The first thing he did after his arriving in Medjugorje was going to the church to thank God. He says that he is not a bit tired, in spite of his age of 69. “I was always practicing sport. With my bicycle, I crossed millions of kilometers. I have been all over Europe with my bicycle.”

He heard about Medjugorje for the first time something around 15 years ago, while he was still working. “When I was retired, I went on a pilgrimage to Spain, to Santiago de Compostela in 2002. I walked 82 days and crossed 2,500 km. Two years later, I walked to Mariazel, 1350 km in 43 days. And now – Medjugorje. I am a Croat, but never visited either Croatia, or Medjugorje.”

His ancestry moved from Gospić to Stikapron 300 years ago. He also lived the first years of his life in Stikapron (Steinbrunn) in Austria. He graduated in Mathematics in Vienna, and moved to Zürich, Switzerland, where he was working in the computer technology.

His family: two daughters, one son and seven grandchildren. He says that he always was religious “I`m a believer since my childhood, I love to meditate and to pray. Prayer is for me a dialogue with God who feeds the hungry and gives drink to the thirsty”. And he loves good communication with people. One very important thing in his family is tolerance, because his wife, his son and one of his daughters belong to other denominations. “We reach to one another, this is important. God is one, we only approach him differently”.

He says that young people often aspire to fun, and not to God. “They live without God, but when something goes wrong, they do aspire to Him”.

He described this pilgrimage to Medjugorje with following words: “Walking alone is so good for meditation. I aspire to answers to different questions: Why am I on earth, What are my intentions? What do I want? What do I have to do? When you live, you have to act. This is my life, and my life is important. This is my moment, and in this moment, I have to do what God want me to do. He wants me to work for peace with Him and with people and peace is possible if I accept other people as brothers and sisters. People that I meet – I consider them brothers and sisters, I cannot do differently. For me, it is important to know that God is here, all around me.”
Medjugorje became an important place for Jožef. “I pray for my wife’s health, and whatever happens will be the will of God. I want to tell Mother Mary that I am here and ask her what I have to do”. He will go back to Zürich by bicycle. He said:”It will take around two weeks, because I want to visit Gospić to investigate the origins of the Ratković family”.

He made many experiences as a pilgrim who walked many weeks in silence and he says: “We need to walk alone, to be alone, this is when ideas and visions come. It is different when we drive a car. In this ways, we have time to think. It is great to be alone, to have time. It is a little school of life.”
If you also want to make a special experience visit Medjugorje, stay at one of its beautiful Medjugorje and feel the magic.

I decided to walk to Medjugorje because I believe that the Mother and the Queen of Peace is appearing here. Of course, She is everywhere, but she is presenting herself in a special way in Medjugorje, where She wants to prepare the humanity for the encounter with Jesus, with God.

We are living in a very difficult time, and I think that the time has come for the reconciliation of the whole world. I have received this intention in prayer. We are all children, God`s children. The humanity is in pain, and we have to be conscious of it. We are all brothers and sisters and this is why I wasn`t carrying neither bread nor water. I consciously and intentionally wanted to depend on those I would encounter and their goodness. Sometimes they wanted me to take bread or water along, but I did not take anything. It is great to ask, to request and people are happy when they can give, when they can offer something to somebody. Then we can see them like members of our own family and God works through them.

Of course I was rejected sometimes, but this was also a very good experience. How many times did God knock at the door of our heart, and we refused Him. Sometimes we just have to knock several times until someone open his door. We can encounter Jesus in the homeless or the poor, and if we don`t recognize this, we are completely blind. All humans are members of our family, including the sick, including those who don`t have anything and including those who lost their mind. Sometimes it might happen that someone wants to steal something from us and we should allow even this. Let us not close our heart, open them and people will be less aggressive.

Sometimes we want to be better then the others, but God doesn`t want us to be better then the others, he just wants us all to be good. To be good doesn`t mean to be better then the others, good means that we don`t differentiate between us and others. We have to ask God for His help and we have to ask people for their help. Only God can open human hearts. We cannot change ourselves without His help, only God can give us the power to change ourselves, and this is why we have to pray for all of us.

I am not poor at home. My husband is a painter and he gave me money for this journey, but I left it in Poland. I didn`t want to take anything along. Once we, my husband, a friend of ours and myself walked together from Poland to Rome, but this time I felt that I have to go alone, exactly like God inspired me to do it: with empty hands, without any protection. We should all make the experience that He is always taking care of us. Here is an example: It was autumn when I started the walk to Medjugorje, wearing a raincoat, and during the first ten days, it was raining non-stop. When I decided to leave this completely wet and torn raincoat,the sun began to shine!Yes, it is really true, God can make it raining all around, except on the way where you are walking! This experience made me extremely happy and i felt stronger. I really feel sorry for all those who don`t believe in God. They think that they have to do everything by themselves, and this is why they cannot find peace.

