Medjugorje: A Gateway to Peace and Prayer in the Modern World

Our Lady of Medjugorje: Experiences, Church Status, and What to Expect on Pilgrimage

Cristy Murray and Father Perry Kenaston introduce the “Mary’s Message” podcast and focus this episode on Our Lady of Medjugorje, opening with prayer and sharing background on the small village in Bosnia and Herzegovina where six teenagers first reported apparitions on June 24, 1981. They describe Medjugorje’s core themes—peace, prayer, fasting, conversion, and faith—monthly messages given on the 25th through visionary Maria, and an annual March 18 message through Marianna, along with early government attempts to stop the events and the estimated 40 million pilgrims since 1981. They explain the Vatican’s September 2024 nihil obstat as permitting prudent devotion while not declaring every message supernatural. Cristy recounts travel logistics, climbing Apparition Hill, parish Mass and confession schedules, and losing luggage, while Father Perry recalls earlier pilgrimage experiences, including scents of flowers, a rosary changing to gold, and the “spinning sun,” and they close with a recent May 25 message and encouragement to subscribe and join the newsletter.

00:00 Welcome to Marys Message
00:52 Opening Prayer
01:42 Medjugorje Origins
04:17 Church Recognition Update
05:26 Getting There Travel Tips
06:17 Climbing Apparition Hill
07:45 Mass Confession Rhythm
09:32 Father Perrys Early Visit
14:28 Luggage Lesson and Trust
16:57 Latest Message and Devotions
18:33 Closing Prayer and Farewell

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Transcript

Restream recording Jun 14, 2026 • 01:41:29 AM 0:00

Welcome to Mary's Message Leading Hearts to Jesus Today, the podcast where we listen to the voice of the Blessed Mother and allow her to guide us ever closer to her Son in our modern world. I am Cristy Murray along with Father Perry Kenaston, and each week we explore stories of faith, conversations with Catholic voices, and practical spiritual tools to help you encounter Christ more deeply. In a world longing for peace and clarity, Mary continues to speak to her children with love, hope, and a mother's gentle wisdom. Thank you for joining us as we open our hearts to Mary's message and let her lead us into the loving embrace of Jesus. Today, we are going to talk about Our Lady of Medjugorje. It's really exciting because I just came back from a trip from Medjugorje. And yeah, so we'll talk about Medjugorje and I will share my experience, and Father Perry will share his experience as well. But we will start with an opening prayer. Heavenly... In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. Heavenly Father, I come before you now, and we come as your children. And Mother Mary, we ask you to be with us, because I know that in different places like Lourdes and Fatima you've appeared to bring a very special message to certain people. Lourdes and Fatima we know about. Medjugorje is one of the things that the church has studied very closely and has elevated the message to a, like a number two spot, and they're just waiting for more clarification before they actually recognize L- Lourdes and Fatima. And we ask you just to be our guide and share with us your wisdom and knowl- understanding, and we commit everything into your hands. Amen. Amen. So I have some- Beautiful facts about Medjugorje. Let me just get- Yes my notes out. So Medjugorje is in a tiny farming village in Bosnia and Herzegovina. You have to say them both together. And before June 24th, 1981, Medjugorje was just a small farming village tucked into a harsh and remote corner of what was then Yugoslavia. So the name itself, Medjugorje, means between mountains. So nestled between two hills that would become known to millions now. Nobody had heard of this place, and then everything changed. In, on June 24th, 1981, at approximately 6:00 in the evening on a hill called Pad- Paderbro- Pod- Podbrdo. So now it's called Apparition Hill. So six young people saw a beautiful young woman holding a small child. She didn't speak, but gestured for them to come closer. Of course, frightened, they approached, though they immediately believed that they were seeing Our Lady. I don't have the six visionaries' names. They were teenagers then. They're all still alive. Some of them still live there in Medjugorje. Some have moved out. They have families now, but back then they were ordinary kids from farming families. So then they came back the next day, and Our Lady came back as well. It was the feast of St. John the Baptist when Our Lady first appeared on that small mountain overlooking the parish. So that detail really matters because Our Lady doesn't, show up on random days. So her core message from the earliest days were peace, prayer, fasting, conversion, and faith. So these five things became the pillars of Medjugorje. She has continued delivering messages. On the 25th of every month, she gives a message to, for the world through the visionary Maria. And once a year on March 18, she delivers a message through visionary Marianna so the op- the communist Yugoslav government tried to shut it down. So priests were arrested and visionaries were interrogated and