Our Lady of Medjugorje
- Mary Prays
- May 13
- 7 min read
Updated: Jun 4
Medjugorje, Bosnia-Herzegovina · June 24, 1981 – Present
TLDR
She has appeared daily to six visionaries for over forty years, giving thousands of messages centered on five pillars: prayer, fasting, the Eucharist, confession, and Scripture. Her first words were, "I have come to tell you that God exists and that He loves you." She calls herself the Queen of Peace and has said, "If you would know how much I love you, your heart would weep over it." More than fifty million pilgrims have visited, and the DDF granted a nihil obstat to the devotion in 2024 while declining to declare the apparitions supernatural in origin.
Year | 1981-present |
Location | Medjugorje, Bosnia-Herzegovina |
Visionary | 6 visionaries |
Apparitions | Daily for 40+ years |
Church Status | Nihil Obstat for devotion (Sept 2024); supernatural origin not declared |
Key Message |
Five pillars: prayer, fasting, Eucharist, confession, Scripture. |
A Note on Church Status: On September 19, 2024, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, with the approval of Pope Francis, issued a Nihil Obstat to the devotion connected with the spiritual experience of Medjugorje, recognizing "the abundant spiritual fruits" and determining that "the spiritual proposal that emerges from Medjugorje" is positive, edifying, and consistent with Catholic teaching. However, the Vatican explicitly did not make a declaration on the supernatural character of the apparitions. The DDF stated that "the positive assessment that most of the messages of Medjugorje are edifying does not imply a declaration that they have a direct supernatural origin." Cardinal Fernández noted that some messages "refer to requests that are unlikely to be of supernatural origin" and urged discernment. Pilgrimages were officially authorized by Pope Francis in 2019. The DDF advises pilgrims to visit Medjugorje "to have an encounter with Mary, the Queen of Peace" and with Christ through the Eucharist, Scripture, and Adoration. Mary Prays includes Medjugorje because the spiritual fruits are undeniable, the core messages are consistent with every approved apparition in this collection, and the Church has given its blessing to the devotion while encouraging faithful discernment.
The World She Entered
Yugoslavia in 1981 was a communist country held together by the iron will of one man, and that man was dead.
Marshal Josip Broz Tito had died in May 1980, and the nation he had kept unified through force of personality was already beginning to crack along ethnic and religious fault lines.
Within a decade, those cracks would widen into one of the most brutal wars in European history. The Bosnian War, the siege of Sarajevo, the massacre at Srebrenica, the ethnic cleansing that would horrify the world, all of it was waiting beneath the surface in 1981.
Medjugorje was a small village of about four hundred families in the rocky, sun-scorched hills of Herzegovina. The people were Croatian Catholics, farmers and vineyard workers who lived hard lives on difficult land. The communist government suppressed religion wherever it could. Faith existed, but it was quiet, cautious, and under pressure.
On the evening of June 24, 1981, the Feast of St. John the Baptist, six children saw a woman on a hillside. Within days, the communist police had tried to shut it down, the parish priest had been arrested, and the crowds were already too large to stop.
She came to a country that was about to tear itself apart, and she called herself the Queen of Peace. She has not stopped speaking since.
To Whom She Appeared
They were six children and teenagers from the village.
Ivanka Ivanković was fifteen. Mirjana Dragičević was sixteen. Vicka Ivanković was sixteen.
Ivan Dragičević was sixteen. Marija Pavlović was sixteen. Jakov Čolo was ten, the youngest.
They were ordinary village children with no special distinction. Mirjana and Ivanka saw her first, on June 24, on a hillside called Podbrdo. The next day, June 25, all six saw her together for the first time. She was holding the Child Jesus in her arms, and she was beckoning them to come closer.
They were afraid. They did not go to her immediately. But on June 25, they climbed the hill and she spoke to them. Her very first message to the world was the simplest and most important sentence she has ever spoken:
"I have come to tell you that God exists and that He loves you."
How She Appeared
Our Lady appeared to the six visionaries daily from June 25, 1981 onward. The apparitions initially took place on the hillside, then moved to the parish church of St. James and to various private locations as the communist authorities tried to prevent the gatherings.
She appeared as a beautiful young woman, about nineteen or twenty years old, with dark hair, blue eyes, and a gray dress with a white veil. She hovered slightly above the ground, with a crown of twelve stars above her head. She radiated joy. The visionaries described her as so beautiful that earthly beauty cannot compare.
