Vicka's House

I totally missed something from today in my last post!

In between the castle and the community, we went to Vicka's old house. Vicka (pronounced Veesh-kuh) is the oldest of the visionaries. There's no one living in the house where she grew up anymore, so anyone can come and walk around and go into Vicka's old room, where she had thousands of apparitions.

In Vicka's room, there is a dresser with a large statue of Jesus on it and a smaller statue of Mary. There used to be a larger statue of Mary, but it recently began glowing and so the Bishop or someone took it to see if there was anything "wrong" with it or something...(the attitudes of some church representatives just astound me. The pope and many priests are advocates of Medjugorje and recognize that something amazing is happening here, but there are several church representatives all over the world who still don't believe it's legitimate. For instance, when Ivan comes to the U.S., he is forbidden to have his daily apparition in a church. What the heck?!?).

Anyway, we sat in Vicka's room and our guide told us a little more about her. He grew up with her and said that before the apparitions, she never talked about anything religious. In fact, her older sister, Anna, was always much more devout, and so Vicka's grandmother used to joke that Mary made a big mistake choosing Vicka over Anna haha.

Our guide said a week or so before the apparitions began, Vicka's mother found two golden rosaries in their backyard. Back then, no one in the town really had rosaries except the little old ladies. Vicka's mom took the rosaries to the church and gave them to the priest to announce and ask if anyone had lost them, but no one claimed it.

A few days after the apparitions began, Vicka's mother told Vicka to ask Mary whose rosaries they were so that they could return them. After the apparition, Vicka said she asked and Mary smiled and said "I left those for you. I wanted to prepare you for my coming."

How cool would it be to have a rosary from heaven?!

In the 1980s, Vicka got very sick. There was a tumor in an inoperable spot in her brain and it caused her a lot of pain and made her unable to do very much. She spent a lot of time laying in her bed in her room, and when Mary appeared she would kneel before her during the apparition, then go right back to bed.

Vicka mailed a letter to the bishop’s commission investigating the apparitions and to her confessor indicating the exact date she would be cured of the tumor. Seven months later, on September 25, 1988, she asked the letters to be opened by the recipients in the presence of two witnesses. The letter stated that her brain tumor—not a punishment from God but a gift to aid in the conversion of souls—would be miraculously healed on that date, September 25. Her tumor is reported to have vanished on that date.

Our guide told us one more story before we left. Shortly after the apparitions began, the other children in Medjugorje kind of distanced themselves from the visionaries. They weren't sure that they believed them and they didn't really know what to think. Marija was apparently the most perturbed by this. 

One day, Marija was down in a field with the other children and Mary appeared to her and said "Let the children touch me." Marija asked her how could they when they couldn't see her? And Mary told her to lead them by the hand and bring them one by one to touch Her. So Marija did, and the children felt something there and were amazed and expressed their belief after having doubted.

Marija should have been happy that they finally believed her, but instead, she started crying. The other children asked "Why are you crying?" and she said "Our Lady's dress is covered in dirt!" Mary said "Those marks are your sins. You must go to confession" and all the children started going to confession regularly. The rest of the town soon followed.

Today, there are millions of confessions heard at Medjugorje each year. They offer confessions in multiple languages for two hours every single day, and Medjugorje has come to be known as the largest confessional in the world.

I haven't gone to confession since high school. I went one day at church camp, and the biggest thing that had been weighing me down at that age was that I didn't have a good relationship with my mother. I didn't drink, I didn't smoke, I didn't really date, I didn't cheat in school, I didn't lie very much, but I did fight with my mother all the time. It was like every conversation turned into a fight - everything that she said irritated me. I felt like she treated me like one of her second graders and I would respond like one. I realize now that we are very alike, and I tool her suggestions and commands as insults, because a lot of the time I had already thought of what she suggested. Other times, I felt like I couldn't vent to her without her trying to belittle my frustration. I know now that she was trying to teach me some perspective, but at the time I didn't receive it well.

Anyway, I told the priest about this and said I didn't feel like I was honoring my mother very well. His response was something along the lines of "That's it? Oh that's no big deal, a lot of teenage girls go through that."

....

Needless to say, I didn't exactly walk away feeling better. I felt like I had this huge thing that I was struggling with that I found very hard to admit that it was partially my fault (so much easier just to blame my mom) and I felt like the priest didn't even feel the need to forgive me because he considered it trivial.

It kind of put a bad taste in my mouth for confession. I felt like - if I haven't committed a mortal sin, why do I need to go to confession? The message I had gotten was that only big sins needed to be forgiven.

But I am definitely going to go to confession this week. I'm excited and nervous and praying for a better experience. I think I will find one, because this place is truly amazing and so many people from all over the world have bared their soul here.

And if I were to get the chance to touch Our Lady, I wouldn't want to make her dirty :)