medjugorie-total suprise

panda100

I came back two days ago from a trip to medjugorie-for those of u who dont know-medjugorie is a small simple town in bosnia herzigovnia where in 1982 6 children (now all grown up) where playing in a field when a lady appeared to them-anyways to cut a long story short it turns out it was our lady aka mother of jesus and she still appears to them every evening giving them messages of peace and love.
I only went to medjugorie cos someone offered me the free flight and was planning on heading straight off to croatia on arrival.Before the trip i would have said i was a spiritual person believeing in god but had lost all faith in the catholic church-mass was an annual boring event at christmas and priests were sexist old boring men to me.
On the first day i was about to head off to croatia when i just thought id go in to mass just to see what was going on-well it was better than any u2 concert. There was loads of gorgeous young priests and there was such a buzz about the place you couldnt help but get in to it.
The catholic church in ireland is dead cos all its members are dead-none of us make an effort to get in to our faith-its like having a tennis club-theres no point having loads of memebers if they only turn up to play once ina while or only give a half hearted attempt when their there.The only way you'll get good at tennis is sweating your heart out to the best you can play and it isnt going to be easy and fun all the time but at the end when you get to wimbledon you'll reap the rewards.
What i got from medjugorie really though was what a simple life they led-their houses were all basic and work really just came came last in their lives behind everything like family and friends.They were all so happy,friendly and such good craic-i didnt stop laughing the whole week.It was so refreshing to be in a place so free of all of the superficial trapppings of ireland.Medjugorie is the total opposite to ireland and when i stepped off the plane in dublin i was so sad to be back in a nation where image and wealth mean everything.
Image and wealth are totally against what the church teaches.And isint it funny that as more and more people turn their back on the church the more and more unhappy we are becoming as a nation?

smidgy

And isint it funny that as more and more people turn their back on the church the more and more unhappy we are becoming as a nation?

I couldnt have put it better myself. Ireland is selling its soul - many people, especially the young are now just slaves to money. People will do anything for money nowadays, they will kneel before it and bow to it, its really sad. Poverty in a nation can make it bitter towards God because of the hardship the people of that nation feel but wealth makes a nation feel so insulated that they no longer need God. It allows them to create a reality in which there is no room for God. That is the direction that Ireland is heading towards. There is a lot to be said for a simple life , when you strip away all of the accessories that we do not need you get closer to the reality of 'being'. Take away the cars the tv's the money from your life and what have you got? - you just have 'life'. Thats what this world is really about. Its nice to see people just 'living' and not buying amassing, consuming, flaunting, and gorging on the accessories in the world.

Seeing mass in ireland as a boring old event is just because you do not see the meaning in it. The meaning is there before your very eyes, there is more to mass than meets the eye. Do not just view it in worldly terms. There is meaning in the words that the preist says and the prayers that you say, you do not just ream off the words - words mean something - mean what you say. Jesus is present there in the eucharist if you just realise it.

Myksyk

panda100 wrote:

And isn't it funny that as more and more people turn their back on the church the more and more unhappy we are becoming as a nation?

?????

Where do people get this nonsense? When do you think we were happier? In the 70's and 80's? when unemployment was rife, taxes were high, emigration was at its peak? What evidence have you that we are unhappier as a nation? I suspect absolutely none.

In fact, the very opposite is the result of a poll taken recently which shows that Ireland has one of the highest quality of life standards in the world, including factors related to well-being and satisfaction.

