Our Lady, Queen of Peace, PRAY FOR US!

 Greetings from Gaming!

                This past weekend was a four day break and I was blessed enough to be chosen byOur Lady to go to Medjugorje!! (Our tour guide said that all that visit Medj are specifically invited by Mary!! HOW COOL!) It was a 12 hour bus ride.. half of which was on these ridiculous back roads, where I (who NEVER gets motion sickness) had to close my eyes quite a few times. The girl behind us puked into a bag, which didn’t make the trip too pleasant either.. Anyways, we got there around 7am and drove in to the sunset! It was splendid. Medj is located in Bosnia-Herzegovina, but it’s such a visited pilgrimage place that almost everyone speaks English. We got there and settled into our hotels and then enjoyed breakfast! (BTW-I Cannot wait for American breakfast. Europe thinks that bread, honey, corn flakes, and hot water-for tea and instant coffee-is breakfast.. they are really misled. Mom, I promise never to complain about our meals ever again) After that we went to mass at 10am at St. James Church, the parish in Meddjugorje, where Mary has appeared but not on a regular basis there. To be honest, it was one of the ugliest churches I’ve ever seen.. it was so bland and boring and white-walled. After that we got a tour/talk from a nice Bosnian woman and we broke for lunch. What happened after lunch for the first day will be better said by me re-writing my journal entry.. yes, I’ll let you into my prayer journal.. shoot, what am I doing? Hahaha

“Well, Mary.. here I am. I’ve been here in Medj for almost 24 hours now.. as the nice tour ladysaid, you invited me here.. so why? I started going up Apparition Hill today [readers, this is the hill on the west side of Medj where Our Lady first appeared and appeared most often to the children] with shoes on [a lot of climbers go barefoot for intentions] and halfway up, on the 2^nd of 5^th joyful mystery, I just felt you telling me that you didn’t create me to be mediocre. You didn’t create me to be complacent, you didn’t create me to be content, you didn’t create me to be comfortable. I was created to suffer for you and your Son. Only suffering will bring about happiness, not only for myself but more so others. I prayed on top of Apparition Hill for a bit and then made my way down, the most painful thing I did all weekend. Each rock that jabbed into my foot reminded me of your Sorrowful heart and your Son’s passion.  I went to confession that evening after dinner, which was with a German priest who spoke only a bit of English.. which was interesting.. and then I went by myself to the Resurrection Statue. [This is a bronze statue of Jesus given to Medj in1998, in 2001 it started to leak a watery substance from it’s right knee.. a few years later it was proven to be human tears.] Although it was a different knee than the one I injured, it was in the same exact spot that my knee dislocated to. THIS ROCKED MY LIFEEE, JESUS! You, Lord, are pouring tears because of all of the hatred, violence, lack of respect for life and the Eucharist.. and even though you already died for us on the cross, you continually suffer for us still! And through this beautiful miracle here at Medj, you showed me that the suffering I endure or have endured do help you.. little old Erin Brennan can help the magnificent Savior of the world.  Even though I was not as close to You then in 10^th grade as I am now (and how much further I still have to go, Lord!). I was helping you bear your cross with my suffering. I shed tears through my knee as you still do today. Another thing I felt in my prayer in front of You, and throughout my journey in Europe in general, is that how much more responsibility I have now. I’ve turned away from my sinful past and now I know the truth, I know what is right and wrong and it’s time to live it. I know what will bring my salvation and what will doom me to hell.. and I continue to fall back into my sin. Even though I’m here where Your Mother appeared, I’m still sinning! How can you love such a sinner? How can you want my hand in marriage still, Jesus? I am not worthy to receive you.”

