Joyce Lightner had us get a bus and we went out to the Franciscan monastery because Father Jozo was there. 

He was legendary before he left here, man, because he was the first parish priest, and he was persecuted and thrown in jail. 

I thought Medjugorje was an all or nothing deal, right? My then fiancée’s mom had a book on the first five days, and I believed it. I figured if something of this import is going on still, because it was 1991, I’m Thomas, I want to put my fingers in the wounds. Wayne Weible’s book was already out by then. Everybody read that.

Father Jozo, as far as Medjugorje, is a rock star from the beginning. When the children were being persecuted, he protected them, as did many of the other villagers. He really suffered hugely. In a certain sense, he was a white martyr for it because he easily could have been killed

I had been running from God from 1991. I had just been in Mexico all winter diving, and I was given the trip for free. Mary always pays for my trip no matter what. In 30 years, I’ve never paid for a trip, thanks be to God. 

It’s 95, and we were at the original Colombo’s. This priest I knew was there and I was there. Father Mike shows up at the same time. We’re sitting across the table like a couple of water buffalo wanting to butt heads. The priest settled us down, and then we exchanged stories because we’d seen each other in the church and wondered why you would be a behemoth of a man with a tattoo and nothing on your arms, you know, because you don’t do that in church. I stood outside the church because I was in a pair of shorts and a tank top. 

He was going, “Boy, Medjugorje draws all kinds of riffraff.”

We started hanging out. His mother was the best. Joyce Lightner took 90 some groups of pilgrims. 

He and I are on his mom’s group’s bus, and I’m on for the ride. We get out to the Franciscan monastery and other cool stuff happened, but what was significant for me was that when we went inside, Joyce says to me, “Would you like to meet Father Jozo?” 

And I’m like, “No.”

“Of course you want to meet Father Jozo!” So she knocks on this big metal industrial door, pounds on it, and the door opens and it’s Father Jozo. He goes, “Joyce!” and gives her a big hug. I go, “She really does know him. This is incredible.”

Later on in the afternoon, Father Jozo gives a talk. Nancy Latta is his interpreter, and she’s just brilliant at it. It’s like the two are one. He’s speaking and it’s coming right out of her perfectly. Father Jozo then goes and prays over all the priests that are there so that they pray over all the pilgrims that are there. 

People are being blessed and they’re falling out because the Holy Spirit is overwhelming their spirit. We only have so much capacity at first. You get nailed. Your physical nature becomes overwhelmed. Inside, you’re having a good time, an intimate moment with the Holy Spirit, which will change you. There’s healings that are going on. 

Father Mike later normally catches people when they start to fall, because he can do two at a time. He can one-arm them. Normally, he’d be catching people, but he’s standing next to this wheelchair, and there’s a man and a woman in the chair. I assume the man is the husband. Mike Lightner, soon to become Father Mike, is standing there talking to this guy, and there’s a priest on his knees in front of the woman, and he’s rubbing on her thighs and he’s rubbing on her lower legs and he’s rubbing on her hips. I’m like, “Jeez Louise,” you know? But she’s got nothing for legs. Her legs are atrophied from non use. She had had some critical injury to her spine and couldn’t walk. 

So Mike, in a daring test of God, says to God, “If you get this woman up and not just upright, but walk her entirely around the perimeter of the church, I’ll go to the seminary.” So what do you think happened?

She got up, grabbed the handles of the wheelchair, and walked it around the church. 

Now, I’m not privy to the conversation. It’s just a really cool thing going on. But then again, there’s a bunch of cool things going on at the same time, and I’m being overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit. Because I’ve been running for God, I mean, underwater, screaming into my regulator, “Why would you make an orange sponge and put it down at 70 feet where only people with scuba gear can look at it? This is amazing.” Everything about God’s creation, right? When you get to beautiful things like that. 

So I’m sitting there back from this and God’s working on me about being a priest, and I know I’m supposed to go to the seminary. I know I’m supposed to be a priest. But I’ve been fighting it. I’m outside crying about it. But I’m doing the guy cry, right? ‘I got something in my eye’ cry, and Big Mike rolls up. He goes, “Why are you crying?”

