I actually heard about Medjugorje in 2022. I remember it was a priest who told me about it. He had just come back from Medjugorje, and he had this beautiful rosary made of the Medjugorje rock. I asked him about it, and he just said, “You have to go.” But I didn’t actually do it. 

Over time, I started noticing it was coming up a lot. There was this period of time when it became very intense. It was almost like everybody I met kept saying to me, “You have to go, you have to go.” It was like, over and over and over.

At that point, I was like, “Okay, I really need to start taking this seriously.” But I didn’t know when I would go. 

Everything that I do in my life, I don’t just do because I want to do something. I usually say, “Okay, Lord, I am going to go. Now You tell me when to go.” So I kind of went into that phase.

In 2024, I met a little girl who helped me. I got a surgery on my left knee and she came to me and said, “Our Lady put it on my heart to give you this,” and she gave me a handkerchief from Medjugorje. She said, “I had put it in my heart that I wanted to give this to somebody who will go to Medjugorje as soon as possible.” When she said that I was like, okay, so that means it’s going to be within the next six months, right? This is already like September 2024.

Then in November, I had this experience of going with the sisters to see [visionary] Ivan and his apparition in D.C.. It was completely unplanned. 

Until this point I still hadn’t read anything on Medjugorje. I didn’t know anything about the apparitions. I didn’t know who Ivan was. I didn’t know anything about the visionaries. It wasn’t like I looked into it or I was looking into the messages or anything like that. Everybody just told me about Medjugorje. I didn’t really understand anything about the apparitions. I just knew Medjugorje is like Lourdes or Fatima. That was how I thought of it.

So I go to this apparition. I didn’t really understand what was going on. When I walked in, there was a Rosary. When that moment of silence came, when Ivan got up and went to the front, I realized something was happening. I definitely experienced Our Lady say something to me in my heart. It’s going to be very difficult for me to say what she said because it was very particular, to a particular situation I was in.

The words were very short, very distinct, very defined. And I knew exactly what she meant. I could have technically perceived it in many ways, but I knew what she was trying to say. And it was so strong. It wasn’t like I heard it and then I forgot it. No. It stayed with me. I came back home. I went to sleep. It was the last thing I was thinking about at night. I couldn’t get the words out of my head.

Two days later, I left on a silent retreat, and my silent retreat was very intense as well. Nothing related to Medjugorje, but it was a very, very fruitful, intense silent retreat. 

Then right after that, I went to Houston. In that moment, I asked, “When should I go to Medjugorje?” And the month of March came up in my heart. So I was like, “Okay, it’s March.” 

I was only in Houston for three or four days and I wanted to meet my godmother. My godmother said, “Oh, Shereen, I’m leaving tomorrow, but can you come and meet me tonight at St Joseph’s?” 

So when I got there, I found her. We talked, and … I went to eat, and as I was serving the food, Cimela was right opposite me.

Now, I knew Cimela, but I didn’t know know her, you know? I just remember looking at her and thinking, “Hey! She’s the Medjugorje lady! She’s the one who does all these pilgrimages.” So I said, “Hey, Cimela. Are you still doing these pilgrimages to Medjugorje?” 

She was like, “Yeah, I am!” 

So I asked her, “Do you have anything in March?”

And she said, “Yes, I do. In fact, that’s the first one this next year.”  

As soon as she said, “that’s the first one this next year,” in my head, I was like, “That’s the one.” Because I knew it had to be soon.

Honestly, even until coming here, I still didn’t look into it. I didn’t look into the apparitions. I didn’t look into the messages. For me, I’m making a pilgrimage for Our Lady. That was how I looked at it. 

I started reading Mirjana’s book [My Heart Will Triumph] in the airport because I had a four hour layover. I read about half of the book, and then I finished the other half the night before going to meet Mirjana. I was up until like 2:30 just reading the book. I wanted to finish the book before I went to see her. 

———

Hands down this has been my best pilgrimage so far, and I’ve been on many. The reason I love this pilgrimage so much is a couple of things.

Every day we have a prayer routine, which I love. Usually on pilgrimages I’ve never done two Holy Masses a day. I just love that about this pilgrimage. Back at home in my regular life, I have actually done two Masses, but I’ve never done it with the same people. We’re going through the same thing again and again. The same parish. 

Then getting there early, walking, all of this stuff, for me, it’s a very pilgrimage style kind of experience. I love that. 

I love the fact that this had two days we had to climb. I’m a mountaineer. 

