August 17, 2011
Dear Family of Mary!
"My children, be not afraid. I am the Queen of Peace."
(June 25, 1981)
Our Lady is the Queen of Peace. She has established her presence in Medjugorje over the last 30 years, and her peace has touched millions of pilgrims during those years. On June 20th, just before the 30th Anniversary, Mirjana Soldo met with pilgrims in her home, where she shared about her experiences with Our Lady. She talked about the beginning of the apparitions. Here is a transcript of her introductory comments. Her translator was Miki Musa. The video was produced by Dani for the pilgrims. Here are Mirjana's words:
"Welcome to all visitors from Mexico. I will try to tell you everything that I consider important about Medjugorje. But first we will start with one Hail Mary...
"Are there any here for the first time? Yes. ...Then I will start from the beginning....Sorry for those who have been here before, but have patience. Think about what it is like for me!!
"June 24, 1981...That is the day when we celebrate St. John the Baptist's Feast day...and no one did any heavy labor in the village. Ivanka and I wanted to be alone for a while. We took a walk outside the village, on the road at the foot of what we now call 'Apparition Hill'. We were talking about normal things. And then in one moment, Ivanka said to me, 'I think that Our Lady is on the hill.' I didn't even look because for me that was impossible. Until that moment I had never heard about Lourdes or about Fatima. I didn't know that Our Lady could come like that. What I thought was that she is in heaven and we can pray to her.
"Because I grew up under the Communist regime, they didn't have faith [in Sarajevo]. We were allowed to go to Holy Mass on Sunday for about an hour and that was it. The rest of our religious life was within our families. Our parents taught us to pray. And after that we would pray the rosary together. But they didn't talk to us a lot about our faith because they could lose their job, their home. That is why when Ivanka told me that Our Lady was on the hill I replied to her in rather a rude way. I said, 'Yes, she has nothing better to do but to come to the two of us!' And I left her standing there. I wanted to come back to the village.
"But as I was approaching the first houses of the village I felt a very intense call within myself that I simply had to go back. When I returned, I saw Ivanka at the same spot. And she told me, 'Look now, please.' Among the rocks I was able to see a woman in a long gray dress, holding an infant in her arms. Everything was very strange. Nobody climbed that hill and she was in a long dress with an infant in her arms!
"Everything was very strange. Within myself I was feeling many emotions at the same time- fear, beauty, confusion. But what prevailed within me was to simply run away. So I escaped back home. But when I came home, I said to my Grandma, 'I think I have seen our Lady.' She said to me, 'You had better take the rosary, go to your room and pray it. Let Our Lady be where she is.' I didn't have the strength to debate with her. I wanted to be alone and in prayer. Only in this way was I able to feel peace.
"The next day, like every other day before, I helped my uncles and I didn't have a chance to see the other visionaries. However around the same time that I saw her the day before, I felt the same feeling, the call within myself. So I said to my uncles, 'I have to go back to the foot of the hill.' They came along with me in order to see what was happening. When we reached the foot of the hill, I would say that half of the village was already there. Every visionary was accompanied by someone.
We were able to see Our Lady at the same spot. But this time she did not have the baby in her arms. So June 25th was the first day that we approached our Lady. She presented herself to us. She said,"My children, be not afraid. I am the Queen of Peace." That is how our daily apparitions started." (Mirjana Soldo, sharing with pilgrims on June 20, 2011.)
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