The divine is supernatural, but religion is very much of this world. The way people worship even has an impact on their physical surroundings. Here’s a telltale sign that you’re in Catholic country: chapels, shrines and grottoes dot the roadside. The latter are replicas of the cave in southern France where the Virgin Mary appeared to a local peasant girl in the early 19th century.

Those Marian apparitions themselves are another peculiar point of contact between faith and the world. Typically, they happen in times of crisis to young children from a humble background. They are often the only ones able to see the apparition. The visitations sometimes reoccur over a prolonged period. If the Virgin speaks to those who can observe her, it is to ask for a chapel or church to be built, to implore the faithful to be more devout, and/or to offer warnings for the future. Witnesses are often able to report in great detail on the dress and attributes of the apparition, but mostly there is no direct contact between the Virgin and the observers.

For centuries, the Virgin Mary has appeared to the faithful, requesting devotion and promising comfort. These maps show the geography of Marian apparitions – the handful approved by the Vatican, and many others. Historically, Europe is where most apparitions have been reported, but the U.S. is pretty fertile ground too.

Latest Medjugorje Message, October 25, 2022

“Dear children! The Most High permits me to be with you, and to be joy for you and the way in hope, because mankind has decided for death. That is why He sent me to keep instructing  you that without God you do not have a future. Little children,  be instruments of love for all those who have not come to know the God of love. Witness joyfully your faith and do not lose hope in a change of the human heart. I am with you and am blessing you with my motherly blessing. Thank you for having responded to my call.”

For quite a while now, in Medjugorje (Čitluk, Bosnia-Herzegovina) six trustworthy witnesses, testify firmly under oath, that since the 24th of June 1981, the Blessed Virgin Mary, or the “Gospa”, as she is affectionately known as here, appears to them every day up to the present.

Suddenly, while the children were still on their way a light flashed three times. To them and to those following them, it was a sign indicating Our Lady’s whereabouts. On that third day Our Lady appeared even higher up than on the previous days. All at once Our Lady disappeared. But when the children began to pray, she reappeared. She was cheerful and smiling serenely and once again her beauty was overwhelming.

As they left their houses some older women advised them to carry holy water with them to make sure that it was not of Satan. When they were with Our Lady Vicka took the water and splashed it in the direction of the vision saying, “If you are Our Blessed Mother, please stay, and if you are not, go away from us”. Our Lady smiled at this and remained with the children. Then Mirjana asked her name and she replied, “I am the Blessed Virgin Mary”.

On the same day, coming down Podbrdo, Our Lady appeared one more time, this time however only to Maria saying, “Peace, peace, peace and only peace”. Behind her, Maria could see a cross. After which Our Lady repeated, in tears, the following words, “Peace must reign between man and God, and between all people!” The area where this took place is about half way up to the Apparition Site.

The fourth day

On the 27th of June 1981, Our Lady appeared three times to the children. On that occasion the children asked all kinds of questions and Our Lady responded. For priests, she gave this message. “May the priests firmly believe and may they take care of the faith of the people!” Once again, Jakov and Mirjana asked for a sign, because the people had begun to accuse them of lying and of taking drugs. “Do not be afraid of anything”, Our Lady replied.

Before parting, when asked if she would come again, she indicated that she would. On the way down Podbrdo, Our Lady appeared one more time to say goodbye with the words, “May God be with you my angels, go in peace!”

The fifth day

On the 28th of June 1981, big crowds were gathering from all parts even from the early hours of the morning. By noon there were about fifteen thousand people. On the same day, the Parish Priest, Fr. Jozo Zovko, examined the children on what they had seen and heard in the previous days.

At the usual time Our Lady appeared again. The children prayed with her, and afterwards they questioned her. Vicka, for example, asked “My dear Lady, what do you want from us and what do you want from our priests?” Our Lady replied, “The people should pray and firmly believe”. Regarding priests, she replied that they should believe firmly and help others to do the same.

On that day Our Lady came and went many times. During one of these times the children asked her why she doesn’t appear in the Parish Church for every-one to see. She replied, ” Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe”.

Even though the crowds were pushing them with their questions and curiosities and the day was heavy and sultry, the children felt as though they were in heaven.

