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Medjugorje
PATH 6 — PILGRIM ADVENTURES
A piece of heaven on earth — no words to really describe, but a true grace
After everything that had happened through her pilgrimage — the impossible texts, the Rosary with birthstone beads, my grandmother’s visit in a dream — years later she made it possible for me to go myself. That is the kind of friend she is. That is the kind of grace this pilgrimage was before it even began.
I should tell you: it was originally supposed to be a trip to Germany for the Passion Play. A dear gift that the pandemic quietly redirected. And as I would come to understand about how God works — the redirection was the point. Medjugorje was always where I was meant to go first.
In September, under the warm skies of Bosnia, I arrived for the first time on foreign soil — open-hearted, curious, a little overwhelmed, and already sensing that something was about to happen in me that I could not yet name.
This was not a vacation. Please remember that as you read. I captured many photographs — but this place felt like heaven on earth, brimming with a peace I had not felt anywhere else.
THE JOURNEY THERE
First Time Outside the USA
The first thing that strikes you when you leave your country for the first time is how much the world is simply going on without you. Airport signs in languages you cannot read. Roads that curve differently. The bus from Dubrovnik to Medjugorje wound through mountains and coastline and countryside — Mediterranean water glinting through the trees, terraced hills, a landscape completely unlike anything I had grown up knowing.
I was observing everything. Peaceful. Serene. Something in me was wide open in a way that daily routine keeps closed. That openness was the beginning of the pilgrimage — not the arrival at the shrine, but the willingness to be a stranger in a new place and find it beautiful rather than frightening.
We were a group of about thirty pilgrims, guided by a knowledgeable local whose deep understanding of the area added richness to every step. The weather was warm, mostly pleasant, the perfect backdrop for everything that was about to unfold.
The perspective from above puts into perspective how small we are — and how watched over.
Medjugorje
FIRST STOP
St. James Church
One of our first visits was to St. James Church, the heart of the parish and a beacon for pilgrims from around the world. Its simplicity struck me immediately. No ornamentation competing for attention. Just the sacred, held quietly in stone and light.
We attended Mass in English. What moved me most was the sound — prayers rising in different languages all at once, converging into something unified. Italian beside English beside Croatian beside something I could not identify. The universal nature of faith made audible. It reminded me that what we hold in common goes far deeper than the words we use to say it.
THE CLIMB
Apparition Hill — With Linda
Apparition Hill is where the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to six local children in 1981. The climb was challenging — hot, grueling, the path lined with the Mysteries of the Rosary, each one an invitation to slow down and pray rather than simply ascend.
Linda climbed it with me. She had been here before — she had seen the swirling sun on her own trip, an experience she carries quietly and does not easily describe. This was her first time back. For both of us it was a shared moment of something larger than the two of us, something that had been building through years of friendship and prayer and small graces we only understood in retrospect.
There is a photograph of her sitting on a rock on that hill — the heat visible in her posture, the rest she had earned. That image stays with me. It captures something about pilgrimage that is impossible to manufacture: the willingness to keep going when everything in your body says stop, and the grace of being able to rest when you finally do.
Reaching the top, we found ourselves in a place of profound tranquility. The views were breathtaking. The feeling of standing somewhere touched by the divine was overwhelming in the quietest possible way.
SACRED PLACES
Cenacolo and the Chapel of Life
We visited the Community of Cenacolo — a place of healing for individuals struggling with addiction. Hearing their testimonies was both heart-wrenching and inspiring. Their stories of redemption and the power of faith left a deep impact on me, reminding me of the resilience of the human spirit and the boundless grace of God. These were not polished testimonies. They were raw and real, and they belonged beside everything else this pilgrimage was doing in me.
The Chapel of Life was different — serene, enveloping, a sanctuary in the truest sense. The simplicity of that chapel allowed me to lay down what I had been carrying and simply be present. It became a place where I could find solace without needing to explain myself. My time there remains one of the most cherished moments of the entire trip.
Reaching the top, we found ourselves in a place of profound tranquility. The views were breathtaking. The feeling of standing somewhere touched by the divine was overwhelming in the quietest possible way.
The Mountain
Cross Mountain Calls
Cross Mountain — Mt. Krizevac — was its own chapter. A 5:30am gathering in the dark. Flashlights. Boulders. My own interior voice telling me this was ridiculous. And then something shifted at the Third Station of the Cross, and everything changed.
That mountain deserves its own telling. The God moment that happened on the descent — alone, exhausted, crying out to Jesus — is the most important thing that happened to me in Medjugorje, and possibly on any pilgrimage I have taken.
Continue Reading
The God Moment on Cross Mountain
Read the full story of the climb — the struggle, the turning point at Station Three, the smell of fire in the woods, and what Station One means when you arrive there alone and exhausted.
Read the God Moment →WHEN GOD SAYS NOT TODAY
The Last Day and the Journey Home
There was one more trip planned that I was not able to attend. The day before I was to leave and go home, I came down with COVID.
I did not understand it at the time. I had been so present, so careful, and this was the last day — the one thing I had been looking forward to. And instead I was in bed, unable to go.
But here is what I came to understand: God allowed that sickness. The timing was mercy, not punishment. One day before leaving — not three days in, not the week of Apparition Hill or Cross Mountain. Everything I was meant to receive, I had already received. The sickness came when the pilgrimage was complete, even if I did not know it was complete yet.
The journey home was its own small suffering. I dragged my suitcase on wheels through airports with the exhaustion of someone who had just climbed a mountain — which, in every sense that mattered, I had. That suitcase felt like pushing one of those boulders. I understood Cross Mountain differently by the time I landed home.
Resignation to Trials. That was the station I came out at on Cross Mountain — Station One. And here it was again, in the airports, in the fatigue, in the quiet trust that God had managed all of this from the beginning and would manage the end of it too.
Continue the Journey
Where This Pilgrimage Leads
Medjugorje was not the end. It was an opening. What it awakened continued long after I came home — in prayer, in the site you are reading right now, and in every pilgrimage that followed.
Before This Trip
How It All Began — Linda’s Story
The impossible texts, the gifted Rosary, my grandmother’s dream. Read what God was doing before I ever arrived.
Read Linda’s Story →The God Moment
Cross Mountain
The climb that almost broke me — and the descent that quietly put something back together.
Read the God Moment →Path 6
All Pilgrimages
Lourdes, Garabandal, Fatima and the Marian apparition sites followed. Each one deepened what Medjugorje began.
All Pilgrimages →Other Pilgrimages
Lourdes Pilgrimage | From Fatima to Lourdes — One Pilgrim's Journey
Lourdes Pilgrimage — after Fatima, Santiago, Garabandal, and Loyola, the road ends at a grotto in the Pyrenees where God meets you where you are.
Cross Mountain | Climbing Mt. Krizevac at Dawn in Medjugorje
Cross Mountain — Mt. Krizevac before dawn, boulders underfoot, the Stations of the Cross prayed aloud. A climb that was ridiculous and grace-filled.
Pilgrimage Embracing the Journey of Faith
Pilgrimage discusses the spiritual significance of sacred journeys, highlighting preparation, challenges, and personal growth in faith.
