PART 1 OF A TALK GIVEN BY MIRJANA

Transform My Messages Into Life

Part 1 of a talk given by Mirjana to English speaking pilgrims on 10-8-07

"I would like to greet all of you first of all, from the bottom of my heart. I am so happy that we have gathered here to talk about everything that Our Lady desires from us. I will try to say what I consider as the most important. The way I used to have the apparitions, the way I have them now, the most important messages, and then you can ask whatever you may be interested in. I will try to respond to all of your questions.

Mirjana is tireless in giving her testimony to the multitudes of pilgrims that come to Medjugorje. Here she is outside her home the morning of October 8, 2007. Despite the heavy burden she carries in knowing what awaits the world, her countenance is always joyful, confident, and encouraging. It is apparent when you see Mirjana that God has given her this inner strength in the midst of the cross that she carries, that all those who hear and see her witness will likewise, pick up their cross, and with joy and confidence, witness to the world their faith in God.

"You know for sure that the apparitions started on June 24, 1981. Is there anyone here for the first time? Ooooh! (Many hands go up). Then we'll start from the beginning. Those who have already heard this, endure a little bit. Think about how many times I have repeated that.

"June 24 is St. John the Baptist's feast, and nobody worked in the village. Ivanka and I intended to be alone for awhile. We were two girls about 15 or 16 years old, who just wanted to talk about the normal things. We went outside of the village, and we were walking along the foot of what is called Apparition Hill today. We were talking about normal things. We did not talk about faith or about God. When we felt tired, we sat at the foot of the hill. And at one moment Ivanka told me, "I think that Our Lady is on the hill." I didn't even look because that was impossible for me. The way I believed was that Our Lady is in Heaven and we pray to Her. It was at that time that we lived in ex-Yugoslavia under communism. We were allowed to attend Holy Mass only once a week. We prayed the rosary with our parents every night, but without many words. Until that moment, our parents never told us about Lourdes, about Fatima, about that possibility. That's why I left Ivanka standing on that spot, and I intended to go back to the village. As I was reaching the first houses of the village, I felt a strong call to come back. I came back, and I saw Ivanka standing in the same spot. Then Ivanka said to me, "Look now please." I was able to see a Woman in a long dress, covering her feet, holding (a) baby in Her arms. Everything was very strange, because nobody was climbing the hills, especially not in such a long dress with a baby in their arms. At that very moment, I felt all the emotions that exist in the world within myself – fear, beauty, love, misunderstanding, all of that together. But what prevailed with me was to run away. And I escaped.

"When I came home, I said to my grandmother that, 'I think that I saw Our Lady.' She said to take the rosary, go to your room and pray to dear God and let Our Lady be where She is – in Heaven. (Laughter) And what I did, I really did spend the whole night praying. I did not have the strength to explain to the people. The way I felt best was to withdraw into my room as my grandmother recommended and to pray. I spent the entire night praying. In that way, I was able to have peace. The next day, we were doing normal things. I was helping my uncles and I did not have a chance to meet other visionaries. Around the same time when I saw Our Lady the day before, I felt that intense pull within myself again. I said to my uncles that I simply have to go back to the foot of the hill. They came along with me because they felt responsibility for what was happening to me. When we reached the foot of the hill, we could see that half of the village was there at the foot of this hill because, with every visionary, there was someone from their families. When I reached that spot, I was able to see Our Lady standing on the same spot, but this time She did not have a baby in Her arms. So that second day, June 25th was the day when we approached Our Lady. That is how our daily apparitions started.

"We were having apparitions on the hill for a very short period of time. As I have already said in the beginning, that was a time of communism and the police, with the dogs, occupied the hill immediately. After that we would have the apparition every night in a different spot. Those first days Our Lady presented a lot of miracles. For example, there was this word "MIR" which means peace in the Croatian language written in the middle of the sky, and it was able to be seen by everybody. The second thing was the Cross on Cross Hill would simply disappear and Our Lady dressed in white would appear. Everybody was able to see that as well, and many other things.

