On one summer evening in Medjugorje, it was already dark, I felt the yearning to go and pray at the Blue Cross. So, I went. There, I began to pray the rosary. In the meantime, I was having an inner conversation with Our Lady, or rather, I was just teasing her like a little child. I don’t know what came into my mind at that moment, but I began to ask Our Lady to tell me something. While praying the rosary, I just repeated simple words, “Our Lady, please tell me something. Please, please. It can be anything, just tell me something.”

That’s how I prayed and teased Mama. I continued this until I finished the fifth decade of the rosary, but I still didn’t get what I was asking for. So, I decided to continue praying and I prayed another rosary. Again, I finished with words, “Please, please tell me anything. Feel free to even scold me, just say something to me.”

It felt a bit childish, but at the same time enjoyable and happy. I said to myself, after all, Our Lady tells us to be like children and I am her child.  So, I will not stop until she answers me. As I finished the last decade of the second rosary, I quietened my heart. I stopped praying and teasing her. I was just silent listening with expectation. After a while, I heard one simple sentence deep in my heart, “Your prayer is very important to me.”

It is hard for me to describe that moment. One simple phrase, a few words, spoken so tenderly, with such love, that it reached completely into the depths of my heart and penetrated me through and through. I suddenly understood why Our Lady urges us so often to pray, how very important it is to pray for her intentions, to pray for priests, in our families and communities, and for each other.

I might add that, up to that point, I still thought that our prayers, were just a drop in the ocean. But it is not so. It is not a drop, it is not even a sea, for Our Lady it is so much, much more, because every drop passes away, the sea passes away too, but all our prayers are aimed at eternity. And this is what Our Lady says with great love to each one of us, “Your prayer is very important to me.”