(FROM SATURDAY)
MEDJUGORJE – The death of Father Slavko Barbarić, spiritual director of Medjugorje, left the the Virgin Mary’s foremost apparition site in deep sorrow, shock and a spiritual vacuum it might take a long while to recover from.
The priest expired on top of Mount Krizevac -- the famous 1,700-foot mountain with a cross at its summit -- at about 3:50 p.m. Friday while he was leading seventy parishioners on “the Way of the Cross,” as is the parish’s custom on Fridays at this time of the year.
As we reported yesterday, upon reaching the top of the mountain the sun came out and a rainfall stopped. A beautiful rainbow in the distance near the church could be seen. As they started to descend, Father Slavko slipped and fell. He suffered a heart attack and died instantly. Father Svetozar Kraljević, another well-known Franciscan, accompanied his body down the mountain along with a medical team that had been summoned.
Word of Father Slavko's death spread rapidly around the world. The visionaries, who have known the priest for all of their adult lives, were said to be "very upset" and even "devastated." It was in 1981 that the Virgin first began appearing to the six seers in former Yugoslavia, and since that time nearly thirty million pilgrims have visited, many under the direction of Father Slavko, who was known as "Father Medjugorje." Events here have been chronicled in the international media, including CBS, ABC, NBC, The New York Times, and Life Magazine.
Continuing the evening service in the nearby adoration chapel, which Father Slavko used to lead, Father Svetozar spoke for the majority when he knelt down in front of the corpse of Father Slavko, lying silent forever with his hands folder as in prayer, and covered by saintly white linen. Behind him was a tall wooden statue of the Virgin, her right hand pointing to her dead son in the middle of the room.
"Today our words cannot speak anymore," said Father Svetozar. "Now words can only remain silent. Words can only become prayer. They can only be transformed into prayer. Father Slavko spent his life in attempting humanity to transform all words and deeds into prayer. That was his life and his struggle. That was his way, the way Our Lady led him along, and the way she leads all of us along. Today all of our feelings are sorrow, a sorrow transformed into prayer."
Father Svetozar then started praying the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary, introducing the second mystery by saying, "Here Jesus is condemned to death – at least they thought so. But there is no death. There is just a new step. Today we feel like little children who wish to be with their Father and Mother because it is better there...”.
Father Slavko had come to represent Medjugorje, a general in the Virgin Mary’s army of holiness. His more than ten books on the spirituality of Medjugorje were translated into more than 20 languages. He traveled extensively and brought the Virgin’s message to several continents. He was the spiritual director to all of Medjugorje’s six visionaries and an expert on the Virgin Mary’s subtle and multi-layered message, which was clearly his treasure and which he commented and clarified to the benefit of millions.
Inside the parish he was in charge of the liturgy and the adoration of the Cross
and The Most Blessed Sacrament. Every Sunday he prayed with the pilgrims on
Apparition Mountain, and...every Friday he took them to the foot of the Cross.
Father Slavko was unique in the sense that he was the only priest ever to be
personally called to Medjugorje by Virgin Mary herself. Having arrived in 1982,
one year after the beginning of the visions, he was originally sent by
Bishop Pavao
Zanic of
Mostar, an opponent of the apparitions who considered Father Slavko the man to
be able to put an end to the “nonsense.” An educated psychotherapist as
well, Father Slavko took up the task, but he did it with an open mind, and he
soon became convinced that the visionaries were really seeing Virgin Mary.
This
caused Bishop Zanic to renew his focus on the man he had sent to destroy the
apparitions, and by the mid-eighties it seemed like he was about to have his
way. However, in Medjugorje the Virgin is in charge of everything important. “I
wish for Father Slavko to stay here, to guide the life, and to assemble all the
news so that when I leave, there will be a complete image of everything that has
happened here," the Virgin said in a 1985 message. "I am also
praying for Slavko and for all those who work in the parish.”
With
the bookkeeper no longer present in the archives, it could clearly be speculated
that the Medjugorje apparitions are coming to a close, and that the first of the
visionaries’ ten prophetic secrets might be fairly close of becoming a
reality. This is mere speculation, however. The Virgin Mary’s next
monthly message to the world will be given Saturday and this message could be
thought to give a more reliable clue.
Speaking
of the secrets, of which several are known to be predicting chastisements for
the sins of humanity, Father Slavko always refused to put these to the forefront
of the message he was tirelessly preaching. Just like the visionaries, whose
spiritual director he was, Father Slavko insisted on an up-beat message of
faith, prayer, fasting, the Mass, and the Eucharist along with monthly
confession and the Bible. Putting special emphasis on prayer like the Virgin he
authored books on several of these important topics.
The death of Father
Slavko leaves Medjugorje in a spiritual vacuum, and in need of very much prayer.
This Summer showed the transfer of Father Ivan Landeka, the parish priest since
1991, and also the transfer of his assistant pastor, Father Branimir Musa. They
were replaced by two young Franciscans, the parish priest now being 33-year-old
Ivan Šesar to whom the huge task of directing Medjugorje is his first one ever
as a pastor. Among the experienced friars with a first-hand knowledge of
Medjugorje going back to the Eighties the only ones now left are the less
visible 80-year-old Bible expert Father Ljudevit Rupčić -- and Father
Svetozar, of the same generation as Father Slavko and probably the best bet to
replace his late brother as the visionaries’ spiritual director.
Spending a great deal of the last 19 years of his life to explain and preach about conversion, Father Slavko always practiced what he preached. A few years ago visionary Marija Pavlović-Lunetti gave people an insight about her spiritual director, saying: “For several years I have been noticing something very good about Father Slavko. He works on his conversion every day. He has taken the Virgin’s messages about conversion very seriously. For me he is an example”.
Father Slavko was even able to use humor when talking about the need for daily
conversion. Having been rudely criticized over two full pages in a book he only
reacted by saying: “Tell him that if he is not happy with me, I agree with
him. For I am not happy with myself either!”
Born on March 11th 1946 Father Slavko spent his childhood in extreme
poverty. There were no indications that one day he should travel and speak to
all of the world. But his mind was clever, at his death he spoke seven languages
more or less fluently, and having been ordained a priest in 1971 he received his
magistrate in pastoral theology two years later. Immediately before he arrived
in Medjugorje he got his doctorate in religious pedagogy, and at the same time
he was educated in psychotherapy. But he never forgot his childhood conditions,
and the orphanage “Mother’s Village” outside Medjugorje is another fruit
of a tree that kept on blossoming all the way to the end.
His place of death, Cross Mountain, is a Medjugorje main location with the symbolical meaning of a gate into Heaven. On the top a more than 7-meter tall white concrete cross dominates all of the landscape. Heaven thereby paid the tireless Franciscan the honor of letting him enter into Paradise close to the selfsame spot where Virgin Mary was made Mother of humanity. The Cross on top of the mountain even countains a relic from Christ’s original Calvary Cross. Father Slavko loved Cross Mountain which he used to climb every morning at sunrise.
Known to only relatively few Father Slavko was also a very skilled exorcist and
the man to cast out hundreds of demons from people who had not got their call to
Medjugorje from Virgin Mary alone. At the height of a spiritual war seemingly
increasing in strength every day Father Slavko’s death also deprives
Medjugorje of a vital figure and function not easily replaced.