(25 Jun 2021) LEAD IN:
Forty years ago six young people from southern Bosnia first reported apparitions of the Virgin Mary.
To mark the anniversary pilgrims have walked to the shrine at the top of the rock hill where the apparitions are said to have occurred.
STORY-LINE:
It is a steep, climb up a rocky slope.
A challenge, especially in bare feet.
A challenge that demonstrates the devotion of the pilgrim to our Lady of Medjugorje.
In 1981, six children and teenagers said they saw apparitions of Mary on a hill in the village of Medjugorje.
The Catholic Church hasn't yet authenticated the vision, but the small town has for decades been a year-round destination for Catholic pilgrims from around the world, drawing millions of faithful a year.
Soon after the first reported visions, locals followed the young visionaries to the site, to witness them seeing the claimed apparitions.
Zvonimir Ostojic was 12 when a group of local teenagers first claimed that the Virgin Mary had appeared to them on a nearby hill, giving them a message of peace.
"People were coming from all over (Bosnia), walking or riding their small tractors and motorbikes, but mostly on foot, making a pilgrimage and today reminds me of the early days of our communion," he recalls.
Over the past four decades, the same group of people have claimed to receive countless - messages from Mary.
The alleged visions had profoundly changed the lives of local people.
"I was born in a village a few kilometres from here. I was 12 when I first came here to witness the apparition, and now we are marking the 40th anniversary. We have been making daily pilgrimages to this site for over 40 years, we come to the church for mass and we pray to the Queen of Peace to bring peace to our world in upheaval," says Ostojic.
Medjugorje parish priest Marinko Sakota was 13 years old when six of his peers first reported seeing the Virgin, like many locals he went to see the youngsters receiving their claimed apparitions.
"It is hard to find the right words to describe the experience. It was very authentic, incredibly powerful, so there is no wonder that I returned the next day, and the next. My parents and I would often come to Medjugorje for the evening prayers, that is why I had felt the calling, that is why I became a Franciscan priest, because of Medjugorje," says Sakota.
In 1981, Medjugorje was a remote rural place recalls Sakota, now rural life has disappeared as farmers' cottages gave way to hotels and stores selling religious items.
"In the early days, Medjugorje was a small parish, quite small, Bijakovici where the visionaries are from and where the Virgin had appeared to them was also a small village, unremarkable, where people, simple farmers, scraped a living by growing tobacco and grapes, but the Ladz appeared there, she came there and Medjugorje has since been expanding," explains Sakota.
In the early 1980s when Bosnia was part of the communist Yugoslav Federation, the transformation of the village into a pilgrimage site became a thorn in the side of the authorities.
"At first, the then communist authorities tried to put a stop on this, but they failed. Why? They failed because people had faith, people believed that the Lady is appearing here, that this is the work of God. The faith was strong in people and they have kept coming here in increasingly large numbers." says Sakota.
In 2019 Pope Francis gave Roman Catholic faithful his OK to make pilgrimages to the Bosnian shrine, but the Catholic Church hasn't yet authenticated the visions.
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