The sixth day

On the 29th of June 1981, the children were taken to Mostar for a medical examination after which they were proclaimed “healthy”. The statement of the head doctor was: “The children aren’t crazy, the person who brought them here must be though”….

The crowds on Apparition Hill that day were greater than ever. As soon as the children arrived at the usual place and began to pray, Our Lady appeared. On that occasion the Blessed Mother exhorted them to have faith saying, “The people should believe firmly and have no fear.”

On that day, a doctoress who was following and observing them, during the apparition desired to touch Our Lady. The children guided her hand to the place where Our Lady’s shoulder was, and she felt a tingling sensation. The doctor, even though an atheist had to admit that, “Here, something strange is happening!”.

On that same day a child was miraculously healed by the name of Daniel Šetka. Her parents had brought her to Medjugorje, praying specifically for a healing. Our Lady had promised that this would come about if the parents prayed and fasted and strongly believed. The child thereupon was healed.

The seventh day

On the 30th of June 1981 two young girls suggested to the children to go by car further away to be able to stroll in peace. Really their intention was to bring them away from the area and keep them until after the normal apparition time had passed. However, even though the children were far away from Podbrdo, at the usual time of the apparition, it was as if an interior call prompted them to ask to be let out of the car. As soon as they did, and said a prayer, Our Lady drew near to them, from the direction of Podbrdo, which was now over a kilometre away. She prayed seven “Our Fathers” etc. And so the girl’s trick had no effect. Soon after this the police began to hinder the children and the pilgrims going on Podbrdo, the site of apparitions. The children, and soon afterwards even the crowds were forbidden to go there. But Our Lady continued to appear to them in secret places, in their homes and in the fields. The children had already gained confidence, and openly spoke with Our Lady, eagerly seeking her advice, listening to her warnings and messages. The events of Medjugorje continued in this fashion up until the 15th of January 1982.

In the meantime, the Parish Priest began to host the pilgrims in the Church, enabling them to participate in the rosary and to celebrate the Eucharist. The children also gave out the rosary. Our Lady sometimes appeared to them in the church at that time. Even the Parish Priest himself once while praying the rosary, saw Our Lady. Immediately he broke off praying and spontaneously started to sing a popular hymn: “Lijepa si, lijepa, Djevo Marijo” – “O how beautiful you are, Most Blessed Virgin Mary”. The whole church could see that something unusual was happening to him. Afterwards he stated that he had seen her. And so, he who up until then had not only been doubtful, but openly against even rumours of the apparitions, became their defender. He testified his support of the apparitions even to the point of serving a prison sentence.

From the 15th of January 1982 onwards the children saw Our Lady in a closed off area of the Parish Church. The Parish Priest arranged this because of the newly arisen difficulties and sometimes even dangers, which provided themselves for the visionaries. Previously the children had ensured that this was in accord with Our Lady’s wishes. Because of the prohibitions of the Diocesan Bishop however, from April 1985 onwards the children ceased to use the area of the church as an apparition site. Instead, they went to a room in the Parish house.

All this time, from the beginning of the apparitions up until today, there have only been five days when none of the children saw Our Lady.

Our Lady didn’t always appear in the same place either, nor to the same group, nor individuals, nor did her apparitions always last a specified period. Sometimes the apparitions lasted two minutes, sometimes an hour. Neither did Our Lady appear at the children’s will. Sometimes they prayed and waited but Our Lady didn’t appear until a little while afterwards, unexpectedly and unforewarned. And sometimes she appeared to one and not to the others. If she hadn’t promised an appointed time, nobody knew when she would appear, or if she would appear. Neither did she appear always to just the aforesaid visionaries, but to others also of different age, stature, race, education and walks of life. All this suggests that the apparitions are not a product of the imagination. It depends neither on time nor place, nor desire nor the prayer of pilgrim or visionary, but moreover on the will of He who permits it.

In the beginning Our Lady made her messages known to the visionaries on a daily basis and through them to the whole world. Commencing from the 1st of March 1984, Our Lady began to give weekly messages on Thursdays to the parish community in Medjugorje, and through them to the rest of the world. Since some of the things that Our Lord desired were fulfilled, as Our Lady said , from the 25th of January 1987 onwards, Our Lady would give her monthly message on the 25th of each month This has continued up until the present. Mirjana Dragicevic-Soldo, Ivanka Ivankovic-Elez and Jakov Colo had daily apparitions until 1982, 1985, i.e. 1998. Since then, Our Lady appears to them once a year and gives a message.

