Edith Stein - Waltraud Herbstrith : Ignatius Press

Edith Stein - Waltraud Herbstrith : Ignatius Press

 I have been thinking a lot about the widespread ignorance of Polish history in Britain and want to make a small reparation by publishing a potted history about one of the most shameful secrets of the British government during WW2 in the hope that some friends who are not members of the website of my ex-school friends will read it.  We all grew up in East Africa and had a long discussion about the topic. I refer to the glossing over  by the British Government of Stalin's forcible deportation policy in a pact signed in 1939 with Hitler concerning the Polish people.  (The reason was the British needed Stalin as an ally. ) Only the outbreak of war stopped what could have become the biggest genocide in European history.  Many of those Poles walked from various camps in Siberia and, I think Kazakstan, to India after the war and I met one of them in Uganda after I married, and I got to know her well.  Another attended the same boarding school as me in Tanganyika but I did not know her personally. 

Very briefly: After the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939 the Soviets broke diplomatic relations when they withdrew recognition of the Polish government at the start of the invasion.  Up to 1.5 million Polish citizens, including over 200,000 Polish prisoners of war, were deported from Soviet-occupied Poland by the NKVD to the Gulags.  

 Polish-Soviet diplomatic relations were re-established in 1941 after the German invasion of the  Union forced Joseph Stalin to look for allies.   The military agreement from August 14 and subsequent Sikorski-Mayski Agreement from August 17, 1941, was ended when Stalin agreed to declare all previous pacts he had with Nazi Germany null and void, to invalidate the September 1939 Soviet-German partition of Poland and to  release hundreds of thousands of Polish prisoners-of-war held in Soviet camps.  Some of these Polish people were formed into an army that joined the British in Palestine, called the Anders Army.  Huge numbers of civilians died on the marches from Siberia to India, and because of the secrecy of the era we will never know exactly but some hundreds of thousands undoubtedly.  The gates of the camps were opened and they were told to leave, mostly starving and barefooted in Winter!  I shake my head when I recall what my friend experienced, including frequent rape.  Imagine being raped at fourteen years old because you stole a frozen beet to eat from a huge beet field, not having eaten a anything else for days.

 Their stories are heartbreaking.  What is more, they were sent third class to East Africa by the British once they reached India, and locked into squalid holding camps; their women were frequently forced to prostitute themselves for a little more food especially if they had children and a little extra clothing or shoes!  I felt ashamed to be British when my friend recounted some of their suffering in these camps - after all they had endured before, and just because they were Polish and considered a people of no-consequence to the Germans and Russians and evidently the British too who hid their history from the radio, newspapers and classrooms of Britain.  In the same way, to protect their ally Stalin, the British Government did not draw public attention to the genocide of millions of Ukrainians by the Soviets during the same era.

 Before Operation Barbarossa, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union coordinated their Poland-related policies, most visibly in the four Gestapo-NKVD Conferences.  They discussed plans for dealing with the Polish resistance movement and the future destruction of Poland. 

 Both Germans and Soviets were equally hostile to the existence of an independent Poland, her culture and the Polish people, aiming at their total destruction.  This was genocide on a par with the Holocaust and it would console me if I could be told that the Jewish people also learn this history in their schools. I have the impression that they do not, because until earlier this year, 2013, I was unaware from my previous reading about WW2 of the vast scale of the plan to annihilate the Polish people whatever their religion and everything I read about the civilian suffering there has described only the targeting of Jews.  It was thanks to some recent hostility towards Polish immigrants reported in the British press, to which I objected on FB, that my memoriesof my Polish friend in Uganda were rekindled and I and some others looked into the subject.  This is where the Internet does some of what its founder intended, viz: the mass education of its users about stuff worth knowing. 

About 6 million Polish citizens (nearly 21.4% of Poland's population) died between 1939 and 1945 as a result of the occupation and about half of them were Jews. Over 90% of the death toll came through non-military losses, because most of the civilians were targeted by various actions of the Germans and the Soviets against Polish civil institutions and communities countrywide.

Medjugorje and me

I wonder if some of my friends, and others who do not know me, would be interested in my experiences when I went on pilgramage to a little village, Medjugorje, in Yugoslavia, as the country was then known.  Medjugorje now finds itself in a nation called, Bosnia and Herzogovina, and is very close to the border with Croatia.  The apparitions at Medjugorje have resulted in much controversy, especially when a prominent priest there who was guiding the visionaries went 'bad' so to speak. It is not the fault of the visionaries who were mere children, but true visionaries can have diabolical experiences, and need very prudent spiritual direction, because Satan is never so active as when Our Lady is really appearing .  He cannot bear it!  He tries as hard as he can to create discord and confusion.  It has always happened at all major real apparition sites around the world.  Fake visionaries pop-up everywhere in their vicinity.  It is one of the reasons why the Church takes her time to investigate and check out "the fruits" of alleged apparitions and miracles, a discerning process that can take decades.  It may be that the phenomenum happening at Medjugorje will be approved one day, or it may not be.  But its fruits in my life have been good so far.

I am posting my experiences in the form of a letter I wrote in November of 1989, with a bit of editorial pruning.  I wrote after my first pilgrimage to any Marian shrine. Up till September 1989 when my husband and I travelled to the then Jugoslavia, I was a believing ignoramus. I believed what little I knew about Jesus Christ and the Church founded by him. My husband was very sceptical about the apparitions before we left. Upon our return he still tried sometimes to talk through his doubts, giving scientific reasons for a couple of the events we experienced. Had he been more enthusiastic, I would have worked on him to pay for our children to go some time for I did think of it more than once, and I will eternally regret that I did not. We went again in April of 1990 with friends and he changed completely. Not only was he ashamed of his previous doubts but he began to return to Sunday Mass more willingly, for while we were in Saudi for eleven years, he had grown out of the habit of recognising the importance of keeping Sunday for the Lord. In all our wanderings before leaving the ex-patriot life, I was given a grace to wish for Sunday Mass, to wish for access to parish life, and eventually after forty years or so, my wish was granted.