In this place I feel like multiple areas of my life came together because I love going to Holy Mass, and then I love hiking. I love doing all of this in one experience. 

I have not had that, like in Fatima. I’ve had similar beautiful experiences. For example, in Fatima, I was one of the people who actually helped carry the palanquin when you carry Our Lady so I’ve done physical exertions. Then here, not only was I able to physically exert, I was able to serve another person while doing it too. That for me was a fulfillment of something that our Lord had told me a long time ago. 

When I encountered the Lord, I was training to climb mountains. I felt Him say to me at that point, “Shereen, you will climb mountains, but you will serve my people while you climb them.”

And so when I was able to do that here, I remembered that. It was a very long time ago. It was the fulfillment of so many things that the Lord had told me a long time ago that I had forgotten. 

The other part is the people. It’s just been amazing getting up and meeting the people that I love to be around and doing all these amazing things with these people and sharing my personal stories.

Honestly my highlight is really the people I’ve met on this trip. I think that’s what has accentuated the experience for me.

In the middle of this pilgrimage, suddenly I get this opportunity to go to Zadar, and I meet amazing people there too! It’s just everywhere.

For me, this is an anomaly, to have so many people who love me so much, like this Polish woman who sat next to me through Mass and kissing me all the time, or the fact that I was able to get a blessing from Archbishop Cavalli. These are not like everyday experiences, you know? 

By the way, I also am still recovering from my surgery. So I was a little concerned and a lot of people who know me were concerned about my knee and how it would do. I remember going to Saint Anastasia’s chapel in Zadar, and I remember telling her, “Can you please just heal my knee?” I just want to heal it. I’m so tired of this pain that I’m constantly in. 

I hear a voice in my heart saying, “Well, just give it a shot! Just try it out!” 

So then, yeah, I squatted, and I went all the way down. I mean, it wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t like a miracle where it was immediate, but for me it was the push that I needed, which was to do what I was doing. I was giving my knee the squatting that I needed. Probably I have to break through a lot of scar tissue that has formed there. It’s not easy. It takes a lot of pain. But I had that surge of confidence to do it over and over.

I had that surge to say, just try and just keep going. Since then my knee is so much better and I have a lot more confidence in it.

I mean, I hiked two hikes on this knee. My knees are fully healed. That surge of that confidence or whatever you want to call it, I don’t care where it came from, I know what I felt and I remember I was praying and I just felt it in my heart, “Just keep going, Shereen. You can do this.”

That day I squatted fully, I was able to sit on my knee in a way I had never sat before. 

Then another really amazing experience that happened was on Apparition Hill. Marisol turned around and looked at me and so I went and sat next to her. The amount of space that I had was so little that I knew I had to squat.

I remember looking at it thinking, “How am I going to do this? I won’t be able to bend my knee.” I sat in that position for over 20 minutes. I had no pain at all. And I just remember thinking the whole time, “I’ve never sat in this position since my surgery. I can’t believe I’m feeling no pain at all!”

Until this point I’ve always said Catholic pilgrimages are so luxurious. Wherever you go, you get a nice hotel and it’s almost like a sightseeing experience. You’re going all these places, you’re on this A/C bus. But in my three and a half years of being Catholic, the Lord showed me that He gives us graces even in those experiences. 

But the whole time I was always thinking of pilgrimages like this one—that you put in the work.

When I converted from Islam to Christianity, I was very comfortable with fasting. I mean, I can go without food and water from sunrise to sunset. So that never, ever daunted me. 

But as soon as I became Catholic, I felt the Lord ask me to stop fasting. He didn’t want me to fast anymore. And he showed me other ways to fast, which really surprised me because I was like, “This is so weird. I never thought about fasting in all these other ways.” There was almost a relationship that I built with fasting. But I realized fasting is a way of life. It’s not just food and water. There’s so much more that goes into fasting. So my perception of fasting actually changed after I became Catholic.

Before I came to Medjugorje, I didn’t know about the five stones. I didn’t know anything about fasting in Medjugorje.

Before I came here, I felt there was an emphasis on fasting again. And this time I felt the Lord was asking me to fast on food as well. I was surprised. I was actually experimenting a little before I came here. I kind of got to a place where I was like, the kind of fasting that He’s trying to get me to do is only water, and then I can have the Holy Eucharist, and I felt good. But I had experimented a lot. 

Before I came here, we had about two weeks of Lent so I started with the Catholic way, which was one whole meal and two half meals. And I was like, “No, the Lord definitely doesn’t want me to do this.” 

