Spiritual Renewal Simplfied

WWW.SPIRITUAL-RENEWAL.COM

Surrey Spiritual Renewal Taskforce

A Facility of Camberley Medjugorje Centre

Introducing Medjugorje, World Centre of Renewal from the Balkans.

14 years of mission, and 600,000 young people converted!

Not a bad record for a remote, rural, Balkan parish set high up in the hills between Mostar and the coast, some 18 miles south of that city. It is near enough to have heard the shellfire around the city regularly during the civil war, especially in the quiet of the night.

Pilgrims in search of an answer

Up to the mid-1990s the total number of visitors to this parish had been estimated variously, between 20,000,000 and 60,000,000. They came often out of curiosity. Many came not quiet sure why they came. A friend had told them, perhaps, how marvellous it was. Perhaps a TV programme, or feature article stimulated their interest. It is said that many come as tourists, and return home as pilgrims. A sample, some 250 first-time visitors, was asked the question, "Why have you come?" Less than 5% gave answers which were more or less the same. The same question, asked of 250 second-time visitors, received an 80% response of very slight variations of the answer, "I came back to learn to pray."

How it all began

It all began on a hot summer day in June 1981. In the previous month an attempt had been made on the life of Pope John Paul II. A few weeks later, at Pentecost that the Pontiff prayed that the Holy Spirit come to the Church with renewed vigour, asking the faithful to "repeat with still greater fervour: 'Let your Spirit descend and renew the face of the earth.'" It is our belief that the prayer was answered just over a fortnight later in this remote valley in the south of Bosnia-Herzegovina. God's response came in a most remarkable way. John Paul II attributed his deliverance from death to the direct intervention of the Blessed Virgin Mary. He related his call for renewal to that belief. If God could intervene through Mary to save his life, the Holy Spirit could intervene to renew the world and its lifestyle.

God's choice reasserted

God's choice was the appearance of the Blessed Virgin Mary to half a dozen or so country children and young people with a direct and strange message. A tall story? Maybe - but then so was his choice of that young girl nearly two millennia before to be the bearer, mother, and human nurturer of his Son. God was merely repeating and reasserting his earlier choice.

Sixteen days after Pentecost, in June 1981, at the time of the feast of St.John the Baptist, Jesus's Forerunner, and some very ordinary young people began to experience the Blessed Virgin Mary in a startling and unexpected way. Her message was "Peace."

Camberley Medjugorje Centre seeks to promote this message, and the example of Our Lady's obedience, and the graces which come from a study of her relationship with Jesus, alongside and subject to the profound dedication to Jesus Himself, to God the Father,and the work of the Holy Spirit which lies at the heart of Medjugorje.

The website seeks to be a resource on the web for all those who wish to reinvigorate their spiritual lives through simple, traditional, means easily assimilated by anyone willing to take the risk!