I go, “Because I know what I have to do.” 

And he goes, “What’s that?”

I said, “I have to go to the seminary.”

He goes, “Me too.”  

So we went to the seminary together a year later.

We were together for minor seminary. They separated us for major seminary, for three years.

It’s probably pretty wise to do that because then the the person has to make their own decision about their vocation because it can’t be your mom’s vocation. It can’t be just because of your friends, buddies and stuff like that because that won’t last. You have to make your own choice and your own vows because you’re the one that has to keep them. 

Just like marriage, you have to be committed from the beginning. The same problems we see in getting priests in the seminary and then leaving is the same problem you’re going to have with marriages. They’re just different vocations. But one is a marriage to the church, it really is. And, I’m sorry, she’s got warts and stuff. Sometimes the church ain’t that pretty or affirming of you. 

On the other hand, you have to commit in a marriage. I mean, really commit because you’re going to get challenged. That’s just true. 

He went to Emmitsburg, Maryland to Mount Saint Mary’s, where the rector, now Bishop Rhodes, really liked him because Mike is likable. He walks in the door, he gets respect. He’s a nice guy, a really nice guy. 

His vocation to the priesthood was prophesied when he was a child, but he was going to go play pro football, and he could have. But God intervened in Medjugorje. 

It was Mike Lightner’s idea that we should find all the vocations that point directly to Medjugorje, we should round up their names, their date of of birth, or better yet when they went to Medjugorje when they got their vocation, and their ordination date. Brick by brick, we could build a chapel. Right now. There’s that many vocations out of Medjugorje, and many of them have risen to high stature in the church. And there probably will be more that are ordained bishops.

One cardinal said that if it weren’t for Medjugorje, he’d have no one in the seminary. 

It’s quite likely that people who are seeking a vocation to priesthood or religious life are most likely going to confession on a regular basis. You would hope so. But, you know, I have heard confessions that were exactly like mine when I first came to Medjugorje. That was heard by a late vocation, and he knew what to do. To this day, it was the best confession ever and the model that I use for confession. It’s not about how quickly you process someone. It’s about listening to them and what are their needs. So when somebody is discerning a vocation, there’s usually competing things, a girlfriend, a boyfriend, a job, like a career that I’ve worked for, those kinds of things that the person is trying to discern which way should I go?

I know people who came to discern priesthood and religious life and met each other, and they’re married. It’s a great place for discernment because it’s an oasis of peace. There is some kind of invisible forcefield around this place. You stay but a matter of days and all of a sudden back home is no concern.

The people that are here are how people should act everywhere. They meet your eyes and don’t look away. They smile, they greet you without even saying a word. If you’re a priest, they bring their entire family to get blessed. They treat the priest with respect, unlike the rest of the world. Not that we’ve got to demand respect like that, but I was taught to honor the priest. So it’s not important to me for you to call me father. Although it’s a little strange when your mother starts calling you Father Rick, but this kind of respect for the sacraments. The people are really edified by Eucharistic adoration and the kinds of music that support it and the people that are doing it and the priests that are here. They may be here for the first time, and yet invariably they go home changed. 

It’s very hard to come to Medjugorje and not have some change happen. 

As far as vocations are concerned, I think that Mary draws everyone who comes here. I can comfortably say that if you find your way to Medjugorje, Mary has called you. 

And the priests she chooses are street urchins like me. They were on the wrong side doing the wrong stuff. Other guys are better, but I can only speak to my own life. You can be a louse and the world will think you’re great, that you serve yourself instead of others.

The greatest maturity we have is to learn to serve others rather than ourselves because there is the reward. Love is about a free gift, expecting nothing in return.

The greatest gift we have is our salvation.

Mary chooses many of us who know how the enemy works because we were working with him, which makes us completely dangerous. We’re not motivated by being bishop. We’re not motivated by money. We don’t have to have the big parish to give us an identity. We find our identity in being a Marian priest. Those who Mary calls in these times become equipped, powerfully equipped, to go back to wherever they are and evangelize.

You don’t have to put on a conference. They don’t have to become a speaker on a tour. They don’t have to produce a TV show. They don’t have to be anything other than someone who loves God through the hands of Mary.