September 21, 2012 / MariaNews.com 

Visions of Our Lady: Mary Asks for Prayers for World Leaders

By Jakob Marschner

MedjugorjeToday.tv - Reinforcing the call to pray for world peace from September 16 in Turin, on September 19 the Virgin Mary asked for prayers for the leaders of the world. Visionary Ivan Dragicevic received the renewed call before 2,000 people in Villa D’Adige, Italy, where many came from earthquake areas.

Leaders of the world need the prayers of ordinary people to use their power in the service of peace, the Virgin Mary told Medjugorje seer Ivan Dragcievic on September 19 when more than 2,000 watched Ivan’s apparition in Villa D’Adige, Italy.

“Dear children, today in a special way I want to call you to pray for all the rulers, that they may promote peace and work for the good of man with the power that God has given them. I wish, dear children, that they, too, may be an instrument in my hands. Dear children, pray especially for life. Thank you, dear children, because also today you have responded to my call” the Virgin Mary said.

The appeal came three days after the Virgin Mary had called to prayer for peace, in an unusually strong message given to Ivan on September 16 in Turin. The message was all about prayer for peace, a call that was repeated five times.

Read More: http://www.medjugorjetoday.tv/7148/mary-asks-fprayers-for-world-leaders/

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September 6, 2012 / MariaNews.com 

Medjugorje spared as fires leave devastation behind

By Jakob Marschner -

Throughout September 2, firefighters assisted by the army struggled without ceasing to gain control of the multitude of fires around Medjugorje.

The major operation had the positive effect that all human beings and houses were spared. Other buildings burned, though, along with large areas covered by forests and vineyards. The damage is very big, local news portal citluk.ba reports.

To help the firefighters and rescue local people, assistance was requested from the army and from neighboring districts less affected by the fires. A helicopter took part in extinguishing until dusk when poor visibility caused this part of the operation to cease.

Read More: http://www.medjugorjetoday.tv/6941/dying-fires-leave-big-devastation-behind/

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August 3, 2012 / MariaNews.com 

80,000 Expected for Youth Festival 

(By Jakob Marschner with MedjugorjeToday.tv) – Young people from 60 countries opened the 23rd annual Youth Festival in Medjugorje on Wednesday, organisers awaiting 80,000 people. With all rooms in Medjugorje booked, late comers seek out nearby towns. The entire festival is transmitted online as audio and video in many languages.

For six days Medjugorje will be the youngest city in the world. In recent days, youth from all over the world have been pouring into town for August 1′s beginning of the 23rd annual Youth Festival.

Second in size only to the anniversary in June, the young people’s six days of sharing until August 6 constitute some of the busiest days of the year in Medjugorje. The opening Mass on August 1 was concelebrated by 422 priests, the parish website informs.

“The organisers in the sanctuary of the Queen of Peace expect more than 80,000 young people” the news portal Dalje reports.
Jabuka TV gives the same expected number while Brotnjo Info estimates between 60,000 and 70,000 attended the opening ceremony.

Read More: http://www.medjugorjetoday.tv/6528/80000-expected-for-youth-festival/

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July 19, 2012 / MariaNews.com

Blind woman saw after miracle of the sun

By Jakob Marschner

(MedjugorjeToday.tv) - Raffaella Mazzocchi was blind in one eye when her family persuaded her to go to Medjugorje. When she saw a sun miracle, she first turned blind on both eyes for five minutes. But she could see when she opened up her sick eye, and when she opened both, her inexplicable healing was complete.

Blinded on one eye without notice, then healed from one moment to the next. There is nothing gradual to the story of Raffaella Mazzocchi’s eye sight.

“While I kept my head down and my eyes closed, suddenly I felt the urge to open my right eye, the sick one, and I realized that I could see my hands. I opened the other eye and I could see very well with that, too.”

At age 16, on December 22nd 2001, the Italian girl completely lost sight on her right eye while she was at school. Doctors found her condition was due to retrobulbar optic neuritis, a virus that irreversibly destroys the optic nerve.

Read More: http://www.medjugorjetoday.tv/6354/blind-woman-saw-after-sun-miracle/

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December 23, 2011 | MedjugorjeToday.tv

(By Jakob Marschner) – For eight months, 2 years old Joshua battled a last stage cancer with a transplantation, 80 chemotherapy cures, and 17 radiotherapy sessions. When nothing worked, his parents took their son to Medjugorje. Back home, tests showed 19 tumors and all bone metastases to be gone as the beginning of Joshua’s now complete recovery.

Before he turned three years old, Joshua de Nicolo had experienced more hardships, drama, and obvious grace than many people do in an entire life.

The boy from Putignano in southern Italy was born with an un-discovered neuroblastoma, the most common form of infancy cancer, in February 2007. It took 22 months for Joshua’s true condition to be found in January 2009 when the illness had progressed to its last stage, 4D, where long-term survival rates are poor despite aggressive multimodal therapy.