The fact is that we're happier and better off than ever and some people can't accept that this is happening DESPITE the fall off in religious faith.

panda100

Well as a 22 year old normal irish girl i can only speak for myself when i say we are unhappy!But as a medical student i dont think my lectureres are lying to me when they say that 1 in3 suffer from depression and it is soon to become an epidemic in ireland and the drug we will be prescribing the most is anti-deppressants.As a student in ucd the biggest university in Ireland i often help out counselling and the young ireland growing up is a insecure,lonely generation-just look at the expose of the old wesly teenage disco in irland with young teens losing thir virginity and regretting it!Doing everything the church preaches against-god doesnt want to tell us what to do he knows whats best for us-money,drink dont make us happy-just read any interview form a famous rock star and they'll say that.
I disagree with you that ireland was unhappy in the 70's and 80's-my mum and dad both telll me bout how lucky we are now and how awful ireland was then and how great it is now with all these opportunities.My parents emigrated to london in the 70's and i would say are vey comftarble now after working hard their whole lives and are no happier now!I know this cos my dad still talks of the good old days when he used to walk to school in kerry throught the fields and maybe hitch a lift in to town to the local dance-good innocent fun!i for one would be happy to go back to innocent ireland with no cars,roads,offices and just enjoy nature god has given us.but here i am studying and working till im 60 and then il be too old to run in the fields and enjoy what god has given me-why cant we live when were young instead of poor 18 year olds stressed cos of leving cert

Myksyk

Sorry Panda but the sentence

"i can only speak for myself when i say we are unhappy"

does not make sense.

You are right when you say you can only speak for yourself and I suspect your opinions are based on personal anecdotes which are not representative of the nation ... which was your original claim. Furthermore you directly linked this putative decline in national spirits to a departure from the church, another claim you have not backed up.

Your lecturers may not be lying to you about the stats in regard to depression - my only quibble there would be that they are a tad off - 1 in 4 people are said to suffer from depressive type symptoms (not depressive illness) at any given time and these may be very mild ... the stats regarding actual depressive illness is more like 1 in 15-20. The relevant point here is that these stats have more or less always been this way and have not in any way been demonstrated to be linked to a departure form the church in recent times or to increased material wealth nationally.

I disagree with you that ireland was unhappy in the 70's and 80's-my mum and dad both telll me bout how lucky we are now and how awful ireland was then and how great it is now with all these opportunities.My parents emigrated to london in the 70's and i would say are vey comftarble now after working hard their whole lives and are no happier now!

I'm sory but this is an almost incomprehensible paragraph. You say you are disagreeing with my point and then go on to confirm it!?

i for one would be happy to go back to innocent ireland with no cars,roads,offices and just enjoy nature god has given us.but here i am studying and working till im 60 and then il be too old to run in the fields and enjoy what god has given me-why cant we live when were young instead of poor 18 year olds stressed cos of leving cert

I'm trying not to be too harsh here Panda but this is a very very naive sentiment. I would suggest you would be too busy trying to feed yourself, staving off illness and dealing with the chronic isolation of those times to be too bothered about 'running through the fields'!!! The fact is you and I have never had it better - health, education, wealth, connection, community etc etc ... Believe me, the grass you'd be running through in those fields you speak of would be less green than today's!!!!

robindch

> the young ireland growing up is a insecure, lonely generation [...]

Yes, there are a few people who are insecure and lonely, but it's certainly not the majority; and I don't believe that it's ever been any other way anyway -- it seems to be a fairly basic part of human psychology, when people arrive at the switch point between what's termed 'conventional morality' and the dawning of the 'post-conventional morality' (see here for a rough outline of what these two terms mean). This switch comes from the realization that, contrary to what one would have learned as a child from one's parents (or indeed, would generally continue to hear as an adult from most preachers, at least within the catholic church), that there are in fact no hard and fast rules of behaviour -- some people enjoy this realization, some don't; some go on to develop their own perfectly adequate, or better, codes of conduct, while others develop less adequate ones, and others still are unable to cope with the realization and instead retreat back into some conventional morality or other, usually dictacted by some semi-political "us/them"-type organization, whether it's the church or something else.

Regardless of this aspect of psychology, the church, as far as I can make out, has only had a limited effect upon people's behaviour, outside of that small enough proportion of the population who turned to it for rules and I don't see that there's been any fall-off in this percentage; only in the larger section of the population who didn't listen to it anyway. And I'd imagine that this group of people are probably rather happier that the church is no longer the force it once was, so I think it's probably fair to conclude that the collapse in church attendance has caused happiness to increase within the population at large.