Look here Messages – General overview of messages

Latest Medjugorje Message, October 25, 2022

“Dear children! The Most High permits me to be with you, and to be joy for you and the way in hope, because mankind has decided for death. That is why He sent me to keep instructing  you that without God you do not have a future. Little children,  be instruments of love for all those who have not come to know the God of love. Witness joyfully your faith and do not lose hope in a change of the human heart. I am with you and am blessing you with my motherly blessing. Thank you for having responded to my call.”

This year our Lady give still the same warning:

Medjugorje Message, August 25, 2022

“Dear children! God permits me to be with you and to lead you  on the way of peace, so that through personal peace,  you build peace in the world. I am with you and intercede for you before my Son Jesus, that He may give you a strong faith and hope in a better future, which I desire to build up with you. You be courageous and do not be afraid, because God is with you. Thank you for having responded to my call. ”

Medjugorje Message, September 25, 2022

“Dear children! Pray that the Holy Spirit may enlighten you that you be joyful seekers of God and witnesses of love without bounds. I am with you, little children, and, anew, I am calling all of you: take courage and bear witness to the good works that God is doing in and through you. Be joyful in God. Do good to your neighbor so that it will be good for you on earth and pray for peace, which is threatened because Satan wants war and peacelessness. Thank you for having responded to my call. ”

Medjugorje (Serbo-Croatian: Međugorje / Међугорје, pronounced [mêdʑuɡoːrje]) is a town located in southwestern Bosnia and Herzegovina, about 25 km (16 mi) southwest of Mostar and 20 km (12 mi) east of the border with Croatia. The town is part of the Čitluk municipality and geographically part of Herzegovina. Since 1981, it has become a popular site of Catholic pilgrimage due to Our Lady of Međugorje, a purported series of apparitions of Mary, mother of Jesus, to six local children^[1] that are supposedly still happening to this day.^[2]

The name Međugorje literally means “between mountains”. At an altitude of 200 m (660 ft) above sea level it has a mild Mediterranean climate. The town consists of an ethnically homogeneous Croat population of 2,306. The Roman Catholic parish includes four neighbouring villages: Bijakovići, Vionica, Miletina and Šurmanci. Since 2019, pilgrimages to Medjugorje have been authorized by the Vatican.^[3][4] See more here

It is situated 30km from Mostar where the famous brigde were distroyed during the war:

30 km from Medjugorje is the village of Balgaj

The saint Sari Saltuk (also spelled Sarı Saltuk, “the blonde”,^[1] Ottoman Turkish: صارى صالتق, romanized: Ṣarı̊ Ṣaltı̊q; also referred as Sari Saltuk Baba or Dede) (died 1297/98)^[2] was a 13th-century Alevi Turkish dervish, venerated as a saint by the Bektashi Sufi Muslims in the Balkans and parts of Middle East as well as the mainstream Sunni Muslim community.

In various legends he is identified with Christian saints (Saint George, Elijah, Saint Nicholas, Saint Simeon, Saint Naum or Saint Spyridon). According to a legend, his body was buried in seven coffins, in remote towns in the lands of the Infidels.^[7] Nowadays, alleged tombs (türbe) are found over the Balkans (Blagaj village of Mostar, Krujë, Kaliakra) and western Anatolia (İznik).^[20]

Al-Khidr plays a critical role in the slaying of a seven-headed dragon by the warrior saint Sari Saltiq – may Allah sanctify his secret – in the Ottoman epic.

Sari Saltik: A Bektashi Story

There was in Dobruja a seven-headed dragon, to which the two daughters of the King were allotted as food. Sari Saltik (who had been sent to the region by Hajji Bektash himself) agreed to deliver the girls if their father would embrace Islam. He went to the column to which they were tied as victims for the dragon, accompanied by his seventy Dervishes, who were beating drums and swinging the banner. He untied the Princesses, and then waited with his wooden sword, expecting the dragon himself, as the seventy Dervishes beat their drums.