Doctors gave Joshua only days or weeks to live when his parents took him to Medjugorje in June 2009. Just before departure, the boy’s white blood cell numbers dramatically improved, and Joshua immediately felt well in Medjugorje, his parents testify. Joshua felt even better after Mirjana Dragicevic-Soldo’s apparition on July 2nd 2009 when he was placed beside the visionary. After that, he seemed relieved from pain.

Upon the family’s return to Italy, clinical tests showed that Joshua’s bone metastases as well as 19 tumors spread throughout the body had disappeared. The only remaining tumor had been reduced in size from 7,5  to 3 centimeters, enabling doctors remove it altogether. Since this operation took place, in November 2009, Joshua has been completely healed.

Joshua’s parents, Elizabeth and Manuel de Nicolo, are witnesses of their son’s illness and healing.

Journey into unknown land

Prior to June 2009, Elizabeth and Manuel de Nicolo had never heard about the Virgin Mary’s apparitions in Medjugorje.

“We did not even know of the existence of a village called Medjugorje. But Our Lady called us there and we immediately received another sign. Among the magazines scattered in hospital waiting room, there was a special edition of the magazine Oggi, about the Virgin appearing to six local people since 1981, and miracles of healing. After reading this article, we decided to leave immediately” Joshua’s father testifies.

But Joshua was weak, and obstacle seemed to come on top of obstacle:

“The doctors advised us against this trip because Joshua had very low white blood cell numbers, about 5,000, but we were very determined. And on the day we left, our son’s blood cell number went up to 160,000″ said Manuel de Nicolo.

In front of the Madonna

From early on, Joshua felt well in Medjugorje. His parents noted a difference almost from the moment he first set foot in the village:

“Once in Medjugorje, we only just got off the bus when Joshua seemed to be mysteriously, but strongly attracted to this holy place. As a result of the tumors, the child could hardly walk anymore. But he seemed to get better” Manuel de Nicolo has testified.

Read More: http://www.medjugorjetoday.tv/4034/medjugorje-visit-cured-boy-from-cancer/

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December 15, 2011 | MedjugorjeToday.tv

(By Jakob Marschner) – The Medjugorje boom in Italy brings much needed life to Mostar Airport where a new route to Pescara contributed to a successful 2011. More Italian destinations are announced for 2012 but the need of major investments to meet international demands is lurking on the horizon. In Medjugorje, a new local road is expected to relieve the town from traffic.

They come in bundles, in buses, by ferries and cars, and now they even bring an airport back to life. Medjugorje is booming among the Italians and the rush across the Adriatic Sea has effects that go beyond Medjugorje.

2011 will see Mostar International Airport more than double the passenger numbers of 2010 when 17,833 people took off or landed in the airport 30 kilometers (20 miles) from Medjugorje. By the end of November 2011 this number had been raised to 35,329 according to statistics from Bosnia and Hercegovina’s Directorate of Civil Aviation.

The year started out slowly with no passengers in February and 696 in March. In April, the airport was enhanced with new equipment that played prominently in that month’s rise to 2,193 passengers, followed by 4,029 in May.

Another turning point came on July 23 when Mostar mayor Ljubo Beslic signed a contract of nine flights from Pescara, Italy, the first one scheduled to arrive on September 17.

“I think that the realization of this project is of great importance for Mostar, but also for the whole region of Hercegovina. We have the possibility of international connectivity, since Pescara is well connected with other parts of Europe, especially when it comes to low-budget carriers, thus offering opportunities for cheaper travel” the Bosnian newspaper Dnevnik quoted mayor Beslic to say after signing.

New road to spare Medjugorje from traffic:

Once completed, the new road “will significantly unburden traffic in Medjugorje” director Marina Barbaric told local news portal Brotnjo Online on October 25. Mrs. Barbaric is heading the company overseeing the work, JP Broting of Citluk.

Read More: http://www.medjugorjetoday.tv/3904/italian-pilgrims-revive-the-airport-in-mostar/

December 9, 2011 | Medjugorje Today TV

(Jakob Marschner) - The Virgin Mary comes to Illinois, Michigan and Pennsylvania when Medjugorje visionary Ivan Dragicevic visits this coming January and February. public apparitions in these states.   Ivan will hold public apparitions during his visits.  Two appearances in Ivan’s US home state Massachussetts are likewise confirmed, and still more arrangements are expected to follow.

Three times in Illinois. Two times in Massachussetts. And one time each in Michigan and Pennsylvania. Early next year, opportunities are many for Americans who would like to be present during an apparition to Medjugorje visionary Ivan Dragicevic.

