I knew about Medjugorje a long time ago. 

Because of the controversy with it, I never put much thought into it, whether it was real or not. It was more of just, “I hope good things are happening there,” and then I never gave it much thought at that point.

Randomly, there were some people at my parish who had won a trip here a few years ago, and they wanted to pay it forward. For some reason, they approached my wife and I to come. It was really unexpected. They said, “We want you to come and experience what we’ve experienced.” 

That’s not something that you just pass up. That’s an opportunity of a lifetime. When we found out, we looked to see if we could bring any of our kids because we have a now one year old daughter who we couldn’t leave back at home for ten days. Then my ten year old’s been getting a lot more into his faith. He’s been altar serving for a year and being a lot more committed to growing and so we thought it would be really good for him to come. So my wife and I brought our one year old and our ten year old son.

The biggest thing I could say here is just the peace. It is hard to put into words the tranquility of being here.

Since we’ve gotten here, we disconnected from our phones and social media and things like that so we can be fully present to what Our Lord wants. There’s a burden lifted off my shoulders where I’m just completely at peace. Even the three kids that we left back at home, I miss them, but I’m not worried about them. I know that Our Lady is going to take care of them because she wants us here. 

The way that we were able to come here so unexpectedly and then come with Cimela, who I’ve known for over 20 years now, there are no coincidences in the world. It’s just God moments where God sends us reminders that He’s present, maybe little winks from Our Lady to remind us that God is present. 

[ iMedj note: Jonathan and his Medjugorje pilgrimage leader, Cimela, attended college together at the University of St. Thomas in Houston. The couple who offered the pilgrimage to Jonathan had won a free trip with Cimela’s pilgrimage company years before. They had no idea Cimela and Jonathan knew each other when they offered him the trip. ]

I’ve been really inspired by our guide, Miki. He has done such a wonderful job of portraying the faith and giving an accurate depiction of Our Mother where he doesn’t raise Our Mother above the Eucharist and above the Lord.

He’s just done such a great job of saying that is the most important thing—that Our Mother is here, yes, but the miracle that we observe every day at Mass and in the Eucharist and Adoration, that is the greatest miracle. That is the most important thing that we can put our attention to.

My mother died when I was 15. She died suddenly. I remember the day that she died, I prayed and I said, “God, I don’t know how I’m going to get through this without you, so I’m going to need you.” 

Since then, I’ve had a special relationship with Our Blessed Mother where I didn’t have my earthly mother anymore. God provided me our Heavenly Mother so I have always leaned on her as my mother. To come and see her and be with her has been really great.

In high school, I had several people that influenced me and helped me to grow in my faith. My youth group was very good in that. Then at the University of St. Thomas, there was a great group of friends that were good influences and really helped me to grow along with my time in FOCUS, the Fellowship of Catholic University Students. The formation and the experiences I had that I can forget about life for a little bit, and my main purpose, my goal, was to bring Christ to others so that they may know Him and follow Him and love Him, that’s one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done. It’s something I’m able to still continue to do today as I work at a parish in Omaha. 

I don’t know if I’ll ever come back. We’ll see what the Blessed Mother has to say about that. I know my son says that he wants to come back. I would love the rest of my family to be able to experience it. Never say never for sure.

You lose nothing by coming here, but you have the potential to gain everything because the Blessed Mother can soften our hearts and reach to us in ways that things of this world just can’t. And so don’t come with expectations, don’t come thinking there’s going to be anything phenomenal that happens because I think so much is going to be a slower effect and it’s a gradual changing of the heart. 

What you feel when you’re here, like I said earlier, you can’t put into words. To have that peace and to know that that peace is possible, that is the essence of what we seek in our faith, that when we go to heaven, we forget about our worries and there are no worries because we are with God and everything then is complete. 

I wanted to bring Joshua because I know that, while Mary’s alive everywhere, she actually is physically present here every day. She appears to Marija every day here. Even though we’re not right there, we are in proximity to that. 

When we were going up Apparition Hill, Joshua and I both smelled roses at separate times. To experience something like that is to experience God in a deeper way. I wanted my faith to be able to grow. I wanted his faith to be able to grow.

