date: 09.08.2025.
The last, fourth evening of the 36th Youth Festival ended with the farewell mission, or the gifting of the rosaries to the representatives of young people from 71 countries from which pilgrims came to this Youth Festival. They were presented by the Bishop of Mostar-Duvno and Apostolic Administrator of the Trebinje-Mrkan Diocese, Msgr. Petar Palić, and the Apostolic Visitor with a special role for the parish of Medjugorje, Archbishop Aldo Cavalli.
"Dear young people, accept the rosary, that is Mary's hand that she offers you to walk through life with Jesus and Mary and to learn from them! Be evangelizers in your family, in your city, in your country," said the parish priest of Medjugorje, Fr. Zvonimir Pavičić, and with this mission they are also invited to pass on to their countries, to their families and parish communities what they received in Medjugorje.
At the end, they were all blessed by Bishop Palić, who presided over the Holy Mass. The concelebrants were Archbishop Aldo Cavalli, Bishops Vlado Košić, Everard de Jong, Guido Gallese and Domenico Sigalini, and 596 other priests. During the Holy Mass, the young people brought a canvas to the altar on which they had written their prayers and thanksgivings in the previous days.
At the beginning of his homily, Bishop Palić, referring to the motto that had guided the young people in the last days in Medjugorje, “Let us go to the house of the Lord” (Ps 122:1), he also explained the Mass readings to them.
“In the Book of Numbers, we heard the story of the people of Israel who were left without water in the Sin Desert. After forty years of walking, the thirst became unbearable and the people grumbled against Moses and Aaron: “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to bring us to this miserable place… in this desert, to die here, we and our livestock?” This is a question that reveals their distrust, their forgetfulness of the miraculous works that God had already done for them.
In the Gospel, however, Jesus asks his disciples: “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And then, even more directly: “But you, who do you say that I am?” Peter responds with a magnificent confession of faith: “You are the Christ - the Anointed One, the Son of the living God,” said Bishop Palić, adding that these texts speak “about our connection with God and our journey towards his Home.”
He said that we all know the experience of the desert and sometimes, like the Israelites, we grumble, and that the physical thirst of the Israelites “symbolizes a deeper thirst: that of meaning, of presence, of God himself,” so he put before them the thought of St. John Paul II, who loved young people: “Do not be afraid! Open wide the doors to Christ!”
"However, the opening of the door to Christ also means accepting his path, which goes to the cross. Like Peter, we too often say: "You are the Christ," but then we add: "but the cross, let it remain aside." We want a faith that brings us only momentary comfort, not a faith that calls us to conversion and sacrifice.
This place, Medjugorje, has become for many like Horeb, where water flowed from the rock. How many young people have found the source of the living water here! How many have experienced Peter's discovery here, recognizing who Jesus is," said Bishop Petar Palić, who emphasized that the House of the Lord is not just a physical place, but it is a "communion with Him, it is the living Church, it is the Heaven that awaits us," but that "the path to that House leads through the trust, like the one that was lacking among the people in the desert, and through the acceptance of the cross, which was lacking among Peter."
He ended with the same question that Jesus asked his disciples: "And you, who do you say that Jesus Christ is?" He invited the young people not to answer with words they had learned by heart, but to answer with their lives, and then said that his wish for everyone was to recognize "Christ as living water that quenches your every thirst, as a solid rock on which you will build your life, as a faithful friend who walks with you towards the Father's house."
Before the evening prayer-liturgical program, the rosary that was recited by Fr. Mate Tadić starting at 6 p.m., the members of the Cenacolo community presented their testimony about the path of addiction and the way out of it, or rather about what, as they say, "God did through them," with lots of music, song and dance.
In the morning part of the program, after the prayer, as every morning, led by Fr. Zvonimir Pavičić, catechesis was given to the young people by the provincial of the Herzegovina Franciscan Province, Fr. Jozo Grbeš. Then Keith Kelly from Ireland testified about how he went from being a troubled teenager from a troubled family to becoming a youth educator. It all took place with the help of the Queen of Peace in Medjugorje, and with the intercession of the Queen of Peace, he also got married. He invited the young people to change their false way of thinking when they think they will lose something if they surrender their lives to God.
The Information Center Mir Medjugorje presented its centers operating around the world for ten language areas.
"The family of the Information Center Mir Medjugorje is not just us here in Medjugorje, because we cannot do it alone. Our family is made up of ten other information centers throughout the world, which are the Centers for the German, Spanish, English, Italian, Slovak, Ukrainian, Russian, Chinese, Czech, and Portuguese speaking areas, and over 150 volunteers work in them all over the world," said the director of the Information Center Mir Medjugorje Vedran Vidović, highlighting some of the activities that the Centers do, which are organizing pilgrimages, regular prayer meetings, prayer meetings for peace... He also invited the young people at this Youth Festival, if there is no Center in their language, to come forward and to try to establish new centers together.
The work of these centers around the world was praised and thanked for their work by the parish priest of Medjugorje, Fr. Zvonimir Pavičić, who visited some of these centers where he witnessed, encouraged, met with many who cannot come to Medjugorje, and brought Our Lady's message...
Fr. Danko Perutina, president of the Board of the Information Center Mir Medjugorje and one of the spiritual fathers of these centers, said that Our Lady gives messages to the whole world and that she is not the mother only of us Christians but of all people and wants to bring us all to her son.
At the end, Oriol Vives, president of the Centro Medjugorje Foundation for the Spanish-speaking area, presented the work of the centers, and a video wall showed what Medjugorje meetings look like around the world. Oriol Vives said that they organize prayer groups, spiritual retreats, prayer meetings, pilgrimages... (PHOTO)
