EPILOGUE
Medjugorje and the Prophet Elijah
“Lo, I will send you Elijah, the prophet, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and terrible day, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with doom. — Mal 3:23-24
The mysterious fire that appeared on Mt. Podbrdo at Medjugorje on October 27, 1981, just months after the apparitions began there, was a singular event.
Witnesses say it burned brightly for fifteen minutes—was observable from a considerable distance—and looked as real as any fire. Over five hundred people, scattered about the five villages below, attested to seeing it.
In a village that would become known over the years as a haven for the unexplainable, the massive blaze on the hilltop that suddenly vanished still sits close to the top of the list.
But while it was mysterious, its origin is no mystery.
“The fire seen by the faithful was of a supernatural character,” the Virgin Mary revealed to the visionaries the following day. “It’s one of the signs; a forerunner of the Great Sign.”
That the Virgin Mary revealed this fire was a forerunner of the Great Sign—the Third Secret of the Ten Secrets of Medjugorje—does not imply that the Great Sign at Medjugorje will necessarily consist of fire itself.
But it does have significant implications.
As in the Old Testament, the manifestation of this supernatural fire on a mountain, like the glowing Sinai, clearly appears to confirm the presence of God from whom the Great Sign will directly come.
And, as in the ancient days of old, one cannot help but wonder if the fire was intended to convey the certainty of God’s approaching victory over His enemies.
Marian writers say the reality of this coming victory was already prophetically symbolized at Fátima during the Miracle of the Sun on October 13, 1917.
On that terrifying day—as the sun left its mooring in the sky and descended upon the thousands huddled in fear in the Cova da Iria—the children were shown three visions.
First, Saint Joseph with the Child Jesus appeared in the sky, blessing the world, as Mary stood beside them clothed in a white tunic and blue mantle.
Next, Christ appeared in His glorified manhood and again made the sign of the cross. This time, Mary stood beside Him as Our Lady of Sorrows.
Finally, in the third and last vision, the Virgin Mary appeared as Our Lady of Mt. Carmel. This final vision is of prophetic significance.
The vision of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, Fátima historians write, was intended to symbolically reveal the presence of a twofold message in the Miracle of the Sun that was taking place at that moment.
Seen only by the three children, the vision of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel conveyed what Mary promised the future held—God’s coming victory in the world over evil: “In the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph.”
Mt. Carmel—where the prophet Elijah called fire down from Heaven—was being recalled by the appearance of Mary as Our Lady of Mt. Carmel for a reason: to evoke the immortal moment recorded in The First Book of Kings when God intervened in the affairs of ancient Israel to bring victory over the false prophets of Baal.
At that time, Israel was on the verge of annihilation from a punishment sent by God for their idolatry.
Elijah the Tishbite—one of the most illustrious figures in the Old Testament, who, along with Moses, appeared at the Transfiguration of Jesus on Mt. Tabor—told the people that if they did not destroy their idols and return to God, they would experience a severe drought:
“As the Lord, the God of Israel lives, whom I serve, during these years there shall be no dew or rain except at my word.”
Facing the extinction of his nation after years of no rain, King Ahab met with Elijah, who asked for the meeting by request of the Lord. Confronting the prophet face-to-face, Ahab said, “Is it you? —you disturber of Israel.”
Elijah replied, “It is not I who disturb Israel but you and your family, by forsaking the commands of the Lord and following the Baals. Now summon all Israel to me on Mt. Carmel, as well as the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and the four hundred prophets of Asherah who eat at Jezebel’s table.”
With all of Israel and the false prophets gathered on Mt. Carmel, Elijah presented them with a challenge.
The pagan priests would erect an altar, place a young bull upon it, and pray to Baal to send down fire to consume the sacrifice.
At the same time, Elijah—the only surviving prophet of God left in Israel—would build another altar, dig a trench filled with water around it, and place a sacrifice upon it, too. Then, like the prophets of Baal, he was to call upon the one true God of Israel: “You shall call on your gods, and I will call on the Lord. The God who answers with fire is God,” declared Elijah.
All the people answered, “Agreed!”
As the day unfolded, the pagan priests hopped around their altar and pleaded with Baal from morning to noon to demonstrate his power. They even self-mutilated themselves with swords and spears until blood gushed over them, all in the hope of triggering a response.
Elijah, all the while, taunted them on, “Call louder, for he is a god…perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.”
Finally, as it was evident that their petition was in vain, Elijah called upon Heaven in a singular prayer: “Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things by your command. Answer me, Lord! Answer me, that this people may know that you, Lord, are God and that you have brought them back to their senses.”
Immediately, fire fell from the sky and consumed not only Elijah’s sacrifice but the wood and stony altar, as well as the water in the trench. With this, the people of Israel fell to their knees, “The Lord is God! The Lord is God!” they cried out.
