Medjugorje

Bleeding and crying statues, pictures and icons make headlines every year. Like the place of pilgrimage Medjugorje (Bosnia and Herzegovina)does, where a sculpture of the risen Christ seems to shed tears.

Medjugorje – depending on the route, two till four car hours of the Adriatic coast and only some kilometers from Mostar away- is perhaps the most famous catholic place of pilgrimage worldwide. The holy Virgin Maria appeared for the first time in the summer 1981 to six young people, the Visionaries .She gave them messages about devotions, confession and fast. The especialness of Medjugorje is: In contrast to places of pilgrimage where Virgin Mary appeared like Lourdes (France) and Fatima (Portugal), the apparitions in Medjugorje last until today. Three of the six Visionaries say that Virgin Mary still appeared to them daily. The other three Visionaries have apparitions once a year, always on the same date.

But this is not the only miracle: further miracles happen in Medjugorje.

The almost six meter large bronze sculpture, named “Risen Christ” of the Slovenian artist Andrej Ajdiae is located in Medjugorje since 1998. And then suddenly it began “to cry”.
More precisely said: An Italian pilgrim had noted that “tears” seeped out of the right leg, beneath the knee, small drops of a clear fluid – so if we keep it in perspective it can`t be a speech about “tears”, especially because this occurrence happens extremely leisurely and one drop is formed approximately only each minute.

In the course of the following day the “risen Christ” was steadly beset with pilgrims and inquisitive people, who wiped that drops of this Jesus statue with the fingers, cloths or also with its rosaries. The people believed that a new miracle happened in Medjugorje .
It is imperative to mention that only least of them agree with the religious belief and interpretation of the older Dragica Stojiae, who said: “God, I know that your tears flow because of our sins.”

The “father” of the bronze sculpture, Andrej Ajdiae, was faced with the supposed miracle of the Croatian daily newspaper “Vecernji list” and reacted apparently rather indignant, because the reporter noticed at the end of its article: “He (Ajdiae) was in a snit because of our incorporated question, whether he had fit a small water pump into the interior of the bronze statue.”

Rightly – how could someone impute a journalistic idea of deception to the dignified goldsmith Andrej Ajdiae. Because the allegation of a deception is in this case just misleading like the acceptance of a divine sign.
Gerhard Hubmer, who is working for VAI (Voest Alpine industry plant building) as a process model developer, mediated the contact to its colleague Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Dieter Paesold, specialty more responsible expert in the specialist division research and development in the “voestalpine steel Linz”.
And he commendably started his work at this case: the analysis didn`t yield where the emerging fluid is coming from, because it was too little substance therein and therefor this did not allow an unambiguous statement.
In the green blue and gray brown coverings around the exit point at the knee of the statue are corrosion products of the metals bronze, copper and tin – what lets us suggest, that the fluid is normal rain water.
But a mystery still remained: according to these analysis of the metal expert, this strong grey coatings could contain “additionally water ingredients such as chalk, plaster, magnesium sulphate etc., which is heavy soluble after evaporating of the water. But if this fluid is realy rain water, the existance of such salts of alkali or alkali-earts metals(Ca, Mg), can`t be explained.”
And a demand at the artist Andrej Ajdiae yielded that he filled out the entire sculpture with concrete.
So what else could it be if this is not one more
miracle in Medjugorje!