Beamuse Designs

**This is a delayed post and certainly something I should have done months ago…. especially since my last trip was on October 2024**

October 2019 was my first trip to Medjugorje, and quite frankly, I was unsure what to expect. Perhaps it was a great rojak mix of joy, gratefulness and possibly a certain fear of the unknown. Nonetheless, as we gathered at KLIA then, a Priest offered me a quiet piece of advice – he said, “Go without expectations. Don’t worry if you don’t experience what the others see; what you might experience may be different from them all.” I have held those words closely then and even now as I venture to other places as well. As let’s be honest about a few things, when it comes to visiting religious sites, it’s not always about the visions and wonders. Sometimes, it’s about finding stillness in yourself, and in your soul.

The essential things in life are seen not with the eyes but with the heart.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Coming forward to 2024, I was once again gripped with a quiet uncertainty about what lay ahead. My encounter from five years ago was not something I expected to replicate—neither the route nor the group I would be travelling with remained the same. So naturally, questions started to flood my thoughts. What would this journey hold for me now? One thing I knew for sure was that my experience would be deeply personal, and markedly different.

In 2019, our pilgrimage had coincided with the time of the month when Our Lady was said to appear publicly, and I remember how the whole town seemed to hold its breath in reverence. That year, I had the chance to wake up before dawn and make my way to Apparition Hill. We walked briskly in the cool quiet, long before the sun had stirred. At one point, I looked up—and was quietly stunned by how the stars above had arranged themselves into what looked like a celestial pathway. Not leading from us to heaven, but the other way around—as though heaven had gently laid a path down to earth. At the time, I didn’t think too much of it. But the next day, while visiting the Adoration Chapel, I came across a mosaic artwork. In it, the stars were arranged in just the same way, forming a divine bridge from the heavens to us. And that’s when I felt it: that moment had not been coincidence, but perhaps a quiet grace meant just for me.

However, that was only the beginning. The true heart of the experience unfolded when we finally reached the Blue Cross at the base of Apparition Hill. It was already packed — pilgrims young and old, from every corner of the globe, clung to every available space. Just like Zacchaeus from the New Testament, some had even climbed up trees in hopes of catching a glimpse or simply being closer to the sacred moment.

And then, it happened.

When Our Lady appeared to the visionary, Mirjana Dragičević Soldo, an extraordinary silence fell upon the crowd — not the hush of a disciplined audience, but a deep, encompassing stillness, like creation itself holding its breath. Even a small bee that had been buzzing near me came to a halt in the air, hovering in quiet reverence, its tiny form turned toward the spot of the apparition.

In that moment, time simply ceased to matter. I couldn’t tell you how long we stood there, wrapped in that sacred stillness. And just as gently as it had come, the moment lifted. When Our Lady’s message had been delivered and She departed, it felt as though the world exhaled — time resumed, the soft rustle of leaves returned, and life slowly stirred again. What I didn’t know then was that this moment would become even more precious in hindsight. As a few months later, in March 2020, Mirjana received a message that Our Lady would no longer appear to her publicly. It was quietly announced—no fanfare, no grand explanation—just a mother’s gentle farewell, for now.

Looking back, I believe it was a soft warning, a mother preparing her children for what was to come. Shortly after, the world shuttered its doors. Borders closed. Churches emptied. And Medjugorje, once alive with the footsteps of pilgrims, fell into a deep silence. But even as the apparitions to the public ceased, Our Lady did not abandon us. She continued to appear privately to the visionaries, reminding us that grace is not bound by places or crowds. Heaven had not turned its face away—it had simply entered a quieter season. To have been present at that final few public apparition, unknowingly standing on the edge of a new and uncertain chapter for the world, is something I still struggle to put into words.

I didn’t see Her. But I felt Her. And that, I’ve come to realise, is more than enough.

Though our pilgrimage in 2024 took us further afield, Medjugorje remained our constant—a spiritual hearth we returned to each evening. Despite the years that had passed and the changes the world had weathered, Medjugorje itself seemed untouched by time. The streets still filled with pilgrims. The air still carried the hum of rosaries being prayed in every language. And St. James Church still stood as the beating heart of it all.

What struck me most was how little had changed. The queues for confession were still long, winding their way patiently toward the priest seated in persona Christi—each penitent carrying their own burdens and hope for mercy. It was almost enthralling, witnessing the quiet discipline of those waiting, day after day. There was something profoundly moving in it—the unseen heaviness of hearts being brought to the light, one soul at a time.

The crowds at Mass never thinned. In fact, each evening as the Liturgy began, the plaza surrounding the church would fill in such a way that you’d pause and wonder where all these people had come from. And when Mass concluded, the dispersing throngs carried with them a kind of invisible thread—a shared experience that needed no words.

Medjugorje, as it turns out, remains as it always was: a place of encounter. A spiritual current still flows steadily here, whether one is seeking, grieving, or simply watching the stars. And even as we travelled outward to other cities, each return to this little town felt like stepping back into the embrace of something eternal.

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This is just the beginning.
From Medjugorje’s sacred hills to the ancient streets of Zadar, Dubrovnik, and beyond—each stop carried a piece of grace, a whisper of something divine.
Echoes of a Pilgrim’s Soul continues in Part II.