 

 

 

When we visited Mejugorje, this view of Krizevac Mountain was typical.

Very rural, with many grape vines.  Now there are more houses.

This view looking back from the Hill of Apparitions.  Further up, a blue wooden

cross marks the spot where the Virgin Mary first showed herself.

 

 06 Nov 1989                                                                         

Dear friends,              

Part 1:

 

    My apologies, repeated, for this delay in writing to you all about our holiday in Medjugorje, Yugoslavia.  I started to write on 7^th October but so much happened to Astorre and I and we saw and heard of events which I needed time to digest.  I found this to be the most difficult letter I have ever written.  Thank goodness for word processors.  This version is my fourth, and even as I type the introduction, I am not sure I will send it out.  We will see!

    We arrived in Mostar at five-ish in the evening.  Ivan of Pilgrim Tours awaited us in dusty white slacks and shirt, some day's growth of beard, and a most sweet expression in his eyes and voice.  ''Welcome to Medjugorje,'' he said.  He looked anxiously at Astorre and me.  ''Where are the others?''

    Apparently, we were meant to be a group of five.  We caught one, an Australian priest, Fr. Laurie, as he disappeared through the main door with a bus load of other pilgrims.  No one else turned up, and we learned that Fr. Laurie's suitcase was also missing.  While Ivan tried to help him communicate with two bored officials, Astorre and I ordered coffee.  ''With milk, please.'', I asked.  ''Huh'', said the girl, ''Huh!  Huh!'', but she smiled and her shrug was one of resignation rather than insolence.  There was a milk shortage in Bosnia.  I am not the world's most relaxed flyer, and my stomach was not ready for strong black Turkish coffee, but I drank it.  Fr. Laurie actually got a, ''Come back Monday'', from someone, so we left the airport dozing in its dust.  I felt at home.  Mostar's airport is like many in Africa where I grew up; a low, single building smeared with the grime of decades of travellers, and run with a weary indifference, not to say contempt, for the concerns of foreigners.

    The journey to Medjugorje, along a twisty mountain road that needed grading, took about 40 mins.  It seemed the whole countryside slumbered, there was little traffic.  I asked Ivan how to say thank you, and as I listened to the unfamiliar pattern of sounds, I knew Croatian was not a language I would learn overnight.  Later, Fr. Laurie tried to teach us a simple greeting.  I repeated it easily enough, but it slipped just as easily from my memory!  * Notes a and b on attachment

     As we approached Medjugorje, Ivan pointed out the Hill of Apparitions called Podbrdo, and the Hill of the Cross, called Krizovac.  I noted with surprise both their height and their distance from the village.  I had expected Medjugorje to be nestled between them in a little valley; instead it lies on an open plain bordered by these and other mountains.

    We lurched along the narrow, pot-holed street to our accommodation.  I gave thanks again for Fr. Laurie's presence.  (You are going to hear me mention often how thankful we were to be granted his companionship for the whole of our stay.)  He had been to Medjugorje before, and would show us around, and lead us at prayer.  We were staying with the same family - do you know, considering how late I booked our flight, it seems another miracle that we were housed right in the village.  So many pilgrims have to bus in from as far away as 30 kms.

    Our hosts, Anica, (pronounced Aniza), and Josu, are a charming couple in their sixties, simple and hardworking folk.  Their house has recently been extended and modernised.  One sees all over Medjugorje modern red bricks being added onto the old grey stone.  Mostly, it is then covered with a pleasant white or cream plaster.  The roofs are red tile.  I saw purple dahlias and blazing marigolds in tubs and flower beds, and the vines over porticoes dripped with mighty displays of grapes.  We had chosen a good week to visit!

    Our whitewashed room with its tiled shower and W.C. unit was immaculate, as were our sheets and towels.  There were no cupboards, but hooks on one wall.  It was enough.  We were content.  An English friend warned me that Medjugorje has been spoilt by hasty building to accommodate approximately one million visitors a year.  With exquisite British tact, she described the people's simplicity and the lack of a western type infra-structure.  Between her desire to prepare me, and her reluctance to sound condescending, I was prepared for a horrendous situation.  Also, I had read a snobbish account in the “Catholic Herald”…

   Well, as you know, Astorre and I are used to living in developing areas, we are used to a poverty defined as not owning a dishwasher, or car.  We like chickens in backyards.  Dirt roads are the norm for us!  What we observed was a building boom reminiscent of Cyprus and parts of Spain, but on a very much smaller scale - rusty reinforcement bars poking through new brick walls, rubble here and there, very inadequate roads, and small concrete mixers grinding inconveniently close to houses where weary pilgrims may be trying to rest.

   Tiny ''supermarkets'' sell anonymous soap powder in plastic bags, and cosmetic soap looking like an anaemic version of Lifebuoy was packed in grey cardboard boxes, and had obviously been chopped from a larger square into two dozen small squares.  The shelves held very little variety of anything.  I saw one kind of packet soup, one kind of tomatoe puree, tinned mackerel, one brand of something that looked like a canned stew, a lot of canned carrots and fruit salad.  But do not lose heart.  There are always plenty of cookies in the shops.  Among the shelves and shelves of half a dozen varieties, I spotted Jaffa Orange Cakes!  I saw them in Llubyana Airport also.  The availability and quantity of chocolates for sale was also unexpected - not much variety, and all wrapped in cheap paper, but chocolates none the less.  I saw no meat other than sausages, no fish, no poultry, but we ate all three at Anica's.  I think most Medjugorians keep their own chickens and a hog or two, and they probably catch their own fish!

