About the Author

Fr Slavko Barbarić, OFM, was born near Medjugorje in 1946. He was ordained a priest in 1971. He studied philosophy and pastoral theology in Sarajevo and Schwaz (Austria) and obtained his master’s degree in 1973 in Graz, Austria. He gained his doctorate in religious education in 1982 in Freiburg, Germany.

Fr Slavko began working with the pilgrims in Medjugorje in January 1982. He conducted numerous retreats and tirelessly spoke about the events of Medjugorje all over the world. He wrote many articles for various publications and is the author of many books on the spirituality of Medjugorje. His books have been translated into more than 20 languages.

Fr Slavko died on November 24, 2000, at 3.30 PM, on Mount Križevac (Cross Mountain) in Medjugorje, after having prayed the Stations of the Cross with the parishioners.

About This Book

The purpose of this book, dear reader, is to make known the wonderful work of Sister Elvira, to awaken within you hope and love and encourage you to do something in order to save at least one life. It is not mandatory to study or to have theoretical knowledge about all the possible forms of addiction. If you don’t know what to do, I tell you: It suffices to love in a motherly way. Love will show you the right way, for love is creative. Sister Elvira’s experience will teach you.

The Author Speaks

When I listened to Sister Elvira for the first time, I clearly realised how the horrible monster of drugs extends its deadly claws toward innocent victims; it mercilessly haunts young lives and devours them. It was not the first time that I came across the problem of addiction, but Sister Elvira’s approach opened my eyes. I realised that many people raised the white flag and succumbed before the monster of drugs and addiction. They inertly lament and at the same time criticise public authorities, the Church and the Police for doing nothing. I recognised in Sister Elvira a true offspring of Mary, Mother of the living, who fights for her child that the dragon wants to devour – and saves it.

I noticed how many mothers and fathers downheartedly and helplessly observe their children become victims of drugs, and lament over them like Rachel who is “weeping for her children, who refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are not” (Jer 31:15; Mt 2:18). Sister Elvira’s gaze, words and deeds radiate the power of motherly love, while countless others feel and display their weakness. Motherly love is by nature always ready to protect life, but I perceived how helpless it has become in our contemporary world. That is how I understood one truth: The main problem is not addiction. The main problem is that there are not enough Sister Elviras.

The basic desire of every human being is to love and to be loved, to have peace and to be happy. In that point we encounter our own limits and those of others. We cannot love as much as we want to, and we cannot be loved as much as we wish to be loved. This incapacity resides deep down in human souls. That is our basic experience in the family, especially with our parents.

The limited capacity of our parents to love, their incapacity to love as much as they want to, causes emptiness in the soul of the child, and emptiness is a source of danger. The ancient Romans used to say that nature does not tolerate vacuum. As much as the parents try, they can never give their children so much love as to make them perfectly happy and content. Each child will always seek more love. God wanted the things to be that way in order to encourage us to seek Him all the time and in everything. Unfortunately, in order to fill our emptiness, instead of turning to God, we are inclined to turn to human beings and things. Insufficiency of human love makes us feel unaccepted, sometimes even rejected, and we always think that it is the fault of others. If we accuse others, we show our own incapacity to love, and if we do not love, we are open to negative influences and false promises.

Whoever turns his entire being towards God and expects Him to fill his inner emptiness, gradually becomes more and more capable of loving unconditionally. Inner wounds, caused by lack of love, become thus the reason to love God and others more. If on the contrary – and that is what unfortunately often happens – the unfulfilled desire to be loved makes someone turn to self, to persons or things, he may become a conceited egotist who profits of everyone and everything in order to please himself. Such a person is unjust, subjugates and commands others. Such a person is capable even of homicide in order to please himself. Such a person is also capable of the opposite extreme: in his search for happiness, he may yield to others to the point of becoming their slave.

Themes

THE PROBLEM OF ADDICTION

SISTER ELVIRA AND CENACOLO

TESTIMONIES

PATHS OF HEALING

THE ROSARY FOR THE ADDICTS

THE WAY OF THE CROSS FOR AN ADDICT

SOME REFLECTIONS AND PROPOSITIONS

Publisher: ICMM

Author: Fr Slavko Barbarić

Language: English

Original language: Croatian

Translation / Review: Lidija Paris / Sarah Kate Moynihan Zubac

Edited in 2024

Size: 195 x 120

204 pages