Ivan visits Sycamore, Chicago, and Glenview, IL, on January 28-30, and Ann Arbor, MI, on February 1. Next in line for the moment are confirmed appearances in Hopkinton and Winchester, MA, on February 9-10. Ivan comes to Pittsburgh, PA, on February 26.

Ivan’s public arrangement coordinator Ana Shawl further informs that more arrangements are expected, but that all of the above have been confirmed. Hours, addresses and contact information can be found in the Calendar.

December 5, 2011 | MariaNews.com

(Mejugorje) – MedjugorjeToday.tv is reporting that there was “hope and joy” during visionary Mirjana’s apparition on December 2. “Mirjana looked less worried than during most apparitions this year” said the report posted by Jakob Marschner. “The message given to Mirjana points to great hope once barriers of sin are overcome.

Here is Our Lady of Mejugorje’s message given to Mirjana on December 2 in Medjugorje:

“Dear children, as a mother I am with you so that with my love, prayer and example I may help you to become a seed of the future, a seed that will grow into a firm tree and spread it’s branches throughout the world. For you to become a seed of the future, a seed of love, implore the Father to forgive you your omissions up to now. My children, only a pure heart, unburdened by sin, can open itself and only honest eyes can see the way by which I desire to lead you. When you become aware of this, you will become aware of the love of God – it will be given (as a gift) to you. Then you will give it (as a gift) to others, as a seed of love. Thank you.”

Here is the video from the December 2nd Apparition:

Related Story: Visionary Mirjana has testified at the Vatican on the Apparitions in Medjugorje.

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November 28, 2011 | MedjugorjeTodayTV

(By Jakob Marschner) - A documentary from 1957 shows the people of Medjugorje struggling to cultivate a land full of rocks. What kept them going was faith but since the film was captured during the reign of communism, neither Cross Mountain nor the old parish church are being shown. Poetic speaks and artful black & white photography add to a document of great historical value.

How did Medjugorje look 24 years before the apparitions began? How was life in what was then a remote, unknown village? And what did the parishioners live from before pilgrims started coming from throughout the world?

Many answers and clues are being given in writer/director Ivan Fogl’s documentary “Rocks and Earth”. Filmed in 1957, Fogl depicts a very hard-working people locked in constant struggle with their very living conditions, most notably with the massive, red-brown rocks hidden everywhere below the soil.

What the film does not show is how the parishioners treasured their faith and drew nourishment from it by a time when Yugoslavia was still under communist reign. Attending Mass was allowed but all religious gatherings were restricted to the churches and religion got all but promoted in the schools. And so Fogl’s movie shows neither Medjugorje’s old parish church, nor the massive white Cross erected by parishioners on top of Cross Mountain as early as 1933.

By a time when all of Hercegovina was repressed by the state authorities, Ivan Fogl’s script has lots of sympathy for the local people. Since it also has poetic qualities, the script has been arranged as a poem:

“Hercegovina, the land of stone.
The seeds break through it to produce scarce and hardworking life.
The wind bears life to stubborn plants.
Only a few oases of land like some kind of eyes gazing at life.
Traces of labourous human hands in the stone.
Wherever he could, man stole a piece of land from the stone.
He created fields on the steep hills, in the stream paths, under the stone walls.
He plucked the stone from the land and made borders for the stone to keep away from the land.
But the land bears stone, too, under the scorching sun and its shadows.
The rock and the sun decide what the lives of the men living there will be like.

Water is a treasure safeguarded in the stone.
The village and the houses are all made of stone, all the stalls, all the fences, all stone.
Working on the scarce land slowly stops as the sun goes down.
Yet, the hardworking hands still find no rest.
Already by the break of dawn, the village is awake and people go to work on the land.
The hands are crafty and swift, broken with the wind as the rock itself.
The man and the tobacco, resilient and strong. Both used to the hard rock and sun.
Tobacco means life to the Herzegovians, the rock and the sun is tobacco’s life.

It is strange: the land is quite the opposite of the stone, soft and loose.
Maybe you don’t have a lot of it but it returns in abundance all that was invested in it.
You have ants everywhere as a live and omnipresent symbol of persistence and work.
The men of this stone land are like ants.
Work with the tobacco goes on, day by day.
All the hands work, swiftly and restlessly, even if they are tired
or the fingers cramp with pain.
Tobacco is being sorted and prepared for the drying.
Stone around tobacco again, to protect the leaves from the strong winds.
Tobacco turns yellow under the sun, gets its colour and aroma.
When the tobacco dries up under the sun, the men take it up on the stone walls.
The sun is at its peak, the tobacco ripens.
People pluck its flowers to keep the strength in the roots.
While the sun is out, the working day is not through.
With a pick and a shovel, the men break the land and leave it to the sun to dry the plants in it.
Then the land turns even more loose and soft, easier to work on.