   Apart from a small pensione near the bus stop on the main road, there are a few restaurants clustered together across the square from the church.  One can buy a basic salad or sandwich, or pizza, that sort of thing, coffee, beer, ice-cream.  Did not count the restaurants - perhaps half a dozen.  I discovered one toilet there, and I believe there are a couple by the side of the church.  The Govt. authorities will not grant planning permission for more to be built.  Don't worry about it.  Nobody does.  For some reason, one does not need to visit bathrooms as often as one does back home!  Don't laugh, it's true!  On the same street as the restaurants, are a few souvenir shops and a couple of travel agencies.  I have heard some comments about the commercialism...half a dozen tiny shops...What condescension!  What arrogance!  A typically western view, I think, of a class of tourist who wants to travel and meet natives in their unspoiled surroundings, as a change from his own plastic and concrete jungles.  The shops would not be there if they did not supply a need!  The locals are poor, and are welcome to any pennies they can earn from me.  I feel the same way about the seven or eight beggars we encountered as we climbed Krizovac, and the three we met on Podbrdo.  There should be more, to make smug western visitors even more uncomfortable!  What are a dozen beggars in a crowd of several thousand?

    I LOVED EVERYTHING ABOUT MEDJUGORJE.  So did Astorre.  We felt instantly at home.  Every now and then, since about two years ago, I have felt a longing for the simplicity of our early married days.  No belongings to boast of, and no materialistic yearnings or expectations.  I look back on that eighteen year old girl with a kind of wonder.  Why did she get herself so lost? 

    Our first evening, after a quick brush up, we walked to Mass through the village and over fields.  We forgot our torches, but Josu had one and it was sufficient.  Our first Mass in Medjugorje...how can I describe it to you, that, and all the other Masses we attended?  At each Mass, anything up to five or six thousand people.  At each service, a reverence, a concentration of prayer that was like a blanket folding around the soul, warming and nurturing hopes and feelings that had been depressed and oppressed for so long.  The joy in each Mass was palpable.  Never before have I seen or felt such spirituality in church.  The tenderness in the priests' voices, the power of their sermons, the unaffected devotion of the parishioners, the hymns ringing out - I have no words.

 

    Many scientific experiments have been conducted at Medjugorje.  One of them involved the use of an instrument that measures radio-activity.  Someone thought that the light phenomena experienced there had a natural explanation.  What they have discovered, instead, is that the machine shows normal readings about the countryside, but potentially lethal readings, up to 100,000 rads, around the church and where prayer groups are meeting.  The highest readings occur at the Friday evening Mass.  On Fridays, the whole parish fasts, a requirement Our Lady is pleading for.  In order to avert many of the disasters coming our way, she begs us to pray more, and to fast, on bread and water.  The average rad reading in an American church during Mass is 30 or 40 rads.  Makes you wonder, huh?  What is this connection between a natural scientific phenomenon, radio activity, and its increase during Mass?  No one suffers bad effects from these high doses.

     Astorre and I had several, positive, experiences in Medjugorje.  Back in Britain, a learning time has started for us to put into practice what we learned there concerning faith, hope and love.  Love not as Eros, not as Philos, but through these and beyond them to Agape - total love.  I had glimmerings of understanding before.  Each day, another piece of the jigsaw fits.  Fr. Laurie visited Berkhamsted afterwards.  During supper one night, he discussed the ancient Greek philosophies about the different kinds of love, and I was able to tie these ideas in with everything that has happened in my life, all working towards Medjugorje and the reality of God's love for Man, and therefore, for me.

    Patience, I beg of you!  I simply cannot rush into our week in Medjugorje, I try, but my fingers type out the wrong sentences.  Where do I start?  What do you want to know?  Will you believe me?

   Yes, we saw miracles.  We heard of miracles.  They happen every day in Medjugorje.  We had inner experiences also, that put the miracles into perspective.  ''What on earth does she mean?'', I hear some of you say - ''Get to the point!'', I hear others.  Man seeks miracles everywhere, everyday, and now that I have been granted three, how is it that I can talk of putting them into perspective, when I was overwhelmed by the privileges of these graces?  The miracles of Medjugorje are mainly for the conversion of the world back to God, through Christ if possible, and if that problem is insurmountable - in the case of most Muslims, as an example - through sincere repentance and desire to do God's will in our lives.  Our Lady says, ''Of those to whom little has been granted, little will be expected.''  She is referring to Luke 12: 48 where Our Lord says of those who have received much, much will be expected.  But the whole world must reconcile itself with God, and soon.  She pleads also for religious tolerance around the world.  This tolerance does not mean a wishy-washy acceptance that all religions have the same value, but that all religions have some truths that are universally true, (such as charity to the poor), and that all persons, whatever their creed, are to be accepted and respected.

   I accepted the signs with joy as they were given to me, but later, I recognised how small in fact had been my faith up till then.  I had gone to Medjugorje a 'hoper' not a believer! and God took pity on me.  I doubt if any sincere pilgrim returns from Medjugorje unchanged.  I found I need to re-adjust to a world from whose aspirations, on the whole, I now feel alienated - and to an inner world that has been turned upside down.  My outer world's shell is firmly fixed into place however and I need to learn how to dislodge it without disrupting family life and antagonising friends.

    Before we left England, I prayed that I would not look for miracles, though I hoped, passionately.  I wanted to be able to trust enough, to accept whatever happened to me.  I was afraid of disappointment.  I longed for consolation, for peace, I was being pulled in every direction by laziness, by lack of confidence, by buried resentments.  Astorre actively did not think about miracles.  The way he thought before we left, (I've just asked him!), was that miracles are granted to saints.  Not me. I understand how they can help sinners!  In retrospect, I see that I expected nothing.  Why else would I have accepted a temping job for the week after Medjugorje?  To distract me from disappointment?  O ye of little faith!  It was very hard to rush off to work every morning after a week of concentrated, positive, non- materialistic thinking.