Ordering the prophets of Baal to be seized, Elijah then had them all slain. God’s victory over the false gods of the age was complete and the people returned to the Lord.
At Fátima, theologians say God was letting the world know that the fiery sun falling from the sky not only confirmed Mary’s powerful presence, but also that His enemies of today—like the prophets of Baal—were destined to suffer the same humiliating defeat as His enemies of yesterday.
“Our Lady came under her ancient title of Mt. Carmel,” explains Fátima author John Haffert of the symbolism behind the vision, “Elijah had performed a miracle to show God is God, and now Mary had just done the same on this mountain of Fátima.”
Now, at Medjugorje, the Virgin Mary will fulfill the Secrets she began at Fátima.
The appearance of the forerunning sign, the supernatural fire at Medjugorje—on a mountain top like at Carmel and Fátima—appears to confirm God’s approaching victory, a victory to be forever immortalized by the manifestation of the Third Secret, the Great Sign there.
Indeed, with the Great Sign’s appearance on w, an unparalleled moment in the history of mankind will have arrived.
The era of universal atheism as never seen before; the era of massive death as never experienced before; the era of sin and Satan as never known before will be brought to its prophesied demise, defeated through the blood and tears of its tragic victims—and the faith and prayers of the Virgin Mary’s children.
At last, the era of peace foretold at Fátima will begin to manifest, and the presence of the Great Sign at Medjugorje will prove to the world, as did Elijah on Mt. Carmel, that “the Lord is God.”
It is to be an era presented to humanity as a gift from the hands of the Father through the Immaculate Heart of the Mother.
Indeed, Mary’s Immaculate Heart, the ultimate symbol of the Triumph, will now secure its rightful place in the Church next to the Sacred Heart of her Son, as people throughout the world come to realize that she—the Woman Clothed in the Sun—secured the grace that delivered God’s victory.
This coming honor of the Queen of Heaven and Earth, Church tradition holds, was also previewed in Scripture that memorable day on Mt. Carmel by the prophet Elijah.
“Go up, eat and drink,” Elijah told King Ahab after the false prophets of Baal were slain, “for there is the sound of a heavy rain.”
With these words, the time of the three-year drought in Israel was now to be over, and as Elijah called down the fire, so now he announced to Ahab the coming of the rain, which the people of the nation so desperately longed to see.
Perched on the highest point of Mt. Carmel, Elijah instructed his servant to look out over the waters of the Mediterranean Sea to see if the storm was nearby.
“There is nothing,” the servant reported to the prophet after six attempts to spot the coming rain.
But on the seventh attempt, the youth told Elijah, “There is a cloud as small as a man’s hand arising from the sea.”
That cloud, tradition has long held, symbolized the coming of the Immaculate Conception— the coming of the Virgin Mary—who at a future time would shower God’s healing graces from her Immaculate Heart upon a needy world, like the cloud that day showered rain upon Mt. Carmel and all of Israel.
Tradition further holds that Elijah beheld a vision that day on Mt. Carmel of the coming of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
If such were the case, we know today why Mary and the presence of Elijah and Mt. Carmel has been linked together at many of her apparition sites over the centuries.
It is a mystery especially noted at Lourdes, where Mary’s last apparition there was on July 16, 1858, the Feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel.
It is seen again at Fátima, where Mary’s final appearance to the three children on October 13,1917, was as Our Lady of Mt. Carmel.
At Lourdes, Mary shocked the Church by declaring, “I am the Immaculate Conception.”
At Fátima, she stunned the world by performing the greatest foretold miracle in history, the “Miracle of the Sun.”
Now, at Medjugorje, where another supernatural fire on a mountain top set the stage, the faithful are left to wait and wonder what is to come.
Are ancient biblical prophecies about to be fulfilled in the times that are near?
Is Elijah’s shadowing, mystical presence being revealed once again in what may be the last apparitions of the Virgin Mary, who first appeared at Medjugorje on the feast day of John the Baptist, the prophet who the Gospels say came in “the spirit and power of Elijah?”
Is Medjugorje to take its place next to Lourdes and Fátima in a transcendent mystery involving this great prophet?
It is a mystery that deepens with the reality that the patron saint of Bosnia and Herzegovina is none other than Elijah, the only nation in the world to proclaim him as such.
And—to add to the intrigue—he was declared patron saint in 1752 by a Franciscan Bishop named Pavao “Dragićević.”
Yes, the same name as the one who is to reveal the Ten Secrets of Medjugorje to the world— Mirjana Dragićević [Soldo]—the Secrets that will bring the crushing defeat of evil in these times, as Elijah brought defeat to the prophets of Baal.
“Lo, I will send you Elijah,” Scripture reads.
Many believe these words are being fulfilled at Medjugorje.