I slept in parish houses. From Poland, I went through Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, and Bosnia. In Bosnia I went through a region inhabited by the Muslims. I talk to them and found out that they don`t know that God is a Father. This is what I told them: that we have a common Father and that they are our younger brothers, born several centuries after us. In a small town near Zenica I went to a mosque where I asked them to find an accommodation for me; they did it and they also gave me to eat. I told them that I was on my way to Medjugorje. When I left this town, many people there were greeting me and telling me to take this or that, but I went with empty hands. They were glad that I was going to Medjugorje to pray for peace, and they were telling me that they also want peace, peace and only peace.

Some years ago, I was walking to Czestochowa with 25 kg baggage on my back. At that time, I thought that I will need all that… After my walk to Medjugorje I understood how funny and a kind of stupid it was. Mary told me: if you want to follow my Son, you don`t need anything. He will take care of you. And it was true, he took care of me.

One day later Mother Mary appeared again, but only to one of the girls and she said the words:
“Mir, mir, mir – peace, peace, peace…”
This is still the marrow of all her messages, which should be suppressed by tanks ten years later.

The mountain was barricaded and the church was closed. Exactly ten years later, on 26 June 1991, Yugoslavia the war broke out. When the war captured one place of Yugoslavia after another and devastated all of them, only this small place Medjugorje was in a strange way completely spared of all atrocities. Not even a bullet has been fired.

Meanwhile, countless reports about all these curiosities went through numerous countries all over the world.

Medical examinations of the Visionaries
Even the young viewers had to undergo medical examinations during the apparitions of Mother Mary. It was in 1984 when medical scientists put them electrodes on their body to observe their brain waves, their ears, their eyes and their larynx during an apparition. The result was that the ecstasy brought forth an elimination of sensual perceptions of the external world. A noise of 90 decibels for example wasn`t realised by Ivan. The Visionaries also don`t feel no pressure, no tricks, no pinching or otherwise during an apparition.
It is also veryfascinating to note that at the moment when Virgin Mary appears, the brain activity of every single Visionary jumps to 100% and stays at this level until Our Lady leaves while most of people are able to use around 15% of their brain during normal activities.

If Medjugorje arouses interest in you now, visit this small town . You will find helpful information about accommodations, a map, messages of Virgin Mary, everything about the Visionaries, videos, pictures, etc.

A Marian apparition is an event in which the Virgin Mary is believed to have supernaturally appeared to one or more persons.
The central role of Virgin Mary in the belief and practice of Catholicism is reflected in the fact that a lot of Roman Catholic churches contain side altars dedicated to Mary. It is claimed apparitions or appearances are always accompanied by messages to the world.
The term Marian apparition is usually used in cases where visions of just the Virgin Mary herself are claimed. However, there are also cases where visions of Jesus and Mary and conversations with both are reported.

Here are most famous places, where Virgin Mary is believed to have appeared:
Fatima, Lourdes Medjugorje

Our Lady of Fátima is the title given to the Holy Virgin Mary by those who believe that she appeared to three shepherd children at Fátima in Portugal
It started on May 13th in 1917, the Fatima holiday, and recured on the 13th day of six consecutive months. The three children were Lúcia dos Santos and her cousins, siblings Francisco and Jacinta Marto. The children related that the Lady identified herself as “the Lady of the Rosary”.That`s why the title “Our Lady of the Rosray” is also sometimes used for the same apparition( this title was first used in 1208 for the apparition in the church of Prouille)Lúcia described the appeared lady as “brighter than the sun, shedding rays of light clearer and stronger than a crystal ball filled with the most sparkling water and pierced by the burning rays of the sun.”
The lady confided to the children three secrets, called the Three Secrets of Fátima. She told the children to do penance and to make sacrifices to save sinners. And the children did it: they wore tight cords around their waists to cause pain, abstained from drinking water on hot days, and performed other works of penance. But Lucia said that the most important mission the lady gave them was saying the Rosary every day, reiterating many times that the Rosary was the key to personal and world peace.

