Melon, RE: Medjugorje

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that follows U2.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

U2Bama

Rock n' Roll Doggie
Joined
Oct 4, 2000
Messages
3,405
Location
Gulf Coast State of Mine
I'm not sure if you've heard about this side-story regarding Medjugorje; one of the Yugoslavian women who originally saw the vision, Marija Pavlovic Lunetti, also saw it here in Shelby County, Alabama in 1988, and it has spurred a pilgrimage movement at the site. Lunetti returned for a pilgrimage this week and allegedly has already had 2 more visions. I thought you may be interested:

(From THE BIRMINGHAM NEWS):
A vision of prayer

12/12/01

GREG GARRISON
News staff writer

The Virgin Mary appeared in Alabama again Tuesday night from 5:45 to 5:47 p.m., according to a popular Yugoslavian visionary who says she sees the mother of Jesus every day.

"Our Lady, when she came, she put her arms out, she extended them over the crowd," Marija Pavlovic Lunetti told a translator, who relayed the details to a crowd of about 1,000 people gathered around a candlelit Virgin Mary statue in a Shelby County field. "She prayed for a long time over all of us."

Mrs. Lunetti said she then asked the Virgin Mary to bless the people and the objects they brought to be blessed. "Our Lady then extended her hand and made the sign of the cross above us all," translator Kathleen Martin said. "And in this way she left."

She said she will have a vision again today at 5:45 p.m.

When Mrs. Lunetti was a teenager in 1981, she was one of six children in Medjugorje, Yugoslavia, who began reporting that the Virgin Mary was appearing to them every day. Over the past two decades, about a million pilgrims a year have visited the small town in a war-torn region that's now part of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Mrs. Lunetti said she had a vision of the Virgin Mary on Monday at 5:40 p.m. aboard an airplane on the way to Birmingham, then another after she arrived at 8 p.m. in the house of Caritas of Birmingham founder Terry Colafrancesco in Shelby County. Caritas promotes Mrs. Lunetti's visions.

"That is very unusual, to have two in one day," Colafrancesco said.

Mrs. Lunetti took part in reciting the rosary in the same Shelby County field on Tuesday morning, then lectured in broken English to an auditorium of admiring pilgrims. She occasionally stopped and spoke in Croatian or Italian to the translator, who would suggest English words for her.

Mrs. Lunetti said she has been accommodating to people, even letting pilgrims into her Medjugorje home while she has the visions. "People pat you and treat you like a saint, like you do miracles, not God," she said, speaking to a group of pilgrims on Tuesday at The Tabernacle of Our Lady's Messages, a $1.3 million office and chapel built by Caritas.

During her morning lecture, Mrs. Lunetti talked about the many pilgrims who have visited her in Medjugorje. She said she has met a princess from Liechtenstein and an aborigine from Australia who converted to Christianity, along with thousands of others.

"These people have come and really become part of our family," Mrs. Lunetti said. Mrs. Lunetti has often had her visions in a small chapel in her Medjugorje home. But last year, an outdoor chapel was built that accommodates more people, she said. Caritas contributed toward the building costs, Colafrancesco said.

Mrs. Lunetti said she doesn't want to be seen as anything other than an ordinary person who just happens to get a personal visit from the mother of Jesus every day. Someone in the audience Tuesday asked her what happened if she was busy when the Virgin Mary appeared.

"I'm never so busy I won't stop for Our Lady," said Mrs. Lunetti, who married an Italian man in 1993, has three children and moves back and forth between homes in Medjugorje and Milan, Italy. Her husband and three children did not accompany her to Alabama this week.

In 1998, when Mrs. Lunetti and her husband were riding horses during an unpublicized visit to Shelby County, Mrs. Lunetti was kicked in the leg by a horse and had to be taken to the hospital, Colafrancesco said Tuesday. While she was in a car on U.S. 280, she had a vision of the Virgin Mary and her pain went away during the vision, he said.

That's how he knows her visions are real, Colafrancesco said. "How do you fake this?" he said. She was in terrible pain from being kicked by a horse, but during her vision she appeared ecstatic, he said. "She's in an exalted state. She's in ecstasy. She's not aware of anything."

