date: 11.09.2019.
This year, the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary was on Sunday and that is why the liturgical celebration was on Monday, September 9.
The Feast of Exaltation of the Holy Cross in the parish of Medjugorje is traditionally celebrated on the first Sunday after the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Holy Mass on Cross Mountain will be at 11 am.
In the honour of Holy Year of Redemption, 1933/1934, at the initiative of their parish priest in those days, despite great poverty, parishioners of Medjugorje decided to build huge cross on the hill looking over Medjugorje. Relics of the true cross on which Jesus was crucified that they received from Rome were placed inside this concrete cross. First Holy Mass was celebrated on March 16, 1934, and the name of hill was changed from Sipovac to Krizevac on that day. Fr. Alojzije Misic, bishop in those days, already in September made decree that Holy Mass of the Feast of Exaltation of the Holy Cross in exceptionally celebrated in Medjugorje on the first Sunday after the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
This was an ordinary feast only for the parishioners and their friends from the local parishes, prior to the apparitions of Our Lady in 1981, and then it became the feast for all of the pilgrims from all over the world.
On March 16, 2019, we commemorated 85 years since the Cross was completed on Cross Mountain and the first Holy Mass was celebrated on this hill that became famous all over the world.
If you wish to learn more about the construction of the Cross on Cross Mountain, please click here.
