Medjugorje

How do you explain Mary to unbelievers? Why would Mary want to come to the middle of a mountain town in Bosnia to a bunch of kids? Why would this phenomena draw millions of pilgrims from around the world for the last thirty years? We made the journey last month with those very same questions.

In search of what it all means, I asked Jesus to show me himself there and I asked for the eyes of understanding. The eyes I got were those of a mother. I tend to look out of mother eyes quite a bit with seven kids of my own and a lot more that I love and call mine.

Mothers tend to have this problem. They like to take care of everybody. I do. It's a “built in” thing. The older I get, the stronger it gets. I saw thousands, yes, thousands, of people in search of a Mother and the Son that she introduces them to.

These are truly pilgrims. I don't think I understood the word pilgrimage until I became a part of this. These millions who come are on a search for something. I know I was. I want to understand why it takes something like this phenomena of Mary appearing to a bunch of kids to get people right with Jesus? Most of these pilgrims go to church most Sundays, I think. Probably more than that do. Why do they have to go across oceans, then clear into the middle of nowhere to really get converted to Jesus Christ Himself?

Part of the mystery is in climbing to the top of the mountain where the girls first saw the vision. As I climbed Apparition mountain, I thought about how hard it was. It is a tough climb to the young or old. Here we were trudging up a mountain with no solid footing anywhere, nothing but rocks the size of your head everywhere and for what were we doing this? Everywhere around me people of all sizes, shapes, ages, and languages were doing the same. What was running through their minds?

We didn't need a guide. They didn't exactly offer them. You just maneuver on your own. You can't see where you started and you don't know where you are going. (It is sorta like, shock here: REAL LIFE!) The way is nothing but rocks and trees and unsure. Sometimes you might need a little help from someone else. Everybody is on their own path. You can't take another's, although you can sometimes almost trail them, you can never exactly put your foot right where theirs has been. You can't really watch what the other guy is doing either. If you do, you will lose your footing and might fall.

There is something very peaceful about climbing this unknown. People are quiet and reverent. It is an almost surreal feeling. Lost in my own thoughts I wondered about innocence and purity. Most people view life through their own filter: rich, poor, city, country, jew, gentile, protestant, catholic. Everybody has on a different pair of glasses.

Thinking about puberty age kids in an obvious third world culture, it's easy to imagine true innocence thirty years ago when they encountered the Madonna giving them messages. The culture then was even more primitive than today. Why? I think it has to do with hope. That is a really great word. I hope my car doesn't die. I hope my kids live a good life. I hope. For what? I hope that the world knows Jesus. The Savior who hung on a cross for them.

Have mercy on us and on the whole world.

Whether or not anyone believes it or not, it really doesn't matter. Thirty years ago a bunch of kids in Bosnia started having visions of Mary telling them terrible things were going to happen to their land. There would be war, people needed to quit playing around with God and get right with Him. They needed to pray for the conversion of sinners to Jesus. That is not a message I can argue with.

When I reached the top of the mountain and surveyed where I had come from, I was amazed. I had actually made it there, to the place where a couple of girls had first heard messages from Mary about conversion and coming judgment. I saw the beauty that surrounded this place, the mountains and valleys in their glory. I could have never seen this from below! I looked at the people around me, everyone so very unique. A true representation of a vast and endlessly creative God, who makes all things to glorify Him!

If it takes a pilgrimage to Medjugorje for life long Catholics to be converted and get right with Jesus, then so be it. The Muslims have Mecca. Protestants have IHOP and Bethel. I don't know about other places because my glasses work ecumenically, American, Catholic and Protestant. I know that God is BIG and has a lot of variety. That is why He is God. He can do as he pleases. He does not have to work on someones presupposed theology. HE IS GOD AND I AM NOT. That should be enough for anybody.