    I will write now of the miracles, but I have to fill you in slowly, I must be so careful not to disremember, because I took no notes.  I thought it would be easy to keep even the briefest sketch, but we were late to bed every night and up and away early each morning.  I believe I am writing with extreme care, not adding, and not subtracting, anything important.  I will double check with Fr. Laurie.  Of the miracles, we were granted three visible ones, and we both had profound inner moments that are mostly too private to talk about but I consider them to be divine responses, surprising enough and concrete enough to be called miracles.  A typical example was receiving an answer to one of my prayers, see note b).

Part 2 :

 The first event happened on our first evening, Thursday, 22 September 1989.  We were present at an apparition of the Blessed Virgin on the Hill of Apparitions but did not see her.  During the apparition, Astorre says there was a moment when he consciously experienced a very deep peace, a peace he has never experienced in his life.  I felt unusually calm throughout our prayers and concentrated in a way I have never concentrated before.  This was in spite of the fact that I was aware of not comprehending Our Lady's presence just a few yards from us.  I could not take in this wonder.  We did not know what was happening or when.  There were hundreds, possibly thousands, of pilgrims around us, all were deep in prayer as we arrived, and we, who had been praying as we hurried to the hill, simply continued to pray our own prayers, led by Fr. Laurie.  I marvelled, and still do, at the speed with which we walked across fields and up the steep, very rough path to the apparition site on Podbrdo Hill.  How I had pestered Astorre to take a taxi as we left the house!  He refused, rightly so, pointing out that if our host, Josu, was willing to walk us to Podbrdo it was only correct that we follow him.  But I felt confused, and aggrieved, my old fears flooding me.  It was too late, I was too tired, my knee would give way, I would have an asthma attack, the hill was too high!  In fact, the site is half-way up the hill but it's still a good distance from our lodgings.  Old Nick gets ten out of ten for trying me that night, but Our Lady got the better of him and we were on the hill in time for her apparition to the seers at ten thirty.  What's more, I wasn't even panting when we arrived! 

 All I wanted to do was pray, inspired by a reverence I felt in my soul, at one with the prayers rising in waves which rolled over us then faded until the response to the next Our Father or Hail Mary murmured back from higher up the hill where the visionary was talking to Mary.  When Mary left, her message was read out and we were told she had blessed the crowd and wished peace on everyone there.  (You know, it is only as I type weeks after the event, that I comprehend the magnitude of Thursday night, the honour that was ours to be present when Mary was talking to the visionary, Maria.)

 

 Our first visible miracle happened on Friday 23rd, after we had climbed Mt. Krizovac, and involved the changing of my rosary's chain links from a plain white metal - you know, the cheap kind - to links that now have a gold plated look. The crucifix had undergone a remarkable change.  Though carved from the usual white base metal, Jesus' head, torso and the nails in his hands and feet were now red gold in colour.  The nails were also red on the back of the cross, but the cross itself remained white metal on both sides.  Above the crucifix, where the first 'Glory Be' is said, a medallion of Mary's head and shoulders and her corona of stars were the same red colour.  I wore that rosary every day except the last day of our visit.  I had bought several new ones in Medjugorje and I wore a pale blue one for that day, and don't know now why I stopped wearing the one that changed.  Perhaps I was afraid of losing it.  When I unpacked it in Berkhamsted, Jesus' whole body had a reddish, coppery wash over it.  * Note c)

The whole of that Friday was an exciting, moving, experience.  At the second station of the Cross on Mt. Krizovac, we met a girl, Anne-Marie Tomlinson, saying her prayers from Fr. Barbaric's prayer book.  She asked if she could climb the mountain with us.  I saw she was barefoot, and I said, ''I wish I had the courage to join you.''  A few steps later, I thought, 'Who cares what anyone thinks, let them think me a hypocrite.  I want to do this.  After all, I do not think she is hypocritical!'  I removed my shoes. We stopped at each station, led by Fr. Laurie in prayer.  In between stations, I was able to concentrate on praying, just as I had done the evening before on Podbrdo. 

 It seemed as I climbed Krizovac that I could have climbed all day without feeling tired, that for every sharp stone which caught me un- aware there were as many cool soft patches of sand and rounded rocks to compensate.  I suspected I was subconsciously seeking these out, and tried hard not to do so!  I thought of my family and friends while praying.  We stopped sometimes to look at the view over the plain, with its red-roofed houses bunched up here and there.  The bells of St. James rang out the 'Angelus' which we recited, I for the first time in my life, and the tranquillity of Medjugorje enveloped us; the passage of other pilgrims descending or ascending did not disturb.

 All manner of people were climbing Mt. Krizovac that day:  Americans, Germans, French, Italians, old and young, many with sticks or crutches.  I noticed how quickly the locals walk, even those climbing barefoot.  They walk with a joyful determination that is hard to describe, by which one distinguishes them from the visitors.  As I write, I remember an extraordinary sensation of tirelessness, a lack of pain in spite of some pain - yes, I know it sounds peculiar, but I have no better words.  Later on, I was told of two bedridden MS invalids who climbed Krizovac that week.  I do not know if they are now totally healed, but I feel they must be.  Krizovac is 520 metres high, and very steep, its path a brown wash of soil and rocks between larger rocks and thorny bushes and the Stations of the Cross until the path ends at the summit, on which is a huge concrete Cross.
   At the top, Anne-Marie joined a girl of her own age, and they sat at the foot of the huge cross.  I think they were fasting, since they refused food or drink from us and had nothing with them.  Astorre and I did not appreciate yet the importance of fasting as a form of prayer, and had brought sandwiches and squash with us.  After lunch, I felt a need to return to the foot of the cross, where I thought over what we were doing in Medjugorje, I gave thanks for Thursday night, and of course, I prayed.  Oh, the relief, the wonderful relief of being freed from the timetables and taboos of everyday life, to feel free in public to kneel when one wants to kneel, to cry if one wants to cry, to be silent for as long as one wishes, to pray spontaneously, and not to concern oneself with what the world may be thinking.  This is a lesson that touches deeply in Medjugorje.  Everywhere you look, people are praying, some in groups, some alone, some kneeling, others sitting, some walking, some travelling in buses.  I have learned that nothing we do in our lives is more important than praying.  If we pray from the heart, everything we need for interior peace will be granted.  With interior peace, material worries are given perspective.