taken away in cars to prevent the evening apparitions. So similar to what happened in Lourdes, the children were being investigated. But none of it stopped what was happening. And since 1981, an estimated 40 million people from around the world have made the pilgrimage to Medjugorje. The fruits are conversion by the tens of thousands and healings and people returning to confession for the first time in decades, and lives were completely turned around. Cannot argue with that. And this is important to address. So let's talk about where the church stands. In September 2024, the Vatican's Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, with Pope Francis' approval, granted a nihil obstat to the spiritual experience of Medjugorje. Under the Church updated norms for discerning apparitions, this is the highest level of recognition currently possible for ongoing phenomenon. Ongoing because the visionaries are still receiving messages from Our Lady. So what does that actually mean? The Church is saying that many signs of the Holy Spirit are at work there. And I tell you what, you really feel it. I felt it, and I recommend you going there. It's an amazing place. So no dangerous elements have been found, and the positive fruits are really evident. The faithful are authorized to adhere to it with prudent devotion. So it's not a declar-declaration that every message is supernatural in origin, but the Church is saying this is a good and a holy place, so go and pray. So now I'm gonna talk about what to expect physically when you get to Medjugorje. Now, getting there, we actually from Anchorage flew to Frankfurt There's a direct flight from Anchorage to Frankfurt, or you can get there from Seattle or LAX. So Frankfurt is the main hub. From Frankfurt, we took a small plane to Vienna. And then from Vienna, we flew to Zagreb. And then from Zagreb the airport is called Mostar, or the place is called Mostar. We had a taxi from our the guesthouse that we were staying at. So another place that you can get there is flights to Split or Dubrovnik which is Croatia, or Sarajevo. And Sarajevo is one to two hours by car. The village itself is small. It's walkable, and it's centered around the St. James Parish. So when you get there, there's two hills that you can climb. Apparition Hill which was then called Putterbro, Potterbro, where the first apparition happened. So it's a rocky terrain. But it's doable. It's kinda steep, but it's doable to climb. We climbed it for three mornings straight and it was amazing, and you can use a walking stick up and down actually suggest that. And on the way there I lost my luggage, so I only had walking shoes, but I was fine. I was able to climb and and get down the hill. And it's amazing place because most people go you pray the rosary as you're going up, as you're walking to the hill and then walking back. And the best place to climb the hill is, actually I thought 7:00 AM was the best time 'cause it was early, but most people are actually coming back down the hill when we were just going up there. So the earlier you can go the better, 'cause then it gets crowded. But when you do get up the hill, it's an amazing view. You just stay there. Plan on staying there for at least 30 minutes, an hour, as long as you want to and pray. It's a peaceful place. So the other mountain is called Cross Mountain. I didn't climb that. My husband did, and my other son. So it's taller, it's more demanding climb with the stations of the cross carved in stone along the path, and many pilgrims do it barefoot. You can climb barefoot on both both hills. So Medjugorje has its own spiritual rhythm. So there's evening mass at St. James. It's 6:00. There's rosary at 5:00, mass is at 6:00, and that mass in the evening is in Croatian, and English mass is in the morning at 10:00 AM. You can... It was really hot when we were there, so it, we were grateful that St. James has AC. It's a little cooler inside, but then outside it's a bigger place. There's the... When they say mass outside, especially the Croatian mass, there's more people. So 20 priests are outside and everyone is outside and that's where we're, that's where we're having mass in the evening. So confession is always available. Actually it's, I think it starts at 4:00 in, in the afternoon and it's outside. So you'll see priests that are, who are lined up. They just grab a little sign that lets people know what language they speak. Most priests are bilingual, trilingual and, you just, you line up with whatever priest can, speak your language. And there's a long line for confession. It's amazing actually. It's amazing to see. And many people they experience profound healing in that sacrament. Anywhere you go to confession, you experience profound healing. But specifically while they're in Medjugorje, 'cause a lot of people, they're skeptics and they don't go to confession and, but then when they get to Medjugorje, they get the calling to go to confession and it's just really it's an amazing experience. So that's what I've heard from other people. So it wasn't really surprising for me. It's... Nothing was surprising, but I was just at awe and amazement at how sacred the place is and the fruits that's happening