Medjugorje parish priest Br. Zvonimir Pavičić recently visited England at the invitation of the Medjugorje Council for England and Wales, where he met with pilgrims who are coming to Medjugorje and who wanted first-hand and the latest information from Medjugorje and to host the Medjugorje parish priest.

“There were smaller groups of people. There are not many Catholics in England, but they respond to such meetings. The Međugorje Council for England and Wales was formed at the beginning of the apparitions, they told me how it used to be, Br. Slavko Barbarić used to come there… They have been organizing these meetings for more than twenty years, in the beginning they had to look for the biggest halls in London so that everyone who wanted to participate could be present at those events. Now, these venues are smaller and in the parishes, where they received us very nicely,” said Br. Zvonimir Pavičić, who visited several parishes in London, the first being St. Mary’s Parish in London.

“The program was intense from ten in the morning until 6 p.m., I spoke about Our Lady, about Medjugorje, I celebrated Holy Mass, and during the break there was an opportunity to get to know each other better. All those meetings were enriching for me, I hope they are for them as well. At the end, there would be Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, as well as Benediction. It was a nice and intense gathering,” said Br. Zvonimir, who also visited the Walsingham Shrine of Our Lady.

“It used to be a great shrine of Our Lady, and after the schism with Rome, that is, with the Catholic Church, that shrine was also divided, in which there is an Anglican part and a small part as a Catholic shrine, where Catholics like to come,” explained Br. Zvonimir, and there he had catechesis and celebrated Holy Mass, led the Rosary prayer, litanies, and there was also an opportunity for holy confession…

After Cambridge visit last year, the Medjugorje parish priest visited Oxford, where the prayer program was held in the parish of St. Anthony of Padua.

“Last year we were in Cambridge, so the organizers joked and said: you have to go to Oxford now. First we went to Littlemore. There we visited the house where John Henry Newman stayed. He stayed there for four years and thought about whether he would convert to the Catholic Church. He later switched from the Anglican to the Catholic Church and was baptized in that house. He is a saint of the Catholic Church, he was also a cardinal and an influential Catholic in the whole world, not only in England. He searched for the truth and read the old church fathers and concluded that the truth is contained in the Catholic Church. We were also in the chapel where he prayed. We prayed there and after that we looked around Oxford and all those universities, and then we went to the parish of St. Anthony of Padua, where we had another Medjugorje meeting with the rosary, litanies, Holy Mass and Adoration…” said Br. Zvonimir Pavičić, stressing that coming to Medjugorje is very fruitful for pilgrims.

“I saw a lot of those who attended the fasting and prayer retreat in Medjugorje, they witnessed that the fasting and prayer retreat was very fruitful for them and that they will come again next year, so I encourage all the other pilgrims to come to these retreats as well, and the program for their languages ​​can be found on our website,” said Br. Zvonimir, emphasizing that pilgrims from Medjugorje have their regular meetings in England with a program similar to the one in Medjugorje, they pass on testimonies to others when they return from Medjugorje, and they have a sort of a spiritual renewal in England.