Bishop David E. Foley of the Catholic Diocese of Birmingham has advised pilgrims that the Roman Catholic Church has not approved the Medjugorje-related visions. He has forbidden priests from conducting Mass at Caritas.

The Rev. John H. Cunningham, a retired priest from Natchitoches, La., said he has abided by that restriction but has led prayers and held confession for Catholic pilgrims because he has been to Medjugorje and believes Mrs. Lunetti's visions are real. "Whenever people come to pray, there is always Christ," Cunningham said.

Irene Wells of Beverly, N.J., said she came to Alabama on Mrs. Lunetti's first visit in 1988. Mrs. Lunetti stayed at Caritas for three months then to donate a kidney for her brother, Andrija Pavlovic, at University Hospital. Ms. Wells said the visit prompted her to become a Catholic. "Something in my heart told me it's true," she said.

Back then, Caritas had no headquarters. A field near Colafrancesco's house became a pilgrimage site when Mrs. Lunetti had a vision there on Thanksgiving Day in 1988.

"What a change," said Ms. Wells, who said she returned to gain strength to deal with losing two friends in the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center. "I figured if I came here the Blessed Mother would give me strength to help all the people who are crying. I think she's coming in preparation for the Second Coming. If Jesus' mother was good enough for him, she's good enough for me."

Copyright 2001 al.com. All Rights Reserved.
 
The visions of Medjugojie are interesting indeed. I don't totally know what to think of them yet, but I have paid enough attention to them that the main message seems simple enough:

1) the importance of peace
2) the importance of prayer
3) the importance of faith
4) the importance of love
5) the importance of repentance

What is interesting is the vagueness of these message, which could indicate a fraudulent basis, or that both St. Paul and St. Thomas Aquinas were correct in that faith is necessary for salvation and that the conscience is definitive place for what is right and wrong, not essentialist church doctrine.

It doesn't take a theologian to realize that we all do things to consciously hurt others, some of us very small things and others very gigantic things, but--what seems to be the point of the messages--all that seemingly seems greater than us can be solved in prayer if enough of us do it.

Thanks for the post.

~Melon

------------------
"Oh no...my brains."
 
Originally posted by Hans Moleman:
or that both St. Paul and St. Thomas Aquinas were correct in that faith is necessary for salvation and that the conscience is definitive place for what is right and wrong, not essentialist church doctrine.

Do you think that this is why the Church hierarachy, in this case Bishop Foley locally, disputes or refuses to validate such visions?

One thing I have noticed in the news coverage on local TV stations is that there are a considerable number of non-Catholic Christians who attend the events here, mostly charismatic types I guess. I've never been, so, I guess, who am I to doubt them?

~U2Alabama
 
I do think that does have a lot to do with why the Catholic Church doesn't fully confirm these apparitions, because the Church hates to be wrong. They are an incredibly stubborn institution.

Of course, if you do read all the apparitions from around the world, Mary speaks of the collapse and eventual rebuilding of the Church (reminds me of the gospel passage on Jesus stating He could destroy and rebuild the Temple in three days). Considering the rise of conservative and essentialist faith in recent years, not to mention a Church active in politics that promote these values that seemingly run contrary to Medjugorjie's messages, I see the collapse as imminent. If one takes all the apparitions as truth, the end is supposedly to begin upon the death of the current Pope and the contentious rise of the next one, who will, most likely, be conservative, since all but a small handful of the eligible voting cardinals were appointed by John Paul II, and all of them share his conservative social views, with some being a bit more extreme.

It does pose the question as to whether we do have free will or if life is predestined, now doesn't it? If it is meant to happen within our lifetime, and the apparitions all point to this being the case, I hope I am permitted to see it through to the end in a way. Funny enough, the apparitions also don't point to this being the "end of the world," but the beginning of a new one, whereas the "second coming" and "final judgment" are not to happen until decades afterwards.

Interesting reads, nonetheless.

~Melon

------------------
"Oh no...my brains."

[This message has been edited by Hans Moleman (edited 12-13-2001).]
 
I think I recall you posting a photo of a possible image over a Coptic cathedral in Egypt, but have there been any other reputable "photos" of such sightings? I understand that may be irreverent for some of the visionaries, but I am curious as to how these events are recorded and if any have been validated.

~U2Alabama
 
Back
Top Bottom