On Saturday, the school was climbing Mt. Krizevac or Cross Mountain at 5:30AM.. Medj hashad a large cross on top of a mountain, before the apparitions, which was to be bombed numerous times throughout WWI and WWII, but no mission was ever successful. It is said that Mary prays here every morning.. However, Hannah and I do not really like traveling with the large group from school, it’s juts sort of burdensome and you can’t pray as long as you want and such.. so we decided to go at 3:30AM.. smart, right? Hahaha. It was intense but it was beautiful. We prayed the stations on the way up, which was an awesome incentive to keep going, giving us breaks every 100 yards or so.. It was a legit mountain. And my best friend here, Hannah Mountaha Nelson, was a true Theotokos member (that’s her household)and climbed it barefoot. I, however, do not have that stamina nor self-discipline. Apparition Hill was more than enough for me! Getting up at 3:30AM was a big enough sacrifice for me.. sorry, Mary! We got to the top under the 2 hours it’s supposed to take, prayed morning prayer together, did a little individual prayer.. but it was FREEEEZING, so we went back down to watch the sunset..sunset..  1/3 of the way down we stopped on a rock and watched the sunset and ate our delicious breakfast of bread and cheese! We passed the FUSer’s at the 6^th station and continued down. 

              We got back to our hotel, showered, and went off to mass at 10AM.. We grabbed lunch andthen went to the Pilgrim Castle that Patrick and Nancy (Canadians) own. They are like the most famous North Americans in Medj.. massive conversion story that we got to hear.. in his castle! :) It was really awesome and really called us to better understand the messages of Our Lady of Medjugorje. Mary said, “Pray the rosary every day and I promise miracles!” DO IT GUYS! You can take 15 mins out of your day everyday, my grandma does it every morning at mass and I used to think she was ridiculous before my conversion but now I see the power of the rosary.. seriously, you wanna see your life changed? Pray the rosary. They gave us ice cream and then we walked to Communita Cenacolo, which is a men’s home for rehabilitation of drugs/alcohol.. there are 4 houses in America, too.. they are all over the place, but the one in Medj is special because they are involved with the activities there. We heard 2 of the guy’s testiomines that were from America and it was really beautiful to hear their conversion stories and how they were pulled out of sin and destruction by the grace of God. Saturday was just a day full of testimonies!  They get to carry the handicapped and such up Apparition Hill, isn’t that awesome?! At the end of the day we ate dinner, took a nap, prayed together, watched an episode of NCIS I brought with me in my computer, and went to bed by 8PM. ( WE WERE EXHAUSTED!)

                Sunday came and we listened to two more testimonies at breakfast before Sunday mass, which rocked my life! The priest was a Candian who had such love of Jesus and Mary! His homily was one of the best homilies I’ve ever heard. He gave a mini witness during it, which included how his grandmother was raped by a native Indian at a young age and kept the child against her parents wishes, but they rasied it as their child (so the mother was like the sister) and on her death bed she told him that she was his mother) This man, the priest’s father, wanted to be a priest but when he went to apply, the bishop told him that he would never be allowed because he is part ‘savage’. Upset, he joined the army, and while in France, visited Lourdes, and promised if Mary saved him from death in the war, he’d bear her a priest. 8 children later, there was no priest in the family yet. They got pregnant for the 9^th time, but it was a problem pregnancy. The doctors advised an abortion numerous times and they of course refused.. the mother overheard the doctors saying they would abort the child and make it seem like an accident while she was under.. so she didn’t take any drugs.. it was a C-section!! She didn’t take drugs so she obviously passed out but this priest was born and he is now an incredibly gifted man of God! (: VERYYYY COOOOOL. God is great!! After mass we grabbed lunch and were back on a bus to Gaming, we were planning in stopping in Split, Croatia on the way home for dinner.. which we did.. but instead of the normal 3 hour stop, it was 6 because one of the girl’s fell and split her head open a bit so she had to go to the Croatian hospital and get some stitches and we waited for her. So we were already behind 3 hours.. and then about 3 hours into the trip, the bus (not the one I was on, the other one) broke down for another 3-4 hours in the middle of the night.. so we got home at 10AM instead of 4AM.. fabulous, right?

So here I am getting ready for class! I have a 10 page paper on Christ due right after our 10 day break.. please say a prayer that I’m inspired to finish it before I leave.. which is tomorrow.. hahah Hannah and I are going to Switzerland before our school 10 day trip to Rome and Assisi. We’ll only be there for like 24 hours, but it’s tots worth it. It’s a surprise for Hannah, but we’ll be participating in our first extreme sport.. in the ALPS! Ahhhh. You’ll all be in my prayers for my pilgrimage to Rome and Assisi. I can’t wait to be back in Pennsylvania! Only like 4 or so more weeks!!

Love and miss you,

Erin