Who is this Miroslav Bulešić?

In truth, I often used to think about that with little interest.

Whatever I prayed for or asked for in life, I would most often ask the Lord directly.

I was not inclined to seek the intercession of some blessed or saint.

Until one moment...

A very dear friend of ours, a priest, knowing our situation, shared with us his own experience of how this Blessed had helped him, and warmly recommended that we too seek his intercession.

The fact was that we needed material and financial means to be able to set up our  new home — and we listened to him. Very quickly, all sorts of wonderful, unbelievable providences began arriving for the setting up of our home; God sent various people into our lives who so gladly helped us. 

On one special occasion, our priest friend took my husband and me to his parish, in Lanišće, in Istria — the very place where our Blessed Miroslav Bulešić was brutally murdered. On the hills of Ćićarija, in the midst of a cold winter and dense forest, and in the evening besides, he showed us the site of the event, the blood on the wall. Walking through the parish house, he described to us in detail how the martyrdom had unfolded.

Deeply moved by the courage and the life of this fearless priest, I was overcome with an indescribable emotion, and with tears in my eyes I felt for Miroslav as though someone had killed, somewhere long ago (though in truth here and now), a brother of mine — a brother who says he longs for martyrdom, if that is the Lord's will. To long for martyrdom, and for Christ's sake — what a wonder! Carefully taking in every corner of that parish house, and noticing Miro's piercing gaze, I — weak, frightened, small — received the inspiration that I too wanted this: martyrdom! For to suffer with Christ and for Christ, that is the one and only truth!

But what martyrdom did I want? I knew in that very moment what the greatest martyrdom was for me: to go through giving birth every time as if for the first time, to ring the bell at the door of the delivery room and enter into the pain of labour. What was the key to this inspiration? A sentence of Miro's, found in his spiritual diary (as I read it that evening, standing beside his spilled blood on the wall).

His parishioners, then, asked him whether he was afraid of the death threats reaching him, since it was known that they meant to kill him. He answered: "I am not afraid, I only have to die once!" I ONLY HAVE TO DIE ONCE — I thought then, again with tears in my eyes: and why is it that for all nine months I am afraid of giving birth, and instead of joy, await the birth of a new creature in fear, when in fact I only have to give birth for ONE DAY out of all nine months? One day for pain, for a kind of dying, when tear follows tear without end and, in sweat, though perhaps in silence, one contraction drives on after another — until the moment comes of the great joy of taking the child into one's arms.

From that evening, and this powerful impression, Miroslav Bulešić became Miro — my elder brother and intercessor. Reading  his diary, I laugh from the heart, because I am struck by his simplicity, his sincerity like that of a small child; he has no strength, no patience, and he says so openly, and then cries out to God…

So, very soon after I had come to know the life of this Blessed more closely, I suffered a miscarriage. It was a traumatic experience for me, although it was not my first experience of miscarriage. But a woman, I suppose, can never truly prepare herself for the loss of a child, or for such an outcome of a pregnancy.

Supported then by Miro's complete surrender to the Lord, and grieving for the child I had lost, while at the same time aware of all the anxieties and difficulties, and ultimately the martyrdom of childbirth, I asked our Heavenly Father, through Miro's intercession, to grant new life to our family, if that was His will. That was at the Christmas Eve Mass, in the parish where Miroslav's relics are kept. During that Mass I felt as though Miro himself had come running to tell me: "It will happen, it's settled!" And indeed, I conceived that very month! I spent the whole pregnancy in peace and without fear of childbirth, as though I held a signed and sealed guarantee that everything, right up to the very last moment of the birth, would go smoothly. As though God were barring evil's path, saying: "Do not touch her! Not even go near her!"

The courage I had was indescribable, and it did not come from myself! With all eight of the children I had gone to give birth to before then, I went frightened and paralysed by fear; but in this pregnancy, when that day came, I felt that Miro was my powerful intercessor. As though he were my elder brother, going ahead of me to plead with the medical staff on my behalf. My husband and I rang that "solemn" bell of the delivery room, before which one must, after all, actually arrive, and not run away. With a smile on my face, comforted, encouraged, happy, secure, all of Heaven opened, and a Resurrection took place in what was otherwise  my greatest agony and mortal anguish! For until then, that painful moment, always full of anguish, fear and hesitation, when one had to walk alone down that tormenting corridor, was the moment when, halfway along, the nurses would say: "Madam, there is no going back now — let your husband wait outside, let go of his hand!"

And this birth: I go in, hurrying to give birth; that same corridor is no longer a tormenting place — I walk through it as though unburned in the furnace,  as if someone else were going to bear the pain of childbirth in my place! Even my husband was astonished, watching me — and he, of all people, knows me best in such moments: all my fear and anguish, sweat, helplessness and desire to put it off! And this birth, too, truly passed in blessedness right to the very last moment. Whatever the pain and the contractions, this joy was greater and stronger! My husband and I laughed together from sheer excess of joy, because Blessed Miro had accompanied us with his faithful intercession from the beginning to the end of the pregnancy! We laughed for at least half an hour after the birth, reflecting on this victory of God over all my fears, grateful for this gift of fearlessness and faith through the intercession of a Blessed. And then, to finish — wishing above all to give glory to God the almighty Father and to Christ, and then also in honour and gratitude to our Blessed — our little girl Mira was born to us, whom, because of this whole experience, we baptised, as a sign of God's love, in Lanišće, at the shrine of our Blessed Miro.