Finally, I've always been intrigued by discussion of a 'moral decline' (eg, see here) that many people claim to see -- very often religious/conventionally moralized people, it appears -- but which I can't see at all (the young things catching their death of cold outside the old wesley club notwithstanding). Is anybody aware of any solid research done into the topic?

da_deadman

The Catholic Church is solely to blame for the decline in members it currently faces. This church had so much power in this country but they abused it.

Look at all the fabulous churches and church buildings throughout the country. The bishops house in Carlow is a very impressive piece of property. At a time when the country was in such poverty, here was an organisation that collected a lot of money and spent it on extravagant and over-the-top buildings before preaching about how material possessions were unimportant in the eyes of God.

With this and all the other issues relating to the church (i.e. the sex and abuse scandals) it's not hard to see why there has been such a drop in church-goers.

I've just remembered watching that 'Reeling in the Years' tv show for 1991 with a foreigner. There was a clip of the court case about virgin selling condoms. She was amazed that condoms were illegal in Ireland until so recently. The fact that the church had such power in the country was completely unbelievable to her.

panda100

Just read over what i wrote there yesterday think i was in a pissed of at ireland mood and it didnt make much sense really-Sorry bout that guys.

nobodythere

I see the younger generation of Ireland as much less materialistic than the previous. You act like materialism is a new phenomenom, but anyone who has read any Irish novels like Hugh Leonard's Home Before Night or Angela's Ashes, or has read the poetry of Yeats knows that this is not so. If you believe that this generation is more materialistic, stop reading newspapers, go outside and talk to some of the younger generation. Most people of my age (17) that I know are disgusted by the lack of genuine love for the world that the last generation has shown (including my Dad who wants to make a car park out of Eyre Square).

The fall of the Catholic Church in Ireland is because of the corruption of the people who ran it, so please don't pretend that there was this once perfect vision of Catholicism. People have always exploited Christianity for their own purposes, viewing it not as a way for us to live together peacefully but as a road for their personal salvation and their selfish desires to reach heaven.

If you want to examine the reasons who there has been such a breakdown in society, consider this perspective. A functional society is based on a tight-knit community. A community shares common goals. In a good community, people look out for each other. In big cities, there is no community, there are simply too many people too feel like a part of something important. This is why there is more social unrest in cities.

The glue of community is threefold: Fear, Empathy and Common Goals.

Fear: Social pressures, fear of being embarrassed or shamed in the society. This can be seen as the corruption of the church in Ireland less than 40 years ago. My father once told me that in his time, if you didn't pay money to the church (rural community), you would be named out at mass and consequently boycotted by the community.
Empathy: The idea that we should stick together as a community out of love and understanding for each other.
Common goals: This includes common ideas (and often common enemies).

Taking the last one first, we no longer have any common goals because we live in a society dominated by surrogate activities (see The Unabomber's Manifesto). We do not rely on each other for anything essential. We have nothing to offer each other, not even a close friendship (because the world is so globalised that we can find more compatible people to become our community). All that is left to fuel the community is fear and empathy.

With regards to Empathy, this eventually breaks down due to the lack of common ground that we have as a community. This is evident from the nature of our humanity. We only feel empathy for those who are like us. For example, everybody cares a lot more about the London bombing than the people dying in Iraq. Nobody really remembers the highway of death right now as they will remember the WTC bombings in 10 years. There is only fear left to fuel the society.

Fear is what fueled the society of Ireland when the church was a powerful organisation. Here's the rule: Fear eventually subsides. And then there's nothing left with regards to community.

Getting to the point, the church was the last legs of Irish community, but the church is also not a viable medium for a sustainable community.

The skanger phenomenom that I presume you refer to with regards to selfishness and materialism is akin to the punk movement of the 1980's. It can't be justified or excused, but it is understandable. They are simply angry at the vision of this world that they see. The corruption, materialism, greed, pressure and structure and they can only be fueled by anger. Their lack of empathy rises because they feel as if there is nobody in the world worth caring about.

