the crowd and everybody was silently praying and their eyes focused toward the blue cross. This silence during the second apparition shocked me the most.

 Another shocking experience for me in Medjugorje was when I saw the sun “dance” and change colors. One evening, this started happening right when the parish rosary was finishing. The parish crowd was gathered at the outside church, which had been built a few years before. The outside church can conveniently accommodate about 7,000 people in its benches. Once the rosary was over, people started pointing to the sun, and I looked to see what was happening. The sun was moving around in circles and, at the same time, it was changing colors. The sun switched between all the different colors imaginable and, at the center of the sun, I saw the Eucharist. I stared at the sun for a good three minutes, and it did not hurt my eyes at all! This was another incredible experience, which must have been similar to what happened to the people of Fatima back in 1917.

My trip to Medjugorje overall was a life-changing experience. It was a great trip, starting with the great generosity of people to all of my unique experiences in Medjugorje. This whole trip, I was thankful for the opportunity given to me. The breath-taking scenery of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina is something I would have liked to explore more, but I still enjoyed my eight days there. These unique and unusual experiences have helped me grow deeper in my faith. I loved every moment of this trip, and I hope to return again sometime in the near future.