[Prior to 29 June 1981, Dr Darinka Glamuzina was an atheist or at least an agnostic. She was sent by the then Communist Medical Committee of Citluk, in what is now Bosnia and Herzegovina, together with the clinic’s head on that day, the sixth day of the apparitions, to be present on what we now call Apparition Hill for the visionaries’ alleged encounter with the Blessed Virgin Mary with a view to exposing a fraud. She came away not only declining to certify the event as such but changing her life forever and becoming a practising Roman Catholic. Her full direct testimony can be found, among other places, at www.spiritofmedjugorje.org. The following is an excerpt of one of her talks, given 34 years later, which I have extracted and slightly edited from www.nationalmedjugorjemovement.com]:
I was one hundred percent agnostic and did not believe in the apparitions. I was a doctor of medicine and psychiatry at the nearby clinic in Citluk. We were informed within a week of the apparitions at Medjugorje and I was sent with the head of the clinic to be present during an apparition, to disparage and expose it as a fraud.
We first had (the visionaries) brought to our clinic. I was sure I could somehow break them up or force them to contradict each other — I kept trying to find a way to get in between them — to somehow expose something or cut off their unity in their story. But it was impossible to break them down or confuse them. And their maturity in their answers was coming from something far more intelligent than their own intellect at their age.
I was convinced I could somehow intercept a communication between the visionaries and interrupt a simulation that they were faking the apparitions. I was 99.9% convinced I could expose this as false.
The head of the clinic and myself went to attend the apparition. The interesting thing was normally when investigating an incident medically, the incident is in the past, and so we have to go by what data and evidence we can collect. This instance however was to be announced at 6:40 pm so it was very interesting for us to go there and be present.
Vicka was the most responsive and talkative of the visionaries, so I communicated the most with her. I asked her if I could present some questions to the so called Gospa (Croatian word describing Our Lady). The first thing that interested me was rather than immediately responding, Vicka said “Let me ask Our Lady, and I will get back to you.” This interested me as it indicated a further source of information. However, I was not in the slightest bit convinced.
She turned back to me and said, “Our lady says you may.”
The first question I had to present was “Who are you?”
I observed how I would ask Vicka the question, she would receive, nod her head and understand what I said, turn back to the sky and re-ask the question, then go quiet, concentrating as if she was receiving an answer, nod her head and turn back to me with an answer: “Gospa says ‘I am the Queen of Peace.’”
This answer confused me. In Medjugorje and its surroundings we had peace. (It was exactly ten years later that the war broke out so we understood why She chose this name). I posed another question: “How can we have peace when there are so many different religions?”
Vicka again took a process of turning her ear to me, receiving and nodding as I spoke, then turning back to Our Lady, speaking the question, and then silence as she seemed to receive information and nod her head, then turn back to me with an answer. This all impressed me but again, in no way convinced me and perhaps by now I was ninety percent sure I could still expose the apparitions as fraud.
Vicka said, “Gospa says there is but one faith and one God.”
“Okay,” I thought to myself. Then I wondered why would this place be chosen if there was a message to give the world, in the middle of nowhere rather than somewhere like Paris where if that place was chosen the message could be instantly made world famous due to its international position. I asked Vicka to ask why here in Medjugorje did Our lady choose to come. Vicka did the process of dialogue and returned to me with the answer: “Here, the people pray and the faith is strong.”
“Good,” I thought. I then asked Vicka to ask the apparition if I could touch her. I didn’t think the question through before Vicka went ahead and turned back and said, “Gospa said ‘Yes you may.’”
There was no turning back. I had asked it now and realising that it could happen I came to the point of no return and had to go ahead. I reminded myself I was here on behalf of the clinic.
I asked Vicka how can I if I can’t see Her and Vicka pointed out where to put my hand.
I reached out my hand to where Vicka showed me. To this day I cannot describe what I felt in that moment. I reached out my hand and could sense that whatever was there was leaving. I looked at the visionaries and saw their faces had changed from an ecstatic joy to sad and concerned.
I asked, “She’s gone hasn’t She?” Vicka said, “Yes, She’s gone.” I then said if Gospa said anything and Vicka told me that She said, “There will always be doubting Judases.”
I could not believe these words were attributed to me — so strong, that it confronted me. I realised that here I was trying to prove the visionaries as false as if I had the truth, when in fact they were the ones that had the truth and I was false. I was that false Judas who wanted to betray these visionaries and make them appear false.
For me I had the grace to understand that Our Lady left and that comment she made was defending the visionaries from those who are attacking them and calling them false.
I came back down from that hill a different person. I will never be able to describe what I felt on that day.
Everything I needed to know I received and I no longer sought the visionaries.
I can tell you when you hear bad things or rebukes said about the visionaries, they are good, good people. They have to live in the modern world, raise families, have daily apparitions while having the world look at them — it isn’t easy. But I can tell you to this day all of them are very good people.
After this experience I saw how Medjugorje has to keep passing through the doubts like I put it through at the very beginning, repeating itself but growing on a bigger scale. It has been doubted then accomplished faith in its parish, then its region, now it is reaching a world scale and again it is like the apparitions pulsate from moments of doubt then moments of faith as it grows bigger.
Now it is on a world scale and again we hear the world throwing its doubts as I once did. I can only tell you that when you see doubts coming to Medjugorje this is the sign that something great is about to happen and it is going to pulsate and grow bigger from great doubt to even strong belief. We are on the brink of something great that will happen.
I believe these events taking place at Medjugorje are the most important events in the history of mankind after the coming of Jesus.
No comments:
Post a Comment