The journey down was a little harder than the ascent, and for one disloyal moment, I doubted my right knee's courage but we made it!  I tell you this not to boast but to encourage any of you who are not 100% fit.  If you get to Medjugorje and quail when you look at Mt. Krizovac from the church .... please take my word, you will be able to climb it.  For the rest of our stay, I had no more knee problems, no more tiredness problems, no more fear of this and that problems, until Sunday night, when I had an experience that was simultaneously horrible and wonderful.  I was violently ill with food poisoning, (I think), and had no medication to help.  But I was given an understanding about offering illness for the healing of others.  I offered the pains and nausea for Samy Elias, (12 years old with leukaemia), and Erica Cole, (20 years old, with M.E.).  Each time I made the offering, I was filled with the most intense sensation of JOY, which made the suffering seem unimportant.* Note d)

We returned to our lodgings, showered, and I was about to lie down for a rest when I noticed the change in my rosary described above.  It lay where I had dumped it on top of a suitcase.  I stared at it a moment or two, knowing it had changed, not believing my eyes.  I got up quietly to take it to the window and checked it in full light.  I told Astorre, who thought it must have been tarnished when I brought it to Medj.  Tarnished means brassy/blackish/dull.  My links have a dusted with gold look.  And besides, I had checked, I had been super alert when packing our three rosaries, because I had read about rosaries changing colour.  That particular one had been to the jewellers the previous week to have a link fixed.  It had been bought in Italy a year before and the links, the crucifix, and the medallion of Mary were of white metal, and the condition was new. 

I was hurt and puzzled by Astorre's denial of any change to it, so said nothing to anybody else until Sunday morning when I showed Fr Laurie.  He said he had seen others like mine, it seemed quite a common occurrence there.  He had also seen others that reverted to their original state after a period of time.  I queried if that could be a sign of displeasure from God, and Fr Laurie smiled and said, ''It could mean the opposite!  It depends on why the rosary changed for its owner in the first place.''  That gave me a lot to think about!

When I showed the rosary to Astorre again, back in Berkhamsted, after the whole of the crucifix had changed colour, he then recognised the change in the beads and was deeply moved.  One of our rosary group members had a rosary which turned to 24 carat gold according to her jeweller, whereas mine said he couldn't tell me what my links were made of, some kind of modern metal he thought but he did not know which.  I have been told that other jewellers are puzzled by the changes, they can't explain them.  Anyway, I decided to accept that I had been granted a little grace, a thank you for my effort up the mountain, if you like.  I have also come to understand that this sign symbolises how my sins and past disbelief offended God and contributed to his crucifixion.  Jesus dying for the sins of all time.  What a mystery.  What a love.

 Our second visible miracle happened on Saturday afternoon, as Fr Laurie and we were walking to Mass from Anica and Jozu's house.  A few yards down the road, we were called up to a balcony of one of the houses on the street by a group of women whom we did not know.  Anne Marie was with them, I think she was staying in that house.  ''Come and look at the sun!'' they said.

We would not have seen it otherwise, because we did not wish to be late for Mass, we wanted to be present at the time of Mary's apparition in church, and were not even thinking of looking at the sun which was behind us.  Until that moment, we had never thought about it.  We believed that the apparitions were now occurring in the organ loft of the church just before Mass.  We learned later that the Bishop of Mostar had banned the visionaries from going to the church for their meetings with Mary.  * Note e)

As I walked towards the balcony, I prayed desperately to accept whatever happened.  Especially I prayed for acceptance if I was not to see anything.  You see, not everyone in a group sees the same thing during an apparition, and some see nothing at all.  What happens in this miracle involving the sun is that one can look directly at it without harming the eyes, and scientists have no explanations.

I looked.  I saw that the sun was covered with a disc slightly smaller than itself, exposing the sun's outer edge like a ''corona'', which was too bright to look at directly.  The disc is white, even luminous like the moon, but it is not incandescent.  White like a white sheet on a dull day so that one looks without squinting or discomfort.  The disc is believed to represent the Blessed Sacrament, the Host.  I saw the disc move, and as it turned the corona flashed brilliantly.  I saw the disc appear to pulse momentarily, a movement almost of popping down towards us.  I saw this movement as erratic, now narrow on one edge, now wide on another.  Astorre perceived these movements as a benediction: up, down, left, right - nb: speaking as you would see it if given to you by a priest.

 One of the Americans said, ''What is that black dot?'' but did not explain what she meant.  Then I saw it, just before six o'clock, if you think of the sun as a clock face.  The dot was quite a size actually, compared to the Host.  ''Where?'' someone asked.  One woman said she saw it on the left, and another could not see it at all, then corrected herself, ''Now I see it.''  Later, Anne-Marie told me she had seen nothing, she had difficulty looking at the sun, I did not understand why.  I hope to write to her this week and learn more.* Note f)

 I became aware that Fr. Laurie was leaving, and Astorre also wanted to go.  Three people were walking towards us in the street, it was only courteous of us to make room for them on that small balcony.  Two of the Americans were gossiping about Fr. Laurie's apparently abrupt departure.  One asked, ''Why did the priest leave?''  The other replied, ''You know these priests, they hate what is happening at Medjugorje, they can't handle it.  Perhaps he did not see anything.''  I felt obliged to intervene gently and say that I knew the priest and I knew he believed in the events there.  ''Then why did he go?''  I could not say, since I did not know! but repeated he was a believer.  There's life for you....everyday malice in the midst of wonders!  Poor Jesus.

