SUPERNATURAL EVENTS IN MEDJUGORJE

Podbrdo Hill: The site of the first apparition of Our Lady of Medjugorje

On 23 June 1981, a violent storm struck the village of Medjugorje. Even the most senior citizens of Medjugorje had seen nothing like that in the last five decades. As dusk was falling, bolts of lightning streaked across the sky in all directions and the deafening roar of thunder reverberated through the village. The lightning strikes caused more than a dozen fires to break out in the village of Medjugorje that night. The next morning, the fires were extinguished and the clear blue sky could be seen once again.

The 24th of June was the feast day of St. John the Baptist and it was on this day that the Mother of God first appeared to the six visionaries in Medjugorje. Since then, many supernatural events had happened in this peaceful and beautiful village between two hills, Krizevac and Podbrdo (also known as Apparition Hill). Apart from the miraculous healings that have taken place in Medjugorje, many unusual phenomena had occurred and are still occurring in this place of grace where the Mother of God is still appearing to the six visionaries.

On 29 June 1981, the sixth day of the apparitions, a pediatrics specialist, Doctor Darinka Glamuzina, was sent to examine the six visionaries during the apparition. She had earlier boasted to the visionaries of her agnosticism. During the apparition, she wanted to touch Our Lady and following the  visionaries' instructions, she touched Our Lady's shoulder with her hand. Dr. Glamuzina shuddered and experienced some kind of electric shock passing through her entire body. Filled with awe, she began to stagger down the hill. She admitted that something was going on in Medjugorje and refused to have anything to do with the investigations from that day onwards.

On 30 June 1981, the seventh day of the apparitions, two social workers took the young visionaries for a drive in a large sedan. They intended to keep them away from the place of apparition and detain them until the usual apparition time was over. Although the visionaries were far away from Podbrdo Hill at the time the apparition was supposed to take place, as if by inner persuasion, they told the social workers that they wanted to get out of the car. Knowing that the visionaries would not be able to reach Apparition Hill on time for the apparition, the social workers did as they were told. As soon as they came out of the long sedan, the visionaries knelt in a group and started to pray. At that instant, they could see our Lady gliding toward them through the air from Apparition Hill, some 7 kilometers away. The two social workers were horrified. They jumped back into the sedan and drove away as fast as they could. Later on, they admitted that they did see something - a light.

During the apparition on 2 August 1981, the Feast of Our Lady of Angels, more than 150 people witnessed the "Miracle of the Sun". They saw the sun spinning in its orbit, descended toward the crowd and then retreated. They were able to look at the sun without pain or discomfort to their eyes. Viewing the sun with their naked eyes did not burn their retina as none of them suffered from eye damage that day. They also saw six small hearts in the sky that centered around a large heart. Podbrdo Hill was then covered by a white cloud which dissipated gradually and everything was back to normal again.

On the afternoon of August 24, 1981, a group of people who were looking at Mount Krizevac saw the Mother of God in the place of the white concrete cross on top of the mountain. More than a dozen of them said that they saw the statue of our Lady instead of the Virgin Herself in the place where the Krizevac Cross should have been. When the statue disappeared, they could see the cross again. That afternoon, more than a hundred witnesses also claimed that they saw the word "mir" which means peace in Croatian, written in bright golden letters across the sky above Mount Krizevac.

On 28 October 1981, a strange fire erupted at the site of our Lady's first apparition on Podbrdo Hill and burned for about fifteen minutes without apparent fuel. More than five hundred people claimed that they witnessed this unusual phenomenon. The guards from the militia who were stationed at the foot of the hill went up the hill to investigate but they could not find the remains of the fire.

Father Nicholas Bulat, a professor of dogma at the seminary in Split was sent to Medjugorje to investigate the apparitions. During an apparition, he was given a seat in the rectory immediately behind the visionaries. When their ecstasy began, Father Bulat suddenly moved forward and thrust a long leather stitching needle into Vicka's left shoulder blade. Vicka was pushed forward to one side but she showed no reaction and continued to pray as if she did not feel any pain even though her blouse was soaked with blood. Father Bulat then stabbed her again for the second time but she still did not show any reaction. Father Bulat left the rectory trembling and refused to talk to anyone.

During the summer of 1988, Dr. Marco Margnelli, an avowed atheist and neurophysiologist, came to Yugoslavia to look for evidence to contradict the visionaries. He conducted a number of medical tests on the visionaries. What was the outcome of his investigation? Well, a few months after he returned to Milan, Dr. Margnelli became a practicing Catholic. What actually caused this sudden change in him? According to him, "We were certainly in the presence of an extraordinary phenomenon. Whether we are dealing with an authentic apparition or something else we cannot explain and I cannot say. It is a question I prefer not to put to myself. Since returning from Yugoslavia, I have been thinking about it continually and I confess, I also ask myself nonscientific questions, such as what the meaning of the whole thing can be." What affected him most were the birds in the trees outside the rectory where the visionaries had their apparitions. These birds, hundreds of them, were at times as deafening as a loud concert especially during the late afternoon but according to Dr. Margnelli, they would suddenly go quiet when the apparition began. And he admitted that it was this absolute silence of the birds that haunted him.

During the war that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mirjana (one of the visionaries) revealed that the Mother of God had promised that Medjugorje would be safeguarded. And true enough this village had come out from a series of Serbian air raids and artillery bombardments almost unscathed. On 7 April 1992, more than four thousand Serbian artillery shells were fired at Medjugorje but no one was killed. The only casualties were two chickens, a cow, and a dog. When the Serbian jets wanted to score a direct hit on St. James Church, the bombs had not been dropped. Why? The people in Medjugorje believed that our Lady intercepted them. According to the Serb pilots as quoted in a Belgrade newspaper, "We had lost our bearings in a strange silver fog that had covered the parish of St. James."

No doubt there is no explanation for these phenomena. However, the message of these supernatural events is very clear - Our Lady is really appearing in Medjugorje. The Mother of God is real. Jesus is real. The Catholic Church is real. Blest are they who have not seen and have believed. (John 20:29) But what about those who have seen but still do not want to believe? For further reading, please refer to Randall Sullivan's The Miracle Detective, the book with inspiring true stories of the miracles and supernatural events in Medjugorje 

You may also like to read THE MIRACLES OF MEDJUGORJE, THE APPARITIONS OF OUR LADY AT MEDJUGORJE, MEDJUGORJE: FAITH OR FRAUD?, and A MESSAGE OF PEACE FROM MEDJUGORJE, To view the content page of this blog, please click here.



References:
1.  Sullivan, Randall. (2004). The Miracle Detective. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press.
2.  Medjugorje. Information Center "MIR" Medjugorje.
3.  The New American Bible. New York: Thomas Nelson Publishers.