By Mauro, Loredana and Luisa

(Taken from the book, Our Lady Is Alive in Međugorje – Conversations with Father Tomislav Vlašić; Publisher Luci dell’Esodo)

The prayer group and Our Lady’s guidance

I think that the prayer group should be considered part of the plan that God wanted to develop through Our Lady in the parochial community of Medjugorje.

When reading the Gospel, we notice that at the beginning of his public preaching, Jesus addressed a multitude of people; people were enthusiastic and followed him because they could see signs and miracles. Then as Jesus’ discourse became more and more demanding, those who had followed him merely out of enthusiasm withdrew. Towards the end of his life many of the disciples also left him and even one of the apostles betrayed him. This also happened among the believers in the apparitions of Medjugorje. The initial enthusiasm lessened. Then God turned to address individuals and he sought to form a smaller group, to guide it in the most direct manner and to lead it to experience things on a deeper level. I believe that this was also Our Lady’s desire for the prayer group. Through the little visionary Jelena, who certainly did not have the language of a theologian or a preacher, Our Lady simply taught all those who welcomed her in simplicity how to walk towards God. She prepared them so that they might come to understand and choose their vocation. Through prayer, fasting and meetings, the group’s duty was for each of them to grow and mature, in order to answer Mary’s call both individually and in communion with others.

The prayer group meetings commenced on the 24^th of June 1983, on the eve of the anniversary of the apparitions.

At the end of May of that year, Jelena Vasilj came to me and said to me that the Mother of God had announced to her that she would appear at her home and that she wanted me to be present at that apparition.

I went to her home and after a prayer I was present at the apparition. Then Jelena said to me that Our Lady wanted a prayer group to be formed that she herself would guide. She also recommended that young people who seriously wanted to follow Jesus and who were freer in particular should participate in this group, because they were not yet influenced by family and work commitments. Our Lady left everyone a month during which to reflect, pray and decide. Once that period was up, those who decided to be part of the group promised to pray and fast, to prepare themselves and to commence their journey in this manner. Then Our Lady gave the group a plan to follow: pray every day, fast twice a week, participate in Mass, consecrate themselves daily to the Heart of Jesus and to her Immaculate Heart.

During the autumn of the same year, Our Lady expressed her desire for the members of the group to allow themselves to be guided by her and for the four subsequent years and during that period they were not to decide to get married, or to embrace the religious or priestly life. She explained that she wanted to lead the group to experience a more authentic prayer and she underlined that the essential thing was that the members of the group were to discover and experience a profound life of prayer, prior to choosing any form of life. Only after this pathway of four years would they have been able to make the right decisions. This is how the prayer group that was united around Jelena commenced.

Our Blessed Lady wanted to personally guide these people in order to purify them and prepare them, so that they might then fulfil the special mission that the Lord was to entrust to them. She wanted to teach them so that they might become able to understand their specific role in God’s plans.

I was to simply embark on the pathway like every other member of the group, seeking to experience what Our Lady was giving to us as a grace. At the same time, I participated in the group as a spiritual assistant. What struck me the most about that experience was the desire to conform to what Our Lady was showing me. Mary taught us the pathway that leads us to the Father in the Holy Spirit, that same pathway that her Son Jesus took. These passages were very important for me, a true preparation for the subsequent step in my life.

We may logically think that Our Lady invited the prayer group simply to pray. In actual fact this was not the case! Our Lady was asking for prayer, but through prayers she was teaching us to enter into prayer, that is, to experience our relationship with God as the living Son with the Father in the Holy Spirit. This is great and marvellous!