Anthony: This is our first time in Medjugorje. 

The first time our parents brought it up to us was last year at Christmas. They told us that they had paid for a trip for us to go to Medjugorje. It was the whole family. 

Chris: Our mom has been reading Our Lady’s messages for years. 

I think it was when she first started receiving them or maybe a little further in. We always knew about Medjugorje and the messages. We didn’t know that we were going until a couple months before this. 

Medjugorje is exhausting, first of all, if you’re not used to being outside and walking around. Other than that, if you offer that up, I think it’s just a great experience because you learn so much. 

You always learn about your faith, but you don’t actually live it out. You always hear the stories about how Mary appeared or how these miracles are happening. When you actually go to a place that’s literally happening, you’re just like, “Wow.” 

You’re learning about this stuff and you’re meeting someone who has literally seen these things. It’s been pretty cool so far. 

Anthony: For me, I agree with him in the fact that it’s been exhausting. It’s a good exhausting though, right? It’s not like, “Oh, I don’t want to do this tomorrow.” Every day you wake up and you want to go out and do what the group is doing.

You hear a lot of people talk about how this place just feels so peaceful, there’s just this great sense of peace and there really is. If you don’t allow your mind to get clouded, then it’s palpable. 

The first night we were here, me and my dad, at 1:30 in the morning, we just rolled in at midnight, we’re not tired so we decided to go on a walk. Coming from a city, or even just the United States, there’s so much noise, ambient noise that is always there, whether it’s a streetlight buzzing, whether it’s a car passing by, the city making its noise. 

But we were on our walk and I literally stopped my dad and I was just like, “Listen.” There was nothing. It was just silence. And it was so overwhelmingly calming. It was beautiful. 

That’s one of the things I loved the most. Of course, being in a place where Mary has appeared, but one of the biggest things for me has been just the peace that I have felt here when I’ve allowed it. Because I can’t say that throughout this trip I haven’t had times of either anger or frustration. But when I allow it, that peace is just overwhelming. 

Chris: So many people when they come here, they expect something to happen to them.

Anthony: Instead of allowing something to happen to them.

Chris: Once you actually open up, you can experience those things and those things can happen to you. 

I had a hope, not necessarily an expectation, but I had a hope that I would be able to see Mary. I think everyone wants to see Mary, but instead of seeing Mary, I got to experience different things.

I got to experience the smell of roses. When I prayed the Rosary, I asked Her a while ago, “Please make yourself known so I know you’re with me when I’m praying the Rosary.” And she did. She gave me that experience of smelling the super intense smell of roses.

In that way, I experienced Mary, not so much seeing her, but knowing she was there.

Anthony: I don’t think I came to Medjugorje with any expectations, but for me, I’ve had some eye opening conversations. 

I’ve talked with Father Rossi a lot, and he has given me a new perspective on my faith. It opened my eyes to so many different and new ways that I could give myself to God. That was a great experience. 

I don’t want to say I don’t have a prayer life because I do. But it’s been much more intense here in Medjugorje. I dove much deeper into it than I have any other time in my life. I know I keep going back to it, but it gives me that sense of peace.

That’s something that, especially for me in my life, is very, very, very lacking. Having that experience of so much peace here, it was pretty overwhelming for me.

I will definitely be praying more Rosaries.

Chris: That’s also one thing that I’m really going to take back and wanting to do more is the Rosary. Our mom does Rosaries every single night, and she’s been doing it for years. Since I live at home, my mom asks me basically every single night, “Hey, do you want to sit down and pray a Rosary?”

And I say, “No, not really,” because I’d rather watch TV. I’d rather do something else because the Rosary is boring. 

But now I’m saying Rosaries at night in my room, and I think it gives me that sense of peace. So I think the Rosary is definitely one thing that I’m going to be bringing back home and being able to say it with my mom.

Another thing is confession because for years I have been extremely scared of going to confession. Going to confession here was a huge relief for me. I went back two days later to go again, and I plan on going back tomorrow. This is the first time that I’ve had that courage to go to confession without feeling ashamed. It just feels really nice. 