* Note g)

 I hated to go!  Half way down the stairs, I turned, and saw a cross behind the Host-covered sun of a design new to me, I did not recognise it.  No one else mentioned it so I kept quiet and followed Astorre.  As we crossed the fields to church, I looked back.  The sun was lower, redder, and impossible to stare into, so brilliantly did it shine.  I stopped Fr. Laurie and drew ''my'' cross into the sand for him so that I would not forget it. * Note h)  I felt unsure of myself, of what I had seen, my drawing was like a child's, but he obviously believed me.  I remember thinking when I saw him smile that he knew something but wasn't saying.  As we reached the church a priest wearing sunglasses was staring at the sun.  I did not look at it again, but saw how rosy the sky was to the right of the church.  I prayed for the priest, that if he was wearing glasses from fear, or from eye trouble, that he would remove them and not be afraid.  He did so, at that very moment he pocketed them, whilst he chatted to his companions and they all looked at the sun.  I wondered if he and his group were seeing what we had seen.  I did not look again, as a discipline, though I wanted to look.

Our third visible miracle also involved the sun and happened to us on Monday, when we had returned from a hot day in Mostar, where we had gone to try and find Fr. Laurie's suitcase which had not yet arrived, and to change his flight plan to the same day as ours.  No luck with either attempt.

 I showered, then Astorre, and whilst he was in the bathroom I felt impelled to go out onto our bedroom balcony to look at the sun.  I apologised to Jesus and Mary, if I was misunderstanding and they did not want me to do this and I looked, very diffidently, believe me.  There was the sign.  My courage failed me, I lost my nerve and could not look any longer.  I went into the room, and said, ''It's wrong of me, I know, but I wanted to look, and I think the sun is there again.''

 I meant the sign, of course.  Astorre was getting into the shower or out of the shower, and he made no comment.  I continued to tidy up the room, and a few minutes later he called me to the balcony.  The Host was covering the sun, as on Friday, and the black spot was also there, this time definitely at ''five o'clock''.  I have to tell you that summer time changed that day, and though in natural time it was still six o'clock, our watches had been put back.  They said, five o'clock and so did the sign!  After Friday's experience, Astorre had argued that the spot was a sun spot which we were able to discern because our eyes were protected by the Host.  He thought it was a coincidence that we were seeing it positioned, as it were, at the exact time we were watching it.  Actually, I had described it as ''just before six'', whilst everyone else said, ''at six''.  (I always was finickety!)  Now, Astorre had no arguments, because sun spots do not move in leaps, they take years to change position, or so he says.

 More interesting to me than the re-appearance of the dot, (I did not know then what I know now about its significance! * Note i ) were the purple discs that appeared, jumping around the sun.  They were about the same size as the Host.  We checked with each other as we saw them, one, two, or three, or more.  At one point, several were clustered near the top left quarter of the sun as we looked at it, (ie: the sun's top right quarter.)  To me, these discs represented the evil in the world, trying to overcome God's light, but, even when massed, it cannot succeed.  I felt at peace throughout the apparition, but Astorre told me he felt acutely uncomfortable when watching any single orb, he felt an active dislike of the orb!  Oddly, he says he had no negative reaction to the massed orbs, he saw them blended as a crown....he may well have seen something I did not see.  The following day, he was shocked to see ''our'' vision inside the church, at the front, the first time we were standing in that section.  I still have not seen the picture, though he insists it is there.  The artist must have had the same vision, or something similar. 

The corona around the Host on Monday was particularly beautiful, larger than on Friday and impossible to look at directly, but if we half closed our eyes, its rays shot out in gorgeous bursts in every direction.  Well, that was explainable.   What was not explainable was the golden cross, (a proper cross shape, if you know what I mean, it was correctly proportioned), at an angle, sideways, that thrust towards me.  It's post - is that the word? was long, and seemed to reach close to me.  Both post and cross-bar were wider than the rays I'd seen before.  Lastly, from the corona outwards extended a huge ring of very long, thin lines - brownish in colour, which makes me think of the crown of thorns - and around these was a gorgeously coloured band, quite wide, encircling the lot.  It was made up of millions of dots of colour, mainly reds, purples and indigo.  Astorre seems not to have noticed it, though he admits to a spectacular sunset.

Astorre was upset when I spoke to him of the golden cross.  He objected to the word, ''cross'', which he insisted must have been the naturally formed rays of refraction when we were half closing our eyes.  And he objected to my use of the word, ''gold'', which suggested a metallic look.  I hold firm to both descriptions.  It was a cross and the gold colour was metallic, and brighter and more beautiful than any gold I have seen.

 During supper, an Atlas Tours operator stopped by our house to ask if any of us were interested in attending a lecture by Fr. Jozo Zovko, a charismatic priest with a healing ministry, which of course we were.  As we were going to bed, Astorre told me he was concerned, really concerned, that my ''poetic'' vision would affect what I had to tell people about Medjugorje.  I cannot describe the despair and the disappointment I felt.  We argued until very late.  How could he not believe I spoke the truth!  I was painfully conscious of the importance of not distorting any of our experiences!  Other than the two crosses, and the jewel like ring round the sun, we seem to have seen the identical visions. 

 On Tuesday, I took off after breakfast alone, to climb Mt Krizovac and wrestle with my resentment.  I returned at peace, glad to know that any tendency to exaggerate which I might develop in the future, would be squashed before it could do harm!

