Where are the miracles at Medjugorje?
In Medjugorje the miracle is not so much in Our Lady’s apparitions, nor in the words she speaks to us, but in the pilgrim’s reply, who accepts to change his heart and life. That is the great miracle!
Take St Francis: the miracle was not that Jesus spoke to him, but in the fact that he gave up everything to become poor in everything.
In the Gospel we read of the rich young man who was called by Jesus. The miracle wasn’t that he saw Christ and heard his call; it would have been in his response, had he responded. But he preferred his riches to Jesus. That is a miracle which did not occur.
In Medjugorje a pilgrim can decide to see a miracle or not. It is not a miracle for God to talk; it is normal. In Medjugorje it is the pilgrim who decides if a miracle will occur or not. All he has to do is to open his heart to respond to the call.
• Fr Jozo Zovko ofm
Fr Jozo Zovko OFM
The conversion of hearts
Conversion remains the key to all reconciliation and to the Church’s ministry of reconciliation.
All individual and collective reconciliation springs from the conversion of hearts.
The social fabric of the Church and the world will be reformed and renewed only when conversion is interior and personal.
The needed reform of oppressive economic and political structures in the world cannot be effected without the conversion of hearts.
The reconciliation of humanity at the level of individuals, communities, peoples and blocs of nations presumes the conversion of individual hearts and must be based on truth.
• Pope John Paul II to the bishops of the United States of America on their “Ad Limina” visit, May 1988.
