Medjugorje Prayer Book. Wayne Weible

freedom. Therefore, pray so that, free from any influence of Satan, you may decide only for God. I am praying for you before God, and I am seeking your surrender to God. Thank you for having responded to my call.”

      As you see, a gentle but urgent call to those whom Mary wishes to become children of God fills each monthly message. She calls us especially through prayer. She calls us especially who are so openly exposed to the influence of Satan, who wants nothing more than to take away all that she has come to give us.

      You may be asking yourself why we are so graced to be living in a time when the Mother of God comes to earth to speak to each of us so personally and so intimately.

      In other words, why me?

      FOUR

      Why Has She

      Chosen Me?

       “Dear children, today I want to wrap you all in my mantle and lead you all along the way of conversion. Dear children, I beseech you, surrender to the Lord your entire past, all the evil that has accumulated in your hearts. I want each one of you to be happy. Therefore, dear children, pray, and in prayer you shall realize a new way of joy. Joy will manifest in your hearts and thus you shall be joyful witness of that which I and My Son want from each one of you. I am blessing you. Thank you for having responded to my call.”

      (Monthly message given February 25, 1987)

      The incredulity that God has chosen me to spread the message of Medjugorje remains in the form of a permanent question seared into my mind. It is a question I ask every day: Why me?

      My own conversion to a mission of spreading the Medjugorje messages began with a shocking and soul-shaking personal miracle—that of literally hearing Our Lady speaking directly to my heart. I include an account of that miracle in this book.

      Mary has spoken to my heart many times since that first occasion. Sometimes she speaks directly to me and, at other times, through visionaries or inner locutionaries or other individuals. I know now that these messages are gifts given to us by the Holy Spirit when we truly begin a process of surrending our souls to Jesus. They are not given just to “holy” souls. Our Lady made that clear from the first week of the apparitions in Medjugorje when the visionary Mirjana asked Our Lady why she had chosen them. “Why are you appearing to us? We are no better than others.” She replied with a smile and said, “I do not necessarily choose the best.” I can strongly relate to that!

      Before learning about Medjugorje, I was a lukewarm soul, a Lutheran Protestant, one who didn’t care too much for Catholics. Martin Luther and his followers had “reformed” the church, gotten it right after 1,500 years of its existence. The church was corrupt and Lutherans had cleaned it up. That’s what I was taught.

      I first heard about Medjugorje during a Sunday school class I was teaching at my Lutheran church in October 1985. To be honest, I had no business teaching such a class and was doing so only because I thought it might help me socially. In addition, it might be good for a few business contacts. I asked so many questions that they asked me to teach. My ego wouldn’t let me say no. I had only returned to going to church less than two years before after seven years of no church in my life, having walked away in anger because of a divorce following fourteen years of marriage.

      I really didn’t know much about Scripture and usually did anything I could to avoid getting into deep discussions about the Bible, even though every lesson plan was based on gospel teachings. I would often come up with my own lesson plans, which is why on this particular Sunday we were animatedly discussing modern-day miracles.

      As the class was coming to a close, one of the woman members said, “Speaking of miracles, let me tell you what one of my Catholic friends recently told me. There’s this little village in Yugoslavia where six kids are saying that the Blessed Virgin Mary has been appearing to them and speaking to them, and that it has been going on daily for over four years.” She then sat back with a smug, can-you-top-that smile.

      My knee-jerk reaction was, what nonsense! How could this Mary be appearing? She lived, she died, and that was the end of that. Besides, everyone knows she’s Catholic—or, at least anything to do with the Blessed Virgin people view as Catholic. As a newspaper journalist who owned and published four weekly community newspapers and who was trained to be a skeptic of anything that could not be authenticated or proven, I immediately rejected the story, personally and professionally.

      Yet, there was a curiosity. My business sense picked up the scent of a possible story. Christmas was not too far away, and this might be interesting subject matter for the holiday season. I asked the woman if she could give me more details, maybe a book or other source of research on the apparitions. Yes, she said, her friend had a videotape recently made during the time of an actual apparition at Medjugorje, and she was sure she could borrow it for me.

      Several days later I viewed the videotape. With pencil and paper at hand to make notes, I watched and listened with skepticism well in the forefront of my mind. Ten minutes later, I had not made one note. I was totally mesmerized by what I was seeing and hearing!

      Halfway through the tape, made four years after the start of the apparitions, I watched the young visionaries as they prepared for the daily apparition with the praying of the Rosary. As I viewed the up-close scan of the visionaries’ faces, I suddenly thought, I believe this! With that realization I felt a wave of guilt. If this was real, then God was real. I believed before, but never really believed beyond a distant thought that God might be real. If He were real, He knew everything about me.

      And then the miracle that would transform my life occurred. The guilt vanished as quickly as it had come and I had a sense of great peace. All at once, this same Virgin Mary—this “Catholic” Mary—was speaking to me! Not in actual audible words but very clearly within my heart, she said, “You are my son and I am asking you to do my Son’s will.”

      I fell back into my chair, stunned and in physical shock. How could this be? I wasn’t Catholic! I wasn’t even a good Christian! Yet, her message continued: “I am asking you to spread the messages I am giving here and if you choose, the spreading of these messages will become your life’s mission.”

      There was no denying the reality of what was happening. I had no idea of why I was the one asked to do this, but finally, I mentally mumbled a weak, “I’ll try. . . .”

      In the weeks that followed this incredible personal miracle, I learned that a simple, weak yes is all Our Lady needs from us. Once we commit, once we allow her just a little crack of space into our hearts and minds, she takes care of the rest.

      Within a year, everything in my life had changed. By April 1986, I had sold my businesses and was making plans to go to Medjugorje. Less than a month later, on May 1 of that same year, I arrived in the little village, unaware of the significance of that day as a special Marian feast day. I returned in June and again in November.

      In those trips, the Blessed Virgin Mary became my constant guide, with more miracles and personal words to my heart. I actually began writing my first book, Medjugorje: The Message, at the foot of the huge cement cross on top of the mountain that overlooks the valley. I did so because I felt she was asking me to begin it there. In the ensuing years, I have come to expect nothing less from her. She is my “everything” when it comes to my spiritual life and mission.

      Since that miraculous day, Mary has sent me to nearly every major city and town in the United States and to hundreds of smaller places, including dozens of countries throughout the world. I’ve spoken in thousands of Catholic and non-Catholic churches, bringing the messages of prayer, fasting, and penance given at Medjugorje to millions of us.

      That first book, Medjugorje: The Message, written nearly twenty years ago, has reached over a million copies sold and is still going strong. This is all the work of the Holy Spirit. Only through the Holy Spirit can Mary come in apparition, or speak or appear to anyone. Our Lady could have chosen any person and asked him or her to take on this particular mission. As Mother Angelica of EWTN Television fame said to me when I appeared on her show in 1988, still a Protestant at the time, “God can choose any