The Heavens intervene when the Faith and the World are in jeopardy
By Žarko Ivković

It has been more than a quarter of a century now (according to the testimonies of the six seers) since Our Lady started appearing. Without getting involved in disputes on the events’ authenticity, we keep asking ourselves, what is it that attracts millions of people from all over the world into this small place in Hercegovina. What is it that attracts people to places worldwide where Our Lady appeared, and do these appearances have any links with historical events? And what actually are the apparitions?

The theologian Adalbert Rebić does not have any doubts about the Apparitions – they are related to the Christian comprehension of God and the possibility of Miracles.
“God can in a miraculous way reach into the created world so that the supernatural beings (God, Angels, Mary, etc) can be recognised by man in their psychosomatic structure,” says Dr Rebić. He explains: “We notice these beings as if they were in front of us, but they are not physically present. They are unmeasurable, cannot be recorded, their voice can not be registered.”

The Miracle in Guadalupe

Many Apparitions have been recorded throughout history. Before the 19th century these were mostly Apparitions of Christ and the Saints, but in the last 150 years the Apparitions of the Mother of God prevail. Statistical evidence says: since the Holy Assumption, up to the year of A.D. 1400, the Mother of God appeared 35 times; up to 1600, 56 times more; till 1800 31 times more; and since 1800 until the present day 70 times. In the ninety years from 1905 till 1995, 295 apparitions were reported, and the Church has recognised only 11 of them as authentic ones.

The more significant Apparitions started on December 9th, 1531 in Guadalupe, by the appearance of Mary to Juan Diego, a Mexican Indian. Our Lady introduced Herself as the Virgin Mary, the Mother of the True God, and ordered him to go to the bishop and tell him to have a church built at that place. Since Juan Diego could not speak Spanish, an interpreter helped him communicate with the bishop. So the first reports on an Apparition were written in his mother tongue, Nahautl. In 1910 Holy Pope Pius X pronounced Our Lady of Guadalupe the Patron of South America. Guadalupe is now considered, with about 12 million visitors per year, the most visited Marian Shrine in the world.

“The Christianisation of Mexico and Latin America started only after that Apparition, 40 years after the discovery of the New World,” says Franciscan, Dr Tomislav Pervan. He elaborates: “By the conquest and devastation of the Aztec culture and religion, the Spaniards have caused such a hatred of Christianity that all talk about evangelisation and Christianisation in that part of the world were in vain. A Franciscan noted in 1525 that all attempts at Christianising Mexico remain useless, unless there was a miracle. And the Heavens sent a miracle! After the Apparition in Guadalupe, and within less than ten years, eight million Aztecs accepted Christianity. The miracle in Guadalupe is the day of the birth of Mexico as a nation, the beginning of reconciliation between the two warring sides.”

As a memorial to this event Holy Mary left the imprint of her image on the robe of Juan Diego, that was made of grass. In 1789 Holy Mary appeared in Vietnam, where Catholic were exposed to the persecution of the king Canh-Thinh and were escaping to the jungle La Vang. According to legend, in the midst of their greatest sorrows and illnesses, they were gathered under a tree praying the Rosary, and the Virgin Mary appeared to them with the baby Jesus in her arms.

The full article can be found on pages 39-41 of Vol 3
2007 issue.