Sorry about the length of this, but I had a teacher who once got very smug with his claims that the lack of religion was the cause of all this dissent and I did a lot of thinking about it...Thanks if you read all of it.

nobodythere

panda100 wrote:

i for one would be happy to go back to innocent ireland with no cars,roads,offices and just enjoy nature god has given us.but here i am studying and working till im 60 and then il be too old to run in the fields and enjoy what god has given me-why cant we live when were young instead of poor 18 year olds stressed cos of leving cert

Amen to that!

THE DUDE.......

smidgy wrote:

I couldnt have put it better myself. Ireland is selling its soul - many people, especially the young are now just slaves to money. People will do anything for money nowadays, they will kneel before it and bow to it, its really sad. Poverty in a nation can make it bitter towards God because of the hardship the people of that nation feel but wealth makes a nation feel so insulated that they no longer need God. It allows them to create a reality in which there is no room for God. That is the direction that Ireland is heading towards.

im sorry but when i read this statement i felt a familiar anger filling up inside me. excuse me if im wrong, but who is supposed to teach young people morals and values of life? adults. so why do people blame youngsters when they see them buying the latest mobile phones and wanting the latest designer clothes when all of these wants stem from the way in which we were brought up. we are not slaves to money, we are slaves to the type of world in which adults have created, one in which it is ok to walk past homeless people who sell "The big issue" because they are from a lower class in society than us, one in which we cant walk home on our own for fear that somebody will assult us and one in which racism and sexual discrimination is rampant throughout Ireland. I speak for most young people when i say that it is unfair and unacceptable that we are all branded with the same "tags".

i am not even going to attempt to speak on behalf of my generation because every single person in this world has different opinions but in my case, i am not a slave to money. i would not care if i didnt have a mobile phone, i wouldnt care if i didnt have the latest music and i do not wish to become a millionaire. i dont believe that any person who is a millionaire has the right to keep that kind of money. one person only needs a small fraction of a million to survive and if you add up all the money of wealthy people in this country then i think that you'll find that ireland alone could "make poverty history".

smidgy wrote:

wealth makes a nation feel so insulated that they no longer need God. It allows them to create a reality in which there is no room for God. That is the direction that Ireland is heading towards.

perhaps it was the fact that many people have lost there faith in the church because so many apparent "leaders" abused there power and made life hell for many innocent people, mostly children. the church in ireland only has itself to blame. church leaders take about charity and how we must not give into material things and yet the priests in my county always seem to be driving new cars???????????????

i do not feel isolated in this country. i do not yet know if i need god in my life but i do know that i do not want the churchs view of god in my life.

smidgy

Look mate everyone has a choice - even the children. You can put down the mobile phone and wear whatever clothes you want to. The adults are part of the problem but its too easy to put the blame on someone else when in the end its you who decide how you live your life. As proclaimed by Jesus Christ and transmitted by St. Matthew: "...You cannot serve God and mammon (the world and money)." This means either you serve one or the other, you cannot serve both. If your life is centred on the latter then that is what you serve.

perhaps it was the fact that many people have lost there faith in the church because so many apparent "leaders" abused there power and made life hell for many innocent people

I do not condone the activities of the catholic church in the past in Ireland or wherever for that matter but you can not just put the blame squarely on their shoulders. People do stay outside the catholic church yet still believe in god - althouhg it is probably a bit more difficult because the bible is your only reference to the teachings of God and the responsibility of studying and reading and living by it is your own. Remember without the bible we only have the concept of God and do not know his ways. I believe that the church definatley has its place in Gods grand scheme and it is a loss to society when it breaks down but the church is just a community that believes in god.

i do not yet know if i need god in my life but i do know that i do not want the churchs view of god in my life.