there. What else can I talk about? So yeah. Do you have anything to add, Father? Thanks Cristy. It's great to have somebody right away s- share their vivid memories right away. My memories come from, oh, a few years back. I went to Spokane, Washington working and everything, and the parish there was sponsoring a trip to the Holy Land. But she said, there's a side trip that I'm doing too. It's called Medjugorje." And I, and then this is back in the '80s. And I said, "Okay sounds good to me." So I signed up and with the group, and we went to Medjugorje, and they said this is really gonna be interesting." And I said why is it gonna be interesting?" And at that time, they had just finished building Marian House, which is the mother house there, and they had just put in the hot water. So that's how fresh, that's how new this was back in those days. And you'd go around, and you'd go up to Cross Mountain. I had 20 people with me. We went up to Cross Mountain. Not Cross Mountain, but the other mountain, and it was, And some people crossed, did the Cross Mountain too. But Apparition Hill, it had rained the day before, so the rocks were a little slippery, so we- it took our, it took a little time to get up there, and we just babysitted each other so we didn't fall. One of the things that they told us, if you buy a rosary here at the, one of the gift shops, and when you come out, the beads will turn to gold." And lo and behold, not the beads, but the links and everything else, it turned to gold. And some of them went back to the States and had it actually tested, and they, it was gold. It was- unequivocally gold, but you walk in, and I don't know quite how to say this, but you walk in and you could smell Our Lady's flowers, either the lilies or the roses. And it was so strong that you just... How can I say? You just sit there in the pew. You're there by yourself. You just sit there in the pew and you just be a sponge. You ab- absorb- the spirituality of the place. And it's transforming. It really is. We stayed at a place, like a B&B. And I... It was to this day. And they said, if you look it right, and if you're observant, you'll see the spinning of the sun." And I said, "You're right. You're right." And I wasn't even a priest then. I just was studying for the priesthood. And I said Mama, Mother Mary, if you, this is true, it's true. I looked up at that sky, and this sun, man, I tell you what, it was going 60 miles an hour, so to speak. Oh, really? It was spinning. Spin. And it started coming close to me, and I said, "Now wait a minute." It gets too close here I could have a problem but that was it, everything that I heard about in the States about different apparitions and just everything else came true. And as far as the priests go you had priests on both sides, and they had the little tags that said English or Spanish or whatever else like that, or, they're like say they're bilingual or more. But what a grace that was, just not only to be there and to experience it firsthand, and I can still talk about it today, and this is back in the, when it first started back in the early '80s. It is still going on. And I just, you just... But the main thing is that when you go over there- Gee, go over there as a little kid sit there, yeah and let Mama Mary and Jesus talk to you. Be the Mary that's in the scripture there it says about Mary and Martha. Cause you got all that time on a plane, man. You ain't going no place. So you can just prepare yourself for a really great adventure. And like I said, y- you go there in faith and you just let everything happen. You can just relax and be that spiritual sponge, and just absorb everything that God has given, i- is letting you have and everything else. And I to this day, I'd like to go back to Medjugorje, but the travel company that I work with we can go as far as Dubrovnik, I think, and then from there it has to go some other place. But this year I'm going to a different place. Part of... in another part of Europe and everything else, in Poland. But I just... you can't beat the authenticity, and that's one reason why Cristy and I were talking about it earlier today, about we can do the Corpus Christi thing, but we can also do Medjugorje. And so by the grace of God, we're talking about Medjugorje today also, and the wonderful experiences that she's had firsthand, and the experience that I had some 20 years ago. And basically, if you just let the Holy Spirit lead it, you're gonna have the same experience or maybe even a more profound one, if you go in humility, and you just appreciate what Mama Mary is trying to do for all of us. Yes. I think, I don't know if I... Did I mention I lost my luggage? Not yet. Not yet. Not yet. I can mention it 'cause I, I think there was a reason I lost my luggage. I knew I was gonna get it back. I have it back now, but I got my luggage back two days after we got back home when the airport was from- When the Zagreb Airport contacted me, they said, "Are you still here? Can we send it to Sarajevo? Where are you?" And I said, "Just send it back to Anchorage." But what that experience taught me, not having my luggage during that trip was we only need... Like we-- I actually, I travel with more