Then I went all the way, like, no food and water. And I was like, “Okay, the Lord definitely doesn’t want me to this.” 

Then I went, “Okay, I’ll do half water.” I was doing all these concoctions and finally towards the end I realized I can do all water throughout the entire day and receive Holy Eucharist. And it felt great. 

And then I come here and I find out that the best kind of fasting is bread and water. I was just like, “This is amazing!” 

I had this experience of experimenting and experimenting because I just didn’t know how He wanted me to fast. I knew it wasn’t going to be like anything else I had done before, you know? 

———

I grew up Muslim. 

Around 17 or 18, I kind of became like, I don’t know if atheist is the right word. Actually it was when I turned to Christianity that I realized that it was an atheist group because I didn’t care. It made no difference to me what you believed and what you didn’t believe.

I was just like, “Whatever, man,” and I now realize it’s like how the Lord says, “Whoever is not for me is against me.” So just because I had no view doesn’t mean that I was better than the people who had a view that was against. No. The Lord puts both of them in the same category.

When I saw that, I owned it and I recognized that I’m just one of those lukewarm people who don’t have an opinion. It’s actually horrible to be in that state. I was in that state for many years actually. 

It was towards my early thirties that I had an experience, an actual grace that I received that brought me back to God. Then when I came back to God, over a period of sitting in silence—silence was a huge part of my journey—I then turned to Islam again. 

I started really believing in God. Islam is a beautiful religion, and I really fell in love with this religion. I realized what I’d been taught as a child was not Islam. It was a cultural version of Islam. When I took the time to understand it myself, I really found it very beautiful.

Then when I got my call to follow Christ, I really feel it was my heart of submission. I think that’s what Islam gave me is that experience of, “let it be done unto me according to Thy will.” For me, that actually happened when I was Muslim, that experience of being so giving and saying, “Lord, do with me whatever you want.”

When I felt the call to become Catholic, I was obviously shocked. I couldn’t believe it. But because I had that experience of, “Yes, okay, I accept,” I was able to become Catholic. 

Now that I’m Catholic, I still get emotional thinking about it because the Lord speaks about it in scripture. He says, “Whoever My Father allows comes to Me.” And then, of course, everybody else listens to the other part because most of them are born Catholics, which is “whoever I allow reaches the Father,” which is what He’s constantly telling the apostles as well. The apostles are like, “Lord, we just want to see the Father’s face,” and Jesus says, “Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father.” 

But for me it was the other way. Because the Father allowed, I was able to encounter Jesus. 

Of course I didn’t realize this when I first converted, but it was almost like I’m meeting the entire family. I am now part of the whole family. It’s an amazing experience. 

Our religion is relational. It’s not just God and I. It’s the Trinity. We’re constantly in relation and we’re loving each other and we’re experiencing God in this union of each other. And it’s just so beautiful. I only had that experience when I became Catholic. 

When I first came into the Catholic Church, I did not know about the Immaculate Conception. I always knew that there was something special about Mary because in the Quran there is no Saint Joseph of the New Testament. It’s only Mary and Jesus. That’s it. So in a way, it’s even crazier, really, because there is no man in the picture. If people didn’t really care they would be like, “Okay, Joseph is Jesus’ father.” 

But I always thought, “Why Mary? Why was she chosen?” I never went deep enough to understand about Mary. I just knew she’s a big deal. She’s the only woman in Islam that has a whole sūrah for her only. But I never understood what made her special. 

When I came into the church and I found out about the Immaculate Conception, oh, my gosh. First of all, it made complete sense. Everything clicked. 

It took me some time, it was about two years, actually, to realize what she had done for us, that she had really opened up her heart. Truly through her Immaculate Heart, we are also adopted children. We are we are adopted through Jesus, but we are adopted through her as well. That complete acceptance of who we are into that family is very beautiful. 

And I haven’t even talked about her Immaculate Heart.

I once had an experience where I felt Our Lady show me what it meant to be in her heart. All I can say to you is that I’m so grateful that we have the ability to even have her like that. There are so many humans that don’t even know about her or her Immaculate Heart. 

It’s like, I know you. I know your name, I know who you are. But when we get so close to each other that you start revealing your heart to me, and then there is a moment when I feel that you really love me, that’s a whole different experience. That’s just beautiful. 

So when you get that opportunity to be loved by someone to that extent and that person opens their heart to you, that’s what I felt with Our Lady. 

After that, I was just so enamored with her.