Medjugorje: The First Days

The basis of this account of the first days of the claimed apparitions at Medjugorje is the transcription of the translation from Croatian of twenty-two tape-recorded interviews/on-the-spot commentaries with the alleged visionaries. All the recordings were completed within the first seven days of the alleged apparitions and provide invaluable source material. The recordings were carried out by the Franciscan priests of Medjugorje – mainly the parish priest, Fr Jozo Zovko – and by a parishioner, Grgo Kozina. The bulk of the recordings were confiscated by the Yugoslav State Security police when they raided the Medjugorje parish rectory on 17th August 1981, but fortunately copies had been made. These copies have found their way all around the world and only now has the opportunity come to have them all collected. Snippets of transcriptions from these recording have been published sporadically – but this is the first time that all the material has been collated, translated and published. In 1988 a Medjugorje-born Franciscan priest, the late Fra Ivo Sivric R.I.P., who was then living in Canada published, translated into French, in his book, La face cache de Medjugorje, a substantial tranche of the recordings. This was a valiant attempt, and his translation is basically sound, but Fr Sivric was hindered by a large amount of the material being missing, and was also frequently flummoxed, it seems, by the modern-day terms and the colloquial expressions of the young visionaries. These transcriptions of the tape recordings are a treasure from many angles. They provide a very graphic, on the spot description of those fast-moving, unprecedented events of June 1981, and they leave the reader in no doubt of the absolute conviction of the young visionaries that they are seeing Our Lady. As might be expected in the ad hoc and un-choreographed manner in which the recordings took place, there are some moments of confusion – but such moments are rare and there is overall a remarkable consistency and coherence to the visionaries’ narration of events. The steadfast conviction of these young people that they are seeing the Blessed Virgin Mary shines through against the backdrop of outright hostility from the Communist State authorities and the scepticsm, at the time, of the Franciscan priests in the Medjugorje parish, and points very strongly to the authenticity of Medjugorje. MEDJUGORJE: The First Days is lavishly illustrated with many never before published photographs.