stuff than I need, and I only need so much. And not having all that stuff with me in Medjugorje, I just survived with the basics, and it was fine My friends, I don't know if you've ever lost your luggage in process of traveling, especially overseas Just, oh my God. Oh my God, what am I gonna do? Don't worry about it. Yeah. The Holy Trinity and our Blessed Mother will take care of you. Yeah. They'll even open the, they'll even open up the Visa account for you. That's what I said when my son said, "Oh Mom, your luggage is missing." And I was like, "Oh, spiritual warfare is starting. Okay, not gonna let this affect me." You wanna climb up that mountain no matter what. But we had... When we climbed the mountain the first time, it ra- like I said, it was raining. And we had some people that, of the group wanted to climb it before this. And we... They were, how do I say? They were a little bit more mature than I was at that time. Of course, I'm the same age now as they were then, but, we, they, one of them tried to slip a little bit. And then we, w- we held on to them. We got back down again, and we went from there, went straight to the, went straight to the church and waited for mass to begin. And you just, like I said I don't know how to explain it. You just sit there. And and as Cristy has said, Rome has elevated it now to getting closer and closer to being recognized if you get a chance, go there. A- and like I said, if you if you go there, be the Mary, not the Martha. Don't worry about anything. Just be the Mary and the Mar- just be the Mary, and let- let the luggage take care of itself or whatever else like that. Yeah. But you walk into the church, at least then, and maybe it does now, but if you walk into that church, you just take a nice deep breath, and you can smell Our Lady's colors and flowers and different things. Yeah. And it's beautiful. Really beautiful. I do there was a recent message so May 25th just last month So it's, this is the most recent message. So she said, "Dear children, may this time be for you a time of prayer and fasting. Return little... Return little children in love to God who is your peace. I am with you, little children, and I love you with my motherly tenderness. Thank you for having responded to my call." That's her most recent message. Prayer and fasting and... Oh, so she's actually also known as the Lady of Peace in Medjugorje. And I think, Cristy, isn't there a link that people can join to get that message? Yeah. They can sign up to our... they can Google it or we can send it to them through our email. Yeah. Yeah. I think it'd be interesting for them to, now that we've done this, we can- Help them share in her monthly m- it's monthly message, right? That, that she does Yeah. Yeah. Oh, it's just May 25th. I was there when that... Oh, no, I wasn't, 'cause that's when I... No, I missed it by two days. She said the message. I got there on the 27th Oh yeah, so then they have a rosary that over there it's called the Lady of Peace Rosary. So it's seven Hail Marys, seven Our Fathers, and seven Glory Bes. So that's just a little tidbit. And yes, thank you for letting me share my experience from Medjugorje. I've been trying to get there for 30 years since being deployed there. It's much different now, And it's great to be there with my family. I hope you get to either go or go back every year. Some people return there every year. It's really an amazing experience, and I hope all of you get to go at least once do you want to say our closing prayer now, Father? In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Heavenly Father Blessed Trinity, and our Blessed Mother, we just thank you for this time together, and we ask you to continue to bless each one of us and help us always to be open to your wisdom of guidance and everything else that's needed to grow closer not only to the Most Holy Trinity, but to you as our spiritual mother. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen. Amen. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit. Amen. Oh, I forgot to add, when you get up to, up Apparition Hill, there's a big cross there, and yeah it's amazing, too. You pray you pray at the foot of the cross, and then you turn around and Mama Mary's there. So it's surreal. I can't really explain it. I just want, I just pray that all of you get to go. So thank you for joining us today on Mary's Message, Leading Hearts to Jesus. If this conversation brought you closer to Jesus, I invite you to subscribe, leave us a five-star review, and share this episode with someone who needs a little hope. And every time you do, you help Mary's message reach more hearts. For links, resources, and ways to stay connected, be sure to check the show notes below. And if you'd like to go deeper, we now have a newsletter just for you. Head to our subscription landing page in the show notes to join our community and receive reflections, resources, and Marian inspiration delivered straight to your inbox, such as the new message that we read today. And you also get to ask Father Perry some questions and ask for spiritual direction. So until next time, may Mary's message echo in your heart and lead you ever closer to the loving embrace of Christ.