date: 23.01.2020.
Numerous pilgrims from all over the world, especially the youth, were in Medjugorje for this New Year of 2020. This unique New Year’s Eve celebration attracts many pilgrims each year. Many of them were not even able to enter St. James church, and the cold weather did not prevent them to stand outside the church, far from noise, music, fireworks and crowds, everything that this world offers us. They only wanted to be in the “temple of the Queen of Peace here in Herzegovina” for the first day of the New Year and for the World Peace Day.
Peace was the theme in the homily of the Apostolic Nuncio to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Luigi Pezzuto: “We are in the temple of the Queen of Peace, here in Bosnia and Herzegovina. If the genuine peace, as we said, is the result of forgiveness and mercy, how can Mary be the Queen of Peace and not be at the same time the Queen of Mercy? Mary is the Queen of Peace, for she is the Queen of Divine Mercy, whose face is Jesus”, said Msgr. Pezzuto in his homily for New Year’s Eve vigil Holy Mass. 115 priests concelebrated at the Holy Mass, along with the Apostolic Visitor for the parish of Medjugorje, Msgr. Henryk Hoser, Provincial of Herzegovinian Franciscan Province, Fr. Miljenko Steko and the parish priest of Medjugorje parish, Fr. Marinko Sakota.
