date: 25.06.2016.
Famous Franciscan and leader of many spiritual seminar, Fr. Ante Vuckovic, spoke about his experience of Medjugorje, fruits of Our Lady’s apparitions, role od Medjugorje in the Church and in today’s world in the programme of radio Medjugorje.
This is what Fr. Ante said about his first encounter with Medjugorje: „It was long ago, I was seminarian, student of theology and three of us went to see what happened there. We saw many faithful, stones and rocks and the church full of people who loved God, with many questions. It was a sort of the first encounter with one supernatural event that did not have consisted ending at that time. When it comes to those first encounters, I had very strong, emotional experience of Medjugorje, it was the communism time and everything regarding faith was banned, I was deeply moved by strong and firm expression of the faith in that period in Medjugorje. I carried that feeling for a long while within me. Many things have changed since then, in 1983, I was the assistant parish priest in Metkovic. Reflections of Medjugorje were very visible, already in that period there were many people in our parish who fasted on Wednesdays and Fridays on bread and water, and that was very surprising for the communist era. Vicinity of Medjugorje played important part, many people walked to Medjugorje and we priests began to come there too. There were many questions in the beginning, what to do, should we go or not, what is happening there. As Medjugorje became the confessional of the world, I found it easiest to come here for the confessions. Later on, for nine years, I was abroad and contacts with Medjugorje became rare. There were years when I did not come again and the intensive period began when I was invited to come here as a part of my service. The most impressive was for the 25th Anniversary of the Apparitions.
I was surprised when they called me to be the main celebrant of the central Holy Mass and I was not prepared for that at all. The most important event afterwards took place two years ago for the Youth Festival. That was one intensive experience that lasted several days, with thousands of young people who had great need for God, for prayer and for vicinity of God. Those were the most intensive moments I had in Medjugorje. Medjugorje always appears to be the place where people get new chance for life, especially those who were on wrong paths who had broken lives, relationships and suffered great emotional disorders. They come to Medjugorje and get the new chance. It is always fascinating for me. Medjugroje is a place where you can always discover many life stories where on one side there is lost, bad and broken life that begins to change here and gets new direction”, said Fr. Ante Vučković for the occasion of the 35th Anniversary of Our Lady’s Apparitions.
