Medjugorje: How Has It Changed Since the 1980s — and What Do Pilgrims Do There Today?
From a Small Village in Herzegovina to One of the World's Best-Known Places of Catholic Pilgrimage
If you first heard about Medjugorje in the 1980s, you may remember photographs of a very different place.
A small rural village. Rocky hills. Simple homes. Pilgrims making their way over rough stones. Very little of the infrastructure we associate with a major pilgrimage destination today.
It all began in June 1981, when a group of young people in the parish reported seeing the Blessed Virgin Mary on the hillside of Podbrdo. News spread remarkably quickly, despite the restrictions of the communist Yugoslav authorities at the time, and pilgrims began arriving to pray.
More than four decades later, Medjugorje looks very different.
But perhaps the most interesting thing is how much of the experience has remained the same.
Medjugorje in the Early Years
Those who came in the 1980s- including me ( Belinda) encountered something quite raw and simple.
Apparition Hill was essentially a rocky hillside. An official Medjugorje history notes that, up until 1989, there was little there beyond boulders and simple crosses left by pilgrims. Over time, bronze reliefs depicting the mysteries of the Rosary were installed along the route, and the hill became a more established place of prayer.
Pilgrims climbed.
They prayed the Rosary.
They went to Mass.
They waited for Confession.
And they came looking for something that is much harder to describe than a tourist attraction.
Peace. Conversion. A deeper relationship with God.
Those themes remain at the heart of Medjugorje today.
What Has Changed?
Medjugorje is no longer an isolated little village receiving a trickle of adventurous pilgrims.
It has become an international pilgrimage destination receiving people from around the world. The pastoral life surrounding St. James Church now includes Masses in different languages, extensive opportunities for Confession, Eucharistic Adoration, Rosary, prayer for healing, and other organized prayer programs.
There are hotels and pilgrim houses, restaurants and cafés, religious shops, meeting spaces and a much more developed infrastructure.
Around St. James Church itself, additional facilities have been created over the years to accommodate the extraordinary number of pilgrims, including an outdoor altar, confessionals, an Adoration chapel and other prayer areas.
So yes — the Medjugorje of today is much busier and more developed than the Medjugorje of the early 1980s.
And inevitably, some people wonder:
Has it become too commercial? Has something been lost?
Perhaps the answer depends on where you choose to focus your attention.
You can notice the shops.
Or you can notice hundreds of people quietly waiting for Confession.
You can notice the restaurants.
Or you can climb Apparition Hill at sunrise with a Rosary in your hand.
You can notice how much the village has changed.
Or you can sit silently before the Blessed Sacrament and discover that, for a little while, the outside world seems very far away.
What Does the Church Say About Medjugorje Today?
This is an important question.
In September 2024, the Vatican's Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a Nihil obstat concerning the spiritual experience associated with Medjugorje. The Church recognized the abundant positive spiritual fruits connected with the place and authorized public devotion.
That does not mean that the Church has declared the alleged apparitions themselves to be supernatural or authentic, and Catholics are not required to believe in them. The Vatican makes that distinction very clearly.
What the Church has emphasized instead is something very beautiful: the extraordinary spiritual fruits associated with Medjugorje — conversions, return to the Sacraments, Eucharistic devotion, Confession, prayer, vocations and renewal of faith.
The Vatican also specifically advises that pilgrims should not go primarily to seek out alleged visionaries, but rather to encounter Christ through Mary, particularly through Scripture, the Eucharist and Eucharistic Adoration.
And that tells us a great deal about what a pilgrimage to Medjugorje should really be.
So What Do You Actually Do in Medjugorje?
Climb Apparition Hill
Apparition Hill — Podbrdo — is where the events of 1981 began.
The climb is rocky and uneven, and that is part of the experience. Along the route are bronze reliefs representing mysteries of the Rosary.
Pilgrims climb slowly, stopping to pray along the way.
At the top, there is time for personal prayer and reflection.
It isn't really a sightseeing excursion.
It is prayer with your feet.
Climb Cross Mountain
High above Medjugorje is Cross Mountain — Križevac.
Interestingly, the enormous cross at its summit predates the reported apparitions. Parishioners erected it in 1934 to commemorate the 1,900th anniversary of Christ's death.
Today pilgrims climb the mountain praying the Stations of the Cross, stopping at each station on the way toward the great cross at the summit.
It can be physically demanding.
But pilgrimage isn't always supposed to be easy.
Sometimes the effort itself becomes part of the prayer.
Spend Time at St. James Church
The twin-towered Church of St. James the Greater is at the heart of Medjugorje.
St. James is fittingly the patron saint of pilgrims, and the church has become the center of the sacramental life of the pilgrimage.
Mass, Rosary, Confession and prayer all draw pilgrims back here day after day.
Go to Confession
For many people, Confession becomes one of the most important experiences of Medjugorje.
The Vatican itself highlighted the remarkable number of people who return to the Sacrament of Reconciliation there.
You see priests hearing Confessions in multiple languages.
You see lines of people waiting.
And sometimes you see someone emerge who looks just a little different from when they went in.
There is a reason Medjugorje has often been associated with reconciliation and new beginnings.
Experience Eucharistic Adoration
One of the most beautiful experiences in Medjugorje can be Eucharistic Adoration.
Hundreds — sometimes thousands — of people can gather, and yet there can be an extraordinary sense of silence.
The official parish prayer program includes regular Eucharistic Adoration as an important part of spiritual life in Medjugorje.
For many pilgrims, it becomes one of those moments they remember long after returning home.
Pray the Rosary
The Rosary is woven throughout a Medjugorje pilgrimage.
You may pray it climbing Apparition Hill, at St. James, walking through the village, or quietly on your own.
The parish's organized prayer program includes regular Rosary prayer, including prayer on Apparition Hill.
Simply Be Still
And perhaps this is something we don't talk about enough.
You don't have to fill every minute.
Sit.
Pray.
Walk.
Have a coffee with fellow pilgrims.
Return to church.
Write in a journal.
Light a candle.
Talk to someone you have only just met.
Sometimes the most important part of pilgrimage occurs between the things written on the itinerary.
Has Medjugorje Changed?
Enormously.
The small village known to the first pilgrims of the 1980s has become a busy international pilgrimage destination.
There are more buildings.
More pilgrims.
More facilities.
More organization.
But the rocky hills are still there.
The Rosaries are still being prayed.
The confessionals are still full.
Mass is still at the center.
And pilgrims are still arriving from all over the world carrying questions, worries, gratitude, grief, hope — and sometimes simply a desire to become closer to God.
Perhaps that is the part of Medjugorje that hasn't changed at all.
Why Go?
You don't have to travel to Medjugorje because you are certain about everything that has been reported there.
You can go because you want to pray.
Because you want time away from ordinary life.
Because you want to receive the Sacraments.
Because you want to walk.
Because you want to ask God a question.
Because you want to say thank you.
Or perhaps because something inside you is quietly saying:
Go and see.
The village may have changed enormously since 1981.
But for the pilgrim, Medjugorje is still less about what you see than about what may happen quietly within your heart while you are there. We are going in March with Bishop Waltersheid- WWW.BIT.LY/MARY27 CLICK THIS LINK TO LEARN MORE- ALL ARE WELCOME TO JOIN!