"So then the villagers were helping us. They were hiding us. That is why we were having the apparitions every other night in a different spot. Such daily apparitions I had up until Christmas of 1982. That is when I received the tenth secret and Our Lady asked me to choose a priest in whom I will tell the secrets. I chose Father Petar Ljubicic. I am suppose to tell him ten days in advance what will happen and where, seven days we are suppose to spend in prayer and fasting, and three days ahead of time he is suppose to reveal it to the world. He doesn't have the right to choose whether to say or not to say. He accepted this mission and he has to fulfill that according to God's Will. But Our Lady always repeats, do not talk about the secrets. You better pray. Because the one who feels (Our Lady) as a Mother and God as a Father, that person has no fear of anything. Our Lady says that only those who have not yet felt the love of God, they have fear. But we as human beings, we always talk about the future – what, when, where will (things) happen. But I always repeat the same thing, who among us present here, can say with certainty that we will be alive tomorrow. Therefore, Our Lady has been teaching us that we must be ready at this very moment to come before God and not to talk about the future. What will be in the future is God's Will and our task is to be ready for that.

"On that Christmas, 1982, Our Lady also said that I was going to have Her apparitions once a year, as long as I live, on every March 18th. But at the same time, I would have some extraordinary apparitions as well. Those apparitions started on August 2, 1987 and still have been lasting, and I do not know how long I will have them. Those apparitions are also prayers for unbelievers. But Our Lady never says unbelievers. Referring to them, She always says those who have not come to know the love of God yet. And Our Lady is asking our help. When She says our help, She doesn't only mean the six visionaries, but help of all those people who feel Her as Mother. Because Our Lady says that we are capable of changing unbelievers. But only through our prayers and our own example. Our Lady is asking from us to put in our daily prayers in the first place the prayer for unbelievers because Our Lady has been emphasizing that most of the bad things in the world like wars, crime, abortion, are coming from unbelievers. Because of that, Our Lady says that when you pray for them, you in fact are praying for yourselves and your own futures. Beside prayer, Our Lady is asking for our example. Our Lady does not ask of us to preach. What She would like from us is to talk with our own life so that unbelievers can see God and God's love within ourselves. I would like you to accept this in the most serious way because if you were able to see just once the tears on Our Lady's face because of unbelievers, I am so certain that you would pray from the bottom of your heart. Because Our Lady says, this time is the time of decision. She says that we, who call ourselves God's children, we have great responsibility. When Our Lady asks of us to pray for unbelievers, She desires that we do it in Her way. That means first to feel love for them. To feel them as our own brothers and sisters who were not lucky enough as we were to come to know the love of God. And only once, when we will feel that, will we be able to pray for them. We should never judge or criticize. We should simply love them and pray for them and offer them our own example because that is the way to help them. With these apparitions, Our Lady gave to everyone of us visionaries a mission to pray for. My mission is to pray for unbelievers. Vicka and Jakov pray for the sick. Ivan prays for the priests and the youth. Marija prays for the souls in purgatory. Ivanka prays for families. But this doesn't mean that I am not suppose to pray for the sick people, or Jakov for unbelievers, but these are more like our mission to pray for, that we should pray for on a daily basis. But the most important message of Our Lady that She repeats constantly is the Holy Mass, but not only on Sunday. While we were still just children in the beginning of the apparitions, Our Lady said to us visionaries, if you have to choose between the Holy Mass and seeing me, you should always choose the Holy Mass, because during the Holy Mass, my Son is with you. In all these years of the apparitions, Our Lady has never said, "pray and I will give you." But what She always says is pray so that I can pray to my Son for you. So as you can see, Jesus is always in the first place.

A rapt audience listening to the words of Mirjana the morning of October 8, 2007. Our Lady's desire is that we transform Her messages into life. December 25, 1989 "…Little children, everyday read the messages I gave you and transform them into life…" Listening to the visionaries speak of their own experiences is invaluable in taking the steps to make that happen in our own lives.

