The Eve of the 40th Anniversary of Our Lady’s apparitions: Peace Walk from Humac, Votive pilgrimage, Rosary and Holy Mass

date: 25.06.2021.

Thousands of pilgrims from all over the world, as well as many parishioners and pilgrims from surrounding parishes arrived to Medjugorje after the Peace Walk that started at 6 am from Humac, outside the shrine of St. Anthony. All pilgrims who carried flags of their countries: Brazil, Ukraine, Croatia, Korea, France, Romania, Austria, Spain were blessed by the guardian of the monastery Fr. Dario Dodig, while Fr. Marinko Sakota, parish priest of Medjugorje led the Walk, and Fr. Zvonimir Pavičić was there when they arrived in front of the church, and he led the Benediction with the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar.

This walk has been held since 1992 and one man from Ljubuski, who wanted to remain anonymous, said that he took part in every walk, but this one is far the most numerous of all the previous ones.

“This Walk is the one with the largest number of participants”, many faithful who walked many times told us.

In the afternoon, the second Votive Pilgrimage from Citluk church to Medjugorje church took place, at the end parish priest of Citluk, Fr. Miro Sego, blessed them all and thanked them for having participated in this.  

“We thank Fr. Miro for having organised this. We are so happy that we were able to take part in this event, it was so beautiful and for 8 Sundays we walked from our church to Apparition Hill, with many pilgrims from surrounding parishes joining us. This was preparation for this final Votive pilgrimage”, said overjoyed pilgrims at the end. This event was introduction to the evening prayer programme.  

Just like each of this nine days, Rosary was led by Medjugorje parishioners and Fr. Miro Sego was the main celebrant, along with 260 priests concelebrating. He said in his homily that we gathered “tonight in this celebration, a place and shrine of Our Lady, for we wish to thank God and the Queen of Peace for these 40 years of graces that have been poured out on this place and all those who have visited this place in these years”.

Fr. Miro in his homily used the metaphor of photo album and pointed out the most important pictures of Medjugorje in the last 40 years. Those pictures are the visionaries, hamlet of Bijakovici, parish of Medjugorje, the church and the area around it, pilgrims and the Queen of Peace. At the end, he emphasised that we all “remained faithful by accepting your messages, our Mother”.

''As a people, in these 40 years, we must have felt fatigue. Unfortunately, today we speak so little about you.

The fervour of the family prayer that used to be so strong, the sound of the prayer outside our homes, as if that had disappeared, today we pray so little, the Bible and fasting are hardly mentioned. Mother, forgive us for the moments when our ears were shut, and our hearts were closed.  

Yet, you did not give up on us, but each month you continued to invite us repeatedly: Thank you for having responded to my call.

Our Mother, I surrender to you tonight and I consecrate and place under your motherly mantle all these people gathered here in Medjugorje, as well as all those who have found peace and joy of their hearts in Medjugorje, all those who discovered a new life here, but in these new circumstances are not able to be here again.

All those pictures from the album, as well as many others that we imprinted deeply in our hearts in these 40 years, all those are a reason for us to praise God and exclaim from our hearts: Thank you, our Mother, for these 40 years of graces”, said Fr. Miro Sego at the end. (PHOTO)