Marian Devotion | Explorer

For some, visions of Mary can become all-encompassing. Terry Cola Francesco was working as a landscaper in Birmingham, Alabama, but he wanted something more in life. In 1986, on a trip to Međugorje, he found it. The visionaries' messages struck him as the truth, and he needed to let the world know.

Then, just two years later, one of the visionaries, Maria Unti, came to his hometown. Terry invited her to visit his farm, and there, in an event that would change his life, she had a vision of Mary. "When I leaned into the apparition, where a lady was, and got right in Maria's face, like 8 inches away from her eyes, something came over me. A truth came over me, and I said, 'I'll die before I'll ever deny these apparitions.'"

Pilgrims flocked to the farm. The Međugorje movement is extremely strong, especially in the United States, and this provided a unique opportunity for people to witness a true apparition of the Virgin Mary in the United States itself. People want to be a part of this great Međugorje phenomenon, and here it is on their home turf.

Terry built Križevac of Birmingham, an isolated community dedicated to spreading the word of the Međugorje visionaries and to a life of full-time veneration of Mary. "In regards to our choosing me to do this work, um, I have no doubts. I have no, um, lack of confidence. The success that we see has to be by some Divine Graces."

Križevac is now a community of some 50 people who have left their homes, their jobs, and in some cases, their families. Once they convert, they say this is home. They say they were born here. People say when they turn off the highway six miles down the road, they say, "I feel like I'm coming home."

"I knew to move to Križevac I would give up my scholarship for college. I would give up my apartment, my friends, my family, etc. But if you can imagine how much your worldly mother means to you and how much you love her and multiply that infinitely, is what the Virgin Mary means to me. I would lose my life for her. I would do anything for her."

"When you come to Križevac, there is a lot of letting go, but in letting go, you open yourself to what God wants from you, and then there are no regrets. I've been here for 25 years, and I have had no regrets. I moved here and just found it was peaceful, very peaceful."

"At first, you start to believe that this is the most important thing that you could be doing with your life. Like, why would you want to do anything else? God's plan for the world today is through the Virgin Mary. She founded this place, and so Križevac and the Virgin Mary are inseparable. The direction of the world is about to change, and it's going to change radically. Mankind is always bigger than you think, and everyone in the world is going to know about it. Human souls are at stake."