It’s a question that has been asked virtually from the time six seers at the apparition site of Medjugorje revealed they’d been given “secret” messages and prophecies by the Virgin Mary, and it’s worth keeping in mind that the first week of those apparitions, which began in June 24, 1981, have been authenticated by a Vatican commission, which left it at that, until the ongoing visions cease.

Impossible it would be, even then, to substantiate thousands of visitations from the Blessed Mother spanning now four and a half decades.

Although not even the visionaries themselves know if they have the same messages (indications are they do not; that while they may have some in common, they each were given unique ones), they were given one in common.

That had to do with their third, a future “great sign” sent by God.

The question: when will it finally occur?

Seems relevant at a time of strange seismic events in disparate parts of the world, undersea volcanic eruptions, absolutely historic heat in Europe, flash floods all over the place (from China to Green Bay), wildfires, war, and so forth.

It’s a query, about the “sign,” they themselves repeatedly asked Mary starting in August of 1981.

First one seer, then another.

In the early days, the Virgin told both Ivanka Ivankovic and Jakov Čolo to exercise “a little patience” (August 30, 1981).

The answer to the same question the following month was intriguing. While telling Ivan Dragićević the same (“You are impatient, my angel”), she said: “the sign will be given at the end of the apparitions.”

Currently, three of the six still receive daily apparitions.

Not until the apparitions end, then, will the highly anticipated event or events occur.

The length of time for such ongoing Marian apparitions is one of the greatest in Church history and may indicate that through the prayers and fasting of villagers and tens of millions who have visited there, the time of “visitation” has been greatly extended.

That’s called good news.

And what might it entail?

No one knows. The period preceding the visible sign, wrote a priest who served as their spiritual director, “is a time of grace, for conversion and deepening of faith.”

At one point in the early days, a fire was seen to erupt on the hill, but when firemen arrived, there was neither fire nor any damage to the dry scrub.

“The fire, seen by the faithful, was of a supernatural character,” Mary subsequently explained. “It is one of the signs, a forerunner of the Great Sign. Pray especially on Sunday so that the Great Sign, the gift of God, will come. Pray with fervor and a constancy so that God may have mercy on His great children. The sign will come when you are converted.”

Will it be visible to all the world?

At Fátima, the very same phraseology was used when Mary foretold of a great sign that would presage the Second World War. This turned out being a fantastic display of the northern light, seen over a tremendously wide swath of the world (from Morocco and Portugal to England and Scotland and across the Atlantic across much of Canada and the United States, including California.

Hitler marched into Austria a month later.

Seer Mirjana Dragićević has said the sign foreseen at Medjugorje will appear at the site of apparitions (a hill called Podbrdo just outside of town).

But with internet and television, perhaps, like Fátima, it will be for all the world to see.

“This is a special time,” said Mary. “Therefore, I am with you to draw you close to my heart and the Heart of my Son, Jesus.”

Good to keep in mind as the month of the Sacred Heart melds into the high pitch (and temperatures) of summer.

[resources: The Final Hour and The Warning]