When the dragon approached, Sari Saltik addressed it with the verse of the Qur’an that begins, “Greeting on Noah in both worlds.” He then cut off three of the dragon’s heads, so that it fled with the remaining four. Sari Saltik followed him up to his cave, at the entrance of which he cut off the remaining heads with his wooden sword, and followed the dragon into his den. The beheaded dragon began to struggle with Sari Saltik and to press him against the rock, which gave way under his hands and feet — their marks can still be seen there. The dragon, having exhausted his strength, fell to the ground dead, and Sari Saltik, with his bloody breast and wooden sword, now led the two girls to their father the king.

But the man who had shown Saltik Sultan the road to the column had picked up the tongues and ears of the three heads cut off, and had hurried before Sari Saltik to lay them before the king, boasting that he himself had killed the dragon. Now, though the daughters asserted the contrary, yet the impostor persisted in his boast, so Sari Saltik proposed as a proof, to be boiled with the man in a cauldron. Though the pretender did not like this kind of trial, yet by order of the king he was obliged to undergo it. Sari Saltik was tied up by his Dervishes, and the impostor by his companions, and both were put into a cauldron heated by an immense fire.

Hajji Bektash was at that moment at Kirshehri in Anatolia, and was suddenly overcome. He swept with a handkerchief a dripping rock, saying, “My Saltik Muhammad is now in great anxiety, may Allah help him!” Ever since that day salt water has dripped from that rock, and from thence the salt called Hajji Bektash is produced.

Built around 1520, the Blagaj Tekke monument attracts many tourists

On his travels around eastern Europe, the BBC’s Nick Thorpe describes his three separate encounters with Sari Saltuq, a 13th Century legendary Turkish dervish.
I first came across Sari Saltuq in Bosnia – at the source of the Buna River – at Blagaj, where the river flows blue and fully-formed straight out of a sheer cliff. To say “came across” him requires some explanation. I sat quietly at his graveside. Green felt covered the raised coffin. I was inside an ancient tekke, a place of worship traditionally used by Sufi Muslim dervishes.
Zijo, the wild man who slept among the graves when the Croats were shelling Blagaj during the war, told me how he put a dish of water by the head of the tomb each night and how it was often gone, drained to the bottom, by morning. The rooms next door were for praying, talking, and drinking tea and coffee. There was even a sort of bathroom where you could shower, once upon a time, but only when it was raining, as the water flowed through star-shaped holes carved in the stone of the domed roof.
‘Flying carpet’
I came across Sari Saltuq next in Babadag, in the Dobrugea region of Romania, close to the Black Sea Coast. Legend has it that Saltuq, a Muslim holy man and worker of miracles – sometimes synonymous with Saint Nicholas in the Christian tradition – arrived here by flying carpet in the mid-14th Century. On the edge of Babadag is a graceful mosque – a surprise in Christian Orthodox Romania. Outside it is a hexagonal turbe, or tomb, of pink and yellow stone. And once again the green, raised coffin, with a dervish mitre at the top end: Sari Saltuq’s grave.

Slow journey

The city of Kruje sits alongside a panoramic mountainside location I ran into him again in Albania last week, beneath the head of the mountain over Kruje. The name Kruje comes from the Albanian word for water source. Up ahead I thought we were driving into the clouds at first, but no… those really were mountains. Kruje is a small, handsome town, hanging like a necklace beneath the chin of Sari Saltuq’s mountain.

Saltuq’s bravery
Kruje is a Bektashi town, and Sari Saltuq was a Bektashi saint. The Bektashis are one of the most remarkable of the dervish orders in Islam, closely associated with the Jannisary fighters who brought Islam to the Balkans in the Middle Ages.
But while the Janissaries wielded tempered steel, the Bektashis are famous for their wooden swords and their kindness to Christians. Sari Saltuq, himself, chopped off the seven heads of the dragon that used to live in a cave on the top of the mountain at Kruje. The dragon had an unpleasant habit of eating young local girls and the king was so relieved to be rid of the dragon that he offered him his daughter’s hand in marriage.
Sari Saltuq, already an old man, nobly declined, asking nothing more than permission to live in the cave. Happily installed, with a magnificent view of Albania’s Adriatic Coast, his followers brought him food each day up the mountain until he was warned that jealous local men were plotting his assassination. Infuriated by their ungratefulness, he leapt down the mountain and across to the island of Corfu in just three steps.

