Dear Elizabeth:

You are correct, the local bishops have said repeated that their discernment is that nothing supernatural is going on at Medjugorje. Official sanction to Medjugorje as a place where a legitimate vision took place is not allowed. The Church has never called Medjugorje a sacred place. That designation is not possible unless the apparitions are legitimate, which so far the discernment is that they are not -- though the final decision on that is up to the Holy See if and when the apparitions ever cease.

My personal opinion is the reason the alleged apparitions have not ceased after all these years is that once they do the Church can make her final judgment. Since that judgment may be negative, the "apparitions" continue in ad nauseam.

A good summary of the history and the Church's responses to Medjugorje is found on the EWTN site under the article, Medjugorje.

You comment about meeting our Lord and our Blessed Lady at Mass reminds me of an old nun, in her nineties at the time. She had entered the monastery when she was seventeen and in all her years had never been off the monastery grounds.

While on retreat with some Lay Carmelites to the monastery where this nun resided, one of the retreatants marveled at her long cloister and asked her if she ever wanted to go to see Jerusalem to see where Jesus walked, or see the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican. She smiled and said, "Why? Jesus is right over there" pointing toward the chapel and the Tabernacle.

We do not need to go traveling all over the world. We have Jesus Christ, his body, soul, divinity right here in every Tabernacle of every Catholic Church in the world, including the parish down the street from where we live. Where the Son is, his Mother is also. We need only travel to our local parish.

The Church does tell us to wait until a decision is made. People just don't listen. The pride of men.

As for approved apparition sites, pilgrimages are allowed because the Church has officially declared that such and such a site is "worthy of devotion as an aid to our faith" if we choose.

Medjugorje, however, is not one of those sites.

In general, concerning "messages" coming from our Lady, our Blessed Mother mostly says nothing that has not already been said in Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture. St. Jerome did not say, "Ignorance of Marian messages is ignorance of Christ". He said rather, "Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ". Anyone who spends more time on Marian messages than on reading and studying Scripture is out-of-line and doing the opposite of what our Blessed Mother wants from us.

But, as a good mother, she is concerned about her lazy children who do not read and study the Word of her Son, who is the Word. So, as any good mother would do, she comes to us to remind us of what we should already know. She gently rebukes us.

But, never in history, that I am aware, has any legitimate apparition of our Blessed Mother gone on for more than twenty-five years. That alone is a clue, in my opinion, of the illegitimacy of Medjugorje.

Nevertheless, people have had their faith restored and invigorated, and lives have been changed for the better because of Medjugorje. That does not mean, however, that Medjugorje is legit. It only gives example that God is great and He can make the sweetest lemonade even out of the rottenest lemon. The Bible affirms this:  (Romans 8:28)  "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose."

So, since God made this promise in Romans 8:28 it is not surprising that good things can come out of even false apparitions. Besides, God honors the pilgrims' faith even if the pilgrimage site is false.

Two of the founding Lay members of our Order went to Medjugorje. The husband saw the "miracle of the sun" while his wife standing next to him did not. As the superior of the Order I did not depreciate his experience at all. I praised God for it. But, I also was careful to teach our members that Medjugorje must be taken with a big grain of salt until and if the Church officially approves the apparitions.

I have personally met Ivan. He seemed like a nice enough guy, but his personal life and the personal lives of the others do not, in my opinion, mirror the pious lives of the genuine visionaries we know from the past. There is a disconnect there somewhere.

The divisiveness is a real scandal. No apparition, even the approved ones, are required for belief by any Catholic, and not required for us to live a devout life. We are not even required to believe any of them are legit. Since these are purely optional for us to believe, it truly sorrows our Blessed Mother, I believe, that so many people fight over her. Our Blessed Mother always points to her Son. Whatever our Blessed Mother does, no matter how many times she may appear to us, the point, her point, is to look to her Son, not to the next apparition site around the corner.

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary