The reported apparitions at Medjugorge continue to this day, twenty eight years after the first apparition. To detractors, this consistent continuous experience is reason enough to dismiss Medjugorge because other Marian visionaries did not have the same kind of long term relationship. To other people this same relationship is only indicative of Mary's sense of our need for her continuing personal involvement in today's world. Her message almost always focuses on the power of love and opening ones self up to the love of God in order that His love will flow through one towards others. Here is the message from yesterday:
Message of the Queen of Peace, June 25th, 2009.
“Dear children! Rejoice with me, convert in joy and give thanks to God for the gift of my presence among you. Pray that, in your hearts, God may be in the center of your life and with your life witness, little children, so that every creature may feel God’s love. Be my extended hands for every creature, so that it may draw closer to the God of love. I bless you with my motherly blessing. Thank you for having responded to my call.”
“Dear children! Rejoice with me, convert in joy and give thanks to God for the gift of my presence among you. Pray that, in your hearts, God may be in the center of your life and with your life witness, little children, so that every creature may feel God’s love. Be my extended hands for every creature, so that it may draw closer to the God of love. I bless you with my motherly blessing. Thank you for having responded to my call.”
What makes Medjugorge interesting to me, aside from conversion stories from my friends who have made pilgrimages there, is that Mary's messages tend to be very positive, focused on peace, love, and joy. She frequently speaks to the necessity for a conversion of the heart which transforms personal trials into compassion for others. It is in a sense, a more universal message than other apparitions, not solely concerned with underscoring Catholic identity issues. To be sure though, there is an emphasis on the Rosary, Mass, and Reconciliation, but these are presented more as a means to an end, rather than an end in themselves. These can be pointless exercises if one's heart is hardened to the core message of becoming a vessel of love in the lives of others. Medjugorge is about conversion, not necessarily obedience.
The Vatican has neither condemned nor endorsed the apparitions at Medjugorge. Part of that is because of the attitude of the local ordinaries, and part of it because it's still an ongoing phenomenon, but it's also because it's hard to argue with the positive experiences which so many people have expressed. Something is going on in Medjugorge and for the vast majority of people it's a positive something.
Yes, there have been issues, and all is not peace, love, and joy. Yet, this is true for any spiritual site which draws these kinds of numbers--an estimated 40 million in these 28 years. That's a lot of money and money draws all kinds of predators and some of them wear Roman collars. Mary speaks frequently about praying for them too, and extending compassion where it may most be needed. So while Medjugorge may indeed by a site of supernatural phenomenon, it's also most certainly a human phenomenon.
My own take is positive. Over the years the messages from the seers have evolved from a somewhat literal interpretation of what is said and what they have seen to a far more nuanced message. This is to be expected if the visionaries themselves are evolving as spiritual beings. It's been my own path as well, which has gone from a more Catholic centered experience of sacramental spirituality to one which is open to the foundational experience of love found in all valid spiritual systems. I've moved from the need for a group religious cohesiveness to an understanding that my task is to take my Catholic understanding of spirituality and meld it with others. This melding has not lessened my Catholicism, it has enhanced my understanding of the power of human consciousness when it's dedicated to the highest spiritual aspirations.
It doesn't really matter if the seers say Mary asks us to become hands of God's love for fellow humans, or or the Sioux elder Fool's Crow says we must become as hollow bones so the love of the Great Spirit will flow through us unimpeded. The message is the same. God is love, we are made in that image, and we are here to be empty vessels of that love. It is in that state that the Holy Spirit's action is made manifest in this reality because the real power of the Holy Spirit is love. As it was in the beginning, so it is for ever. (no matter how difficult this is to live.)