‘Fleet-footed traveller’
Our progress downhill was more laborious, but the bus stopped for a few minutes to inspect the shrine of his footstep in the marbled rock, just below the town.
Slightly larger than my own, the footprint is deep and polished by the touch and veneration of several hundred years of visitors.

a map shows Sari saltuq graves troughout Balkans, one mistake altough it has also atleast one grave in Bulgaria, Kaliakra

For more info look at St Georges and Khidr

Here the saint always appears upon a fish, and it was Coomaraswamy who rightly associated this vehicle in its Indian context with the Makara, or sea-dragon.see Khwaja Khidir and the Fountain of Life in the Tradition of Persian and Mughal Art

What is more, the fish (Nun) is mentioned in the Holy Qur’an (68: 1), and Tabari for his part explains that this is the fish that supports the earth in Islamic cosmology: “The fish moved and became agitated. As a result, the earth quaked, whereupon He firmly anchored the mountains on it, and it was stable.” This role of the mountains in balancing the instability of the world has been designated in the Holy Qur’an by a specific term: {And the mountains: stakes} (78, 7). Now, “stakes” (awtad, singular watad) has in turn been applied to an exalted group of four in Islamic esoterism, and al-Khidr – peace be upon him – is among them. It may even be observed that the saint’s staff in this iconography depicts a kind of “stake,” and is therefore equivalent to the weapon of Saint George which fixes or “stabilizes” the dragon.

• Legends Of Sarı Saltık in The Seyahatnâme and The Bektashi Oral Tradition

• A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF SARI SALTIK AS A HERO IN SALTIKNÂME

• BOSNIAN SUFISM: BRIDGING THE EAST AND WEST

The Sufis of Bosnia bridge the divide between Islam and the West by teaching the
Qur‟anic concepts of peace, including tawhid (unity with all) and respect towards others.
These spiritual Muslims have been in the Balkan Peninsula since the 14th century,
influencing the nature of Balkan Islam to be moderate. This paper looks into the notions
of Sufism, its historical and contemporary existence in Bosnia, and the beliefs that they
promote concerning the other Abrahamic religions. On-site research in 2006 and 2007 in
Zenica, Ţivĉići, Kaćuni, Tuzla, Blagaj, Poĉitelj, Mostar, and Sarajevo in Bosnia and
Hercegovina details numerous active Sufi Orders and documents the presence of visuals
promoting interfaith tolerance and harmony with Christians and Jews. The Bosnian Sufis
are a moderating force in Islam that may play an important role in drawing the world
together and lessening the chances of a major clash between Islam and the West. Read here

40 years later in 2021 Our Lady, the Queen of Peace,  in Medjugorje gives still message for all people:

Message, 25. May 2021

“Dear children! Today I am looking at you and calling: return to God because He is love and out of love has sent me to you to lead you on the way of conversion. Leave sin and evil, decide for holiness and joy will begin to reign; and you will be my extended hands in this lost world. I desire that you be prayer and hope to those who have not come to know the God of love. Thank you for having responded to my call.”

In his book The System of Antichrist: Truth and Falsehood in Postmodernism and the New Age, Charles Upton describes the war against Love in our times:

The War Against Love
The modern world does not only pervert our beliefs and our actions, it also devastates our feelings—as witness the violation, by almost every sector of contemporary society, religious, secular and ‘esoteric’, of the realm of romantic love. We used to say, ‘Love conquers all’; but since nothing is left to us now of the word ‘love’ but dumb sentimentality and the automatic
reaction to sexual stimulus, we have forgotten the incomparable power of that Conqueror, forgotten that only Love can press all the human faculties, including courage, self-sacrifice and strategic intelligence, into Her service.
Romantic love has been a buried foundation, and sometimes an acknowledged pillar, of European civilization for almost a thousand years. It reached its highest literary expression in the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach, and in Dante’s Divine Comedy, the greatest single
compendium of spiritual knowledge in Western Christendom, where the lore of the troubadours was fully reunited to the Christian tradition, culminating in the figure of Beatrice Portinari as an incarnation of Holy Wisdom. And since, if my family genealogy is accurate, I am 29th in direct
(though often female) line from Eleanor of Aquitaine, who presided over the famous Courts of Love, and thus 31st in line from her grandfather Guillaume of Poitiers, the first troubadour, my ancestors now press me to speak for Love again, in the face of the darkness of the latter days, and to refute the slander of ‘the World’ that Love is blind. On the contrary, it is passion that is blind, but Love’s vision penetrates like an arrow, into the depth of the spiritual Heart.

