I was a cradle Catholic and grew up in the faith of my parents, went to Religious Education classes but the faith really didn’t belong to me until June 25, 1998.  Our family faced many difficult times, we nearly lost our first born son but a brand new doctor showed up at the last minute with a cure the more experienced doctors didn’t think know about.  We were told he would be retarded and physically handicapped if we tried the treatment.  He graduated with a double major and a BA from a well known university.  Our daughter didn’t have any problems at all.  Little did we think that nineteen years latter on April 26, 1991 our second son would be killed by a drunk driver and the only reason my wife is here is that a high school student that just finished a CPR class gave her life back to us.  Stress was high in the family; we all seemed to go our separate ways in search of meaning.

My wife Betty came home the next year with this crazy idea about a modern day Fatima happening Bosnia.  Anyway my attitude was wonderful.  So what’s for dinner?  My attitude then was if I couldn’t feel it, touch it, smell it, and see it live, then it’s probably not real.

The next year Betty dragged me off to an annual Medjugorje Peace Conference that’s held at UC Irvine, CA.  I was board but felt compelled to stay because of Betty and the fact that we went in one car.

The Sunday morning speaker was Mary Lou Mc Call somebody that worked for I think CNN or NBC.  Anyway she went to Medjugorje to do a story.  You would have to hear the talk.  She was great.  She assumed like any of the better news media people that you knew nothing of Medjugorje and she explained everything in detail; She went as a skeptic and returned as a believer.  She explained the whole experience step by step.  Mary Lou got me interested.

I read every one of Wayne’s books, then another and I decided it was time for a trip.  I had things pretty much set up before talking to Betty about it; you really had to see the look on her face.  “You, Medjugorje?”

A couple of months later we were staying with Ivan’s cousin just two houses down the street from his.  Ivan is one of the visionaries.  We were also right next door to Jakov, another visionary.  Marianna lived across the street.  We had the chance to meet or at least hear each one of the five visionaries speak.  I am still at the “Ya, so prove it to me stage.”

An interesting aside is that Ivan, one of the visionaries (a person that speaks with the Blessed Mother), married a girl from the Back Bay in Boston.  He met her in the states at one of the Medjugorje conferences.

Ivan is very nice to be around.  He invited our tour group to his house so that we could be present for an apparitions (coming of the Blessed Mother) for her daily talk with him.  She appears to him not to anyone else in the room.  There was a pregnant lady with us.  You had to see her unborn baby going wild when the apparition was going on.  When the apparition stopped so did the unborn child.  My first thought was when Mary visited Elizabeth and the baby stirred in her womb.

As part of the trip we took a bus ride to another town to meet Fr. Jozo.  He was the pastor when the children, now 25 years older, began having apparitions.  The church didn’t believe the visionaries, there was a communist government in power, so Fr. Jozo was removed as the pastor of Medjugorje because he did believed and supported the children.

He had a nice talk.  I’m still at the ya, so show me stage.  Fr. Jozo blessed the priests with the power of the Holy Spirit

And then were sent into the crowd to pass on the blessing.  I decided to go to the restroom early so I left the church.  When I returned Betty still hadn’t come out, so I went back in.  What the heck everyone is getting blessed and so I decided to join the line.  One priest came to me, places a cross on my forehead and repeated the blessing.  The power of the Holy Sprit came into me then.  I had this warm and overwhelming feeling of peace and security.  It’s hard to explain.  I had to grab on to the pew to stop myself from falling backward.  I wasn’t the only one that it happened to.

We returned to Medjugorje it was June 25^th, our wedding anniversary and the anniversary of the beginning of the apperations.  People started to share, what had happened to them since arriving.  They were bringing out pictures.  I didn’t have much to say because I was still trying to explain away what had happened to me at Fr. Jozo’s.  You know it must have been group hysteria, weak at the knee because of lack of food but I simply couldn’t find a logical explanation for what happened.  Betty was getting a little upset with me because she wanted to talk but I didn’t want to, I wanted to think.

The English Mass is held each day about noon.  On this particular day because it was the anniversary of the apparitions, there was an additional Mass being held outside for about 30,000 people.  This Mass was said in I don’t know how many languages and the homilies went on forever.  Because there was so many people our group we couldn’t sit together.  As it turned out it was a good thing.

