24 November 2024

By Mauro, Loredana and Luisa

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

Extraordinary experiences in faith

When I was serving in Medjugorje, I met people who were part of various spiritual movements within the Church. Later on, in meetings, conferences and personal encounters that I was involved in over the years, people confided in me and entrusted their experiences to me. God touched and welcomed these souls in their originality with everything that they had with them. They even received graces through extraordinary facts, in visions, dreams, through an interior voice that educated them and other similar instances. Some of them, according to their own affirmations, were educated by Our Lady, others by Jesus, by Saint Michael or some saint. I was particularly struck by those people in whom God showed himself as Trinitarian; in them I was able to come to a clear understanding of his action, because through their souls I perceived the flow of the annunciation of the apostles that the Church transmits.

During the early years of the apparitions, people belonging to different, non-Christian movements came to Medjugorje, they were drawn there by the grace that they defined as energy. They lived determined extraordinary experiences which apparently seemed similar to those experienced within Christian movements. Nevertheless, with careful discernment, the lack of the Spirit of Christ and of any knowledge of Christian revelation appeared clearly. The presence of these people in Medjugorje and their interior confusion, aimed at shedding light on the shadows surrounding the apparitions of Our Lady and at tricking simple people, animated by a sincere faith in the Trinitarian God.

I was also a witness to the fact that during the early years, groups of people belonging to satanic sects also came to Medjugorje, with the intention of acting against the visionaries and the people coming to the site of the apparitions. This was also confirmed to me by Father Slavko Barbarić, who spoke to me of certain experiences that he had with people of this kind. In this case also, Satan’s intention was clearly to discredit God’s work.

Firstly I prayed to God to receive his wisdom. I verified the phenomena and I sought advice. I became informed and read up on these subjects, so as to adopt the right behaviour. An example was my meeting with the famous theologian Hans Urs Von Balthasar. It was the spring of 1983. I met him in Basel. I considered him to be not only a theologian, but also a man of faith, spiritually mature and open to the Mystery. In the brief conversation that we had, he said certain things to me that I never again forgot.

I recall that I asked his opinion on the apparitions of Medjugorje. He answered me asking how I had come to contact him and he affirmed that in Medjugorje it is more difficult not to see Our Lady than to actually see her. But he added that to see her we need to strip ourselves of all pretexts, interests and prejudices. He said that there is no place on earth that deserves such grace, because we find demands and struggles everywhere. We need to welcome Our Lady with a humble and sincere heart.

I then asked for his opinion regarding the reason for the apparitions of the Blessed Virgin. He answered me saying that in the 20^th century almost all the Popes had put Our Lady at the centre of their teaching. He was convinced that we would soon be entering the new century, that would see Our Lady shining like a star with a special light, well above all the saints.

I also asked him what could be done to protect the visionaries. He then said to me that the visionaries’ transmission space was limited. Journalists, scholars, people with their questions easily lead the visionaries outside of that space and expect the visionaries to know everything. Thus they confuse them and lead them to make mistakes. The message that the visionaries bring should be welcomed, that is, to meditate and pray in order to welcome God’s light.

I then asked him what him thought of the secrets that the six visionaries of Medjugorje talk about, and how we were to behave before facts that objectively surpass us. Von Balthasar said to me that the themes of the infinite can never be enclosed within human frameworks. The spaces of the infinite are necessary in order to walk in faith, to reach the life of He who is infinite. In the end, when I asked what else he could advise me regarding the apparitions, he recommended that I find a good Mariological theologian. In his opinion it was to be a person ready and willing to strip himself of the theological-scholastic terminology in order to step into the Mystery. I recall that he said the name René Laurentin.

I am still grateful today to Von Balthasar for those words that I cherish. In the autumn of 1983, I met René Laurentin, who willingly accepted to visit Medjugorje and to study Our Lady’s apparitions. Later on he wrote many beautiful and important books on the subject.

As a priest of Jesus Christ, I have always strived to behave clearly before people, regardless of the fact that they were living extraordinary experiences or following a normal spiritual pathway. In Christianity the position is clear. There is only one pathway and it is that of Jesus Christ. In chapter 10 of John’s gospel, Jesus presents himself as the Good Shepherd and affirms: I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep. But a hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. The hireling flees because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep.”¹

Jesus himself guides souls and assures them that he will introduce them into life with the Father through the Holy Spirit: “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand. I and My Father are one.”²

From the words of Jesus we can assume that the sheep listen to his voice because he knows them and they know him. Whoever spiritually accompanies people must never direct them towards himself or towards others, but towards Jesus Christ, so that they might learn to know him and to enter into a living relationship with him. The role of spiritual companion is that of helping people to reawaken on the inside and to develop a mature and responsible relationship with Jesus. Besides, this is the duty of the whole Church.