She prayed with them. She laughed with them. She cried with them. She answered their questions, sometimes with gravity, sometimes with a smile, sometimes with gentle humor. She taught them to pray the Rosary slowly and with the heart. She asked for five things: prayer, fasting, the Eucharist, confession, and the reading of Sacred Scripture. These five pillars have never changed.
On August 6, 1981, the word MIR, meaning "peace" in Croatian, appeared in burning letters in the sky above Mount Križević, visible to many people. It was on this day that she gave her title:
"I am the Queen of Peace."
What She Said
Over more than four decades, Our Lady has given thousands of messages at Medjugorje. They are consistent, repetitive in the best sense, and relentlessly focused on the same themes: prayer, peace, conversion, faith, fasting, love, and the urgency of returning to God.
She asked for the Rosary:
"Pray, and let the Rosary always be in your hands as a sign to Satan that you belong to me."
She asked for prayer with the heart:
"Pray with the heart. In prayer you shall perceive the greatest joy and the way out of every situation that has no exit."
She asked for fasting:
"The best fast is on bread and water. Through fasting and prayer, one can stop wars, one can suspend the laws of nature."
She asked for confession:
"Monthly confession will be a remedy for the Church in the West."
She asked for Scripture:
"Do not go in search of extraordinary things. Instead, take the Gospel, read it, and everything will be clear to you."
"Why do you ask so many questions? Every answer is in the Gospel."
She spoke of peace not as a political concept but as a spiritual reality:
"Without love you cannot live peace. The fruit of peace is love and the fruit of love is forgiveness."
She spoke of the family:
"Peace is in danger and the family is under attack. I am calling you, little children: return to prayer in the family. Put Sacred Scripture in a visible place and read it every day."
She warned the world with the directness of a Mother who can see the danger her children cannot:
"You have forgotten that through prayer and fasting you can avert wars and suspend the laws of nature."
And she returned, again and again, to love:
"Dear children, if you would know how much I love you, your heart would weep over it."
The Heart of Her Message
Since 1981, more than fifty million pilgrims from every country in the world have visited Medjugorje. The small village has become one of the most visited Catholic sites on earth. The parish of St. James celebrates Mass daily with thousands of faithful, and the lines for confession stretch for hours. Conversions, healings, and vocations have multiplied beyond counting.
The DDF's 2024 note acknowledged that "the spiritual fruits of the Medjugorje experience are evident" and that "people seem to visit Medjugorje mainly to renew their faith." It noted that charitable works have emerged, including the care of orphans, drug addicts, and people with disabilities. It recognized that "the Holy Spirit is carrying out many beautiful and positive things" in the midst of this phenomenon.
The note also observed something beautiful about Our Lady's own words at Medjugorje: she herself directs people away from the extraordinary and toward the ordinary means of grace. She says, "Every answer is in the Gospel." She says, "Take the Gospel, read it, and everything will be clear to you." She is not creating a new religion. She is leading people back to the one that already exists, to the Eucharist, to confession, to Scripture, to the Rosary, to the daily discipline of a life lived with God.
That is the genius of Medjugorje. After more than forty years and thousands of messages, the core of what she has said can be written on one page: God exists. He loves you. Pray with your heart. Fast. Go to Mass. Go to confession. Read the Bible. Forgive. Make peace. And know that she is with you, as your Mother, leading you to her Son.
She has never stopped saying it. And the world has never stopped needing to hear it.
Sources and Further Reading
The details of the Medjugorje apparitions are drawn from the recorded messages of the six visionaries, the DDF Note "The Queen of Peace" (September 19, 2024), and the extensive documentation maintained by the Parish of St. James, Medjugorje. The Nihil Obstat was granted by the DDF with the approval of Pope Francis on August 28, 2024. Pilgrimages were officially authorized by Pope Francis on May 12, 2019. All excerpts of Our Lady's words are from the visionaries' recorded testimony and the published messages.
For those who want to go deeper:
The Queen of Peace: DDF Note on Medjugorje (September 19, 2024) · Vatican
Pope Francis Grants Approval for Medjugorje Devotion · Vatican News
Medjugorje Official Parish · Parish of St. James
Medjugorje WebSite · Complete Message Archive
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