The Antichrist will be the perfect shell. He will be politically, culturally, religiously and even metaphysically ‘correct’. Everything he does, according to all explicit criteria, will initially appear to be right. Those who recognize and oppose him will not seem spiritual in the eyes of the
world; perhaps not even in their own eyes. They will appear unbalanced, arrogant, reactionary, petty. In the face of the towering emptiness of the Beast, only a healthy emotional nature which has endured the shame of Love, whose feelings are grounded in Love Itself, will have the power to smell the corruption, the ‘dead men’s bones and all uncleanness,’ hidden in that whitewashed tomb. Read more here…

…..In the Orthodox Christian icon of St George, the saint is shown as a knight mounted on a white horse, in the act of rescuing a princess from a dragon by impaling him with his lance. If St George is Knowledge, then the princess is Love, and the dragon is Power. In the outer world, the dragon manifests as tyranny, oppression, collective vice, and the established regime
of heartlessness; in the inner world, he is the nafs-al-ammara, the passional soul, the rule of concupiscence over the human heart. The dragon, in other words, is Satan, the spiritual archetype of Antichrist. And the princess is the energy of Eros, who is either a slave to the power-motive, as with the Whore of Babylon ‘with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication’ (Rev. 17: 2), or the bride of Knowledge, the living body of Truth, as in the case of the Heavenly Jerusalem, described in Rev. 21: 2 as ‘coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

• THE ELIATIC FUNCTION IN THE ISLAMIC TRADITION: KHIDR AND THE MAHDI

by ZACHARY MARKWITH

The present article is an in depth examination of the role of Khidr (or  KhiZr, KheZr) and the Mahdi in the Islamic tradition, focusing on their significance as spiritual guides, transmitters of sacred knowledge and on their importance in the preparation for the end of time. The author uses the concept of the ‘Eliatic function’ presented by Leo Schaya as a guiding principle for this study, and begins the article with an explanation of this concept. On the basis of this, he then discusses the traditional Islamic understanding firstly of Khidr and then of the Mahdi. Throughout the analysis the author presents quotations from the Qur’an and Hadith along with the interpretations of classical and contemporary commentators, focusing in particular on Shi’ism and Sufism. Here the article

• Ibn ʻArabi’s messianic secret: From “the mahdi” to the imamate of every soul

“Know, o (true) listener, that the people of God, when the Real One (al-Haqq) draws them toward Himself … , He places in their hearts something calling them to seek their (true) happiness. So they seek after that and inquire about it (until) they find in their hearts a certain tenderness and humility and striving for peace and release (salàma) from the state of ordinary people (al-nas) with their (normal condition of) mutual envy, greed, hostility and opposition. Then when they have completed the perfection of their moral qualities or have nearly done so, they find in their nafs something calling them toward solitary retreat and withdrawal from ordinary people. So some of them take to wandering (siyaha) and frequenting the (wild) mountains and plains, while others do their wandering between the towns and cities – moving from one to another as soon as they’ve come to know and get used to the people of a particular place -, while still others isolate themselves in a room in their own homes, staying there alone and cut off from people. All of that is so that they can be alone and at ease with the Real One (al-Haqq) who has called them to Him – not in order to find any particular being or miraculous event, whether sensible or in their innermost selves. Thus all of those we have mentioned continue like that until they are suddenly illuminated by something from God that comes between them and their nafs – which for some of them occurs in their nafs; for others in their imagination; and for others from outside themselves. Then they are suddenly filled with longing from that occurrence and immediately seek the company of (other human) creatures …. Now there comes to them through that occurrence (wàrid) a (divine) “addressing” and informing them of their state or of what (God) is calling them to, as with …. Then they are given comfort and solace (uns) wherever they are ….  Read more here