“Medjugorje Will Be Good For You”—A Prophecy Fulfilled

No mistakes, no coincidences

While tidying up my home office a few years ago, I came across my old 2008 business diary. As I stood, tearing out its pages and throwing them into a recycling bin, I checked them for any important business notes I might have needed in the future. Instead, I found an entry dated February 7 in which I had recorded a prophetic message from my late wife, Cushla. Usually, I recorded the more extraordinary supernatural events in our lives in a special hardbacked notebook. But that day, I mislaid it, so I used the business diary instead. I hadn't looked at it since 2008 and had completely forgotten about Cushla's prophecy:

      In the February entry, I had described how we had been walking down Wicklow Street in Dublin's city centre when I turned to Cushla and asked her: 'So, when are we going to Medjugorje? (a small village in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where, since 1981, the Blessed Virgin Mary has been appearing and giving messages to the world). She was by far the more religious and spiritually disciplined of the two of us, but this time it was I who was reminding her that maybe we should go to Medjugorje. Three months earlier, when she had been diagnosed with breast cancer, we had tentatively discussed going to Medjugorje, but hadn't broached the subject since

     'How do you feel about going with Liam Cotter?' Cushla replied. Liam was a friend of her brother, Peter, who organised group pilgrimages to Medjugorje. Going on a pilgrimage was not my cup of tea, but I was prepared to do whatever it took to help Cushla get better. Inspired by her, I had begun climbing the spiritual mountain years earlier, but wasn't religious in the traditional sense. However, I believed in spiritual healing and miracles, especially in sacred places such as Medjugorje.

Before I could reply to Cushla's suggestion, Liam and his brother virtually walked straight into us. We made small talk and then went our separate ways. Liam told me, years later, that he hardly ever goes into town—twice a year at most.

Cushla and I were both bemused at what we thought was a coincidence, but the best part of the story was yet to come.

'Stay very close to your departed ones. They are close to all of you'

'I think you should go to Medjugorje⸻it will be good for you,' Cushla had said to me a few weeks after her prophecy. She said it with that mysterious look she sometimes had.

But again, her advice didn't make sense to me. In the unlikely event that I would contemplate travelling there, it certainly would never be without Cushla. And why had she not mentioned that she wanted to go? After all, she was by far the more spiritually devout of the two of us. It was she, not I, who had gone on pilgrimages before. She had visited Lourdes several times with her family. I never wanted to go. Religious pilgrimage sites didn't appeal to me.

However,  after her death, I began to think about travelling to this holy place. Though I had completely forgotten her earlier prophecy: 'You will be going to Medjugorje on your own, I had remembered that she had said it would be good for me to go there. I never asked her why, but if Cushla said it would be good for me to go there, then I was going. Besides, I thought it might help with my grief.

I took the plunge and travelled with Joan, her son Robert, and Liam Cotter's group to Medjugorje. One night, over drinks in a bar, I struck up a conversation with a man from the group, named Des, a true gentleman in his seventies. I told him how much I was missing Cushla.

'There's a passage in a book, written by Gabrielle Bossis, called He and I, where Jesus tells Gabrielle that our departed loved ones are very near us,' Des said, trying to give me some comfort. I had read and meditated on passages from the book and have great regard for this spiritual classic, a famous account of Gabrielle's dialogues with Jesus. It was a favourite of Cushla's too (she read it in French, the language in which it was originally written). Both of us fully believed it was Jesus speaking to this French nurse, playwright and mystic, living as a single woman in the early twentieth century.

I was in real need of consolation and practically badgered Des to tell me where exactly this passage was in the book. I had already told him that I happened to have a copy with me. 'Don't ask me; it's been years since I read it,' Des replied apologetically. That evening, I flicked through the book, scanning the diary entries, seeking solace. I couldn't find the extract Des had mentioned, so I decided to give up and try again when I got home to Dublin. I promised myself I would read the book forensically, from cover to cover, until I found it. I then put the thought out of my head and went for dinner.

            On the day of departure, as I was travelling with our pilgrimage group by transfer coach to Dubrovnik Airport, I felt intensely sad. I was desperately missing Cushla. Gazing aimlessly through the window, I said to her: 'Cushla, you've got to help me here.'

A little while later, I decided to read, mainly as a distraction from my sadness. I picked up my brand-new copy of He and I and opened it randomly. There, looking back at me, on the page that fell open, was the very passage Des had mentioned. It begins with a diary entry by Gabrielle on October 21, 1948: 'The Priest who had directed me for part of my life had just died, and I felt the touch of his blessing still. Gabrielle then hears the voice of Jesus in the core of her being:

 'Believe that, in Me, my children remain united together. Members of one Body have only one heartbeat.... it is because they all belong to the same family and the same home that this oneness between the living and the dead is so great. The home is my Father's, and the same blood—Mine—flows in all the children. Stay very close to your departed ones. They are close to all of you. Increase your trust. Venture out beyond the little earthly dimensions and take up your residence in the womb of God.'

I was elated. There are 385 pages in the book, with an average of two or three diary entries on each page. The passage I most needed to read, the one that would especially give me hope and solace in my time of grief, was opened to me. It certainly wasn't 'me' who turned the pages to land on the right passage—I was just an instrument for the spirit world. Perhaps, it was Cushla who, through me, had opened the stirring diary entry. After all, it was she who said prophetically: 'I think you should go to Medjugorje —it will be good for you,'

     After recovering from the shock of reading the entry in my diary, especially when Cusha said, 'You will be going to Medjugorje on your own. I went for a short walk to regain my composure. As I crossed the road in Templeogue Village, I was somewhat startled to bump into a woman from the pilgrimage group I had travelled with to Medjugorje. I hadn't met her in years, but now I felt I was meant to see her. Then, a few minutes later, when I got home, I received the icing on the cake: I noticed a letter stuck in my letterbox. I opened it to see a Mass card from Medjugorje. It was from Joan, my sister-in-law. I didn't know she had been there for the past week and had just returned home. It was another strange 'coincidence' in my 'Medjugorje afternoon'! 

     I am, of course, using the word 'coincidence' ironically. What I really believe is that Cushla was orchestrating all these extraordinary events to show me, once again, that there was another dimension beyond death and that Medjugorje was not only still playing a role in my life but was also connecting us in this world and the next.