I wanted this to be an experience of a lifetime that when things get hard in the faith, he can always lean back on this, and for myself as well, that you can say, “Oh, I’m going through troubled times, but don’t forget about Medjugorje.” 

Don’t forget about the experiences we shared, the laughs the adoration, the Masses with so many different languages, and then going to confession, and there’s people from all over the world going to confession in their own native language, but they came together because of their love for Mary and their love for Christ. You don’t get that experience everywhere. You can see just how universal the church is. It’s so wonderful. 

This trip is something so beautiful to do, especially with a family. The time I get to spend with my wife, we never get to spend this much time together. And offering it to the Lord. I was able to bring prayers and intentions of other people, and every day I look over them and pray for them. 

That peace just keeps coming back to me. This is the right thing. This is how we should live. 

Unfortunately, we live in a world where we have so many other distractions and so many other things, but you’re able to get away from it all here. You know what’s important. You know what you should dedicate your time to. Here, there’s a rhythm of life that directs us towards the Eucharist, directs us towards the Lord. 

That’s everything that Mary does—bringing us back to Christ, pointing towards Christ, showing us and revealing Christ more. Coming here does such a great job of highlighting that and embracing that. 

You can’t go down the street, you can’t go anywhere, without seeing reminders of different saints in the shops. The hotels are named after saints. This is what happens when you truly allow the Lord to come into your heart and open your will to be united with His will. 

For us, it was really special and really cool to be able to bring a baby. There aren’t many other babies. As you as you look around, I think some of the babies are from locals, but there’s just not many babies. 

We are all children of Our Blessed Mother, and to bring her one of her infant children who are so pure—our Gianna turned one during this trip—and so to bring her to Our Blessed Mother, that has brought such incredible joy.

The day we climbed Apparition Hill, it was actually her birthday. She was getting a little restless. It’s been a longer trip. I think she’s been getting a little bit tired. The days have been long. As we were going up, she was crying. She tried to sleep a couple of times as we were going up, and it just wasn’t working. 

At a certain point, I didn’t want to be a distraction anymore to the group, but I knew Our Blessed Mother was just ahead. I was singing the Hail Mary to her as we approached Our Blessed Mother. As we got closer and closer and we got very close to her, she became calm and even fell asleep. 

In my heart, I knew that she just longed for her Blessed Mother and that that’s all she needed for the restlessness to go away. She was restless because she needed her Mother. It almost brought me to tears how beautiful it is that Our Mother knows us and knows what we need.

She knows us so much that all she needs is us to submit our wills to her because her will is the will of God. She perfectly reflects that. And so if we give her our wills and what we desire, what we need, she will take care of us, not necessarily with what we think we need, but what we actually need.

She gives us that peace, and she brought Gianna that peace. She stayed asleep the whole time we were there, until we were departing and a good ways down Apparition Hill. Our Blessed Mother took care of her. 

Her middle name is Mary so we know there’s a special connection even in that. My mom’s middle name was Mary, and my wife’s mom’s first name is actually Mary. So there’s a lot of Mary around us. She is definitely a special intercessor for our family and probably the reason we need to bring our whole family back.

It was Her will for us to be here. 

The people who paid it forward, they’re just so generous. It’s still odd to me because it’s as if they didn’t question. I think it’s the Mother guiding them as well because there were opportunities for them to take other people, and those never worked out. Our Mother wanted us here for this time right now. 

The crazy thing is, I didn’t even have much of a relationship with them before. I talked to them a few times, and we obviously knew who each other was.

But their generosity, I can’t say enough about. Even when we were talking and trying to figure out if this would be a good fit and if this would work out, they invited us over for dinner. They made us a delicious meal and talked about the goodness of the trip and the peace that they had . 

There’s no strings attached. They just wanted out of the goodness of their hearts to pass on the goodness that they had received. It’s very special. I want to be able to give back in some way.

Our Mother is calling people here, and I think if you’ve come here, part of our responsibility is to share that and help people know. Sometimes she uses us to tell other people that she’s calling them. 

It was through the Volkmans that it started in our hearts, not even the desire, but the need to be able to come here and be with her.