At the consecration of the Mass, the sun divided into two distinct suns and they began spinning in opposite directions.

Suddenly the crowd started making ouing and ahhing sounds and turned to look at the sun, so did I.  As you know looking at the sun is not something humans can do for very long.  I this case you could look at it until the two suns rejoined.  Well, that did it for me.  First Fr. Jozo and now two suns, what else do you need?

We went back to the house and shortly after that our group came together for what we affectionately called group therapy.  Nearly everyone in the group saw what I just described.  Guess you can see why I don’t share this with people unless they ask.  You really had to see my daughter Kathleen’s face when I told her about it.  It was the look of what have you been drinking on the plane.

Our local church sent a group and one lady had been having trouble with her knees for sometime.  Her knee problems stopped and have not restarted since the trip.  Another lady had her rosary turn into gold.  There are many more stories about people in our group.

The thing to remember is that you shouldn’t go to Medjugorje looking for a miracle.  You should go looking for inner peace.  Life is much easier for me now.  People that were a pain in the neck have now drifted away from my life.  The new people have come into my life are truly a joy to be around.

My wife of 44 years will tell you I experienced a true conversion in Medjugorje and I would have to agree with her.  It seems God nudges you little by little until you travel the narrow path. I now have a doctorate in divinity and operate the www.SaintPaulMinistries.net website.  All of the materials offered on the site are free and we average 20,000 downloads per month.  Many times people will ask questions, sometimes people will try and attack myself or the faith but it always seems the Holy Spirit is there to give me the patience and the right thing to say.

Dan Mayne
www.SaintPaulMinistries.net

“Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ”
St. Jerome

William Frederick “Buffalo Bill” Cody (February 26, 1846 – January 10, 1917) was a soldier, bison hunter and showman. He was born in the Iowa and was one of the most colorful characters of the American Old West, and was largely famous for the shows he put on with cowboy themes.

“And it’s in my old age I have found God – And realize how easy it is to abandon sin and serve him. When one stops to think how little they have to give up – to serve God. It’s a wonder so many more don’t do it. A person only has to do right. Through this knowledge I have quit drinking entirely. And quit doing rash things simply by controlling my passions and temper when I find myself getting angry.”

Read more on Buffalo Bill’s Conversion Story

Twenty years ago you came in a beam of light
shining through the clouds of my youth
carving a cross on my heart

I sat in the library
at green mountain college
on my birthday in December
praying desperately to see the true meaning of life

Is it Buddha
Is it Brahma
Is it native spirituality?
Lord tell me if Jesus is truly the Son of God and the way

Instantly the sun came out from behind a thick wall of clouds
and I knew without any doubt that Jesus would be my savior for life

Two friends in particular when I was young,
Mike and Doug, shared their faith and conversion stories
They planted seeds and sparked a fire
That will burn forever.

After many years of trying different churches of all denominations, I started going to Catholic Masses, where I felt a sense of peace and a powerful presence. I decided to get confirmed and the process made me confident I was at home in the Church that Jesus formed. Since then I have been to Fatima, Lourdes, The Vatican (with Pope John Paul in 2000), Garabandal in Spain and various spiritual places. I believe in the true presence of Christ in the Eucharist and continue to read and pray to grow my faith. God sometimes feels distant and life can be dark but often it is in those times, if we push through it prayerfully, that we can experience true graces of the holy spirit that inspire us and renew our faith. When my mother died, too young, of a stroke in her fifties, my faith was put to the test. I got on my knees and prayed (at Mass General Hospital) that she would come out of her coma. I saw in my mind the gates of heaven opening for her and was given a message that it was her time to go and that it was meant to be. That really helped me get through an awful time but also made me realize, if you think your Catholic and have faith, think again! You may not realize how real God is untill such experiences make you question the ultimate facts of life. If she is dying, will I ever see her again? Is heaven real? If I truly have faith I will see her again? This increased my faith when I responed by trusting that my visions were a grace and that God is truly real. Even though I had a powerful conversion 10 years before, my faith needed a reality check. And more tests have come my way than I could have ever dreamed. I believe that God tries the ones he loves but it is for our own benefit and that we grow from it and our suffering has a purpose.  Thank God for the sacraments and the Saints that help us get through it all and bring the spirit into our lives and help us pass it on to others.

John McDougall