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Franciscans reach out to drug addicts in Medjugorje
By Rebecca Bostic, rbostic@catholicsun.org
Aug. 7, 2008
MEDJUGORJE, Bosnia-Herzegovina — Viktor Lasic, a 38-year-old recovering drug addict, returned to his homeland when the German government deported him for narcotic-related charges.
Lasic, who’d lived in Germany for 25 years, temporarily stopped doing drugs, got married and began a family.
“I lived without addiction for about one or two years after I was married and then I started to drink, then I started to use drugs and soon I was addicted again,” Lasic said.
But this time someone was there to help.
After two years of living in the Merciful Father Community for drug rehabilitation in Mother’s Village — a Franciscan led ministry in the heart of Medjugorje — Lasic defeated his drug addiction while maintaining his relationship with his wife and children.
Related: Clash of faiths: Fractured by centuries of war, some Bosnians seek peace
“I am really happy here,” Lasic said. “I found a way out of my addiction and I can tell you I pray every day and am just really happy to finish this program and return to my wife and children.”
Lasic will finish the three-year program in a matter of months, but the effect of the community on his life will leave him transformed forever. Although he was hesitant to enter a three-year, religious-based rehabilitation program, he is now a leader in the community.
The Merciful Father Community for drug rehabilitation is just one of many ministries that are part of Mother’s Village. Directed by Franciscan Father Svetozar Kraljevic, the community is located in the shadow of the hill where six Bosnian teenagers claimed to have seen the Blessed Mother in 1981.
Some of the visionaries still say Mary appears to them and tells them secrets that will be revealed after she sends the visual sign she has promised to the city.
Millions of pilgrims visit Medjugorje each year and it is these pilgrims who support the ministries of Mother’s Village.
The ministries includes small home communities for more than 50 orphans from the former Yugoslavia area, the Mother Krispina house for women in need, a 160 student kindergarten for the orphans living in Mother’s Village and children living in the surrounding region as well as a prayer Garden of St. Francis.
Although the ministries work to sustain themselves — the community of men at the drug rehabilitation center make crosses and rosaries to sell to pilgrims to support the community — a great deal of support does come from the pilgrims.
“Pilgrims are able to participate in the life of Mother’s Village. We believe that Our Lady initiated this work and she provides for it,” Fr. Kraljevic said.
“It is in the nature of Christ to feed the hungry, to give to the poor, to help the sick,” he said. “For example, the drug addicts are the most real people whom Jesus wanted to touch, like He touched those 10 who were sick.”
Dejan Nikolovski, a 26-year-old Macedonian, is one of many men who have been touched by the faith-based community at the Merciful Father community for drug rehabilitation. A Serbian Orthodox believer as a child, Nikolovski largely lost his faith when he became involved in drugs as a kid.
“This is a community that is based on the Catholic faith, but we have every kind of religion here,” he said. “You have Orthodox, like me, Catholics and Muslims, but everyone prays together three times a day.”
The men work for the majority of every weekday and pray the rosary three times daily, along with other spiritual formation and shared meals.
The interreligous nature of the community is an important aspect for Fr. Kraljevic, who has watched many men rediscover their faith through their experience in the Merciful Father community.
“Mostly men come to us with no religious faith and then they return to their faith and interestingly it is the faith of their roots,” Fr. Kraljevic said.
“So when a Muslim comes here to learn our prayers, he will then go home and learn his own prayers,” he said. “So we are not afraid, it is not a problem, Muslims praying Catholic prayers, or Orthodox, because actually it is not what prayer you pray, but the fact that you pray.”
The location of Mother’s Village in Medjugorje centers the ministry of the Franciscans on the needs of the people of Bosnia-Herzegovina — living in a place of veneration of Our Lady.
Ultimately, Fr. Kraljevic hopes that more pilgrims will support not only Marian devotion on a spiritual level, but also focus their energy on the ministries taking place in her name in Mother’s Village and other ministries.
“I believe that in order to be spiritual for God in our time we need to be physical for God in every way possible,” Fr. Kraljevic said. “The crisis of Christianity today is the fact that we are spiritual for God but we are not physical for God.”
It is the combination of spiritual and physical work in the daily structure of Merciful Father community for drug rehabilitation that has inspired the life of Nikolovski.
Prior to coming to live in the community, he couldn’t think of a pleasant moment in his life that wasn’t drug-related. After nine months living in the Merciful Father community, Nikolovski redefined his happiest moment.
“I was talking with my parents and I was feeling happy,” Nikolovski said. “I was able to speak freely. I had nothing to hide from my parents and nothing sitting on my conscience. I was able to share everything with them.”
A small triumph for many, a major breakthrough for Nikolovski, who was transformed by the community that operates in the shadow of Mary’s apparition and within the physical manifestation of the love of Christ.
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