The apparitions of Our Lady of Lourdes began on 11 February 1858, when the 14-year old farmer girl from Lourdes, Bernadette Soubirous admitted that she had seen a “lady” in the cave of Massabielle, about a mile from the town, while she was collecting firewood and bones with her sister and a friend. When she was about to wade through the water near the Grotto of Massabielle, she heard wind noises but the trees and bushes nearby did not move. She saw a light in the grotto and a lady, as small as she was, dressed all in white, apart from the blue belt fastened around her waist and the golden yellow roses, one on each foot.
Bernadette didn`t want to tell anybody about this happening, but after parental cross-examination, she underwent corporal punishment for this unusual story. After three days, Bernadette returned to the Grotto with two other girls, who became afraid when they saw her in ecstasy and run away.
Bernadette remained ecstatic when she returned to the village. On February 18th the Lady allegedly said to Bernadette: “I promise to make you happy not in this world but in the next” and she was told to return to the Grotto over a period of 14 days. Afte the local interest was aroused, the police and city authorities got involved and Bernadette was interdicted by her parents and the police to ever go there again, but she went anyway. On February 25th she was asked to drink from the water, which at first was very muddy, but became increasingly clean when she started to drink it. This water was given to medical patients of all kinds, after which numerous miracle cures were reported.
Similar appearances of the “lady” took place on seventeen further happenings that year.
Bernadette Soubirous was canonized as a saint, and many Catholics believe her visions to have been real. Pope Pius IX authorized the local bishop to permit the veneration of the Virgin Mary in Lourdes in 1862.

From the beginning of Medjugorje apparitions in 1981, Medjugorje (in Bosnia and Herzegovina) became an important source of God’s grace and encouragement for faith for millions of people.
Medjugorje Apparitions started on June 24th, 1981, when six young people – Ivanka Ivankovic,
Mirjana Dragicevic, Vicka Ivankovic, Ivan Dragicevic, Ivan Ivankovic and Milka Pavlovic, saw on the
hill Crnica( now called Apparition Hill) several hundred meters above the place called Podbrdo, a young woman with a child in her arms, who gave them a sign with her hand to come nearer.
Surprised and scared, they did not approach her, they ran away.The next day, June 25th, 1981, four of them: Ivanka Ivankovic, Mirjana Dragicevic, Vicka Ivankovic and Ivan Dragiceviæ, felt strongly drawn towards the place where they had seen the person the day before which, they had recognised later as Our Lady. Marija Pavlovic and Jakov Colo joined them and the group of Medjugorje visionaries was formed. They prayed and spoke with Our Lady. This is why June 25th is celebrated as the Anniversary of the apparitions and not the 24th . According to the testimony of the visionaries, from that day onwards, they had daily apparitions, together or separately, wherever they were. Milka Pavloviæ and Ivan Ivankovic never saw Our Lady again.
Medjugorje became a place visited by thousands of pilgrims from all over the world. A lot of hotels and guest houses have come since this happening and the streets in the center of the town are lined with cafes and a lot of souvenir shops.

On Midsummer Day of 1981 six children saw a floating woman on a hill in the small, at that time Yugoslavian village. The woman was pointing to a newborn baby, she wore in her arm. Out of fear the children ran away. The next day, the 25th of June, the woman appeared again at the same place, this time alone, and this time the children ran to her and they started a conversation with her. This conversation has not ended until today. This
woman is Virgin Mary and she still appeares to the six people and talks to them. She was wearing a light gray dress with a white veil and they told that she had blue eyes and was surrounded by a wreath of twelve stars.

One day later Mother Mary appeared again, but only to one of the girls andshe said the words: “Mir, mir, mir – peace, peace, peace…” This is still the marrow of all her messages, which should be suppressed by tanks ten years later.

The mountain was barricaded and the church was closed. Exactly ten years later, on 26 June 1991, Yugoslavia the war broke out. When the war captured one place of Yugoslavia after another and devastated all of them, only this small place Medjugorje was in a strange way completely spared of all atrocities. Not even a bullet has been fired.
Meanwhile, countless reports about all these curiosities went through numerous countries all over the world.

Beside these apparitions a lot of other miracles and mysterious phenomena happen in Medjugorje. One example: It happend a few times that someone in Medjugorje or in other places in the world has made a picture and instead of the original motive there was an entirely different picture, namely the Virgin Mary. Of course, it is surely possible to fake a photograph, but this happend to people who didn`t know each other.They are from totaly different countries but the motive on the picture was always the same. After a while the motiv changed. It was always Virgin Mary, but sometimes it was just her and sometimes you could see her holding Jesus. A picture which was made in Medjugorje didn`t show the original motiv after the development. Instead of the original motiv something entirely different
was shown: in this case the image of Mary with the child Jesus.

Priest Slavko reported that he saw a mysterious celestial sign in the sky, but it didn`t seem to be something good. That was at the beginning of August in 1981: “About 150 people were on the mountain of appearances (Apparition
Hill), and many of them have told and testified that they all have seen the same, and some of them have been scared about that. And finally, in Medjugorje and in all other places where Mary has appeared, people are talking about miraculous recoveries and miracle cures.