The priests just transmit the teachings to the church (us) from what has been gathered from 2000(ish) years of studying the bible. Does this not count for something? or do you consider you own interpretation of the bible to be more reliable?

Playboy

smidgy wrote:

Look mate everyone has a choice - even the children. You can put down the mobile phone and wear whatever clothes you want to. The adults are part of the problem but its too easy to put the blame on someone else when in the end its you who decide how you live your life. As proclaimed by Jesus Christ and transmitted by St. Matthew: "...You cannot serve God and mammon (the world and money)." This means either you serve one or the other, you cannot serve both. If your life is centred on the latter then that is what you serve.

I bet you live on the street and don’t have a material possession in the world:rolleyes: Please tell me where you draw the line when deciding that you have too much money or too many material possessions. I can think of one institution in particular which for thousands of years has been wealthy beyond measure while the poor starved at its door and still do. Such hypocrisy as usual.

smidgy wrote:

I do not condone the activities of the catholic church in the past in Ireland or wherever for that matter but you can not just put the blame squarely on their shoulders. People do stay outside the catholic church yet still believe in god - althouhg it is probably a bit more difficult because the bible is your only reference to the teachings of God and the responsibility of studying and reading and living by it is your own. Remember without the bible we only have the concept of God and do not know his ways. I believe that the church definatley has its place in Gods grand scheme and it is a loss to society when it breaks down but the church is just a community that believes in god.

The bible is not the only reference to the teachings Jesus. The validity of the bible as an accurate account of Jesus’ life is highly disputable. There are many ways to know 'God' that don’t involve the bible.

smidgy wrote:

The priests just transmit the teachings to the church (us) from what has been gathered from 2000(ish) years of studying the bible. Does this not count for something? or do you consider you own interpretation of the bible to be more reliable?

I would implore everybody who reads the bible to trust their own judgement as to what it means rather than to subscribe to one rather narrow view of an institution with an agenda.

Dades

smidgy wrote:

I do not condone the activities of the catholic church in the past in Ireland or wherever for that matter but you can not just put the blame squarely on their shoulders.

As smidgy says the drop off in support is not just the fault of the Church. IMO it has as much to do with eduction, and a more liberal society where beliefs are no longer just handed down unquestioned from generation to generation. The information age had made people more aware that there are different views to the bigger questions than those pounded out in the past.

Rather than "blame" the church I'd rather welcome the new openness.

panda100

when i started this post i didnt intend for it to end into an argument of all the bad things the catholic church has done-i appreciate that everyone has had bad and good experiences with the catholic church but i just wanted to see if anyone else has been to medjugorie (club medj!) and what you though of it?

Dades

panda100 wrote:

i just wanted to see if anyone else has been to medjugorie (club medj!) and what you though of it?

Actually I was in Medj before the war (i.e. the Yugoslav wars).

I found it a special place in that it was so peaceful and there was an amazing sense of community. People sharing every sort of problems physical and mental, and selfless workers everywhere to lend a hand.

As regards the (continuing) visions I was far from convinced. The visionaries were virtual celebrities as far as I could see. People believe what they want to however, though sometimes that isn't a bad thing. The mind is the greatest healer.

A special place? definitely.
The site of miraculous visions? If you want it to be.

