The church and Medjugorje

What is the church’s stance on Medjugorje? I have a friend who says the Blessed Mother has a daily message for us.
 
Medjugorje is a village in Bosnia and Herzegovina where apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary have allegedly taken place since June 21, 1981. Various officials of the Catholic Church have attempted to discern the validity of these Marian apparitions to provide guidance to the faithful and potential pilgrims.

On Dec. 7, 2017, Archbishop Hoser, Pope Francis’ envoy to Medjugorje, announced that the church would allow pilgrimages, stating, “Dioceses and other institutions can organize official pilgrimages. It is no longer a problem.” Organizers of a youth festival welcomed this approval because they were planning this gathering in Medjugorje for five days in August 2019.

During the pilgrimage, approximately 60,000 young Catholics from 97 different countries took part in this youth festival. Bishops and about 700 Catholic priests also joined the festivities.

Although Pope Francis has given the green light for Catholics to organize pilgrimages to Medjugorje, the church has not yet given a verdict on the apparitions’ authenticity. The pope’s authorization of pilgrimages to the site is not an official validation of the alleged apparitions. They still require an official examination by the church.

A pilgrimage to a holy place can be an opportunity for spiritual renewal for anyone. People who have gone to Medjugorje often experience a spiritual change, conversion, and a strengthening of their faith. The messages received can also be a source of spiritual revival.
 
However, we can learn a lesson from the great apparition in the Gospel. Two heavenly figures, Moses and Elijah, appeared to Peter, James and John with the transfigured Jesus on Mount Tabor. This mysterious event shook up these disciples. In their fearful state, they saw Jesus in a new light. Their lives would never be the same.

This was a mountain experience for the three apostles. Yet they had to come down the mountain and face the valley experiences and deal with the pending death of Jesus.

We can describe mountain experiences as the times when God or a heavenly person breaks into our lives in a special way. We feel that God is really with us, helping us out in a special way, giving us extra strength to overcome some difficulty in life. When we have these experiences, (I am sure that most of my readers have had them) we thank God for this special gift.

Nevertheless, we should not look for those types of experiences. When we look for God just in the mountain experiences, we can miss God in everyday life. Author Sue Bender writes: “When I stopped waiting for something ‘significant’ to happen, and instead began noticing what was happening, not what I wished was happening, a series of small miracles occurred.”

What Bender is saying is, if we seek the mountain experiences, we miss God coming to us in the everyday events of life. God is constantly breaking into our lives in many small ways. If we are only looking for the big bang, we miss God in the little ways.

The church calls St. John of the Cross the doctor of spiritual maturity. He stresses that our faith is founded on Jesus Christ. Through Christ, God the Father has spoken to us once and for all. We need no props, supports or spiritual consolations. As to visions, apparitions and the like, he says that such phenomena are to be ignored and not sought after.

In his famous book entitled The Dark Night of the Soul, St. John makes the point that God is with us although it may seem that God has forsaken us. The consolations or the feelings of God’s presence are great if they come, but that is not faith, that is experience. Faith means walking with complete confidence in God when there are no consolations.

St. Paul reminds us, “We walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7).