date: 20.09.2025.
The book “The Queen of Peace”: Note About the Spiritual Experience Connected with Medjugorje (Text of the Note and Interventions at the Press Conference on September 19, 2024 on the occasion of the declaration of nihil obstat for Medjugorje), will be presented on Sunday, September 21, at 8 p.m., in the John Paul II Hall.
The presentation program will be translated into the following languages: ITALIAN FM 99.7 and ENGLISH FM 94.3. We kindly ask all pilgrims to bring their own devices to listen to the translation of the program.
The editor, Sr. Valerija Kovač, the parish priest of Medjugorje, Fr. Zvonimir Pavičić, and Apostolic Visitor with a special role for the parish of Medjugorje, Archbishop Aldo Cavalli—who also wrote the foreword for this book— will speak about this book. The text of the foreword is reproduced in its entirety:
Medjugorje, the place God chose to give His Grace.
Ivan, Ivanka, Jakov, Marija, Mirjana, Vicka: these are the names of the young people the Lord willed to choose to begin this—His project.
Podbrdo is the name of the place, a stony hill, chosen by God to bring about this encounter.
Thus God brings to fulfillment in our history His mysterious designs to do us good, to remake our lives.
It all began when, on June 25, 1981, the six young people, who were walking on Podbrdo, said, “We have seen Our Lady”.
The people understood that something important had happened, and began to come to Medjugorje with the desire to let themselves be taken by Grace and to experience the presence of the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, as did the Virgin Mary, and accompanied by Our Lady.
In this intervention of God, in the experience of the six young people with Mary, there comes a profound message: “Peace, peace, peace, …peace must reign between man and God.”
Here is a very important message in Medjugorje: if you want to live in peace, you must understand that there is an essential point of reference in your life, God.
God, who in the commandments tells you that life, life in itself has such value that it is a fundamental reality of our existence, which no one can ever call into question.
God, who in the commandments tells you that the Family, formed by a man and a woman in indissoluble communion and open to life in children, is a fact that no one can ever call into question.
God, who in the commandments tells you that you must respect everyone, and that everyone must respect you.
In Medjugorje we understand how God desires peace in each one of us, in our families, in our communities, in the Church, in our countries, in the whole world.
“Peace, peace, peace, …peace must reign between man and God”. Mary is the “Queen of Peace”.
Thus is born the evening encounter with God in the parish of Medjugorje. We begin with the recitation of the Rosary, to invite the Virgin Mary to accompany us in this encounter.
The central point of our prayer is the encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ. In the Celebration of the Eucharist, the bread and wine, transformed by the action of the Holy Spirit, become the sign of the true, real, substantial presence of the Lord Jesus in our midst.
We then continue this encounter with Eucharistic Adoration, where, through the work of the Holy Spirit, we experience the Lord Jesus looks at us and speaks to us, and we can contemplate Him and speak to Him. Thus takes place the encounter with the Lord, which forms us to be and to act as true Christians.
The Veneration of the Cross and the prayer for those who are ill in soul or body are part of this encounter.
In this Eucharistic and Marian spirituality, Podbrdo and Križevac are part of the memory of the beginnings of this spirituality: the pilgrims walk up the Apparition Hill to encounter Our Lady and climb the Cross Mountain to reach the Cross on which Jesus has redeemed us.
The consequence of a day lived so profoundly is the decision to want to live and deepen the Faith, converting one's life, praying and fasting, and living with peace in the heart, which we bring into the family and to our neighbor.
In this way, the gesture of receiving forgiveness through the Sacrament of Reconciliation comes spontaneously.
How many positive fruits have occurred and continue to occur in this place of grace, how many messages in accordance with the Faith and the Gospel have spread: all this has resulted in the recognition, approved by Pope Francis, that nihil obstat to appreciating the spiritual value of this place of grace and to promoting the spread of this spiritual proposal throughout the whole world.
The texts presented in this volume offer us the possibility to deepen in an authentic way the history of this spirituality and help us to understand the path that God has willed to accomplish in this place of prayer, in the encounter with the Lord Jesus and in being accompanied by the Virgin Mary, the “Queen of Peace.”
✠ Aldo Cavalli
Apostolic Visitor
with a Special Role
for the Parish of Medjugorje