"So many pilgrims who come to Medjugorje believe that we the visionaries are privileged, that it is just enough to say a word to us because God will accept our prayers more than He will the prayers of other people. But that way of thinking is completely wrong, because for Our Lady as Mother, there are no privileged children. We visionaries are the same as every single one of you to Her. Our Lady chose us to give the messages, but She chose every single one of you. This is what She said in Her message of January 2nd. She said, "Dear children, I invited you. Open your hearts and allow me to enter in order to be able to make you become my apostles." So we all have the same importance for Our Lady, but we just have different missions and different ways. But if we can still talk about the privileged ones when we look at Our Lady's messages, the way I understood, then we would be talking about priests. Because Our Lady never said what they should do, but She always repeats what we should do for them. She says that they don't need you to judge or criticize them, but they need your prayers and your love. And Our Lady says, "Dear children, God will judge them the way they were as priests. But God will judge you the way you treated your priests." For if you lose respect for your priests, you will lose it for the Church, and in the end for your God as well. And in Her latest messages on the second of the month, She has been constantly emphasizing the importance of the priests. For example, when She is giving us Her blessing during the apparition, She always says, "I am giving you my motherly blessing, but the greatest blessing that you can receive on earth is the blessing you receive from your priests because when they bless, it is my Son Himself blessing." Then She says, "Do not forget to pray for your shepherds. Their priestly hands are blessed by my Son." That is why I am always asking from the pilgrims, when you go back to your parishes, show to other people that you were in Our Lady's school, show that by the way you are treating your priests. If your priest is doing the way in which you think he shouldn't be doing, do not judge or criticize, because in that way it would just cause bad (fruit) for yourself and for those who are listening to you. You better take the Rosary and pray to Dear God for him, fast for him, because that is the way to help him. Not through judging. Only God is allowed to judge. He does it in a different way than us, because we can see in this world we have a lot of judging and criticizing of the people and very little love and peace. That is what Our Lady desires from us. In one of Her latest messages, Our Lady said, "My name is love. And I have come to teach you what you have forgotten to do and that is to love." Our Lady says that we cannot call ourselves believers, if we do not see Jesus Christ in every single person we meet. Our Lady is asking from us to pray the Rosary. Our Lady says that there is nothing in this world that can unite the family like when you pray together. Our Lady said that parents have great responsibility before their children, because parents are those who are suppose to put the seeds of faith into their children. And they can only do it if they pray together and attend the Holy Mass together. Because the children have to see that for their parents, God is in the first place, and then everything else. In many of the families, at least that is what many pilgrims say, one of the parents doesn't want to pray. Just go into a room where you are alone and pray. Put your family in Our Lady's hands. Give your example and be not afraid. God will be with you and will help you. Our Lady is asking one thing that very few people like – fasting. Our Lady's way of fasting is bread and water and She is asking Wednesdays and Fridays. She doesn't ask fasting from those who are sick, those who are really sick. Our Lady says that they will realize through prayer what they are to do other than fasting. But if you have never prayed an entire Rosary in your day so far, if you have never fasted twice a week so far, I would like to recommend you to do the way Our Lady did for us. When She came to Medjugorje, the first thing that She asked from us on a daily basis was to pray the Creed and seven times the Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be on our knees. After some time She was asking one part of the Rosary. And She was asking Friday as a day of fasting. Sometime after that, She was asking from us to add a second part of the Rosary, then the third part of the Rosary, and then to fast on Wednesday. We just hope that She will stop at this (laughter). But you can take this as an example as well – step by step. But it is important that you always try to do it with the heart and that is what She desires. She is asking from us to go to Holy Confession at least once a month. Our Lady said that there is no man on earth who doesn't have the need for monthly Confession. She is asking for the Bible in our families. You see, when Our Lady gives me the message, She doesn't explain the message to me. It is the same like every single one of you, I also have to pray in order to understand through my prayer what God desires to tell me through that message. So when Our Lady talks about the Bible, I think that we all have a Bible in our homes, but Our Lady has a desire for us to open it, to read a few sentences every day, it doesn't matter how much, but that the Bible is really present, and not to have it as a souvenir that we never touched. Our Lady says all the answers to your questions are in the Bible. This is what I personally consider as the most important and now you can ask whatever will help you to understand.

The Q&A-Part 2, will be available tomorrow.

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