 Fr Laurie and Astorre were waiting at one of the eating places, and after lunch, we took a bus to Tihaljina, to hear Fr. Jozo who was the parish priest of Medj. when the apparitions first started in 1981.  Then the Bishop of Mostar, who had been very enthusiastic about them initially, suddenly decided they were not genuine, criticised poor Fr Zovko for accepting them, and banished the priest to another parish, called Tihaljina.  Now millions of pilgrims travel there to hear him.

    Our experience of this priest is that his goodness is palpable.  He almost shines with some inner light and spiritual strength.  We were very grateful to that tour operator, as ours ignored us for the whole of our stay.  Fr Zovko has been given a ministry of healing by God, especially spiritual healing.  It was in his church a couple of years ago that 140 (one hundred and forty) seriously ill people were healed simultaneously during a prayer meeting conducted by Fr. Di Orio, an American priest who also has a healing ministry.  A friend of ours, Tony, was present and this event cured his cynicism.  He tells us that up till then, though he had witnessed the sun spinning, and his wife had witnessed the spinning of the 13 metre high concrete cross on Mt. Krizovac, he was still looking for rational explanations of these signs. 

   He says the church looked like a battleground, with dozens of people weeping for joy, dozens walking around dazed, fully healed of crippling illnesses, others scattered on the floor or collapsed in their wheelchairs who had been slain in the Spirit and whose faces beamed with such joy and peace that it seemed as if they were seeing Heaven.  Tony says every person there was healed, all kinds of healings, not just inner healing.  He felt as he imagines the crowds in Jesus' time felt, absolutely awestruck.

    During Fr. Zovko's talk, I received a grace of inner healing of depression and bad memories when I was slain by the Spirit as Fr Zovko held up the sanctuary lamp to illustrate a point he was making.  ''Jesus is the light of the world!'', he said.  As he spoke, I recognised the interior of the church as the one in a wonderful dream I had had in Saudi Arabia. * Note j)  How often had I pleaded in the past, ''Give me your Spirit, Lord, but gently!  I am afraid!''  Indeed, on the bus taking us to Tihaljina, I had prayed those very words again.  And so it was granted me.  Only Fr. Laurie, sitting on my right, understood.  Not until we had returned to Berkhamsted did I understand that Astorre had not understood.  He says he felt too shy and puzzled to ask for an explanation at the time.  I have to tell you that when the experience was over, and I wanted to kneel and give thanks, Astorre touched my back and said, ''Rejoice!''  Now you all know Astorre!! and that is not Astorre language!!  Why did you say that?'' I asked him in Berkhamsted.  ''I don't know'', he confessed, ''I thought it was strange at the time.  It just came out of me!''

    ''And why,'' I questioned further, laughing, ''why did you give me that enormous slap on my back as I knelt down?  I remember thinking, what's he doing, giving me a typical Marinoni caress here of all places!'' * Note k) And I was laughing to myself, even though the force of the blow knocked me forward so that I bumped against the back of the pew in front of us.  Astorre says he touched me most gently.  He was wondering why I bent forward for a while, then leaned against him, apparently asleep, and then knelt down.  He thought I might be unwell for the church was packed and stuffy.  His touch was to reassure me, but as he opened his mouth to question me, an unexpected word, ''Rejoice!'' burst from him.  I believe God used him to affirm my experience and reassure me. 

   Since returning, I have had unsettled days, and doubts bother me;  how could I have had this great, peace-filling experience of receiving the Holy Spirit's love in a new way but yet not change, not become instantly a better person?!  I still lose my temper, feel resentment, etc.  Then I remember Astorre's prophesy, and I recall that some of the greatest saints struggled with their faults too, and I regain a sense of proportion.  The main change for me is that I am now a committed Christian, and I am proud of and ready to talk about, my commitment.  I'm still the same old Morag, scatty as ever, but I have lost the fearfulness that was destroying my inner life.  I also think, or rather, hope, that I am not as impatient as I used to be.

    I know the Holy Spirit acts within us in a special way at Baptism and at Confirmation, the first removing original sin so that we will be able to enter heaven, and the second filling us with His power to give us the desire and the courage to live Christian lives, but this ''being slain in the Spirit'', as Catholics call it, is an extra gift from God.  It is like being physically embraced by Him!  I have been given a lot of healing of memories through my experience, and a better understanding of Christian (Catholic) teachings: on the gifts of the Holy Spirit;  on the importance of reading Scripture through the eyes of the early Church fathers (Tradition) and through the teachings of the Magisterium of the Church as she develops spiritually through the centuries; on fasting as a form of prayer;  and on many other things which had not interested me at all before.   If I do not end the letter now, I never will end it.  There is a lot I could still say.  Ask me questions, if you have any.  Forgive me if I have bored or exasperated you.  I send you this letter in the hope that parts of it will interest you.  As our friends, I feel you need to know about this overwhelming event in our lives.

    Love you all, appreciate your affection and friendship more than I can say.

ATTACHMENT

These notes were written in Birmingham in January 2002, to clarify some of the events and ideas I had written about in 1989.

 

a)  Also, as we were being driven to the village from the airport, I had the strangest inner sensation.  I felt as if I was being thanked by someone; it was such an unexpected, intensely sweet experience.  I couldn't understand it, nor how I sensed it as ''thank you'', I can only say what I felt.  I believe now that Our Lady was there.  The thought is overwhelmingly humbling.  How stupendous!  God's Mother thanked me?  Two days later, Fr Laurie gave us Our Lady's message to the world for the 25th September.  I saw that it ended, ''Thank you for responding to my call.''  I have learned since that Mary ends all her messages to the world this way at Medjugorje. 

 b) Before going to Medj. I had written a letter to Our Lady, in which I asked for clarification and spiritual help regarding what my gifts were.  I was a person with a multitude of small talents, but unable to use any one of them to any purpose.  Which did God want me to use?  My letter was given to Fr Laurie just before Mass on the third day, and he promised to offer my intentions during that Mass together with all the others he'd been given in Australia.  Mary's message to the world, of the 25th Sept, was about our God given gifts, and so appropriate to my state of mind when I wrote the letter that I was stunned.  It is sad that in the eleven years since then, I gradually forgot about this incident, it became like something remembered from a dream.  Today, as I tidy up my notes and re-type my testimony, I feel the force of it again.  Praise God, for His mercy to such a small, unfaithful disciple.