panda100

But i do think that the visionaries have nothing to gain from this-they are all quite poor and have a normal family life.One of the visionaries viska has serious medical problems like a brain tumor yet she still allowed us to come to her house(a v.simple poor house)to talk to a huge crowd of us about the visions even though it was a sweltering hot day and im sure she had better thing to do.I was just wondering do any other religons have any visionary phenomens to-like medj,lourdes or fatima?
Also when i was in medjugorie i witnessed a exorcism type thing which totally freaked the hell out of me to be honest.One day we were walking up mount crucifix which is this huge mountain with the stations of the cross-apparently its a v.holy mountain and loads of extraordinary things happen there.So i was walking up with my sister just minding my own buisness and a priest was just a few steps behind us doing his own praying.A bunch of spanish girls then were wallking back down the hill-they looked totally normal,young spanish girls,chatting and laughing. Then the next second one of the girls went running towards the priest and was shrieking.The sound of her screaming was something id never heared in my life before-it was like a cat in lots of pain but it was nothing ive ever heared from a human being-and im a med student have heared a lot of people in pain(not that im putting them in pain-am good med student!)The next thing she was hissing and on the floor trying to attack the priest.I was crapping myself and going to run over to try and pin her down to help the priest.But he was totally cool and didnt even fight back and he just started praying over her or something and her screams just got smaller and smaller and the next thing she was fine. What i couldnt believe was everyone reaction-people were just walking past like they saw this all the time.Afterwards we went up to the girl and the priest to see if they were ok.The priest was like oh yes this happens all the time.The priest said that it was evil spirits coming out of her and she had said afterwards that she is big into tarot cards and reiki and she had jsut come to medjugorie for a day trip.The priest said this is how evil sprits enter us by such things as tarot and reiki.In medj apparently this happens all the time in mass and everywhere people start screaming and stuff.When i saw it it really made me think cos medj was make or break with me and catholicsm.This girl wasnt putting on an act so its very real and happening.I find the concept of satan really difficult to understand but seeing that really made me think there was something unhuman inside her. I was just wondering does this sort of other-worldly phenomen happen in other religions to?

Myksyk

panda100 wrote:

But i do think that the visionaries have nothing to gain from this-they are all quite poor and have a normal family life.

This presumes that the only type of gain is monetary/material. The obvious gain one might think of in this situation is 'special status' or 'fame', a not inconsiderable gain in any community or society. In this case, the persons' fame is not just local, regional or national but international. Just a thought.

One day we were walking up mount crucifix which is this huge mountain with the stations of the cross-apparently its a v.holy mountain and loads of extraordinary things happen there.So i was walking up with my sister just minding my own buisness and a priest was just a few steps behind us doing his own praying.A bunch of spanish girls then were wallking back down the hill-they looked totally normal,young spanish girls,chatting and laughing. Then the next second one of the girls went running towards the priest and was shrieking.The sound of her screaming was something id never heared in my life before-it was like a cat in lots of pain but it was nothing ive ever heared from a human being-and im a med student have heared a lot of people in pain(not that im putting them in pain-am good med student!)The next thing she was hissing and on the floor trying to attack the priest.I was crapping myself and going to run over to try and pin her down to help the priest.But he was totally cool and didnt even fight back and he just started praying over her or something and her screams just got smaller and smaller and the next thing she was fine. What i couldnt believe was everyone reaction-people were just walking past like they saw this all the time.Afterwards we went up to the girl and the priest to see if they were ok.The priest was like oh yes this happens all the time.The priest said that it was evil spirits coming out of her and she had said afterwards that she is big into tarot cards and reiki and she had jsut come to medjugorie for a day trip.The priest said this is how evil sprits enter us by such things as tarot and reiki.In medj apparently this happens all the time in mass and everywhere people start screaming and stuff.When i saw it it really made me think cos medj was make or break with me and catholicsm.This girl wasnt putting on an act so its very real and happening.I find the concept of satan really difficult to understand but seeing that really made me think there was something unhuman inside her. I was just wondering does this sort of other-worldly phenomen happen in other religions to?

Question...Can you think of any other explanation(s) for what you witnessed?

Dades

panda100 wrote:

I was just wondering does this sort of other-worldly phenomen happen in other religions to?

You don't really wonder that, do you?! Of course they do. Dieties are tradionally responsible for unexplained phenomena.

I saw similar things in Medj. One of our party had a "revelatory" experience too, and was always a bit different afterward.

Marching up a mountain at dawn to chanting, with thoughts of visionaries and miracles swirling around in your head is bound to affect people in strange ways. I still believe you take from places like this exactly what you came looking for.

Still I'm glad to hear the ethos of the place hasn't been ruined in the intervening years since I was there.