Stone everywhere, deep inside the land.
The battle between the stone and the men is ruthless for there are more stones than humans and they defy humans daily.
Year after year, the stone somehow appears in an already worked upon land as if it was alive.
If a man stops fighting to pull it out, the patch of land is soon overwhelmed with stones, and useless again.
The patches of land that were left look like graveyards, man’s hard work is buried there.
Where human hands stop, dry land appears.
Yet, the men till the land with their sweat thus making it fertile.”

Translations by Iva Jelic

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November 25, 2011 | Medjugorje Today TV

(By Jakob Marschner)  - The parallels to Medjugorje were obvious and many when visionary Ivan Dragicevic’s apparition on November 21 took place on a mountain with a Cross on top of it. But Ivan was in Palestrina, Italy, whose local parish priest likened the experience to the Transfiguration of Jesus on Mount Tabor. Two messages to Ivan both call to Christmas preparations.

Despite a bitter cold, on November 21 even people in wheelchairs made it all the 1,400 meters ( 1 mile) to the top of Mount Scalambra above the town of Palestrina, 35 kilometers east of Rome, Italy. They were following in the footsteps of Medjugorje visionary Ivan Dragicvevic, and in climbing the mountain with five shrines on its slopes and a Cross on its top, they also revisited some early Medjugorje history.

Particularly in the 1980s, the first decade of the apparitions, Ivan’s prayer group consisting of his friends and oftentimes joined by fellow visionaries Vicka Ivankovic and Marija Pavlovic quite often climbed Medjugorje’s Cross Mountain together. Many appartions took place there and members of Ivan’s prayer group are still telling stories of wonders, big and small.

Some of that same atmosphere was present when Ivan brought about 2,000 people along for his mountaineering in the Ernici Range in the afternoon of November 21:

“In front of an audience in religious silence, the visionary’s face transfigured in a state of contemplation and just after the recitation of the second part of The Holy Rosary, his eyes were illuminated while an immense smile appeared on his lips as Our Lady spoke to him” the news website Ecco la Notizia reports.

Upon witnessing Ivan’s apparition, the local parish priest likewise drew attention to how Ivan’s face was transfigured. In his experience, he saw a New Testament narration being repeated:

“When Jesus found Himself (on Mount Tabor) with his disciples Peter, James and John, they saw the face of Jesus’ transfigured. We can say that today we saw something similar, in the face of the visionary Ivan we have seen the joy of his intimate experience of the vision of the Heavenly Mother who was appearing at that time”, Fr Primo told Ecco la Notizia. (1)

“Certainly, we have all experienced some of that joy that we saw on his face. The Madonna has certainly distributed special to our hearts,. Now with this grace, with the strength of the Holy Spirit which has increased in us after this wonderful experience of prayer and faith, the Lord asks us to go back down and give this testimony of faith, and announce it in our daily lives” the parish priest added.

Whether consciously or not, Fr. Primo paragraphed the message given by the Virgin Mary on June 24th 1986 when at least 30,000 people had gathered on Cross Mountain in Medjugorje, to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the apparitions:

“You are on a Tabor. You receive blessings, strength, and love. Carry them into your families and into your homes. To each one of you, I grant a special blessing. Continue in joy, prayer, and reconciliation” the Virgin Mary said back then.

According to Ivan’s description of the apparition on November 21, the Virgin Mary came “very, very joyful and happy”. She prayed for the Pope and for all the people present before she gave a message that drew the attention to Advent:

“Dear children, again I call you today at the time of grace that is coming. Pray in your families, renew family prayer, and pray for your parish, for your priests, pray for vocations in the Church. Thank you, dear children, because you responded to my call this evening.”

24 hours earlier, on November 20, the message given to Ivan during his apparition in Casale Monferrato further north in Italy had also focused on Advent:

“Dear children, today I rejoice with you. My heart rejoices and is fully filled. Also today, at this time of Advent, I call you to decorate your home, but especially your heart. Let the light of my little Son enter your heart. Dear children, pray, pray, pray! Thank you, dear children, for having responded to my call today” the Virgin Mary said on November 20, according to Ivan.

In the morning of December 8, the Italian TG1 will broadcast a commented resume of the events on Mount Scalambra. TG1 or TeleGiornale 1 airs domestically on Rai Uno, across Europe on Rai News 24, and on Raitalia for overseas viewers.

(1) The Transfiguration of Jesus is a part of all three Synoptic Gospels as narrations of how Jesus is transfigured and becomes radiant on top of Mount Tabor. Matthew 17: 1-9, Mark 9: 2-8, and Luke 9: 28-36 describe the event, and 2 Peter 1: 16-18 refers to it. The only Gospel miracle to take place to Jesus Himself, the pivotal Doctor of the Church St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-74) considered the Transfiguration “the greatest miracle” in that it complemented baptism and showed the perfection of life in Heaven.

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