date: 20.06.2016.
The 1st International Pro-Life Seminar in Medjugorje was finished on Sunday, June 19, with the Holy Mass at 11 am celebrated by Fr. Ante Vuckovic. The seminar started on June 16 and gathered more than 130 participants from 16 countries with the theme: „The Infant in the Womb” (Lk 1, 41), „Be merciful as your Heavenly Father is” (Lk 6, 36). The seminar was translated in 5 languages and consisted of testimonies, lectures, prayer on Hills as well as of the evening prayer programme.
Fr. Ante je and prof. Zrinka Jelaska were lecturers at this seminar, and in his homily on Sunday morning he said: When Church on Sundays places before us several readings as the food, it is important to go beneath all those readings and to see what is offered to us as the food for our own relationship with God, as the food for life and what is that we talk about here. There is something here that concerns the seminar that was just concluded, pro-life seminar in Medjugorje, as prophet Zechariah says: They will look at the one whom they have pierced, they will morn for him as for an only son and weep for him as the people weep for a first-born child. The message of this text is, when something bad happens, as the murder of the unborn child, and when God wishes to pull out someone who was involved in that, to help him, what does He give him? He gives us the ability to mourn in the spirit of prayer over the evil that penetrated in him through the world. That weep is something that brings us healing. We also learn, there are those prayers that are not mere words; there are prayers of tears...of weeping. There are prayers that are made when we cry over something. We are familiar in the Catholic Church with a phenomenon called the gift of tears. The gift of tears is nothing else but my entering into the relationship with God when there are tears instead of words. It is a physical way of prayer. The spirit of the prayer is given in weep, in tears and it is a way of prayer. It is very important to notice that for all those who struggle with difficulties, feeling of guilt or awareness of certain sin they committed. Whenever we are moved, God’s presence is evident. This leads us to the Gospel where Jesus prayed alone in the solitude”, said Fr. Ante who was the main celebrant from Thursday to Saturday at evening Holy Masses.
Ivanka Dvojmoc, from Slovenia also took part in this 1st International Pro-Life Seminar in Medjugorje. This is her second time to be here this year. „This what I learned in these days here in Medjugorje, what lecturers shared with us is of an extreme importance for me, so I would be able to understand the importance of life, the connection between mother and a child and all those things that are passed on from the mother to the child. Every life is holy and precious. My impression was that my life passed by me and I never understood this gift. I am grateful for all I got here and I will gladly return here in the future”, said Ivanka.
