MARY, OUR MOTHER

via cathnews.com

A Vatican-appointed commission is studying the Marian apparitions at Medjugorje, but pilgrims keep arriving in the small town, reports the Catholic News Service.
As the 30th anniversary of the apparitions approaches, the town is experiencing a building boom with new hostels, restaurants and shops that cater to pilgrims.
The 11 Franciscan friars assigned to the town's convent and its sole parish - St James - are assisted by visiting priests in ministering to the pilgrims and the town's 3,500 residents, who pack the church even in the winter when pilgrim buses are few and far between.
A few hotels and dozens and dozens of family-run hostels offer more than 10,000 beds for pilgrims. Individuals and members of organized groups climb the craggy Apparition Hill where six village children said they first saw Mary in June 1981.
The pilgrims pray the rosary as they trudge up the hill, careful not to twist their ankles on the slices of rock jutting out of the hillside. Most of the Medjugorje "seers" have said the apparitions have continued every day for years.
Three say they still have visions each day, while the other three see Mary only once a year now. All six are now married and have children. Ivanka Ivankovic-Elez, Mirjana Dragicevic-Soldo and Jakov Colo still live year round in Medjugorje or a nearby village; each of them was contacted in late February but declined to be interviewed.
On the second of each month, Dragicevic-Soldo says Mary shares with her a prayer for unbelievers and on the 25th of each month, Marija Pavlovic-Lunetti, who now lives with her husband and children in northern Italy, says she receives a public message from Mary.
FULL STORY Pilgrims flock to Medjugorje while Vatican studies apparitions (CNS)
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1100812.htm