By Lisa Baca

[note: Father Petar is the Croatian priest who will announce the first Medjugorje "secret']

We were able to attend just one of the visits of Father Petar Ljubicic of Medjugorje in San Antonio, Texas. This was on Saturday, October 14, 2006, at Holy Rosary Catholic Church in San Antonio, Texas.

Father Petar Ljubicic spoke in Croatian during his part in the Eucharistic prayers. He had a lady who translated for him from Croatian into English during the talk. The Gospel for this Mass was Mark  10:17-30. He reminded everyone that it is very important and significant to ask our Lord for all the answers, nowadays everyone wants to be rich, but the question is what is most important in life? Our Lady says, give the first place to my Son and our Lord and then you will have everything.

Father Petar then began sharing a testimony of a miracle of a young man. This young man never believed in God and he heard about Our Lady appearing in Medjugorje. He went there and had an encounter with God, converted, and later was ordained a priest.

At the time he was engaged to be married and he did make the decision to go although he did not want to hear preaching. When he went the people had a huge effect on him and he met Jesus and fell in love with him. He told his fiancée about his experience and she agreed for him to become a priest!

And so Father Petar continued: "You see God can do anything -- with Him all things are possible! And so for the rich as in Saturday's Gospel (about the camel and the eye of a needle), they would find it very hard. Jesus wants to show us his love and so if everything else is more important, then you don't love Jesus. We must live with Jesus and surrender to Him and then we will have the salvation for our souls.

We must understand better Holy Mass for this is the most important teaching of our Catholic religion and a secret mystery from which we are to live.

We need to imagine how much Jesus loves us, like the quote from St. Padre Pio -- about how he would die of joyful love of Jesus.

Or of Saint Francis of Assisi who tells us he trembled at how much God suffered for us.

Our Lady Queen of Peace has nothing new to say, Father Petar reminded us, for she is repeating what her dear Son says: to live the Gospel and to convert and to believe in His teachings.

You must surrender your lives to God, like the pilgrims there are doing.

Before every Mass in Medjugorje, the Rosary is prayed and then Father Petar shared another testimony and a miracle. There was this man who came to Medjugorje as his friends convinced him to go and he was a great sinner who had tried to kill himself three times. He was converted in the Holy Mass and he found himself praying to Our Lady: "My Mother full of goodness and love, help me, recommend me to your Son; only He can help me. He can free me from the drugs. Help me or I will end my life. Show me your motherly love and lead me to your Son."

He was then made completely speechless and received the impulse to get up and go to Confession and he saw the sign for Confession and the priest in the booth told him: "I have been waiting for you my dear son." The Holy Mother had arranged everything, he was freed from his sins, and after thirty minutes he was healed. All of his friends were also affected by his conversion and now there are as many as 100 to 200 new people coming to his church -- as they learned of his conversion!

Father Petar then said to all of us: "My dear children, Jesus is alive and He loves us immeasurably, He loves us all! Show Him your love. God has a plan for each one of us and everyone is called to find this plan."

Father Petar told us of yet another testimony and a miracle.

There was this woman and she was suffering with a brain tumor and she wanted to go to Medjugorje. She went there and she went up to the mountain and prayed. Then she went to Mass and at the Consecration she heard the Gospa, Our Lady, say, "My daughter, surrender entirely, completely to the Holy Spirit, surrender to my Son who has shed his blood, surrender yourself entirely!" There during the consecration she was healed, the tumor was gone!

When she went back home she went to her doctor he said the tumor has disappeared. She told him she had gone to Medjugorje and the doctor said she was now the third miracle he had seen from there.

So you must pray, believe and surrender and leave everything to God and let the Glory Go To God! He is the miracle and this is huge, Father Petar said.

There were also questions and answers.

One was about all the evil the world and they mentioned insecurity -- being fearful -- and terrorism. Father said to pray the Rosary and go to Holy Mass for this will change hearts.

Then someone asked about the secrets and Father Petar did speak about them. He told us there are ten secrets and they will happen when they are supposed to at their time. He told us he was the priest that seer Mirjana Soldo chose and he spoke of the order of the events (he would be contacted ten days before) and of the parchment that came from Blessed Mother that has all the secrets written on them (but are invisible). He said he would receive this parchment. Then would come the warning and everyone will know that the children were telling the truth.

There would be a sign on the apparition mountain that everyone will see, that cannot be destroyed, it will be perpetual. Also, it will be a big joy for the people that believed and also for those who did not believe. Father Petar did not go into great details.

There was another question and he answered that he will be a priest for 35 years in 2007. He was then sharing again how we need to pray to God and how we want to love Him more today that yesterday. The person who believes, the one who Loves with Jesus, is saved as this is what it means to be a Catholic believer.

Another question was about mitigating the secrets to lessen the chastisements in them. Father Petar said he did not like to answer this type of question, but he would say that prayer is always protection and to pray to discern the evil from the good, that Satan is always trying to get at us, but remember that God wants to save everybody!

He closed with beautiful priestly blessing of healing and prayer with his hands extended out over all of those attending. Many remained after and formed a line, similar to Communion and received an individual laying on of hands blessing and prayer from Father Petar.

One of my friends did say that on Sunday at St. Matthew Parish, Father Petar did say that everything is going to happen very soon. She called the host family to verify this and they told her that he meant in his lifetime or during the time he has left. My friend said she was listening very closely and she had never heard him say this before. So, as always we discern and we are careful to get the facts and verify this as best we can.

10/22/06