From Rome to Medjugorje: a Caribbean Jubilee journey

By Fr Robert Christo

Vicar for Communications

The Jubilee Year 2025 carried us from the narrow cobblestone streets of Rome to the rocky hills of Medjugorje—a pilgrimage soaked in steaming incense, sweat, songs, and the heartbeat of our Trinbagonian  people.

Each of the four Holy Doors in Rome swung open like a giant gateway of grace. St Peter’s embraced us with ancient stone, magnificent architecture, and the smell of candle wax. St John Lateran seemed to have descended from The Chair himself.

St Mary Major wrapped us in sweet Marian tenderness. St Paul Outside the Walls reminded us that the Church was built on blood, chains, tears, and unshakable faith not feeling, emotions and intellectualism.

We proudly carried petitions in a bag draped in the red, white, and black of Trinidad and Tobago flag laying our nation’s hopes before St Peter’s tomb and every other sacred site.

Then came a moment that set our T&T hearts chipping for joy: a double canonisation. St Carlo Acutis, a millennial  in sneakers, jeans, and hoodie, stood shoulder to shoulder with Blessed Frassati, the Alpine climber who lifted the poor. From laptops to mountains, both showed that holiness wears sneakers as much as sandals. If saints could dress like that, then boy, some ah we might actually have a chance!

A Fifth Door in Medjugorje

From Rome’s polished marble to Medjugorje’s  jagged rocks,  we discovered what many may call the “fifth door”. Here, the hills smell of pine and prayer. Confessions flow like Argyle’s waterfall. Adoration stretches for hours under the dancing sun that reminds us somewhat of Pigeon Point’s  sunsets. About 10,000 pilgrims kneel in silence, their accents weaving a hymn of universality for the Holy Rosary.

One Tuesday evening at 5.40 p.m., we joined visionary Ivan and a sea of priests. At the moment of apparition, the  men in collar fell still as lambs. Some clutched rosaries; others tissues; others bags of religious items.

A basket of petitions from Ukraine covered with yellow tissue paper, written by mothers who lost their children to war, was lifted high. A Ukranian with teary eyes whispered: “Mary reads every one.” The T&T bag remained poised at the foot of the altar.

Bishop Robert Barron’s words came alive: Christianity is not about ideas, rules and regulations but about continual transformation and conversion. And this means prayer must become mercy. Otherwise, it’s like beads without bread.

Beads without bread?

Let me be real: sometimes I roll and rattle rosaries like we humming a local song at aerobics pace—lips moving fast, heart still stiff like a forced-ripe lemon. That’s beads without bread.

Mary’s call in Medjugorje is simple: pray with the heart. She once said, “If you pray with the heart, the ice of your brothers will melt, and every barrier shall disappear.”

Like pan side in the Savannah warming up for school Panorama—if the sticks moving but no sweet melody ringing out, something wrong. Same with us: if the beads moving but no love and action flowing, something off.

From beads to bread

Medjugorje doesn’t just give apparitions—it births ministries. Communities for recovering addicts, Mary’s Meals feeding millions of hungry children every school day, Mother’s Village cradling orphans of war in a home environment. These works smell of bread baking, sound like children’s laughter playing outdoor ball and feel like calloused hands turning soil for hope.

This is Catholic Tradition: the rosary is not escape but engagement. From Mary’s ‘yes’ to Jesus’ Cross, from pew to pavement—every prayer must become action.

As one pilgrim  joked: Mary not asking us to ‘say’ or recite the rosary like a boring script; she’s telling us to ‘play’ it like a sweet Parang—joyful, contagious, rhythmic, and for everybody to join and respond to the Queen of all mission.

A Caribbean circle of mercy

As a priest, I know our rosaries cannot stop at the church gate. They must stretch into the hotspot streets scarred by crime, homes marked by hunger for God, villages    shadowed by poverty in spirit.

Mary’s simple words echo: “Do whatever HE tells you to do.” That means bubbling a pot, roasting breadfruit, and pigtail for a hungry neighbour, tutoring a struggling child online in the village, or simply showing up to grieve with a family in pain. From beads to bread, from pew to pavement.

Bishop Barron reminds us: the proof of prayer is charity. Without mercy, our rosaries are empty sound. Without prayer, our service runs dry.

Jubilee challenge

The Jubilee is not only about passing through Holy Doors, it is about becoming doors ourselves. Doors of welcome, hope, transformation, and healing. The petitions we carried cannot remain paper; they must become mission burnt in the fire of Divine Love.

Prayer without mercy is incomplete. Mercy without prayer is unsustainable. Prayer and mercy together is the full gospel of Medjugorje.

Rome gave us St Peter. Medjugorje gave us Mary. The Caribbean gives us rhythm, colour, unshakable faith and resilience. Together, we give the world Jesus Christ.

Sts Peter, Paul, Francis, Claire, pray for us.

Sts Carlos and Frassati, pray for us.

Mary, Queen of Peace, pray for us.