I haven’t explained about pronunciation. Medjugorje is pronounced Med-ju-gor-ya. Ivan’s name is pronounced the same as\u00a0the woman’s name Yvonne, and Vicka’s name is pronounced Vitzka. Vicka was one of the original visionaries\u00a0along with Ivan. She still lives in the area, and she gives audiences every day.<\/p>\n
Vicka’s\u00a0small house is at the far part\u00a0of\u00a0 a large fenced area. We had arrived early\u00a0so we could stand \u00a0close to the porch of her house, on which she would \u00a0eventually stand.\u00a0\u00a0While we waited for her, our small group began to pray the rosary. By the time we were finished, many hundreds of people had joined us, and still more were pouring in. One of our pilgrims recognized two of the people in the crowd. She passed the word that they were pickpockets she had seen in the process of trying to get their hands inside someone’s purse in \u00a0the church the day before.<\/p>\n
At this point, the crowd was huge, and I wasn’t comfortable physically or emotionally. \u00a0Physically, \u00a0I was being jostled\u00a0and crushed. One woman pushed her way through the crowd by clobbering\u00a0people with her\u00a0handbag, and she hit\u00a0my face with it! Emotionally, \u00a0I thought of my 2x great grandmother, Carola Sartini, who, in 1877, \u00a0somehow lost her balance and fell while she was in \u00a0a crowd during a religious celebration, and was trampled to death. I clutched\u00a0JoAnn and my handbag tightly!<\/p>\n
At long last, Vicka stepped onto the porch. She is a very small woman, about\u00a0five feet tall and weighing about 90 pounds. However, she seemed like a giant! From the moment she joined us, her entire being radiated complete joy. I have never \u00a0been\u00a0in the presence of anyone like this before! Her translator told us\u00a0the Blessed Mother’s message:\u00a0\u00a0say the rosary daily, \u00a0fast, and \u00a0pray for peace. We were told that peace starts \u00a0within each of us, and we need to extend peace, love, and hope\u00a0to each member of our family, so that they\u00a0can do the same.<\/p>\n
We had been standing for three hours! While we had been waiting for Vicka, Ivanka\u00a0had made arrangements for Vicka\u00a0to pray individually with two members of our group who were suffering from life threatening\u00a0illnesses. \u00a0Vicka’s hands \u00a0were upon\u00a0them as she prayed. Before we left, we were among the fortunate few who touched her hands.<\/p>\n
Rather than going to town for mass, we went back to the chapel on Ivan’s property, where Father Bob would say mass. At the chapel, Father Bob\u00a0wore\u00a0vestments that were made in\u00a0Medjugorje and were embroidered with the image of the Blessed Mother as described by Ivan. Throughout the mass, I felt Father Bob’s\u00a0kindness and sensitivity. At the conclusion of\u00a0the mass, he invited those of us suffering from illnesses to receive\u00a0\u00a0a special anointing. Almost all of us got on line. Afterwards we all connected by holding hands. I found it to be a most moving experience.<\/p>\n
At 2 PM, we had an \u00a0appointment to visit a \u00a0residential community of recovering \u00a0drug and\/or alcohol addicts. The community’s name,\u00a0Cenacolo, is\u00a0\u00a0a Biblical reference that means\u00a0“The Upstairs Room.”\u00a0 As part of their responsibilities, the\u00a0residents are\u00a0asked\u00a0to take\u00a0turns \u00a0meeting with visitors to tell them about their lives before and at Cenacolo.\u00a0Our two hosts were Vitaly, a young\u00a0man from Ukraine, and Dan, a young man from Miami. Both\u00a0had been addicts, and had tried various recovery programs. Neither thought they would stay more than the minimal\u00a0amount of time in Medjugorje. No one forced them to stay, yet here they were many months \u00a0later. They live a disciplined life of work and prayer.\u00a0\u00a0They arise early \u00a0for group prayer\u00a0on their knees, \u00a0followed by breakfast. Then each member of the community has responsibilities that include cleaning, \u00a0washing laundry by hand in the river and hanging it up to dry, ironing, cooking, baking bread, gardening and\u00a0growing their own\u00a0crops, masonry and woodworking. Vitaly and Dan explained about the emptiness they felt before Cenacolo.<\/p>\n
There are now more than thirty Cenacolo\u00a0communities\u00a0around the world including one in the USA. By the way, all residents spend their first two weeks at Cenacolo giving up drugs ad\/or alcohol \u00a0“cold turkey.” After that they are\u00a0full members of the community with their share of required tasks.<\/p>\n
We returned to our home base for dinner, where we enjoyed \u00a0broccoli soup, salad, chard and potato crepes, mixed veggies, eggplant, and cake for dessert. After dinner we gathered \u00a0back in the chapel to say the rosary. Then we decided to walk to town for Veneration of the Cross, and we returned by cab \u00a0in the moonlight.<\/p>\n
10,730 steps; 4.25 miles<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I haven’t explained about pronunciation. Medjugorje is pronounced Med-ju-gor-ya. Ivan’s name is pronounced the same as\u00a0the woman’s name Yvonne, and Vicka’s name is pronounced Vitzka. Vicka was one of the original visionaries\u00a0along with Ivan. She still lives in the area, and she gives audiences every day.<\/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-748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-medjugorje-2016"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=748"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":757,"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748\/revisions\/757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}