    For the benefit of non-Catholics, when a priest offers parishioners' intentions at Mass, he holds them up to God in his mind at a particular section of the Mass where we pray for our own intentions. 

c) John Robinson, a member of the Legion of Mary at St. Jude’s parish, went to Medjugorje last summer, (2001), and his rosary changed, to his amazement and delight and to my consolation, since I had given him the basic testimony to read, and then was worried in case it made him expect too much.  I guess we can never 'expect too much' from Jesus when we need encouragement! 

    [Changes to images, rosary beads, paintings etc. drive Protestants mad with annoyance as they consider them all to be hoaxes or works of the Devil.  “By your fruits you shall know them”, respond Catholics. Our Church discerns as many of these happenings as appear worthwhile, for they take a great deal of time and money to discern. At the very end of this posting is a photo of an event that has happened to a friend of mine this year, 2013. See note l) at the end of this posting.]

d) Though I no longer feel that happiness when I practice this form of charity - for example, when I was having a tooth extracted most painfully because the injection hadn't worked! - it does help me to bear whatever is troubling me, and I recommend it as a way of calming fear.  Samy Elias is cured, praise God for answering his parents' and many friends' prayers, yet his doctors were convinced there was no hope for him.  His mother, a theatre nurse, was present during the operation and saw for herself how his abdomen was a mass of cancerous black tissue.  (The last I heard of Erica, in 1992, she was much better, not self-harming any more and building a life for herself.  I have since lost touch with her and her family.)

    There is a very famous cure of MS of an American lady through Mary's intercession at Medjugorje but I can't find the details.  This lady speaks at international conferences about her experience.

e) Our Lady is very obedient.  She accepted the Bishop's demand and in 1989 showed herself to the visionaries wherever they happened to be at the set time, and at other times, but no longer in the church. I have heard that some pilgrims were seeing Mary in the church, and it happened to one of the pilgrims who was on our flight in 1989 apparently but I heard the story second-and and do not know any details.

f) Anne-Marie wrote back that she had not been able to look at the sun at all.  She saw nothing of the apparition, because the sun's globe was too fiercely brilliant, it hurt her eyes even to squint at it.

 g) When I asked him later, Fr Laurie's response embarrassed me, because it was so obvious I should have worked it out for myself!  ''The Mass is infinitely more important that any sign, Morag, and it was time for Mass, remember?''

 h) The Cross was huge, and was somehow 'cut out of the sky'; it had no colour as such - I really don't know how best to describe it.  It was BEHIND the sun which I was still able to look at.  The end of each arm of the Cross and the top of the central post were very unusual.  I mean, each section had its own design, which I could not remember well enough to draw and the base of the post stretched down to earth and widened out as it reached the horizon.  The Cross seemed to ''pop out'', or flare out in some way when it appeared and was definitely behind the sun.  When I was describing it to Fr Laurie, and contemplating its meaning, I wondered if I was seeing an image of the future unity of the Christian Church, ie: the joining of the Orthodox and Protestant churches back onto their mother, Catholicism, represented by the central post.  Who knows.  I would love to know if anyone else has seen this Cross at Medjugorje.

i) The significance of the dot is the wickedness of taking (Catholic) Communion when in a state of grave sin, such as murder, adultery, unrepented abortion, etc. and if one does not believe in Jesus' Real Presence.  I have read a book written by an English journalist, Heather Parsons, who had an illuminating experience when her newspaper editor sent her to Medjugorje to do research for an article.  She was a Protestant by birth, but only vaguely believed in God, and she certainly did not believe Jesus is present in a consecrated Host.  She witnessed a sun apparition, and to her delight found she also could look at it and she saw a white disc spinning in front of the sun, etc.  While she stared in wonder, she saw Jesus appear from the Host.  He approached her, smiling.  Everyone around her was crying, ''Look at the Blessed Sacrament!''  ''Look at the Host spinning, etc!''  Instead, she was saying, ''Look at Jesus!  It's Jesus!'', prompting one lady to ask her what she meant.  She interviewed the crowd, and discovered Jesus had shown himself visibly to her, the only non-Catholic in that crowd!  I love that story.  The journalist is now a Catholic.  I wish I could remember the title of her book.  I think, but only think, that it is called, ''The Hill of Apparitions''.

 j) It was on the 6th October, 1988, and was the first religious dream I have ever had and in it I experienced profound joy, which was a new experience for me.  Until then, I had had only two happy dreams in my entire life!!  My nightlife had been a series of nightmares mostly, or just plain weird dreams.  I was so impressed by it that I wrote it all down for a friend and made a copy for myself.  As I have said, I recognised the back of the church in my dream as identical to the one in Tihaljina that I visited a year later. 

 k) It is a private joke between A. and me.  He doesn't know his own strength, especially when he was younger and greeted me with bear hugs that almost cracked my ribs, or a slap on my rear that could unbalance me!

 l )  I END WITH THE PHOTO OF MY FRIEND’S CRUCIFIX
 

 

In June 2013 the Crucifix of a good friend that hangs above her bed and is 50 plus years old, changed colour in an instant whilst she was making  her bed.  She saw a flash above her head, looked up, and saw the change in the Crucifix's colour.  It was originally of base white metal of some kind and light in weight.  It is now a rich gold colour and much heavier.

The Gospel according to John, Ch. 3 v 16.