Medjugorje: Origin of the Shrine

Origin

On the afternoon of June 24, 1981, about half a mile from the church, two girls from Sarajevo, Ivanka (15) and Mirjana (16), on vacation at the family's country house, were taking a walk on the hill of Podbrodo and then they sat down to rest. On that first day of their vacation, they had felt like relaxing and listening to music; they had bought cigarettes to taste the tobacco that they had smelled at family get-togethers in the long summer evenings. Back at the Three-Ways crossroads, at the entrance of the village, they suddenly spotted a luminous figure on the hill, about 200 yards to their right.

"It's the Gospa [Our Lady]," Ivanka murmured. Ivanka was engaged to be married, and had just lost her mother. Why did she say that? She didn't know.

"It cannot be the Gospa," Mirjana, the more collected one, protested. Fear seized them both and they fled. When they dared talk about what they had seen, people made fun of them. And yet, that hill kept attracting them. [...]

The next day, Thursday, June 25th, they went back with 3 more young people: Ivanka, Mirjana, Vicka with young Jakov (10) and Maria Pavlovic. They quickly climbed the hill, despite of the rocks and gorse, and met Ivan, a shy and solitary boy who had taken another route. The group of six seers was thus definitely constituted. There they were a few feet away from the apparition, who was standing on a small cloud a little more than a yard off the ground. They could see her bright dress, white veil, and crown with twelve stars perfectly; her blue eyes looked at them with affection.

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Christian CANNUYER,

"Medjugorje" in: Rene LAURENTIN and Patrick SBALCHIERO, Dictionnaire encyclopédique des apparitions de la Vierge. Inventaire des origines à nos jours. Méthodologie, prosopopée, approche interdisciplinaire, Fayard, Paris 2007, annexes.