Anthony: I hadn’t been to confession in over ten years. Confessing here in Medjugorje, I could quite literally feel a weight lifted off of my heart. It was almost as if my heart lifted back to where it was supposed to be, like it had been weighed down in my chest, and it was exhilarating, that sensation, having your heart feel lifted.

Chris: At first, I didn’t want to go to confession. I don’t like going to confession because I was ashamed. When Mirjana said that she recommended to go to confession one day, I think if I didn’t go to confession that day, none of what I experienced here or opening myself up or anything like that, would have happened. My experience would have been very different here if I hadn’t gone to confession. 

Anthony: One of the first things I plan on doing when I go home is sharing this experience with my best friend. My best friend and I are each other’s spiritual partners. I went away from the church for a long time, probably close to a decade. My best friend is the one who pulled me back in because he started getting more spiritual in his life, and he started encouraging me.

That, in a way, brought me back. I can’t say I’ve come back to the Catholic Church, but that brought me back to God. 

Him and I, for several years now have been each other’s partners on our spiritual journey so one of the things I’m looking forward to most when I get home is sharing this experience with him.

He isn’t Catholic. Just like me, he was then came away from the church, but he and I are both finding our way back together. My best friend’s name is Michael so I bought us both Saint Michael statues so that he and I can constantly be reminded that we’re both looking out for each other and God’s always there. 

Being here with our family was at first very stressful. 

There’s so many of us, and it’s hard to get a group of ten people to function cohesively as a unit so the beginning was very stressful. 

But in the week we’ve been here, we’ve definitely improved. There’s still room for improvement, but like yesterday and today, we’ve been much more cohesive with each other. That’s been nice. 

Chris: One thing that I really noticed about having such a large group is that we had a lot of talks. Things that we saw in another person that we were concerned about or things that we wanted to help them with, we would have long conversations or we would point it out to them regardless of what they wanted to hear. We wanted to make sure that they knew that we loved them and we want to help them.

Communication is a huge thing in this part because we’re not great at communicating, at least some of us, so the fact that I saw us trying to communicate with each other and succeeding in that way was really big.

Anthony: This has been an extremely rewarding experience. In terms of my relationship, not only with my family, but with God, it has been an extremely rewarding experience. 

Chris: Be open because if you close yourself off, you don’t know the possibility, you don’t know the gift that you can receive from being in this place.

If you open yourself up and try things that you may not want to do, like me, try the Rosary. I didn’t want to. Now I have a new understanding of the Rosary, a new way of loving the Rosary, a new way of loving Mary. 

The same thing with confession. Even though you think going to confession is something to be ashamed of, it’s not. If you throw that feeling of shame away, and just give yourself up and accept the gift of love and mercy, then what’s there to be afraid of? You have nothing to be ashamed of.

Lastly, have that relationship with Mary. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a prayer. For me, this entire trip, sure I would pray to Mary and to God, but just have a conversation. Pretend that Mary’s sitting next to you, and just talk to her. It doesn’t have to be like, “Oh, Mary, please help me with this,” but just be like, “Hey, Mary, how was your day? I bet you’re having the time of your life up there.” That’s what I would do. “How has your day been? I’m glad you could be here with me. What do you want to talk about?”

Anthony: Like Christopher said about talking to them like people, that was something that I struggled with until coming here. God to me was this big, ethereal being in the sky that was unreachable. It wasn’t until I sat down and had a talk with Father Rossi that now God is just my father, right? He is someone I can talk to, someone I can be vulnerable with, someone I can open my heart to.

Whereas before, prayer was so rigid and sacramental instead of just being a conversation with God. That has helped me tremendously. 

Don’t come with expectations. Don’t come here thinking that you’re going to have some eye opening, divine experience. Come with an open heart. Come with an open mind, and don’t put too much pressure on it. As my mom likes to say, if you don’t have expectations, you can never be disappointed, only pleasantly surprised.

If you go into this journey with zero expectations, only good things can happen to you. That would be my advice to people considering taking this trip. 

Chris: Make use of the sacraments anytime you get.