The long walk the night before was very hard on my\u00a0bladder, but fortunately, I had\u00a0my medication with me. I took a pill during the night but I knew I would be unable to participate in the morning’s activities. A number of our pilgrims decided to meet at 5:30 AM to climb Apparition Hill, the site where the\u00a0Blessed Mother first appeared to the children in 1984, for sunrise prayer. That was something that JoAnn had done with Gregg and their fellow 2014 pilgrims, and JoAnn wanted\u00a0to participate again today.<\/p>\n
The group returned a few hours later, highly excited and energized. Many other people from other groups\u00a0decided to do the same thing that morning, so the spot was fairly\u00a0crowded. JoAnn reported that the sun was “pulsating” when she was there, and others said they saw it, too.<\/p>\n
JoAnn and the others left for the morning’s experiences. When I felt well enough, I left our room to sit outside in the sun. Soon Paul, who was in\u00a0JoAnn’s 2014 group, \u00a0joined me. He had felt the need for some “down time,” \u00a0so he remained at our lodging that morning, too. Paul told me about his 2014 experience with JoAnn and Gregg, starting by saying that when they got off the plane, Gregg looked so ill that he, Paul, had doubts that Gregg would survive the week. He experienced Gregg getting stronger as the hours and days progressed. Gregg joined him and the others to participate in all of the activities including \u00a0taking\u00a0long walks and climbing rocky hills, ever mindful that he\u00a0 needed to return to his mother so that she \u00a0could administer medications by injection at precise hours.<\/p>\n
Paul and his friends are\u00a0deeply religious men\u00a0with whom\u00a0JoAnn \u00a0and Gregg formed a close bond. I loved hearing this. JoAnn’s father was a devoutly religious man, but my father was not, so talking with a man about his faith was new to me.<\/p>\n
Paul and the others visited Gregg shortly before Gregg’s passing. Gregg told each of them how much their friendship and support meant to him and how much loved them. Paul asked Gregg to send him a sign that he was okay once he had reached heaven, and Gregg replied that if it were at all possible, he would.<\/p>\n
Paul showed me a photo of a shoot of a rose\u00a0bush next to his front door that had one rose in \u00a0full bloom. \u00a0He told me that there was an old rose bush a few feet from\u00a0the front of his house \u00a0that had been dead for several years. His wife had \u00a0asked him to remove it\u00a0but although\u00a0\u00a0years had \u00a0passed, \u00a0it was still a low priority item for him.\u00a0\u00a0On the morning\u00a0that that Paul\u00a0\u00a0received the phone call telling him that Gregg had passed away, he\u00a0stepped outside onto his front porch. \u00a0He looked down, struck by something that had not been there the day before. There, in November, \u00a0next to his front door and several feet away from the dead rose bush, was a small \u00a0shoot, with one red rose in full bloom.<\/p>\n
The whole group got together in the early afternoon, and I was feeling well enough to join them. At this time, Ivan told us the story of the first apparition. It happened in 1984, when he was 16, and Yugoslavia was under communist rule.\u00a0It was a typical morning. He and his siblings \u00a0arose early. The children had to work in the tobacco fields before school, but because Ivan \u00a0disliked that job, his mother put him in charge of the family’s sheep instead. After their chores were completed, the\u00a0children washed and went to school. After school, Ivan\u00a0was walking with a friend of his named Jakov, looking forward to playing soccer. Suddenly\u00a0the two boys heard a scream. They ran \u00a0until they \u00a0encountered two girls of about their age, Vicka and Maria, who said \u00a0that a fantastic lady had appeared before\u00a0them. Doubtful, the boys asked the girls to bring them to the lady. They did. They were struck with awe. The lady\u00a0was lovely, with dark hair, blue eyes, and bare feet, and was dressed in gray. They asked her who she was, and she replied, “I am the Queen of Peace.”<\/p>\n
The four\u00a0decided not to breathe a word of this to any one except their parents, but the girls told two of their best friends. Their parents told their neighbors. \u00a0By the next morning the news had reached the police, who were soon\u00a0at \u00a0their doors. The children were interrogated individually for days, but each one repeated the same story. The police interrogated the town priest, and in fact, sentenced him to prison for three years, even though he knew nothing about the apparition. He was released after eighteen\u00a0months.<\/p>\n
Jakov became a priest and Maria, a nun, but\u00a0they each left their orders because they found the constant interrogations too difficult to allow them to continue.\u00a0Ivan still has daily apparitions, and the others have them monthly or annually.<\/p>\n
I was feeling well enough to walk back to town with JoAnn and Mary for Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. I was amazed by the starting number of people from different walks of life who were there to pray.<\/p>\n
Back at our lodging,\u00a0\u00a0dinner consisted of soup, salad, fish, Swiss chard, and potatoes, with ice cream for dessert.<\/p>\n
That day I walked\u00a07522 steps for 3 miles, and went up 9 staircases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The long walk the night before was very hard on my\u00a0bladder, but fortunately, I had\u00a0my medication with me. I took a pill during the night but I knew I would be unable to participate in the morning’s activities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-medjugorje-2016"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=730"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":738,"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730\/revisions\/738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}